Who threw out their milk? Not me, second row, second from left.
There's a new game at
Pip's with a theme each week to write or post a picture about. I've been loving reading all the players tales about this week's theme of School Lunches. Here's mine:
I don't remember too much about my school lunches. I was a two
Sao biscuits sandwiched together with butter and
vegemite kinda gal. Wrapped in greaseproof paper. No mess, no mush. Quickly and easily gobbled up on the go so as not to take up too much playtime.
My strongest memory, well nightmare more like it, is actually a recces thing. I started school in 1973, a time when some well meaning bureaucrat thought all children should have a big drink of sun warmed milk for morning tea. I went to a tiny catholic school in a South Australian country town with only two class rooms. Single desks in neat rows all facing the blackboard at which stood the scary Sister Rose. Who must have been at least 100 years old. She wielded a wooden ruler and would smack you without hesitation for the slightest misdemeanor.
After a pleasant morning of reciting our times tables, we'd march out to the bitumen and pick up our warm milk served in a cardboard pyramid. Kinda like a
Sunnyboy without the orange flavoured fun. Sister Rose would briskly snip off the corner and you had to suck the milk through the soggy cardboard. Oh boy, makes me cringe to think about it.
But if that wasn't bad enough, one day Sister Rose found two full triangles of milk sitting upright at the bottom of the bin. "Right" she said glaring at Kathleen O'Reilly and me, "you will do!" And she grabbed us by the scruff of the neck and hauled us over to the bin. "Drink it!" she demanded. Let me tell you right now Sister Rose was pretty scary to a five year old, actually she'd scare me now if I saw her on the street, and not only for the fact that she'd be 140 years old. Our meek protests of innocence fell on deaf ears, "I don't care, drink it!" was her response. So Kathleen and I picked up those now close to putrid, full pyramids of milk out of the bin and sculled them down. Gagging all the way.
Thankfully, the Room Temperature Milk For Schoolchildren program was phased out not long after. I managed to survive it with some shred of dignity intact. And it's no surprise I can't remember too much about school lunches, I've blocked it all out, save the comforting nostalgia of a Sao biscuit.
Here is the jam packed jam cupboard, after a busy, busy March. We've apricot, blackcurrant, cherry, raspberry and plum jams along with preserved peaches, cherries and nectarines. Phew! A lot of the fruit we picked ourselves which is all the more satisfying. The laundry is crowded with boxes of potatoes from our garden, which should keep for a few months over autumn. And the kitchen is crammed with baskets of quinces, crab apples, pears and apples still to poach, jam or jelly. There are bags of hazelnuts to crack, sloes for gin and damsons simmering on the stove for more jam, these collected from a lovely friend's wonderful garden yesterday. The fire is gently flickering away and the bread dough is rising on the mantle piece. My little guy is sound asleep on the sofa, tucked under a mohair blanket. Sigh, so cozy. Here I sit with a cup of hot tea, and wonder where the heck did March go? It sure went quickly, and it sure was magical.
