Wednesday Hodgepodge - Volume 616

  

Welcome to the Wednesday Hodgepodge!  Here are this week's questions, which you should answer on your own blog and then pop over to Joyce's blog (click on the graphic for the link) Wednesday to add your link to the party.

1.   What's worth standing in line for?

Something delectable from a bakery when it opens and the baked goods are just out of the oven.  I really miss village life in England where we could just walk into town and pick up bread and pies fresh from the oven.

2.  Tell us about a favorite food related memory.

Between 1969 and 1973 (I was 9 to 13 years old), we lived in Belgium and had a trailer at the beach.  We would go up every weekend from April to October and spend our time in the sea and in the sand dunes, just having a blast.  My aunt would come over on the ferry from England and one year, we all went into the local town, to the market and to stop at the bakery for a French baguette and to the British food store where Mum picked up a bottle of HP sauce (it's like A1 but thicker).  Anyway, this particular day, it started to rain so we ducked into the cinema to see The Jungle Book, the animated feature that had come out in 1967.  We were a little hungry, so Mum tore off chunks of the baguette and poured a little HP sauce on each piece.  Why we didn't get popcorn, I don't know!  As time went by, with tummies full and the warmth in the theater, the adults (Mum, Dad, and my aunt) started to doze off while my sister Barbara and I enjoyed the movie.  When the show was over and the lights came up, everyone started to laugh because we were all covered in breadcrumbs!  I can't look at a French baguette or a bottle of HP sauce or see a photo of the animated Jungle Book without this memory.

3. What are some things you find particularly peaceful or calming? 

I love the sound of the ocean, of waves lapping the shore.  I think it brings back the memory of our times at the beach.  I love to sit in a rocking chair, on the porch or the back deck, just rocking and dozing.  I enjoy watching old black and white movies, especially ones that have lots of amazing fashion from anytime when women wore hats and gloves when they went out. 

4. Is there something you do now that gets you just as excited as it did when you were a child? 

Funny you should ask as I just saved this the other day:

5. To what degree are you in touch with friends from grade school? high school? college if you attended college? 

Facebook put me in touch with friends from the late 1970s, my high school years.  I went to the seventh grade in an American high school on the military base in Belgium and then we moved to England.  It's been wonderful to reconnect with friends that I haven't seen for years, to see their families and what direction their lives took.  I'm not in touch with anyone from college - I went to college in my 30s so I was a young mom and Navy wife and not living the single life to go out with friends and develop friendships.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

My friend Jodie and I had a hilarious conversation about drinking coffee while camping.  I had visions of a blue enamel coffeepot on the campfire, but she squashed that idea quickly saying, "We have a Keurig!".

Camping has come a long way.  I had to snap this photo of Vic at the local sportsman's store.  The blue enamel camping coffee ware lives, even in espresso sizes!