P&O Cruisers - What are things like where YOU are?

[Peanut006]

5 hours ago, purplesea said:

Morning everyone, cold and frosty here this morning, but looks as though it's going to nice sunny day.

It's my birthday today, so I am now officially retired!! 

Stay safe and warm.

 

Happy Birthday hope you have a lovely day 🎂

 

Michelle

[yorkshirephil]

8 hours ago, zap99 said:

Happy birthday and welcome to the wrinklies club.🥳

[Josy1953]

Having spent over 3 hours having tests at UHNM I am happy to say that despite having some symptoms that I was told to look out for the tests have all shown negative results.  I am now on medication for 6 weeks to treat the symptoms. Then I have to go back for more tests to check that medication has worked, if not I am back into biopsy territory again.

Edited January 24, 2023 by Josy1953

[kalos]

2 minutes ago, Josy1953 said:

Having spent over 3 hours having tests at UHNM I am happy to say that despite having some symptoms that I was told to look out for the tests have all shown negative results.  I am now on medication for 6 weeks to treat the symptoms. Then I have to go back for more tests to check that medication has worked, if not I am back into biopsy territory again.

 

Good luck Josey on your further tests but good news up to date. One step at a time  🙂

[grapau27]

10 hours ago, purplesea said:

Morning everyone, cold and frosty here this morning, but looks as though it's going to nice sunny day.

It's my birthday today, so I am now officially retired!! 

Stay safe and warm.

 

Happy birthday Pam.

[zap99]

8 hours ago, davecttr said:

I am ,it still says they will be excited to allocate my cabin nearer the cruise 🙄

I can only imagine the excitement going round their office.🤣

[purplesea]

9 hours ago, zap99 said:

Happy birthday and welcome to the wrinklies club.🥳

 

[Beckett]

Morning All

 

Pam, I hope you had a lovely birthday and welcome to the officially retired club. It's a pretty good club to be a member of.

 

Josy, good news on your negative results. I hope the next six weeks are comfortable on the medication.

 

To all of us who are struggling with illness or infirmity, or who are just a little bit under par at the moment - we have each other to share with -  and what a brilliant crew we are.

 

Have a good day everyone.

 

Best wishes as always.

 

Jane. Xxx

 

PS. The vaping is going very well and I've got the right dose now but it's very early days so I'm not going to be too smug yet - that's for later!

 

 

[grapau27]

32 minutes ago, Beckett said:

Morning All

 

Pam, I hope you had a lovely birthday and welcome to the officially retired club. It's a pretty good club to be a member of.

 

Josy, good news on your negative results. I hope the next six weeks are comfortable on the medication.

 

To all of us who are struggling with illness or infirmity, or who are just a little bit under par at the moment - we have each other to share with -  and what a brilliant crew we are.

 

Have a good day everyone.

 

Best wishes as always.

 

Jane. Xxx

 

PS. The vaping is going very well and I've got the right dose now but it's very early days so I'm not going to be too smug yet - that's for later!

 

 

Nice to hear you are keeping off the cigarettes Jane.

7°C and cloudy here.

I am semi retired and had a busy day yesterday driving 140 miles visiting several customers I have known for 40 years.

I hope everyone is well and looking forward to having a great day.

Graham.x

[Eglesbrech]

1 hour ago, Beckett said:

PS. The vaping is going very well and I've got the right dose now but it's very early days so I'm not going to be too smug yet - that's for later!

Well done. The longest journey starts with the first step as they say.

[Harry Peterson]

24 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

Nice to hear you are keeping off the cigarettes Jane.

7°C and cloudy here.

I am semi retired and had a busy day yesterday driving 140 miles visiting several customers I have known for 40 years.

I hope everyone is well and looking forward to having a great day.

Graham.x

You must really have seen some changes over those 40 years in your line of business, Graham.

