A tights and boots day. part 1

I looked out the window and decided that it is a tights and boots day. No flip flops and blue toes for me at this age This has finally come to me this wearing of shoes or boots thing !!!well there are worse things. I also discovered very early today that it is misty and dull. This is a disaster  for photographing of sunrise in four minutes( I looked this up) but a great big good thing for Monza dog who is going on a promised day out this morning. No sunrise that is visible means a cool day. The birds have only just started to sing so I guess they are not expecting much either.

I looked out at about 1 am and my garden looks like Blackpool illuminations....I have been busily buying solar lights for the last few weeks.....no I did not go out with my camera. I did mean to....but I went back to bed instead.
As it is a tights and boots day I did not go out to the tarn for photos. This was a cold thing not a weirdo thing. By this I mean that it is my day off and I am not going out because it is cold and not because it involves me passing bully boys house .  Mr weird the stalker will not be out. Not his time....He comes out mid morning after getting up his disabled wife. Bully boys van is parked as ever so that walking down the path involves scraping the wall to pass. I came home bank holiday Monday and noted  the garden needed watering  in what was left of the sun. Bully boy and his wife were sitting out. I opened up the doors and blocked them open so that I could get in and out and back really quickly. I kept my eyes down and only looked at what I was doing. Made sure not to spill the water from the cans on my feet. They were all out having a barbecue which I could smell but not see as I did not look up. Pity really as my front garden would have been fabulous to sit in for a while. As I appeared in and out.... they were very obviously play acting for my benefit.....calling each other "darling" and " sweetheart". Bully boy tells me he does not have a temper and that he gets on with anyone. ( not me. Though he has this to find out) All of his temper was played out in his rugby days. His wife tells me that they have never had a row in five years.......So it must be just us that he yells and abuses then. Threatening to "put lee on his back" and calling him a lazy tosser who leaches off the state and his wife who drinks and smokes all day whilst his wife works. It must be just us that he leaps at and offers to "sort out" then.
As I pointed out when I spoke to them after the storm...to try and find out what the problem exactly was and why he has just decided he hated Lee so much......It is just a small piece of ground with a lump of metal parked on it.
All this bullying and threatening is after all over a parking issue and a piece of earth he has no rights to on a public foot path and his damn van should never have been put there in the first place. His is a rented house with no land attached.....they who live in that house have a right of way to their door only. They would have been told this when the rental agreement was signed. This little thing is causing us so much hassle. I do not walk past their house or look up when I come to my own front door as they are usually there. I do not walk down the terrace any more I cut through my own house and go out the back garden or use the front door so I do not have to pass. This all happened last year. then blew up all over again when we needed to bring the car around to fix it after it broke down......... caused a lot of yelling and abuse this did.....no help...no sympathy ....no asking if we were okay.....just offers of violence .  This is way way sad isn't it? even sadder is that it is my day off and I am writing about this and not going out early as I always like to. sad...sad...sad.

 The thought of selling up and leaving is still very much floating around in my head.... even if I did...people are every where and they will be just as horrible anywhere else I go. so keep out of the way and keep off social media. Any way. All this time I have not been to the Tarn... the swans have hatched their eggs and have four signets out swimming along with them....I am told this by another neighbour who speaks to me as opposed to yelling!

We are first going for one of Lee's many blood tests at Chapel Allerton hospital. His new medication has been in action for three weeks now and it is "Meds day" today. So that is out waiitng to be injected before we set off today. The blood tests are to see what and how much effect this new medication is having on him. The study he is on is to determine why medication fails in some people. Lee is a very good indication of this as I think this is about his eighth or ninth medication. All previous ones have failed either at first or worked for a while and then failed.

 The day is a bit grey. which sounds but is good for days out as it is cool for dogs. Whilst we are over that way in that part of Leeds we are on the right side to visit Temple Newsam house and park........So blood test and hospital stuff first and then a photo fest at my fave big house in the area.

6.34? time to get up......and get on with the day.

28th May 1923.

There are a few who live who could possibly tell me. I am unwilling to ask. so I make do with not knowing and a few misty memories.It is my father's birthday. 28th May 1923 which would make him 95.and 46 years old when he died in 1969. November 1969 just as all the Christmas shopping had been done. Mum had been squirrelling presents away for weeks. She had her purse stolen in Middlesborough with 200 pounds in it. money she had earned working at Middlesborough hospital. Nights as an auxillary in the morgue. reported it to the police. They told her it was her own fault for carting that much money. It was a very lot in 1969.
I have to admit now that I do not know very much about my father. I was 7 when he died and that would be fifty years ago now. that would be stuff I can write in a public blog and feel comfortable with.
I do not know where he was born or even the names of his parents. I called them Grandma and Granddad. I still have no idea what their first names were. My father had two sisters Greta and Nancy and a younger brother who still lives as far as I know called Bill.

