I consulted the chap who runs of one the very few remaining hardware shops in the area yesterday.  (We have Wickes and another big chain whose name I can't think of at the moment and of course there's Wilko).  There's actually one in the nearest local shopping centre to me but it's only open two days a week.  There is a warehouse sort of place (on an industrial estate on the bank of the Staffs and Worcs Canal) which is also within walking distance of Yours Truly but it's closed at present.  I've gone off topic somewhat.  The gentleman said if I used sand and cement mixture to fix the problem (of the broken concrete step) water ingress would soak it away eventually. He suggested I consult a builder or odd job man.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

I consulted the chap who runs of one the very few remaining hardware shops in the area yesterday.  (We have Wickes and another big chain whose name I can't think of at the moment and of course there's Wilko).  There's actually one in the nearest local shopping centre to me but it's only open two days a week.  There is a warehouse sort of place (on an industrial estate on the bank of the Staffs and Worcs Canal) which is also within walking distance of Yours Truly but it's closed at present.  I've gone off topic somewhat.  The gentleman said if I used sand and cement mixture to fix the problem (of the broken concrete step) water ingress would soak it away eventually. He suggested I consult a builder or odd job man.

Again the no post modified

Lady I start again...

Lady I have the impression that the chap of one of the few remaining hardware shops is not right about your problem. Excuses to have made the suggestion to you.
When you apply the new concrete you have of course the old sides of the concrete step that have to filled up to chip off with a chisel to make them clean. And if you drill a hole of some 6 mm in the several sides and put a nail in it, it is even better. You can also mix some small quantity of plastic adherence stuff in the concrete for the adherence. They sale it in small amounts I think in Wickes.

After my divorce I did a balcony of a window of the hire house of the new lady, now some 33 years ago. The concrete balcony was hald broken down. I put two planks on it with three "handvijzen" (I didn't nowhere find a translation)

And as said drilled some holes of 6 mm in it with nails in the holes and after 33 years it is all still intact. I pass nearly every week there. OOPS and I forgot to be honest I put some iron wire around the nails.

Kind regards f'rom Paul.

Well, it's 17.35 Greenwich Mean Time as I type this which of course in December is too late to go out and do any work (unless I had a floodlight which I don't).  It's raining even if it was light enough to see properly outside.  There is as I say a warehouse within walking distance of where I live so I could go there and see what they have when it is open again.  Now trying to do a bit of typing on the laptop, while my cat has never pulled out a plug like the cat in this video she has walked across my laptop keyboard (had to lift her down bodily).  

While I'm worrying about the government of my country and its future, something fairly lightweight to try to take my mind off things.

Chatting with some people I know the other day, we got round to discussing what one calls the garment (if one uses such a thing) that one puts on over night attire when getting out of bed.  Most of us called it  a dressing gown but one lady had a friend that used the term housecoat.  I wondered if, strictly speaking, they are the same thing.  I had a look online and one source (unfortunately I couldn't copy the link) said that housecoat is more like an informal extra layer for daywear whilst a dressing gown is for getting out of (or ready for) bed.  Does anyone have any idea which is correct?  As I don't have central heating I sometimes put my dressing gown over my day clothes when I am at home for an extra layer of warmth (in winter anyway).  Don't worry I do have plug in heaters.   I suppose maybe an Edwardian lady if her house did not have central heating might have worn a housecoat in the cooler months.

In Dublin when i was growing up a housecoat referred to a lightweight long jacket (extended below hip level) that protected one's clothes when doing housework. A dressing gown was more for swanning around in at home or - if also used as a bath robe and made from thicker material - for warmth. Housecoats took over from aprons and working pinafores during the 60s, I remember, as a sort of generational uniform to distinguish one from one's mother's crowd.

Housecoats, in the form that Nord describes (usually buttoned up the front and with short sleeves and front pockets), are still very much de rigueur amongst houseproud French ladies of a certain age. But they are strictly domestic workwear and while it is just about acceptable to pop into the local corner shop wearing une gilet/blouse de travail before lunchtime, no respectable ménagère (housewife) would usually be seen wearing one in public any later, unless she's running late and is still sweeping the doorstep and washing the front windows, or unless she actually works as a femme de ménage (cleaning lady) in a old-fashioned appartment block. But even the most slovenly French woman would never dream of going out in her robe de chambre (dressing gown).

