quote:

---

Originally posted by Firenze:

You would need to survey all hat-wearing classes - old ladies, cowboys, truck drivers or whatever - to ascertain whether the crucial factors were nationality, age, gender or something else.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Firenze:
There was a club of mainly female retirees who would come in occasionally to have lunch in the office canteen and reminisce about the old days among the Manila folders. The would doff their coats but retain hats and maybe the knotted silk square round the neck.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:

quote:

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Originally posted by Firenze:
There was a club of mainly female retirees who would come in occasionally to have lunch in the office canteen and reminisce about the old days among the Manila folders. The would doff their coats but retain hats and maybe the knotted silk square round the neck.

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A lady removes her hat only in her own home . . . and, it must be added, her place of business.

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quote:

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Originally posted by comet:
I'm used to it now, but when I first visited people Outside I was shocked to see people wearing shoes inside houses. Seemed super rude to me.

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quote:

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Originally posted by MSHB:

quote:

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Originally posted by comet:
I'm used to it now, but when I first visited people Outside I was shocked to see people wearing shoes inside houses. Seemed super rude to me.

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You have to wear shoes inside your house in Australia so you can stamp on all the poisonous spiders and snakes.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
Yes, going out in curlers is prevalent amongst certain social classes in UK. I even got on a coach from Liverpool to London last year when I was over there and there was a woman in curlers on the bus.

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quote:

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Originally posted by cliffdweller:

The shoes thing is funny-- my grandmother was always the opposite-- she couldn't stand the idea of anyone walking around on her nice clean floors in their bare feet! *shudder*

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quote:

---

Originally posted by The5thMary:
Wearing baseball caps backwards still seems rather popular. I know some people absolutely hate it but I always wear my baseball caps backwards, when I wear them. Just because it annoys people AND I just like the way they look on my head.

---

What really makes me wonder is the fashion for wearing baseball caps forwards but tipped back In my view it seems to make the wearer look really stupid, though I couldn't tell you why - unless they would look equally dumb without?

Mrs. S, pondering
 

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Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
I think taking one's shoes off in someone else's house is a Far Eastern custom. I was asked to do so when I visited a Korean family a few years ago. They explained to me that 'this is what we do'.

If a visitor came to my house, took their shoes off and padded around in their socks or stockings, I'd be offended. I'd feel they were making themselves at home. It would be like inviting yourself to stay without being asked.

Women wearing curlers in the street, and anyone going shopping in their night clothes is gross, a clear statement that you aren't the sort of person who even wants to get invited to any parties, yet alone the best ones.

Despite the fact that photographs exist of both the late Princess of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge wearing them, even wearing a baseball cap the right way round makes a person look like a prat. Wearing one when driving is a clear warning to everyone else on the road, 'mobile traffic hazard on the loose'. But wearing one back to front! Fifth Mary, how can you imagine that it makes anyone look good? It sends out a clear message 'complete pillock underneath'!

Take it from me, free fashion advice. Don't.

[ 14. January 2014, 11:19: Message edited by: Enoch ]
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
In a tropical country, visitors can take their shoes/sandals off and walk bare-feet in your house (they usually do in my house in Brazil). In colder countries, when they have to use socks, the smell can be a problem...
 

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Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :
 
Don't know where wearing baseball caps backwards came from, but in the days before helmets were compulsory in cycle sport, competitors would wear caps forwards when riding into the sun and backwards when riding away from the sun to protect the back of the neck. On the grouse moors it is permitted to turn your flat cap backwards to give a better view of your shot. Where the idea of wearing a cap backwards when not taking part in a sport though is beyond me.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:
But wearing one back to front! Fifth Mary, how can you imagine that it makes anyone look good? It sends out a clear message 'complete pillock underneath'!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:
I think taking one's shoes off in someone else's house is a Far Eastern custom. I was asked to do so when I visited a Korean family a few years ago. They explained to me that 'this is what we do'.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by The5thMary:
Here's something I haven't really seen in the Southern United States but only up north and sometimes, rarely, in the Pacific Northwest: Older women wearing hair curlers out in public! Oh, I used to see that in D.C. and Maryland all the time and had to restrain myself from screaming. Who wants to see some old crone with her old crone friends out and about, on public transportation sporting curlers all over their heads? Tacky! Do women in other countries do this?

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Ariel:
There was somebody recently standing having a conversation with a friend outside Tesco’s, dressed in her nightie, dressing gown and slippers. In public in the street at nearly midday. I really hope that doesn’t catch on – it’s been known in other parts of the country but what utter laziness.

Also, not so long ago I saw a woman with her two kids one evening in the supermarket where she was dressed normally but the kids were in pyjamas and dressing gowns. If they’re ready for bed at 8 pm, why drag them out to the supermarket?