 

A lot of us here can still remember sweet shops and traditional newsagents in every village and all over towns and cities - until supermarkets took most of the business and a lot of people stopped buying papers. I’ve a very fond memory of a small sweet shop near the station in Woodford Green, 1980, around the time our daughter was born. I was working in London, but my wife was still in Taunton with the house on the market and about to give birth. She had a real thing about some sweets which you might recall - pink fondants, with a hazelnut on each one. Sold loose from a box. This shop had the last ones we’ve ever seen, and I bought a box for her - no longer made now, but she still talks about those last hazelnut fondants that we never saw again, 42 years ago. Maynards Matinee Selection was another of her favourites, and the last of those came from a small sweet shop near the cinema in Weston Super Mare, around the same time.

 

Are those customers you mention still running the same sort of business, or have they moved into new areas?

 

 

[Adawn47]

1 hour ago, Beckett said:

Morning All

 

Pam, I hope you had a lovely birthday and welcome to the officially retired club. It's a pretty good club to be a member of.

 

Josy, good news on your negative results. I hope the next six weeks are comfortable on the medication.

 

To all of us who are struggling with illness or infirmity, or who are just a little bit under par at the moment - we have each other to share with -  and what a brilliant crew we are.

 

Have a good day everyone.

 

Best wishes as always.

 

Jane. Xxx

 

PS. The vaping is going very well and I've got the right dose now but it's very early days so I'm not going to be too smug yet - that's for later!

 

 

A nice first post to read this morning Jane. You're a lovely lady.

I'm pleased the vaping is going well, and you're allowed to give yourself a little pat on the back for every day that passes. You can tell after the first day if you're going to take to it, so the signs are good.

I'll report back to Frank, he asks if we've heard from you.😊

Happy 'tooting'. xx

Avril

[grapau27]

36 minutes ago, Harry Peterson said:

You must really have seen some changes over those 40 years in your line of business, Graham.

 

A lot of us here can still remember sweet shops and traditional newsagents in every village and all over towns and cities - until supermarkets took most of the business and a lot of people stopped buying papers. I’ve a very fond memory of a small sweet shop near the station in Woodford Green, 1980, around the time our daughter was born. I was working in London, but my wife was still in Taunton with the house on the market and about to give birth. She had a real thing about some sweets which you might recall - pink fondants, with a hazelnut on each one. Sold loose from a box. This shop had the last ones we’ve ever seen, and I bought a box for her - no longer made now, but she still talks about those last hazelnut fondants that we never saw again, 42 years ago. Maynards Matinee Selection was another of her favourites, and the last of those came from a small sweet shop near the cinema in Weston Super Mare, around the same time.

 

Are those customers you mention still running the same sort of business, or have they moved into new areas?

 

 

There has been lots of changes Harry.

At one time all CTNs had jars of sweets.

Lots of manufacturers of confectionery have gone or been bought by bigger companies.

Now in the independent sector it is the cash and carry facia groups Best one,Londis,and Premier who predominantly stock bags of sweets.

One of my customers is a traditional sweet shop and cafe who always has a great display of sweets in jars.

He is based in  Great Ayton the childhood town of the famous Captain Cook.

Edited January 25, 2023 by grapau27

[twotravellersLondon]

2 minutes ago, grapau27 said:

There has been lots of changes Harry.

At one time all CTNs had jars of sweets.

Now in the independent sector it is the cash and carry facia groups Best one,Londis,and Premier who predominantly stock bags of sweets.

One of my customers was a traditional sweet shop and cafe who always has a great display of sweets in jars.

 

And I remember going into the village shop and being able to buy sweeties for a farthing... for any youngsters reading that's nothing to do with Watership Down... it was a coin... real money in the hands of a 4 year old... and 960 of these little copper thingies with a wren on the reverse side made a whole £1!  

 

Titter ye not... my father was paid the princely sum of £10 a week then. That was about the average wage for the time.

[Fionboard]

11 minutes ago, twotravellersLondon said:

 

And I remember going into the village shop and being able to buy sweeties for a farthing... for any youngsters reading that's nothing to do with Watership Down... it was a coin... real money in the hands of a 4 year old... and 960 of these little copper thingies with a wren on the reverse side made a whole £1!  

 

Titter ye not... my father was paid the princely sum of £10 a week then. That was about the average wage for the time.

Used to love the 4 for a penny sweets, Fruit Salad, Blackjacks, etc. Loose sweets came in paper bags and in hot weather they would all fuse together and stick to the bag. Showing my age but happy times! 