Et voila, Danièle et Béatrice from "C'est du propre!" - the French version of the TV program "How clean is your house?" wearing their practical housecoats:

Oh thanks for the info, chaps.  I haven't (yet at least) gone out in my robe de chambre though I have worn it at home as I said for an extra layer of warmth on very cold days.  So housecoats are a sort of overall then.

Well, Mrs May might not be perfect but while she's hanging in their by the skin of her teeth I do prefer her to some of the alternatives.

The apron/pinafore get-up was called a "house frock" also by many around where I grew up. Americans know this design well as the "house dress" - the below from the US during WWII.



Could nearly have stuck that picture into the "captions" thread! What's she doing polishing the banisters when her bloody roof is caving in ??!?

I've been looking at this pattern online though I haven't made a purchase https://jalie.com/3882-eliane-scrub-top-sewing-pattern - I suppose it is (sort of) a modern descendant of the housecoat or housedress (though I think it's also used by some hospital workers).  I'm not crazy about the word "scrubs" or "scrub top" which I think is North American.  It makes me think of "scrubber" as in a slang way of saying "lady of the night".

You'd better not look at my kitchen then, nordmann.  Some of the plaster caved in before I had the flat roof extension fixed and I haven't got round to putting (or having put) new plaster there yet.  Another thing on the "to do" list.

Crumbs!  The board is quiet today - I hope it's not going to be me wittering on to myself.  Although as I mentioned before I have several things to do - both mental and physical; catching up on Spanish and sign language (I never wholly caught up on the lessons I missed as a result of extreme fatigue with the coeliac disease and then the broken arm, albeit the sling has been off for a long time now) and then the odds and ends in the house and the garden.  In the Spanish class which is now in abeyance till New Year we have been learning about "tareas domesticas" - more as a means to learning grammatical points though.  There are videos on YouTube about sign language and Spanish so I can make a stab at covering lost ground.  I did watch something on "Tareas Domesticas" on YouTube before I went to my last Spanish class before Xmas.  Still haven't got my head around "valoraciones" properly.

That would give the YouTube algorithm something sensible to focus on - I'm trying not to look (at least not by design) at anything to do with conspiracy theories these days.  The algorithm sometimes suggests  strange things but I found a couple of truther spoofing channels which can be quite funny.  At one time I was receiving suggestions for videos on going to India for a sex change operation!! Don't worry, if I ever had enough money to travel to see India I would want to go to see places such as the Taj Mahal not to go under the knife!!!

Thinking of the earlier discussion about "pinnies" (pinafores) and housecoats etc. I do have a sort of overall (purchased a few years ago from somewhere like Home Bargains or one of the £1 shops) which I don for the muckiest of the mucky jobs.  It's designed a bit like an artist's overall but the only painting I ever used it for was for daubing.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Crumbs!  The board is quiet today - I hope it's not going to be me wittering on to myself.  Although as I mentioned before I have several things to do - both mental and physical; catching up on Spanish and sign language (I never wholly caught up on the lessons I missed as a result of extreme fatigue with the coeliac disease and then the broken arm, albeit the sling has been off for a long time now) and then the odds and ends in the house and the garden.  In the Spanish class which is now in abeyance till New Year we have been learning about "tareas domesticas" - more as a means to learning grammatical points though.  There are videos on YouTube about sign language and Spanish so I can make a stab at covering lost ground.  I did watch something on "Tareas Domesticas" on YouTube before I went to my last Spanish class before Xmas.  Still haven't got my head around "valoraciones" properly.

That would give the YouTube algorithm something sensible to focus on - I'm trying not to look (at least not by design) at anything to do with conspiracy theories these days.  The algorithm sometimes suggests  strange things but I found a couple of truther spoofing channels which can be quite funny.  At one time I was receiving suggestions for videos on going to India for a sex change operation!! Don't worry, if I ever had enough money to travel to see India I would want to go to see places such as the Taj Mahal not to go under the knife!!!

