I have a foot in both camps :-)

I iron weekly, after I wash, and I have a dryer, but it's only used when the weather is inclement and I have to get the laundry finished promptly as I do with DH's stuff because he works away and brings his laundry home so it has to be completed between Friday and Sunday, sometimes quicker. I don't iron socks and undies and tea towels and only the pillowcase that isn't percale as the others don't really need it.

I don't own a dishwasher and have no interest in owning one.

I knit, crochet, sew and embroider. I knit and crochet a lot as I belong to an online group which makes warm clothes, toys and blankets for Syrian orphans in the refugee camps there.

I don't do Facebook or Twitter as I have no need to tell the universe every time I sneeze. If I want people to know what I'm up to, I tell them.

I do have a Kindle, but only use it for travelling as it's a lot easier than packing half a suitcase of books as we did when we went to Europe. Normally I read actual books, which I prefer.

I resisted getting a Smartphone until the old phone finally died and my DD gave me an iPhone4 which her work was selling for peanuts after they upgraded all the work phones. I admit it _is_ handy. I've had a cell phone for over 20 years because we live in the country and I often drove the 200km round trip to the city and back to pick up stuff for DH and needed to be able to consult with him if issues arose.

Vee, I have a beloved old UK Nokia which used to belong to my husband. I brought it to Australia and had it altered to use locally but sadly it stopped when the service here changed from 2G to 3G.

That was when I grabbed a cheap replacement from Woolworths, not realising it was a Smartphone. My GS tutored me but I never liked it and got a Dumbphone.

Nokia later brought out a 3G version but it was too late. I was used to the one I had, my preferred numbers were programmed in, so that was that.

Regarding washing on bushes, I asked my Domestic Assistant to hang mine once when I wasn't well and was astonished to see that she had thrown them randomly over the lines and stuck securing pegs here and there. I am very fussy about how I peg out my clothes so I had to wait until she left and re-do it all!

Me too, Annpan. Although I am my own Domestic Assistant, on the rare occasions other family members hang out the washing it is all scrunched up in a corner rather than spread across the length of the line!

DH correctly accuses me of being anal when it comes to laundry as I watch my neighbour (I'm behind the net curtains) as she hangs clothes obviously washed together . . . socks, sheets, work overalls, dog blankets all in the same 'load', so everything comes out grey and shrunken.

Colleen, like you I only use the drier in bad weather, but I wouldn't give up my dishwasher :)

Ann, I'm very happy that DH has retired. I am still working, and he is taking on the cooking and cleaning. Since I don't like either of those jobs, it's a good thing for me :) I am also fussy about how the washing is hung out, but DH is pretty good when he does it, although not quite the way I would.

As for Facebook, I love it. I have so many friends from places all over the world that I would otherwise not be in contact with, as well as family around Australia. I think if you pick your friends carefully you can avoid trouble.

Vee, I too am mostly my own DA but I was offered help for one hour a fortnight at minimum rate through my local Council, subsidised by the Government and provided by an agency, so I didn't refuse it.

I mainly get cleaning done but can request bedmaking and hanging out washing. No dusting or climbing permitted. The agency are very strict about Health and Safety issues.

The amount of help available is determined by personal health issues. I could get some shopping help but at present prefer to do my own.

I iron while I'm sewing (technically, it's pressing) but really dislike ironing clothes. Our HOA does not allow hanging clothes outside to dry, so I use a dryer. I wash my non-stick pots and pans by hand, but most things in the dishwasher. So, I guess I'm a hybrid :).

I do have a smart phone and an iPad, and do most of my reading on those devices, though occasionally I still read a "real" book. I am on FB, mainly for communication with my clarinet choir, but have never been on Twitter.

Donna

I'm a "hybrid", too. I love Facebook and agree with Astrokath that if one is discreet, it can be a great way to keep up with old friends and former classmates and even be creative in one's posts.

I used to have a cell phone but when it died, I never replaced it. I use an old fashioned landline. Needless to say, I do not text.