[Eglesbrech]

Yes  I loved perusing the rows of jars of sweets and getting a quarter in a little paper bag.

 

We weren’t allowed many sweets so it was a proper treat. My grandfather did however sneak us the odd quarter of Russian toffee or Edinburgh rock while my mum wasn’t looking 😀.

 

I don’t eat many sweet things now but I still like the odd bit of proper Edinburgh rock.

[lincslady]

Sweets were still rationed  when I was just in senior school, and I used to be sent for 5 one quarters of a lb.  (there were 5 in the family), and allowed to choose as long as there were some caramels.  Came in tiny paper bags, and I have hardly eaten any sweets since they came off rationing in about 1952!

[Peanut006]

40 minutes ago, Fionboard said:

Used to love the 4 for a penny sweets, Fruit Salad, Blackjacks, etc. Loose sweets came in paper bags and in hot weather they would all fuse together and stick to the bag. Showing my age but happy times! 

I love fruit salad and blackjacks!! Do you remember floral gums and spangles? And strawberry shoe laces? My grandad used to love the shoelaces but had problems chewing them because of his false teeth, didn’t stop him trying though!!! And chocolate chewing nuts?? It was a real treat going with spending money to get some sweets

 

Michelle 

 

 

[Harry Peterson]

23 minutes ago, Peanut006 said:

I love fruit salad and blackjacks!! Do you remember floral gums and spangles? And strawberry shoe laces? My grandad used to love the shoelaces but had problems chewing them because of his false teeth, didn’t stop him trying though!!! And chocolate chewing nuts?? It was a real treat going with spending money to get some sweets

 

Michelle 

 

 

All of those, along with Crispets, 1.5d Everlasting Strips [no, not that!] and 3d Jamboree Bags. Floral gums a great favourite with my wife because they were small enough to put in your mouth without the teacher noticing. Imps had the same advantage, and I think you can still get those.

 

My wife was given a detention on the very last day of term when the headmistress saw her eating an ice cream on her way home, still in uniform. Sweets in class probably meant a flogging.

[zap99]

1 hour ago, Fionboard said:

Used to love the 4 for a penny sweets, Fruit Salad, Blackjacks, etc. Loose sweets came in paper bags and in hot weather they would all fuse together and stick to the bag. Showing my age but happy times! 

One of my blackjacks had a brass pin in it. Closer examination revealed it was half of my tooth.

Edited January 25, 2023 by zap99

[Eglesbrech]

36 minutes ago, Peanut006 said:

I love fruit salad and blackjacks!! Do you remember floral gums and spangles? And strawberry shoe laces? My grandad used to love the shoelaces but had problems chewing them because of his false teeth, didn’t stop him trying though!!! And chocolate chewing nuts?? It was a real treat going with spending money to get some sweets

 

Michelle 

 

 

We used to play a game with sparkles at birthday parties. You threw 2 we pieces and if you got 2 heads you put on heavy gloves then had to open unwrap and eat a spangle (not easy). Of someone else threw the double they took over.

 

All that effort for one spangle but fun.

 

There was a similar game with Mars bars which had to be cut with a knife and fork with big fiddly gloves on.

[Adawn47]

1 hour ago, Eglesbrech said:

quarter of Russian toffee

I've never heard of Russian toffee, what is it?

Avril

[Josy1953]

Good morning everyone.  It seemed to be a nice clear morning when we got up so we decided to go out for breakfast.  We had gone less than a mile and ran into fog so not such a nice drive out after all.  On the way home we thought that we would go to the wine warehouse to replenish our stocks after Christmas and New Year and then we went to the farm shop to replenish the meat in the freezer so the decision to go for breakfast meant that we spent over £180, DH has justs aid that that was the most expensive breakfast trip ever  😂

[Eglesbrech]

2 minutes ago, Adawn47 said:

I've never heard of Russian toffee, what is it?

Avril

A really thick caramel coated in dark chocolate. You sucked them for ages.

[Adawn47]

5 minutes ago, Eglesbrech said:

A really thick caramel coated in dark chocolate. You sucked them for ages.

Lovely 🤭. Caramel and dark chocolate that lasts forever, my kind of sweet😁

Avril