Thinking of the earlier discussion about "pinnies" (pinafores) and housecoats etc. I do have a sort of overall (purchased a few years ago from somewhere like Home Bargains or one of the £1 shops) which I don for the muckiest of the mucky jobs.  It's designed a bit like an artist's overall but the only painting I ever used it for was for daubing.

Lady,

did some research to find a photo of a "schort" (housecoat), but I only find Dutch sites for "schorts" and perhaps in the Fifties there was a difference between Dutch and Belgian "schorts". In any case I don't find something as I saw it in the Fifties and in Belgium! (it was perhaps French "mode" in that time. Even not in vintage...
The nearest was this one from this site:
https://huisvlijt.com/2016/05/keukenschort.html
                                                                                            
But that was the nowedays Dutch one and the vintage of the Fifties was this one:

And my parents had also "schorten" in plastic a bit as the red one above, but longer till the "enkels" (ankles) to clean the fish on the worktable...

Kind regards from Paul.

Paul, I too had trouble finding a suitable picture of a 'housecoat' similar to those still popular in France amongst ladies of a certain age. I googled "france femme gilet menage" but it returned some very odd images. I really can't imagine how those young 'ladies' (I use the term rather guardedly) think all that flouncy white lace, skimpy skirts, tightly-laced leather bodices, and thigh-length, high-heeled boots ... can be remotely practical for cleaning the oven or sweeping the floor! And whilst I can understand the latex gloves, feather dusters and rubber plungers (!) what's with all the handcuffs, whips and blindfolds?!? 

Ik was geschokt. Geschrokken zeg ik je!

A woman slobbing around in a "housecoat" (or dressing gown) during the day (and by that I do not mean an overall or any other similarly sensible ensemble to be worn when polishing banisters as the world and the ceiling collapses around one) is seen as a bit slovenly; however, a man wearing a "smoking jacket" - aka a dressing gown - is regarded as rather sophisticated and interesting. I always imagine Sherlock Holmes or Oscar Wilde so attired:

The term 'smoking jacket' has rather dropped from use in English ... but 'un smoking' is still used in France for a tuxedo or dinner jacket (whether one actually smokes or not).

YSL did a beautiful "le smoking" for women - but you have to be very tall and slim to carry it off:

I find that if one is tall and slim one can carry almost anything off .... .

(I'm 5'6" and if not exactly tubby am certainly carrying a few unnecessary pounds. But at least I don't smoke).

Mind you, she's got absolutely no bust ... nor any feet!

Are we sure she isn't one of LiR's 'Lizard People'?

Here's the updated version - if only....!

I was that skinny once, but not as tall!!

EDIT: Not a lizard, though. And I had feet.

Skinny trousers look better for le smoking, n'est-ce pas?

Sherlock Homes still looks the best - really cool!

It's Ikey-Pikey's lizard people really, MM. One one of the hoaxers/nutters (I'm never sure which) who aver that most famous women are really lads had said some time ago that all Victoria's Secret (American lingerie brand) models were secretly transgender.  Like I say I do try to stay away from Conspiracy Land*  nowadays unless it's a channel that pokes fun at conspiracies but there was a storm in a teacup recently about some genuine transgender models being annoyed because Victoria's Secret would not use them on the runway. I had a chortle at that.

If anyone can turn their hands to sewing Folkwear Patterns (not the cheapest pattern brand) do a smoking jacket pattern.  https://www.folkwear.com/products/238-le-smoking-jacket  I'm not saying it compares with YSL's version.  I'm behind with my plans for the sewing patterns I already have so I'm not buying any new ones just yet.  I've lost my very sharp scissors (e.g. the ones for cutting out material) not as in lost lost but mislaid them somewhere about the house lost but that doesn't help matters.

* The milkman left a sheet of paper for ordering stuff for the Xmas period if one wanted and I have ordered some foil, for cooking of course, though if push came to shove I suppose I could make a hat out of it.

I made a pair of bell bottoms once - not as posh as the pair the lady in Temps' first picture was wearing though.  I have to be careful because I find I tend to fall over the long and wide leg bottoms (and I think wide-legged trousers at half mast look atrocious).  If anyone is familiar with the bridge over the Hammersmith and City/metropolitan/circle line (where they all run on the same tracks for a while) at Liverpool Street I nearly got my foot caught in those slacks there once - and it has happened at home on the stairs too, so now I only wear those slacks when there is nothing else clean and pressed and hanging in the wardrobe.

