almost a simmo rambling

[simmo123]

Hi again folks,just Ole Simmo having a bit of a ramble again,firstly re, the latest Simmo pics,i must give full credit to our own John G for the final displayed pics (the Simmo's relaxing)which are displayed on the forum,my efforts only displayed the link to the pics but our John with one foul swoop of the mouse enabled the pics to actually come up on the post itself,he has given me full instructions of how he achieved this result so with any future pics i hopefully should be able to get the same results .Ok here is the latest update from The Simmo camp.back into the music full on at the moment,busked at mandurah mall on Sat 14th,another session at our locally run Rotary swap meet market today Sun 15th..busy busy as the Sunday market was teeming,pretty happy with my sound in this area especially as it is all battery powered gear,i must admit busking is really hard work even though i only do about a 3 hour session i find that as soon as i stop for a quick coffee break i find that heaps of new folks are coming through which means getting the music fired up again.I sometimes get a bit concerned when the audiences are mainly folks with young families who probably have completely different musical tastes than a lot of the stuff i play but then if there are young kids involved it does'nt seem to matter as much as they just love throwing a bit of mum & dads hard earned cash into the open guitar case which for" ole simmo" is a bonus.Going to the other end of the age scale the pensioner section of the audience is always a winner as i can certainly relate to them with our kind of music,in saying that i do get involved on a personal basis discussing all of the problems that come with the pensioner status,but at the end of the day its all good PR.Our summer weather is in full swing with most days in the mid thirties which makes playing inside at the oldies gigs a bit of a bonus as apposed to sweating it out on the busking side of things but i find that coffee keeps me going when busking rather than tanking up with sugery sort drinks which only seems to compound the problem.Just having another go at putting up a couple more pics of our back yard just to keep my hand in i'm not sure if it will work.
best wishes Simmo

[simmo123]

Surprise surprise it worked,i will try once more,



Here goes again

[simmo123]

MANY THANKS TO ME MATE JOHN G...Simmo

[Jacqui]

Congratulations Simmo that's a very tidy plot you have, fancy a go at my garden?
Jacqui

[simmo123]

Hi Jacqui,thanks for response re garden pics,i used to work around gardens for a few years which helped when we set up our latest effort,as is pretty standard over here you usually install an automatic reticulation system at the same time you do the landscaping, the water can come either by scheme water (the normal water supply) or in a lot of cases you can get a bore put down to bring up the water from the ground water,via a pump depending on the area you live in as to the availability & quality of the underground water,because we only have a normal sized block of land 750 square meters we opted for the scheme water.Getting back to working in gardens i have just remembered that my first job when i left school at the age of fourteen & a half was working in a private garden in Rustington in Sussex,it was owned by a well to do family & the huge mansion was surrounded by eight acres of gardens,which included everything from a kitchen garden which stocked every type of veggie's you could think of and which kept the house going for twelve months a year,on top of this there were orchards,hot houses,ornamental gardens plus the usual tennis courts,pool etc.I can vividly remember having to tip my hat to all of the family members & always be at there beck & call,i used to put in my 56 hours a week spread over five & half days with lunch breaks taken in the boiler room which was very welcome in the winter months,there were four full time gardeners plus myself & the head gardener who would rule with an iron fist.I can still remember my wage at the time a healthy one pound seven & sixpence of which the biggest share went to our mum who bless her soul did her best to keep all of us five kids on the straight & narrow,unfortunately we lost dad several years prior to that.I can still remember the name of the big house after all of these years it was named "Timbers" in Sea lane Rustington Sussex,which in those days was inhabited by the wealthiest of people.I guess Ole Simmo's starting to get carried away with all of this history but i am sure that we all have similar stories to tell, just to finish off i have just remembered that when we used to hand dig the huge veggie garden which would be an ongoing project throughout the year the head gardener would demand that we would double dig with our spades & forks which in laymans terms meant that you would be digging to twice the normal depth to enable the root crops eg, parsnips potatoes,carrots etc were not restricted in there growth.
I guess its time for a coffee break so until Ole Simmo's urge to back into time surfaces again i wish all of the members the very best wishes & if there are any other interesting stories from years past lets be hearing about them...Simmo

[JohnG]

Double digging?