I used to have my own computer, but when it died and I relocated, I decided to use the computers at the nearby college library, where I am writing this.

I don't own a dishwasher; find washing dishes therapeutic. I own an iron, but have not used it in years.

I have a large collection of "real" books which I cherish. Have no desire to "read" by any other means.

I'm a hybrid too. I have a smart phone but it's used mainly for photos, texting family, and phone calls. I have a kindle for ebooks, especially for when traveling. I do have (and use) a dishwasher but hand wash pots and pans and anything that I don't trust putting in the dishwasher.

As to ironing...I thought I had an iron; I was sure it was in the closet along with the ironing board, but when I went to iron a shirt that was a little wrinkled for work a couple of weeks ago, I could not find it. I moved into this house 7or 8 years ago and only now realized I must have left it behind in my old house with all the other things I left for the ex spouse (it was his iron originally anyway!)

LOL......Yes, I would rehang the clothes properly too. Two corners share one clothes pin :0) ALSO I am that person who will absolutely rearrange my dishwasher if someone else loads it "their" way ! AND I will straighten the sliverware at a place setting in a restaurant keeping them not only in proper positions but also about an inch from table edge . Hah !

But in my defense, I am not what I'd call obsessive, I am simply particular.

I did have a college friend who had to have all her hangers exactly the same distance apart with all the blouses hung by color, sleeve length etc each exactly overlapping the next in the same way. When she took off her coat between classes she'd put it on a hanger, button all the buttons and hang it on a peg behind the door. Everything in her space was precision. Now, that is what I term obsessive.

Oh, my, Yoyo. She was OCD. I admit to having my tee shirts hung by color, but that's because there are so many of them. I think they multiply in the closet in the dark. When I retired (2001 and that seems impossible), I had very few "weekend" clothes. That is no longer true, and today I bought two more tees, BUT I had a birthday coupon from Talbott's and they are having a 40% off sale as well. It seemed a shame not to let them practically give me new shirts.

Though I only iron when I must (due to my lingering love affair with cotton fabrics), I just bought a new iron last week. They look different these days, much sleeker, like they would have less wind resistance if they were race cars.

I also iron and spray starch the pillow cases on my guest bed. This is because of my fond memories of being tucked into the starched sheets of my grandmother's guest bed as a child. It felt so nice! So, I do that little extra thing to welcome my guests.

I do use Facebook. You can use it in any way you want, you know. No one forces you to post photos of the food you're eating or describe every little activity of your day. Like many FB users, I seldom post, but I do like to keep up with what my friends and family choose communicate via that medium.

I do use a smartphone and I do text, but deep down, I resent every keystroke I perform on that tiny keyboard. Touch typing is such a lovely skill to have, and those darned phones, well … sigh. I choose not to do email or Facebook on my phone - too much interruption for my liking. Those things can wait until I'm home with my desktop computer. Or if I'm traveling, I check those things on my Kindle in the evenings.

Yes, I have a Kindle, but I prefer reading from "real" books. I use the Kindle almost exclusively for traveling - as an e-reader and general tablet.

So, no, I'm not a dinosaur (probably because of a long career in IT departments), but I do hang onto and enjoy many of the old ways .

I never use a boxed mix for any desserts, I choose to create all mine from scratch. Perhaps that harkens back to my days in college in the Cooking labs.

I was going to demonstrate a Charlotte Russe and thought I'd just purchase a few packages of ladyfingers . The professor quickly edited my idea and said I would have to bake my own ladyfingers....and I did, many times before they were perfect !

Bon, do you also re-bag groceries in the store parking lot? I had a coworker who did that. The store employees never did it "right". I also knew a lady whose hanger color matched the clothing color.

When we were newlyweds I spent a lot of time picking up after my DH. He made what we called his nest beside the bed, and on laundry day I made him pick it all up and sort it out. He would accuse me of being "anal". Now he's much worse than I am in the "anal" department! It's fun to tease him about it.