You still have a milkman, LiR? How very unusual. Milkmen are very rare in England these days.

Foil hats - reminds me of the BBC. Was it Rainbow Folly (name?) who took to wearing his pyramid tin-foil hat at all times - or did I dream all that?

Slacks - not heard that word used for ages, either!!!!!

Temperance wrote:

YSL did a beautiful "le smoking" for women - but you have to be very tall and slim to carry it off:

While knowing next to nothing but the name of Yves Saint Laurent - haut coutourier - this picture reminds me somehow of one of the last times I went to the cinema alone, in 1972 or '3 to watch Cabaret, with the showing of the worldwise youths of all sexes.
This was on my first solo holiday, to be original I chose to go to London, sigh.

Nielsen wrote:

While knowing next to nothing but the name of Yves Saint Laurent - haut coutourier - this picture reminds me somehow of one of the last times I went to the cinema alone, in 1972 or '3 to watch Cabaret, with the showing of the worldwise youths of all sexes.

Well, quite;



... have we really moved much more 'forward' from the 1930s?

Exactement!

What is it with Berlin?

Deleted.

Re: the milkman - a few years ago someone came to the door drumming up (or attempting to) business for a local milk company and I thought, well with being "over 21" now it would be one less thing to have to buy in the shop and cart home.  He doesn't come every day - I have a quart on Monday, a quart on Wednesday and then on Friday he leaves a quart carton and an old-fashioned pint milk bottle.

Thinking of "slacks" I went out this evening and was going to go somewhere else later but the rain was absolutely chucking it down.  A lady was kind enough to give me a lift part of the way home (she would have brought me all the way but I wanted to go to the local Co-op).  Anyway, I had to change trousers and socks because the rain soaked the ones I was wearing and my coat, gloves and shoes and scarf were soaked too and I had to change my togs when I arrived home.

Nothing to do with "togs" today but when I was a "lady who lunched" with one of the U3A groups I belong to another lady whose daughter lives in New Zealand mentioned that she had been thinking of applying for New Zealand (New Zealandish?) citizenship because her daughter and son-in-law live there now.  However, she can't do anything for 2 years because New Zealand has cut down on immigration for the next two years (apologies to Caro if this has already been mentioned).  The lady's daughter and son-in-law already have their New Zealand citizenship.

Using this as my "where to post if I'm not sure where to post" thread, I decided I'd try and watch a short video about British Sign Language and studied one about Christmas vocabulary.  In the next video by the same lady she was talking (very well actually, seems she didn't lose her hearing till she was 15, so she still sounds like a hearing people).  Anyway, the video was about Edward VII's queen, Alexandra.  I had not realised that Alexandra suffered from health problems including a hardness of hearing which became worse over the years.  I will link the video.  In the comments someone had said the present Queen's mother-in-law was deaf.  To be honest I didn't really know that much about Alexandra.  I knew she had to put up with some unfaithfulness from her husband and it was my understanding that the QAs (army nurses) were named for her.  I know we are not known for our forelock tugging on this site but I thought the clip was quite interesting.  

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Using this as my "where to post if I'm not sure where to post" thread, I decided I'd try and watch a short video about British Sign Language and studied one about Christmas vocabulary.  In the next video by the same lady she was talking (very well actually, seems she didn't lose her hearing till she was 15, so she still sounds like a hearing people).  Anyway, the video was about Edward VII's queen, Alexandra.  I had not realised that Alexandra suffered from health problems including a hardness of hearing which became worse over the years.  I will link the video.  In the comments someone had said the present Queen's mother-in-law was deaf.  To be honest I didn't really know that much about Alexandra.  I knew she had to put up with some unfaithfulness from her husband and it was my understanding that the QAs (army nurses) were named for her.  I know we are not known for our forelock tugging on this site but I thought the clip was quite
interesting

LiR I was really enjoying the clip, thank you. And now I have to read the story on internet for all the revealed details. I once did a bit the same for king Leopold I as introduction for king Leopold II and his Congo State, while Tim of Aclea asked me about the Congo State on the BBC in the time. But sadly as Vizzer announced, till some months ago we could still read and copy our utterings, thanks to our last host on the BBC Lisa. But now it is all gone. I have still perhaps a backlog of my messages somewhere, but it is difficult to find them, as it is not catologized...

