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Diabetics R Us


In England many girls in their young teenage years were sent off to work as servants. It was known as "being in service". It happened in most working class households in Victorian times. It helped with the family income and also helped reduce the household overcrowding. They were maids, general domestics, cooks etc. and lived in with the family they worked for. Young men were often sent to farms as farm servants. My great grandmother was in service. She was a live-in maid for a vicar and his family.
 
SaskiaKC said:
I also enjoyed trying to read the story about Pluk and the Heen- en Weerwolf in the original
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Pluk van de Petteflat is a wonderful book for Dutch starters!
SaskiaKC said:
You seem to enjoy getting into research as much as I do. Thanks.
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I love research, depending on the subject.
 
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Where are my guinea pigs? I had only 2 left after last summers tragedies with the foster dog plus 2 cases of old age, but they have disappeared. Yesterday they were in their pen with the 2 rabbits and today nothing, except the rabbits who acted completely normal.
I really can't think of a logical explanation. The adult cats haven't ever been interested in catching the guinea pigs, even when visiting their pen, and it is impossible for 2 kittens to eat 2 guinea pigs without leftovers.
These 2 were the most boring guinea pigs I've ever had, they have never ventured outside the small indoors part of their pen (which obviously saved them from foster dog), so even if the fence around the big pen has a hole somewhere they wouldn't have escaped. And the rabbits were still in there.
Fox or weasel would have killed the rabbits too, and most likely the chickens and rabbits in the other pen as well.
 
Could a human have stolen them?
I'm sorry for your loss.

I have been reading more about Pluk van de Petteflet this morning.
 
I guess a hawk or an owl might have gotten the rabbits too. ...
 
I have been "studying" Dutch with an app called Duolingo. So far I have learned how to write "The man is not a child" and "The girl is not a boy." I am glad that the spoken sentences can be played at two speeds since it seems like the older I get the harder it is for me to hear another language as well as I could at college.

What is funny is that Duolingo is also sending me e-mails with a link to their German lessons. I took the placement test for people who have already learned "some" German, and enjoyed discovering that I remember quite a bit. One sentence I did get wrong was about something that was made of concrete -- for some reason we never covered concrete (no pun!) in German class. Surely they should have figured alumni/ae would one day want to build a birdbath or endow the university with a new science wing!?
 
Antje77 said:
If you need a good laugh about learning Dutch, check out the video's called 'Only Dutch people ... ' by Bart de Pau. At the least you'll feel like you're not alone in your struggles!
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Thanks. I will check it out.
 
SaskiaKC said:
Thanks. I will check it out.
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I've just watched the video I linked to, which was simply the first video turning up in my search to post a link and I have tears rolling down my face from laughter now! I swear this is all from a childrens program aimed at 3 - 10 year olds, very popular in the early 80's when I had exactly the right age.
 
I will have to watch it when I am back on my laptop.
 
@Antje77 I just went to my local bookstore's website and searched Dutch. The first result that popped up was Dutch Sheets.
I thought, Dutch sheets? What are Dutch sheets? Are they different from, say, American sheets? I have had Egyptian Cotton sheets, and I may have slept on Irish Linen sheets, but what are Dutch sheets like?
Then I thought of ropes on ships. Maybe Dutch Sheets are ropes on Dutch ships?
So I clicked on the Dutch Sheets link.
Oh! I thought. OK. Dutch Sheets is a person. The author of some books.
I never would have guessed.
 
Hmm ... there was a great children's program on TV when I was little, called Captain Kangaroo. His sidekicks were Bunny Rabbit, Mr Moose, and Dancing Bear -- but none of them ever knitted any goats.
 
That link is very interesting- I'm an Aussie (Australian) we use the English mostly although some of the American is creeping in and of course we have our own- I like looking at these differences. Thanks
 
There are within the UK several distinct dialects when my father was speaking in his heaviest Northumbrian accent I could barely understand him.

 
When we were first married my husband was in the navy and we had digs in the North of Scotland ,an English speaking country but the man of the house a fisherman had an accent so broad that I just had to say yes or no and hope that I got it right
Carol​
 
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