"Don't make faces like that. The wind might change and you'll be stuck like it."

"What have you got, St. Vitus' Dance ?" (rebuke when fidgeting)

"There's enough blue in the sky to make a pair of sailor's trousers"

"Rain before seven, fine by eleven"

It seems my mother was always pontificating about the weather. Here's another one: "If Candlemas day be fair and bright, winter will take another flight" - (I think it was Candlemas)

"That's a proper Dagwood, that is" (Dagwood was what my mum and dad called a very large 'doorstep' sandwich - I think after a newspaper cartoon character of the 30s/40s ??)

People sitting around for hours drinking tea were called "Mrs. Mazawattees" - after a tea-drinking mechanical figure in shop windows advertising "Mazawattee Tea".

Two favourite expressions from my old headmistress, who went by the wonderful (real) name of Miss Bubbers:
"Don't be a silly mutt !" - "Show some stickability, girl !"

All of the above are now being inflicted on my poor, longsuffering daughter... and so it goes on...


- jeanie