Kind regards from Paul.

Something more mundane than my last post - looking out of one of the upstairs front bedrooms (across the Sow Valley which was mentioned some while ago - and Gil remembered canoeing there) there is something of a flood in the fields across the way.  The Sow, which is a tributary of the Trent,  is normally a fairly shallow river (though there have been drownings) and when the rain is really persistent the valley can almost look like a lake (when the Sow and its tributary the Penk both overflow their banks and  join together - before the confluence) though it is not that bad today.  There has been a pause in the rain though there may be more later.  I actually put a few things on the line today though I don't know if they will dry greatly what with the days being short and there is not a lot of wind (though there is some).

The river and its tributary were certainly in flood when I walked to and from church yesterday.

But to other things, I've been taking a book to bed the last few nights as I had not been sleeping awfully well (not so bad yesterday).  With my liking for whodunnits, I read Linda Fairstein's Death Angel (published 2013) set in New York (the writer was formerly a New York attorney).  I won't give away the plot but a body is found in Central Park.  The solving of the crime (tangentially) involves something of the history of Central Park.  Apparently when the park was planned - and work eventually started on it - in the 19th century a community of African-Americans was moved to make way for the park.  (Do I hear the other members of Res Hist saying "bah, humbug, we already knew that"?).  I seem to remember watching a documentary about Central Park some time ago but I have forgotten most of it.

Another dank, dismal overcast day.  I was going to try and rewaterproof (with some paint-on stuff) a couple of water repellant capes I have that have become less water repellant over time, but even though it isn't actually raining at present there is too much of a risk of a shower in the air to try it.  I could have a go at pulling up some of the lesser weeds in the garden I suppose but if I take tools to anything that needs cutting I'm worried that with the weeds (or even plants that are supposed to be there like the hedge which have got out of hand) being damp I might cause the blades to go rusty.  I suppose professional gardeners must have a way around these things because they have to go about their duties rain or shine.  I think next time I look for anything waterproof I'll have to go for ripstop or oilcloth.  I was thinking of having a go at making a wrap-around waterproof skirt (which would do for over either a normal skirt or trousers).  That was actually how I came to be looking at the "sewhistorically" blog recently.  The lady has a "how to" on how to make a waterproof skirt as well as her article on Edwardian walking skirts.  For cagoules and waterproof trousers there are the various shops which sell such items (and sometimes they have sales) but I haven't seen hiking skirts on sale unless I've been looking in the wrong places.

Then again, a friend has had a similar problem to me in that her typing chair doesn't rise or lower any more.  I had tried a secondhand shop and there weren't any in stock a little while ago but my friend said she found that the ones in the secondhand shop she tried were more expensive than the brand new ones!

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Another dank, dismal overcast day. 

Oh dear ... I'm sorry to have to report that it's yet again a gloriously sunny day here, as it has been for the past week. A little bit of frost over night but as soon as the sun's up it's shorts and tee-shirt weather outside. The downside though are the short days - being in a narrow valley the sun only clears the valley ridge at 10:50 and then goes down behind the other side at about 14:00. But we've really had no winter weather ... yet. I've even got a few violets starting to flower while my summer geraniums are still going strong(ish). But then late January to early March are usually the worst months here. So at the moment, today, I'm outside enjoying the sun with a glass of Chardonnay. And with all paying guests now gone it's my post-Christmas Christmas dinner tonight, miam, miam.

It's glorious here too - Christmas fog (literal and metaphorical) has cleared, and all is sunny, crisp and cold. Perfect for a walk on the beach.

I'm going to a birthday party later - don't really want to go - all I want to do is a) go for a walk as mentioned above, and then b) curl up in front of the fire with my best pressie - the new Diarmaid MacCulloch biography of Thomas Cromwell. What a sad person I am - being on my own and reading DM is my idea of heavenly bliss these days. I bet old Diarmaid will paint the dastardly Crum as a Protestant hero and saint. DM and that Mantel woman just don't get it - neither of them will listen to me. 

