TBT: North Yorkshire in the 70s

As there is only one child in this image, I know it is not after or close to Jan 1972. That's when son#2 arrived and I would not have been able to fasten that sheepskin coat.  Going for a day out in our VW Bug (seen in the background) was always a treat. I learned quickly to brink a flask of hot tea, sandwiches and some kind of sweet thing. We also learned quickly to use the great outdoor bathroom. It wasn't often we saw other people on our little family trips and really there was little to see except the beautiful wild landscape of what was then called the North Riding.

That hat my little man is wearing is one of many his maternal grandmother churned out with the wool I sent her. A warm cap was almost always a good idea in our time in England.

Flashback Friday: Oh Those Summers

Summers at the beach when my now 40sumthin' sons  were young. Summers with my mother, their grandmother who missed having them around so very very much.  The boys she always wanted  - a continent away most of the years she had with them. But the days at the beach house...oh that meant the world to her.  It's funny to see that in this photo she's wearing 'my' hand-me-downs, a pants outfit made for me by my dressmaker in England that was too warm for Thailand. I was the one taking the photo but today looking at it, my heart is really in it. It just took me a while to see that.

Flashback Friday

June 1979

No children, you don't plant the flowerpots! Here are my younger two children, after a session of washing my mother's flowerpots. This was her house in Davidsonville, one she bought for us and to be closer to the house in Bethany Beach DE. Looking at this picture, I recall how silly that little bit of patio was. The house was on 3 acres, and look at this postage stamp bit of concrete!

My blond lad was seven and a half, and my daughter was going to be six in 3 months. She still was very tiny for her age and looks like a toddler there. I don't think she did much of the washing dressed like that and I really don't recall who did it or why we did.I suspect my mother had plans to start planting and building the garden. This was the year she moved in...not long after we had been evacuated from Iran and I supervised the construction of that house. Sadly, my mother would die just two years later.

Flashback Friday

Here is another one from my dh's past. This is a family shot taken...?....in the early 70s I'd guess. No one looks too happy except for my husband's father in the background and his son Rich in the foreground. I do believe that the woman holding Rich is my dh's Aunt Catherine who started the animal shelter in Leesburg VA and is still with us, STILL working for animals.

(No, I'm not in this one...I was then married to MY first spouse.)