Greta I have found an obituary for and she died in 2014. Nancy I knew most of my life as she kept in contact with my mum. Mum died in 1983 and Nancy about 20 years after. Bill still lives as far as I know. which is not very far as I only found out Greta died about ten minutes ago from a google search.
Nancy, I had a phone call a few weeks after she was already gone. Also Nancy wrote to me just before she died of cancer to inform me that "the bogie man had got her this time" . I have no idea what happened at her funeral or where it was conducted. Her husband Uncle Harry died shortly after. I can not remember how I found that out now.
So the information I write here is not a lot really. It is my father's ninety fifth birthday. Bank holiday monday in May 2018.


" 537 James Wm BLAND Scalefoot Farm, Commondale accidentally killed 15 Nov 1969 aged 46." father's grave stone at Danby Church. I have never been to his grave. I was not invited to the funeral as "it is no place for a child" I had left the home by then anyway.
 

May bank holiday! 2018!!! I am at work later and woke up early . I do not go out and take photos early anymore. So I tidied up, had an inevitable cup of tea and watched part of a movie whilst I washed up.

More tea and finish this blog about my father. I am sitting here wondering what to write. I thought I had plenty I could write . When it came to it I have no really clear memories at all. fifty years is a very very long time ago.
so I just look at the photos. I have a few old pictures in frames that I keep on the windowsill. So I am used to the photos and see then every day. To day I actually looked.
other photos I have out are of my Grandma "mema" who's birthday was 23 May 1895 and so she would be 123 this year. My mother who's birthday was 25th May 1925 and would be 93. Just maybe it is time to put them away.......I have always had them out in all my houses. Maybe it is the time to move on at the age of 57!

Also this May week was Lee's father's birthday 27 May 1942 ( a war baby! his father was an engineer at Kirkstall forge and did not go to fight) and he is 76 and still lives . in fact he crashed his car and wrote it off a few weeks ago and went to play Bingo for his birthday treat yesterday. So he still lives after a fashion.

There is one more Birthday to remember in May. My ex husband. . 29th May 1958. So he is 60 years old tomorrow. How time flies. I messaged him  a while ago. He replied only once and never really answered much. so there is not a lot of information to deliver this morning.
may is a bit of a funny month for me.
Still it is the end of it soon! A boring blog about not a lot this day. so off to prepare for work. Round Three with my stalker who I am told has done all of this before and had police warnings and banning s from local stores before. He has walked up to a previous victim and threatened them saying that they were trying to get him banned. May the good lord help him if he does that to me. I have had enough of cruddy people pushing me around.........I did not survive this long (so far , so good) ....just to have a creep like that ruin it all for me. That goes for bully neighbour as well by the way.

singing doll from Otley.

I bought a singing doll in Otley. This is where she came from originally.......

346 Harrow road. London. w 9 The singing doll company. There is a blue sign above the door that still exists here.

The singing doll company.( Mark Payne Ltd)



Here is an old photo of Harrow Road...not completely sure if this is the actual building......but I guess it would be something like this.......


And look at this the advert for her!!!!



Here is a picture I found of this doll in a bit better condition than the one I just bought.

Mine still has on her original dress and shoes. The years have not been kind to this poor dress. The lady that owns the old curiosity shop in the arcade called her Scruffy Emma and had brought her into the shop last week thinking she would make her into a bride doll in the hope that some one would buy her. She used a 1950s Roddy doll as her bride and discarded Scruffy Emma.

Along came me on my Friday paddle around the junk shops and paid my usual visit to this shop. I rarely buy as the prices are more than I like to pay.....I am not saying she is expensive! In fact compared with some stuff I see on Ebay her prices are cheap really.  Next to mucky scruffy Emma was a 1950s British doll company walker doll in really good condition.....£40.00!!! sounds expensive? no. I am just not to the point where I carry that much money...otherwise I would have bought her!

Any way...so I went on in to the shop. I spotted scruffy Emma and asked how much she was. The owner thought I wanted the expensive doll and started to tempt me.......Lee stood outside with that look men get when money is required and shook his head through the window.