No booze though: I am now teetotal. It is incredibly boring, but feels unsettlingly healthy and virtuous.   

LadyinRetirement wrote:

The river and its tributary were certainly in flood when I walked to and from church yesterday.

But to other things, I've been taking a book to bed the last few nights as I had not been sleeping awfully well (not so bad yesterday).  With my liking for whodunnits, I read Linda Fairstein's Death Angel (published 2013) set in New York (the writer was formerly a New York attorney).  I won't give away the plot but a body is found in Central Park.  The solving of the crime (tangentially) involves something of the history of Central Park.  Apparently when the park was planned - and work eventually started on it - in the 19th century a community of African-Americans was moved to make way for the park.  (Do I hear the other members of Res Hist saying "bah, humbug, we already knew that"?).  I seem to remember watching a documentary about Central Park some time ago but I have forgotten most of it.

Sounds as though there are similarities between the origins of Central Park and the "battle" of Chavez Ravine. Ry Cooder made a CD of songs about that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chavez_Ravine

Gil, I listened to Ry Cooder in the 1970s but I'm not familiar with his more up to date stuff if I am honest.  I didn't know about Chavez Ravine and have read the linked article and it is tough if some of the families who were moved (or their descendants) are now experiencing a similar problem regarding their current location.  Here is a link to some information about Seneca Village (the African American village formerly in [part of] Central Park) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_Village

Editing to link a short YouTube video about Seneca Village 

Here's a visit to the cinema for you Temp, when you've finished your book:

Looks excellent, Trike. Various film/book historical treats coming up in 2019: your film above, Mary Queen of Scots with David Tennant as John Knox; and also, one hopes, the final bit of Mantel's Cromwell trilogy...


PS Your furry Brueghel (sp?) hat is more tasteful than MM's bobbly - er - thing. You win the headgear style wars (but only just)!  

Trike, I mentioned something about that film on another thread (might have been the accuracy in adaptation one).  I haven't seen it but apparently the film depicts Queen Anne and Abigail Masham as having a lesbian fling.  I'm not sure that accords with what I learned about the history of the time (though admittedly that wouldn't be something that would have been emphasised at my convent school even if it were true).  I don't like people making up random stuff for movies.*   If somebody wanted to make a film about a gay ruler they could have used someone like Queen Christina of Sweden (albeit there was a film made about her starring Greta Garbo) although the linked Wikipedia article states that there were theories about her possibly being bisexual or that she might have been born with what we would nowadays call an intersex condition.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina,_Queen_of_Sweden

* I will apologise if anyone can prove that Queen Anne and Mrs Masham did in fact have such a fling.

Incidentally, since I posted something on another thread about pull-along trolley hold-alls, I keep seeing adverts for them on the internet!!!! I haven't sussed out whether there is an Adblock for the Mac yet or not.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Incidentally, since I posted something on another thread about pull-along trolley hold-alls, I keep seeing adverts for them on the internet!!!! I haven't sussed out whether there is an Adblock for the Mac yet or not.

Lady,

as I did an intensive research for you, me too...lot's of trolleys even on Res Historica...

Kind regards from Paul.

PS. Is that the algorithm you mentioned on another thread?  If I watch youtubes that I searched for these boards, the next ones are always some of my lastest interests on google or else, as male opera singers, WWII films, Russian songs, national anthems...
As I many times do research on google ending on Academia.edu, and mostly on social questions, I now receive nearly each day university papers and artilces from there about the subject

But there is worser with algorythms I read this afternoon in a scientific montly, as the Chicago police tracing people with a possible criminal perspective and putting it in the computer and look what comes out...and if your profile by coincidence matchs one or more of their parameters, yes... you can end on the policestation without knowing why...and the European police forces seem to do the same...of course there is a lot of critique and even the premises and results are very debatable...it was in an article about: Philip K. Dick (1928-1982). If I have time I will make a thread about it.

Kind regards from Paul.