Donna

Yoyobon, your Charlotte Russe demonstration in the cooking lab made me smile. Did your professor make you prepare your own leavening agents? Did you ever have to capture and cultivate yeast? Or use a formula for making your own baking powder? It is said that cooking is chemistry and some of my teachers took that literally! It only made me appreciate the ready-made, shortcut products more. :-)

Donna, I'm guilty of re-bagging groceries in the store parking lot. Of course the employees always do it wrong. They don't know which groceries go in which places in my house -- the kitchen, the pantry, my mother's kitchenette in her apartment, the kitchenette in the cabana. . . I could do the sorting in a central place after I carry the groceries into my house, but sometimes I feel like doing it in the back of my vehicle instead.

When I first married, I couldn't fathom what my DH was doing with his socks. Then one day when I decided to dust under the bed I found the socks, at least half a dozen pairs. DH was kicking them under the bed so they would be out of sight. I requested that he not do that, but he mostly forgot. I complained to my mother, only to receive a lecture from her that I was the one remiss, as I should look under the bed every day to dust and to look for hubby's socks. I was huffy about that for weeks. I finally gave up, after developing a compulsion to clean under the bed daily. Thanks, Mama!

LOL, Frieda! You're supposed to dust under the bed?! Hahaha! Before my dear MIL did laundry she buttoned every button and zipped every zipper. I'm not sure why - maybe she thought it helped clothes keep their shape. Anyway, after we were married I told DH if he wanted his laundry done like that he was welcome to do it himself. He decided to quietly let me do it my way.

Donna

Donna, I don't rebag the groceries, but I stand there and either bag them myself or help the bagger ! For some unknown reason....I suspect it's because none of them have ever actually carried a bag of groceries up stairs .......these young baggers think that putting all the two half gallons of milk, large bottles of things and other heavy objects into the same bag makes sense ! I understand that these square-shaped things fit nicely together but we must consider the weight !

And then there is that question that always fries my grits : " will this bag be too heavy for you ? ........sweetie ?" It usually is half full of fluffy veggies.

Just because I'm not 25, or 35 or 45 or......well, you get the idea.......they do NOT have to assume I am incapable of lifting things !

And speaking of age, for my birthday last month my GD gave me a card which read :

" Age is more than a number...it's a fire hazard.

This was the first birthday that Suzette felt there was an actual risk of burning the place down with her celebrations. "

( photo of mouse lighting a cake blazing with candles)

I got a birthday card today that said, "God said let there be light, and lo and behold . . . there was your birthday cake."

Donna, do you know if your MIL either had or grew up having a wringer washing machine? Those wringers were tough on buttons and zippers. Reminds me of the story I heard about a woman who washed her ice cubes. When she was asked why, she said her mother always did; and when she asked her mother why, she said her mother did. Grandmother said they got their ice from an iceman whose ice was packed in sawdust.

My mother used a wringer washer and a scrub board in the mid 50's and soon after was blessed with an automatic washer and eventually a dryer. Before that all clothes were dried on the line all year round. In the winter they'd come in frozen and be draped all over.......or else she used a carousel kind of clothes line Dad installed in the garage floor.

I recall that we had an ice box when I was really little . I also remember the ice truck coming to deliver the ice. We'd beg for chips of ice to suck on in the hot summer :0) No one gave a thought to the fact that the ice had been harvested from the frozen Susquehanna River in the winter and had been stored in ice houses ! Yeeee-ucky !

I put my groceries on the check out conveyor belt in the order I'd like them packed :-)

I also have a particular way I prefer the washing hung out and when DH helps I have to resist the urge to rehang it :-)

No, I'm not OCD at all...

You lucky people having some young minion to pack your groceries at the supermarket! Over here you have to do it yourself often in double-quick time and no longer are plastic bags given out. You can purchase one or bring your own (cuts down on waste . .. plastic being the new dirty word/habit).