I chatted for a few more seconds and said that I had bought a lot of dolls lately......1960s Roddy......two composition dolls from the 1950's ...the other Roddy from the other week ...ETc and then said goodbye....see you next week.

We got to the end of the old arcade just about to reach the street and lee said " oh okay then!!!" and handed me a ten pound note.
I went back to the shop and said " quick sell me the doll...he's given me a tenner!!!"

So mucky scruffy Emma got put into a mucky scruffy carrier bag and she accompanied around the rest of the charity shops.

She was a talking singing doll back in the day and so would have had plastic discs which worked a bit like a wind up record player.....she does not work now. Lee has looked to see if she can be fixed...."she is knackered" he declared.

Her original dress has been washed. It is not that much better. So I will keep it

And I have put her in a summer top and shorts for now. she has had a bath and a hair wash and now is not scruffy at all. I will buy her some new shoes as her original ones look mucky and I can't get them to look good again.


Below is a link to a similar doll working....singing and talking.



Singing doll working!!!       Click on this purple link and you will see what I mean when I say I am kinda pleased my doll is old and does not do this anymore.

Walk in the woods.

The blue bells and ferns are all out in the woods at Ilkley. We set off in the newly fixed Fonz car and headed off towards the Cow and calf rocks and down to Ilkley town. Monza started to Squeak and leap about in the back as we passed the rocks. He knew it was nearly walky time.....


I am awake.....I think. Lee is down stairs. He was awake before me and started watching telly.


 T Rex. David Cassidy. The godfather. 1972 apparently. We are up very early drinking tea. The radio is playing one of those guess the year things and we are all the way back in 1972 when Lee was five and only interested in setting stuff alight with his dad's ciggy lighter and I was at boarding school with my poster of David Cassidy on the wall. I later abandoned him for Donny Osmond as My best friend at that time thought the Osmonds were the bee's knees. I don't think my true heart was in it but I did get to see the Osmonds on a trip to London for her thirteenth birthday.
My own thirteenth birthday was spent on holiday in Scarborough staying in a bed and breakfast hotel near the old bus station. I got sun burnt and fainted. A miserable time where I discovered that I did not get on very well in any social occasions and my dislike of people really started to materialise. Even the breakfast part of the bed and breakfast thing was a trial..... I did not get on with my own mother very well either and my history of depression began here. Mum would tell me I had a "chip on my shoulder" and to pull myself together and I in return thought she was a stupid embarrassing cow. I would be happy one minute and then angry then so depressed I would not move or speak would follow.......
oh yes those were the days !!!1972. Shit pot. A really "great holiday" ......I remember returning to school after the summer holiday and everyone else had been  on daddy's yacht in the Mediterranean or Spain or some such and arrived back with a trunk full of new clothes , pleased to see everyone for the new year. Except me. No one was ever pleased to see me.

Ilkley yesterday was really beautiful. We took Monza to the woods first ...this week we kept to the path and did not attempt the climb up to the moors. Lee's meds are working but they are not in control yet and so his feet and hands are not all they might me and he still has a lot of pain.....so we all took the easy route this week....

Really fabulous with all the sun light coming down trough the trees.

Just birds singing and otherwise quiet and no people......yes really fabulous......

We chatted as we walked. Monza sniffed and trotted along happily. this is after all a great doggy day out for him....
I have reached a point now where I am sick and tired of struggling with life all the damn time. I want more out of the time I have than just waiting to die and working at a shit job to pay every life expense there is.
I am monumentally fed up with being yelled at by bully neighbour  and festeringly angry with the stalker that has been haunting me. To the point now where I am vicious.actually......

Lee spends way too much time sitting on his own in the garage in front of his computer when I am out.....And I have come to a conclusion that bully neighbour is right......nasty.....horrible violent bully of a man.....but he is right. Could have been put better and no need for the violence and intimidation but he is right about one thing...Lee does spend all too much time drinking and smoking in the garage.

Gets up his nose so he says. He comes back stressed from long hours at work and there Lee is in the garage drinking and smoking whilst I am out at work.This really really annoys bully boy. He called Lee out for a fight. I was convinced he actually was going to leap at him and stood between them.

So yes. time to stop waiting to die and move on. as we walked we ran through options. I am ready to move on. I have done it before and I see no reason not to this time. This way of life is not working out.

I am tempted to sell up and leave. I have looked into options of moving to another area and buying a different property further out in the country..... Or just selling everything. The damn lot....dolls junk everything and then renting something somewhere on short lets and keep moving on.