Paul, I think what happens is that a lot of websites these days, if you want to watch them you have to let them set "cookies" if you want to access the site.  Then of course they have a record of where you have visited in cyberspace unless you clear your computer "history" (which I do periodically).  Sometimes it's useful to have the cookies because I can come to sites I like such as Res Hist fairly quickly.  YouTube has an algorithm (don't ask me how it works but it takes a person's search history into account).  A little while ago I had something about QAnon pop up in my recommended videos - must have been because at one time I watched some conspiracy theory videos. I didn't watch that. Nowadays if I watch anything like that it's comedy stuff like "The Spoof Movement" (as in a play on "The Truth Movement") - making fun of the "Truthers" (9/11 "truthers" and flat earthers and so on).

I see MadNan is "lurking" today.  Glad you are back, MN.

Using this as my 'where to post when I don't know where to post" thread again.  In another whodunnit I have read recently (one set a few years after the defeat of Napoleon) a couple of the main characters travel to Paris.  It is mentioned tangentially that the Bois de Boulogne at one time became somewhat despoiled by British soldiers camping out there and that Prussian soldiers ramped things up further by cutting down some of the trees.  I never learned that at school although that period did figure in my history lessons.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

Using this as my 'where to post when I don't know where to post" thread again.  In another whodunnit I have read recently (one set a few years after the defeat of Napoleon) a couple of the main characters travel to Paris.  It is mentioned tangentially that the Bois de Boulogne at one time became somewhat despoiled by British soldiers camping out there and that Prussian soldiers ramped things up further by cutting down some of the trees.  I never learned that at school although that period did figure in my history lessons.

Lady,

I am a bit embarrassed to say to a lady that I read that also other "things" got disturbed in France after Waterloo, the same in the Low Countries, a bit as after WWII, where there were many British/Belgian and American/Belgian children from occasional liaisons...
But I read in a book about the post-Waterloo Belgium, but I don't find it back, about British officers appreciating also very much our horse drawn "trekschuiit", which in their opinion was much better than in Britain both on time table and luxury, even meals on board, and much better and smoothlier than the stage coach...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trekschuit
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-the-barge-a-historical-horse-drawn-boat-trekschuit-in-ghent-east-flanders-59345611.html
https://www.amusingplanet.com/2018/10/horse-drawn-boats.html


Kind regards, Paul.

Well Paul, in Hornblower and the Atropos, Horatio travels to London in a "fly boat" so their ignorance is regrettable, if understandable. Since Army officers had to purchase their commissions, they were unlikely to contemplate travelling by a means which they would have to share with the hoi polloi

Some typing came through so I've been off the board for a while.

Paul, yes there do seem to be liaisons of the type you mentioned after wars.  One of my late mother's friends and former colleagues had a French mother but that lady's parents were married.  I myself had a friend from when I was about 10 to my mid-teens who was half German but unfortunately that girl's parents' marriage did not last and the girl went to live in Germany with her Mum.  Not as posh as a "trekschuitt" but I mentioned a few months ago that there was an arm of the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal that once ran into my town for the delivery of coal.  The canal arm had been filled in during my lifetime but I can remember in the middle of a field with no canal any more there being a turnover bridge for the horses that would have pulled the barges to turn.  The bridge itself has been knocked down now - in fact it was demolished some years ago.  Explanation of a turnover bridge:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roving_bridge  I can remember a teacher (when I was about 9 or 10) reading a book to the class The Voyage of the Land Ship. From what I can remember the land ship was a caravan in the shape of a ship.  I quite liked the story I think but I can't find anything online about the story - the book is mentioned on 2nd hand bookselling sites (it's probably out of print now) but those sites don't explain the contents of the story.  https://www.amazon.com/voyage-Landship-Dale-Collins/dp/B000WTW80E

Subject of trek schuit brings back many memories because as a child living in the northern part of Holland ( Friesland) where there are many canals, lakes, waterways etc I saw many a ships being pulled by horses and there were also many times that the owner of the ship stepped on the path next to the water ways and pulled the ship or boat whatever you like to call it by means of a very broad belt stripped across the body and a thick rope attached to the vessel.

Just to make it clear I am not talking about big or massive vessels but the type of boats what were used to transport goods, cattle etc between towns and villages.
Another way of moving by boat was with a long pole one end into the shoulder and the other end into the waterways bottom and then push.
Btw , I am talking about the late 1930's and 1940's 


Dirk

Would the moving by boat with a long pole be in the style of what is called "punting"* in the UK - which seems to take place in the two cities where England's oldest universities are situated.