Frieda I think it was your DH who was remiss in throwing dirty socks under the bed. Your Mama, who sounds a formidably lady, should have taken him, not you, to task over his slovenly habits!

If I'm not too late Happy Birthday Carolyn.

We don't have free "single use" bags at the shops any more. They were demonised IMHO because I always reused mine as did most people I know. Now I have to buy my bin liners so there is as much garbage and the bags the shops sell are even thicker and can't be re-used in the same way. A recent survey has shown that the single use ones are actually better in the long run.

The cashiers do pack for you if you provide bags but this takes longer as they are no longer hanging on those turntable racks.

Years ago we had paper sacks and an assistant would pack them as the cashier added up the total. Then came the plastic bags and now DIY in self-serve places. Progress?

I bring the reusable totes or a woven basket when I shop. I am opposed to the plastic bag use. These unsightly things are seen everywhere in the environment....and do no decompose , EVER. Some eco-minded towns are using special compostable bags and takeout containers but it is not the norm. If I need to use a bag from the store I choose either double paper bags ( which are great for bin liners and will go away in the landfills. If only plastic is available I will opt to either stuff the item in my large purse or just carry it to the car without the heinous plastic carrier !

Yoyobon, we don't have a choice of a paper carrier bag to buy, only a large thick plastic one or cloth ones if you forget to provide yourself with any.

I don't drive so I take a shopping buggy with me and put my groceries etc in it. It also doubles as a handbag, as I can store my money purse, phone and bus timetable in the back pocket. More secure than even a crossbody bag!

After an attempt was made to rob me once, when a girl pushed against me on a UK bus and slit my bag. (I had a feeling something was wrong and moved away to the top deck very quickly.) I am very security conscious! Sadly, vulnerable old people can be targetted.

anna....that's very disturbing. Wow.

My Dad used to loved to go to Puerto Rico for a month each winter . He would tell stories of the muggers there, one time while riding a bus a young boy grabbed his neck chain as he ran past him off the bus. Hyper vigilance is required these days. When we are in NYC the rule is to walk with authority, don't look around like a tourist and always wear black ( winter time ) like the native NYC-ers do so you don't stand out.

I have something in common with Colleen, in that I place my groceries on the conveyor belt in a certain order. I bring my own bags and I have a special "cold" bag for cold items. I always carry my eggs separately. Here there is a movement to do away with all plastic bags. One of my pet peeves is when grocery clerks pack my bags so that they are too heavy. (I am all of 5'1" and only weigh 105).

I used to hang sheets out on a line as I love the fresh air scent, but this can be a problem when one has a lot of trees with active birds in the area....

Does anyone remember when bread and milk were delivered in trucks to one's door? I recall the milk was in glass bottles and the cream was always at the top. Often the bottles were placed in a special metal basket.

I'm a dinosaur crossover. I hang a lot of my laundry out of doors to dry, which we can do a good part of the year. I just love the smell of line dried sheets. However recently I have been drying them in the dryer as I am battling allergies, and I'd rather not sleep on pollen. I iron some things - cloth napkins, pillow cases, and cotton or linen shirts. Many of my friends do not, but I have observed that people who always looked well dressed to my eyes are wearing pressed clothing. In addition I sew, and pressing as you go is an important part of getting a result that looks custom made rather than home made.

However, I do use Facebook as a way to keep in contact with far-flung friends and family, and widely distributed acquaintances who share my interests in costume sewing, heirloom roses, and other obscure interests.

I had milk delivery when I first started keeping house. My husband grew up in upstate Ohio where the winters are very cold. He said in the winter milk left on the doorstep would freeze and the cream would push the tops up from the bottle. He and some of his schoolmates used to snatch a bottle, eat the frozen cream from the top, and put the milk back on the steps, laughing as they went on to school. Typical boys!

Earlier on, one of my uncles, 15 years older than I, drove a bakery van. He was a cute young man and had some interesting stories to tell about under-dressed housewives answering the door, but he always seemed to stop talking if I came into the room. More boy stuff.