That brings back memories.

Did that once every few years in my patch in Bedfordshire some while back. Dig the first trench and move the soil to the far edge of the patch you're digging. Then turn the top of the second trench into the first, bottom of the 2nd on top, then the 3rd into the 2nd and so on.

Bloomin' hard work as I recall.

Rustington-on-sea. Isn't that in a Flanders and Swann song?

Something about a G-nu.

JohnG.

[simmo123]

Hey John what a memory you have to be able to relate to double digging in the garden,i believe it was standard practice in the "0LD" days,you can probably relate to the method used to store the root crops whereby you would bury them under the ground using just straw & soil,i think they used to be called "clamps",even after several months stored in this manner the veggies would still be fresh,i think this was done during the winter months as a rule,just a bit more useless information from the "Ole Fella" downunder,by the way i started my first job in 1954!!! which makes me really old ...Simmo

[JohnG]

Yep Terry, I remember "clamps" too!
Not that I'm an oldie in that sense, only 65!

When I lived in Shefford I used to have an old feller who "helped me out"!
He was a "journeyman" gardener in the real old days and was retired when he came to help me with my patch. He was in a retirement bungalow with a postage stamp for a garden, so we planted enough for my family and enough for him and his wife too. Plus I paid him an hourly rate. I think he was in his early seventies at the time.

Anyway, it was he who taught me many of the old ways of doing things. crop rotation and growing stuff just to dig in to improve the soil. I didn't know it at the time, but what we were doing has the grand title of BIO now. All natural. Buying compost from a mushroom farm or from the nearby stables. A compost heap at the end of the garden. All that malarkey.

I don't think I've ever eaten vegetables and fruit that tasted so good. Potatoes, leaks, parsnips, runner and French beans, and apples, strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, red and blackcurrants and rhubarb. We put up a greenhouse too so I had tomatoes and cucumbers as well.

Les his name was. What a really nice man he was. I still recall many a day out in the back together digging, drinking a cup of tea, sleeves rolled up, spade or fork in hand, wiping off the sweat.

Happy days!
JohnG.

[simmo123]

Hey John,don't get me started on "Rhubarb"!!!! you will never be able to stop me....Simmo ;D ;D

[frankie]

Jan 17, 2012 10:20:11 GMT simmo123 said:

Hey John,don't get me started on "Rhubarb"!!!! you will never be able to stop me....Simmo ;D ;D

I remember people running out with buckets and scooping up behind the horse carts of the milkman,baker,coal man and rag and bone man.

[shanless]

Jan 17, 2012 16:53:24 GMT shanless said:

Hey John,don't get me started on "Rhubarb"!!!! you will never be able to stop me....Simmo

what!!!....running to the loo lolol

[weegeo]

lol you know your old when you start telling the grandchildren about `the good old days`we have 6 living with us at the minute our house is like a creche lol They enjoy or at least they seem to enjoy `Granda`telling them about how it was when he was young [this Granda ia always young lol]. Memories that have them engrossed are simple things like on Friday nights my mum [God Bless her]would send me to the local `chippie`and i would bring back fish&chips wrapped up in newspaper with the corner ripped where i had been `nicking`a few on the way home or us all out playing `cowboys & indians`in the street [so sad to see those days lost] i tell them how i fell off my horse in the garden and cut my knee that gets a laugh but the best is when i tell them about the `ice cream man`that would peddle into the street everyday[except Sundays] and sell his ice cream from a large fridge on the front of his bicycle funny i can still taste that ice cream even now,mum would get a huge blue & white mixing bowl full of ice cream that would serve 6 of us for sixpence which is i think about 2 pence now. This is a good topic the simmo has started lol.

weegeo----------------------- back in the corner writing his memoirs lol lol with a bowl of ice cream