Bully boy has broken my back. He is persecuting Lee. To the point where he has moved his chair in his kitchen so that when ever Lee is outside bully boy can always be seen. Bully boy drinks and smokes himself and makes a big deal of posturing about with his can of beer and a ciggy.  No problem letting anyone who will listen what a tosser Lee is and how is going to report him as a scrounger on the state for claiming disability benefits when he is clearly an alcoholic. (by the way......I do all the paper work for this. I know it is not fraud. It is me who claims tax credits. WORKING tax credits for which I am entitled )

So now that the car is fixed we went out for the day in the hope that this would make us feel better.
Has it? well a bit. I have started to look into courses that Lee could do as a student.

Why not? There is a lovely Mechanics qualification at Leeds college he would be really good at. Lee is a qualified mechanic (the car kind!) But...and this is a BUT...it was 35 years ago. so really time for an update!???

We pondered this and buying apiece of land and putting a caravan/cabin/shed on it to live in etc etc etc...whilst we trotted along and I took photos....

Something has to change. So I am looking up courses and funding.  Lee was up early. Very annoyingly he has now gone back to bed and is a sleep as I write. unfortunately he is not interested at all. Can not even be bothered to look at the computer.

So. It is time to move on again.just do not say I did not try.

25/5 /1925. My mother's birthday. Born in 1925.( would be something like 98 this year but died of cancer aged 58) My father's birthday was 28 th May in 1923 Would be something like 100. Killed himself in 1968). And of course Lee's dad is 27th May....This Sunday and he still lives. If you call sitting in front of the telly smoking a life...then he still lives.

Lee has just woken up to make more tea. He has asked me to read him this day's blog. He always does......
So I did.

Dolls. Quite simply dolls!!!

 

This is my latest addition to my 1960s doll collection.

This girl is a Roddy doll and is about 13 inches tall. She looks to me very like a doll I had in the photo below. This is why I bought her.

I found this doll on ebay. This is the one I have been looking for. The photo above is me and a doll my Grandma bought me . I am in the garden of Scalefoot farm near Whitby. I no longer have the doll in the photo. That was one of the dolls that got dumped when we moved from the farm.

In fact all my dolls got dumped. so here I am at the age of 57 buying a doll similar to one I had as a child!!!!

This girl arrived yesterday in the midst of the car fixing fiasco....along with a wig for another doll below.
I had a pram at Scalefoot farm which my father bought specially for me to put in all my dolls.....I had a lot! I remember him writing to pram manufacturers asking for a pram for "his daughters birthday" for her dolls. I remember him showing me the letter before he gave it to the postman who called at the farm to post. We did that in those days......those days being the early 1960's.
The pram I think was a silver cross small pram from Guiseley factory. When I first came back to Yorkshire eleven years ago this enormous site was still in existence. The factory was knocked down and it is now an enormous housing estate.


I just bought this one too. This is also from the 1960's and has no markings......


.This girl I think may be a bit later as now that I have washed and combed out her hair she has a very obvious" feather cut " and this style was very early 1970's wasn't it!?

Here they both are,......The little Roddy girl arrived with no clothes. No problem I have a stash......

Other dolls I have aquired recently.....


And I am restoring a 1950's walker  doll with old scary wig and glue on her face......

 The new wig arrived and I put it in place ready to glue later on.....At the moment she has on her original clothes and bonnet. I will be making her a new outfit......

 I was not going to put a new wig on this doll. I had removed the old one and all the glue from her head and face. There is moulded hair under this wig. But she just did not look right......


This is how she arrived .  I still need to slightly repaint her face and put back her teeth which fell out.....


Next I bought this composition doll.....with a damaged face......

 I quite liked it like this. But this was not the point of my purchase. Composition dolls are something I have few of. In good condition they are very expensive. So I decided that I wanted to restore a doll....

 I cleaned her up....and used Milliput filler   

 Then after much sanding.....I repainted the whole head.

This is the result of my first restoration.

Composition restoration doll.

This is how she arrived to me.  I have never done any restoration before so this is my first attempt.



I cleaned her head up with a bit of Surgical spirit and water with a cotton wool ball.

Her body is what looks like a home made replacement......Which I am keeping just as it is....

this is the dress she came in....i am keeping this too 

I bought some Milliput Compo as it is recommended for this kind of thing....

mixed it up and then applied it to the damaged areas......This picture shows it all before I smoothed it out and sanded it ....alot.

I also bought some acrylic model paint which I applied once the sanding was complete.....

This is as far as I have got with this doll. I need to repaint the eyes and lips....