We had a silver metal milk box where the milkman would leave milk. However, there were times when he'd deliver it to the door in a basket along with cottage cheese, chocolate milk etc. Mom would leave her order on a form rolled into the top of the bottle . There was also an egg man who delivered eggs and fresh chicken as ordered.

Mom would get a chicken to roast each Sunday and I recall her having to singe the skin of the chicken to get off leftover feathers or plunck out the stubs from larger feathers.

Glad I don't do that. The smell of wet raw chicken and singed feathers would put me off chicken forever.

Sadly bread and milk deliveries to homes are a thing of the past but in my retirement village we have a lady who brings bread from a local bakery on Mondays which wasn't sold at the weekend. It is still fresh and we donate a gold coin, usually $2, to a charity. Sometimes there are sweet and fancy breads and rolls as well as plain loaves. Bonus!

Every second Wednesday a woman and her daughter bring fruit, vegetables and home made cakes for sale, door to door, which they have done for so long that I have seen the little daughter grow into a young woman! They must find it worthwhile to come because the man who brought similar items and a fishmonger, both with vans, stopped coming from lack of interest.

We have shops nearby and many residents take a bus or drive there and don't need door sales people. I buy a cake to help promote them. Use it or lose it!

I’m surprised you say your grocery doesn’t use one of those turntable things to pack your shopping, Annpan. Our tiny town grocery doesn’t (but they never did), but everywhere else I’ve shopped with the exception of Aldi does. The check out people even have special ways to attach the cloth bags in the turntable frames.

I also used to reuse plastic shopping bags for all kinds of uses, including rubbish and cat litter changes. If I had too many I would take them to charity shops for them to use or switch to cloth bags until they ran out. Now I get the roll of compostable rubbish bags which are cheap and thin.

Colleen, sorry if I was confusing. I meant that I miss the easily packed single use bags which are no longer on the turntables but it is good that you have seen the cashiers using the frames to assist the packing of other kinds.

I must admit I haven't realised that as I haven't been watching anything other than my own goods being packed, if I give the cashier a bag.

To my surprise the Reject Shop still offers plastic bags at no charge. I buy my rolls of bin bags there but can never find the same brand twice! They run out very quickly and sometimes I have to go elsewhere for the cheap thin ones.

I used to give unneeded carrier bags to the charity shops but they won't take them now. I was told by the volunteer at the local Red Cross shop that she was ticked off by customers for using them!

As I drove down a busy parkway this morning a lone yellow plastic bag wafted and tumbled along the road between the cars.

The universe just put an exclamation point on my great dislike of these indestructible, forever nuisances.

yoyo, the only thing worse than a bad indestructible plastic is a so-called destructible one. MY DH keeps letters/papers/bills/trash that arrives with the mail/ old gardening catalogues/exam papers from his teaching days etc in plastic bags, some of them going back 10 years or more. He is always planning to 'sort them out'. Of course he never will and meanwhile the bags litter the dining room floor (we can never eat in there) and the plastic slowly deteriorates and falls into millions of little tiny flakes which are almost impossible to pick up.

I know that at the end of the day it is ALL plastic and will probably land up floating in some ocean or in the digestive system of a fish or aquatic mammal but . . . what is the answer to the problem?

Vee, I had that problem also regarding stored paperwork and old envelopes with phone numbers scribbled on them. My DH couldn't recall whose numbers they were and wouldn't junk any in case he magically remembered and needed one some day.

The whole mess finally got thrown out in NINE huge garden rubbish bags when we moved, from not only the house but the country and had to pay storage fees for what we left with a company.

Just moving homes had not been a solution as the junk went with us. However, the charge for storing what we couldn't leave with the family was prohibitive of the nine bags full!

I am a dinosaur. I don't have a kindle. I don't have a cell phone at all. I'm not on Facebook. I don't even have an ATM card. I pay all my bills with checks ( I would NEVER bank on line) and I use my credit card rarely. I have a big vegetable garden and I can and freeze. I don't have a dryer so I watch the weather carefully for sunny days to do laundry.

And I heat with wood.

So far, you win, I think but I am waiting for someone with an outdoor lavatory before I suggest who gets awarded the crown! Or should it be a crest as we are talking about dinosaurs?

annpan, though I cannot be awarded your crown, nor even a wreath of laurels but when we moved to our present house some 40 years ago there were still the remains of the double-seater lav in a stone outbuilding now used as a shed. All the cottages had a similar structure down at the end of their gardens/veggie plots. Main sewage didn't reach this neck of the woods until the 1930's so everyone had excellent productive soil.

This house, being larger and having served as a mine inspector's home and then as a vicarage had the benefit of indoor plumbing although it wasn't until we had lived here for a few weeks during a 'dry spell' of weather we found the only WC at the top of the building was fed by rainwater only! This led to much hauling of buckets which was not much fun as I had a toddler and was about 7 months pregnant. . . . and the bathroom was too primitive to use. I wisely went back to live with Mother until the problem was resolved . . .

In Wales just a few miles down the road, these structures are known as ty bachs and the locals speak lovingly of them situated 'up the mountain' (a hill to you and me) and having to make trips outside in the dead of night with a Force 10 gale blowing.

Vee.......the styrofoam peanuts and packing material is here forever. I cannot understand why this has not been banned. We need to go back to using recycled cardboard and paper to pack products for shipping. It worked in the past before we began filling our world with styrofoam which can never break down or go away.

Vee, The house my in-laws bought in Australia in the 1960s had an outside lavatory only. My husband's stepfather was a countryman and thought that indoor ones weren't hygienic so he preferred that setup. Likewise my grandmother in England wasn't worried about moving into an old terrace house with no bathroom and a lavatory accessed outside the back of the house. She preferred the comfort of a tin bath in front of the fire to the good but chilly proper bathroom in her previous house.

I think we are going backwards by so many places just having a shower stall and no bath and not even Public ones available. Even the Romans had that! I'd love a good wallow again!

Yup - fountain pens. Ink must match the pen. The tortoise shell has brown ink and the green has dark green ink. There is something about a fountain pen that makes me feel closer to my thoughts and words.

I still write checks, make my own tomato soup and can it, and I still pick up pennies!!

PAM

When I was learning script ( cursive ) we had little bottles of ink and a nib in a holder. I think we'd buy the nib and holder from the teacher. The desk had an ink well in the upper right hand corner for the ink bottle. What a mess that was trying to not only learn the curves and swirls but also how to use that nib without a huge blot happening ! Makes me sound like a real dinosaur !

When I got to junior high it was so very cool to have a fancy refillable ink pen with colored ink. I preferred turquoise ! I learned a lesson when I took the pen on an airplane and the ink leaked all over my purse !

We had a local drugstore that had a beautiful display of Estabrook pens and Shaeffer ink.. It was a special rite of passage to be able to choose my own pen . There were short ladies' pens and the longer mens'. I had a tortoise shell color pen and also a pale peach one and kept those for most of my life, finally selling them for a small fortune on ebay to someone in Japan !

I still have (and use) a desk pen that uses Shaeffer ink cartridges, which are available at Staples. I've had the pen since the 60s for taking shorthand at work. We were taught in business college that it's much better to use a pen than pencils that are frequently in need of sharpening during long dictation sessions. Now that does make me a dinosaur! I can hardly believe I will have been retired 18 years as of August 1. I still meet a few women I worked with for monthly lunches.

I bought a silver coloured White Dot Shaeffer pen over thirty years ago. They were expensive so I got one at the duty free shop on my way overseas and it was faulty! I had to ask the stewardess for the loan of a biro to do the in-flight magazine crossword on the plane!

I was given another when I returned and have used it ever since. No problem getting replacement cartridges either.

I like a short pen and if I have to use one to fill in a form etc, take off the top if it is the long kind and don't fit it on the end. I also have very small handwriting which I developed to write as much as possible on the airmail letters I sent to my family in the UK for thirty years.

I can't change it now!

Fountain pens with real ink! Takes me back to using the lovely old US Waterman's pen with my grandfather's name engraved on it. Sadly the 'inner-tube' has long perished and I have never got round to sending it somewhere for repairs.

When I started secondary school (age 11) the 'new' system of italic handwriting was introduced. We were forced to practice it during Art classes and it certainly ruined my, up until then, quite neat and legible script!

Individual bottle of ink were banned due to endless spillages and a large bottle of ready-mixed ink was kept at one end of the class room. Unfortunately the school joker had thought it funny to put blotting paper into the container which ruined both ones writing and the nib of the pen.

We were never allowed to write in anything but blue or black ink.

Annpan do you remember the dip-pens found in all Post Offices? The nibs were always bent or crossed and filling in forms was very difficult!

Vee, no, I don't think I ever used one because I had little need to go to a Post Office up to the end of 1959 when I went to Australia.

I do remember that school ink which was mixed from a powder. It was thin and caused a problem by forming blots especially if the pen was held downwards while one was deep in thought!

During a class quiz, one boy complained that his shared desk-mate had jogged him and caused a blot. Before he said which word had been spoiled he was warned not to give anything away and he said he wouldn't but then said it was "Whittington"!

There was then the sound of furious scratching by the slower children who eagerly seized on the answer!

The teacher was even more furious but the boy still didn't realise what he had done!

We were given an extra question to make up for the error.

Vee, our colored inks were only used for personal message :0)

Blue or black was used for classwork. With the advent of the click top ballpoint pen all of our miseries with ink and nibs disappeared !

The Waterman fountain pen is considered a very meaningful and elegant gift...and can be very expensive. What a treasure that you have your grandfather's. As it turns out there is a business in the UK which specializes in repairing these pens .

Here's their link :

https://www.penhome.co.uk/pages/pen-repairs

Many thanks yoyo, I will look into it.

It is always said over here that with the introduction of the ballpoint pen, handwriting went from bad to worse. I know I never enjoy using one, other than for scribbling quick notes. I use a fibre-tip pen for preference.

OT many years ago I lived and worked in Ottawa and needed a new ball point pen. Now we, from the UK always refer to them as biro's after the name of the inventor. I stood in the 'pen shop' and my mind went blank. I couldn't think of 'ball point'!

No-one knew what I wanted and came up with several suggestions. In the end I was forced to go behind the counter and point at what I needed. What it is to be divided by a common language!

I have always adored the old fashioned pens with colored inks. I taught myself Italic writing and owned an osmiroid with special nib. I still have my collection of old pens from the '60's and earlier.

I dislike ballpoint pens and prefer felt-tip pens. I am very fussy about stationary and pens and handwriting. While I do have access to a computer for writing, I still hand-write long letters to a few close friends. Also, at Xmas, I hand-write about 50-60 greeting cards.

I find that as I write less, I also write less clearly. My handwriting has definitely deteriorated. Given that my typing has never been very good, even though I used a keyboard for much of my working life, this is not a good thing.

My hand sewing isn't bad, though. I guess all these things are practice.

As for outdoor toilets, we never lived in a house that was so blessed. But when I was 5-6 years old, we lived for two years in a semi-rural neighborhood where several of our neighbors did have them. And yes, the old Sears catalog was used for toilet paper. That neighborhood also had two abandoned open wells that we children were strictly ordered to avoid. Of course we were absolutely fascinated by them and used to stare at the water in their depths. We could feel them calling to us. It is a wonder we all survived.

What is it about children and water? I used to fall in regularly! My early memories are of being stood at the front of the bus by the engine to dry off when returning from trips to lakes or paddle ponds in parks where the lure of water pulled at me.