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Firenze:
Hair in curlers used to be a norm in my childhood. It made me wonder when and where was this high day or holiday for which the hair was being so endlessly prepared.

I don't remember nighties in the street, but I do remember bedroom slippers as acceptable outdoor wear. (There's a wonderful riff on this in the opening paragraphs of Fludd)

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

---

Originally posted by The5thMary:
Here's something I haven't really seen in the Southern United States but only up north and sometimes, rarely, in the Pacific Northwest: Older women wearing hair curlers out in public! Oh, I used to see that in D.C. and Maryland all the time and had to restrain myself from screaming. Who wants to see some old crone with her old crone friends out and about, on public transportation sporting curlers all over their heads? Tacky! Do women in other countries do this?

---

Who uses curlers any more??? Those went out with curling irons!

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quote:

---

Originally posted by ecumaniac:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:
I think taking one's shoes off in someone else's house is a Far Eastern custom. I was asked to do so when I visited a Korean family a few years ago. They explained to me that 'this is what we do'.

---

Stops the dirt from the street from being tracked all through your house.

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EXACTLY! or snow and ice melting and soaking into your floor.

if I were to walk into someone's house with my shoes on (without asking, in case there's some reason I need to.) an risk tracking wet and dirt and dog shit or whatever from the outside world, it would be like insulting the people who live there. like I don't care about their hygiene.

and we always keep spare slippers, but not everyone does. if you invite people into your home you're responsible for keeping your home warm enough and your floor clean enough for them to be comfortable. if for some reason you can't promise this, you tell them the moment they walk in that they should keep their shoes on, you're very sorry but the heater is busted/the toddler spilled applesauce/the dog chews sticks in the house, etc.

and if you're going to someone's home, you make sure to wear clean socks!

as Enoch said, it's obviously rude to take your shoes OFF elsewhere, so I just always ask when I'm outside of AK or the Yukon. crazy foreign customs.

[ 14. January 2014, 18:28: Message edited by: comet ]
 

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Posted by Chocoholic (# 4655) on :
 
Ooh, I hate it when people wear shoes in our house, we have our own shoes in the porch which often acts as a hint, but as a reserved Brit I can't just tell people take them off!

On the pyjama thing, I remember a few years ago one Tesco store banned people going in wearing them, caused uproar!

Some days when I change from my pyjamas into track suit bottoms and long sleeve T shirt I do wonder how different they are though!

[ 14. January 2014, 18:50: Message edited by: Chocoholic ]
 

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Posted by Carex (# 9643) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by comet:


...and if you're going to someone's home, you make sure to wear clean socks!

---

quote:

---

comet: and if you're going to someone's home, you make sure to wear clean socks!

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It's been a long time since I wore socks
 

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Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :
 
The not wearing shoes in someone's house is practical, at least here. Dust, bits of grit, mud and dirt cling to them and damage flooring and make it dirty.

In winter, boots come off, but people often wear shoes that are sort of boot like, and because it is frozen here for 7 months, the amount of snow tracked is small, except with fresh fallen snow, taking shoes off is 'sometimes'. But always if dirty.

Bare feet in summer? If they clean come in, if not, don't. Bare feet in winter? Typically only done if a quick trip out and in, and visitors don't do it.
 

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Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chocoholic:
Ooh, I hate it when people wear shoes in our house, we have our own shoes in the porch which often acts as a hint, but as a reserved Brit I can't just tell people take them off!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by ecumaniac:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:
I think taking one's shoes off in someone else's house is a Far Eastern custom. I was asked to do so when I visited a Korean family a few years ago. They explained to me that 'this is what we do'.

---

Stops the dirt from the street from being tracked all through your house.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
It's also because the floor is a major workspace where people chop veggies (on a board of course), lay out fabric for cutting, and so forth. Wearing dirty shoes on it would be rather likedoing the same on your kitchen counter.

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You chop vegetables on the floor?! That's a new one on me.
(Cutting out fabric I can understand, most homes don't have a table big enough!)

Many people here now ask if they should remove shoes when entering someone's home. But its potentially embarrassing arriving at a house with someone else who volunteers to remove shoes, if you weren't expecting that, as you may have smelly feet or holey socks!

[ 15. January 2014, 07:52: Message edited by: Gracious rebel ]
 

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Posted by lily pad (# 11456) on :
 
Growing up, we mostly wore our shoes in the house but always took them off at our friends' places. Nowadays, I would never expect to keep my shoes on. No one seems to wear their shoes in the house. If it is dry out, I will sometimes ask to keep my shoes, especially if I am wearing sandals. In sandal season, I generally carry a little pair of socks in my purse to wear when in someone's house. It still unnerves me to have people take their sandals off and walk in bare feet in my house. Not sure why, just not what I am used to. No one else seems to mind.
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
I notice that the workmen today have kept footwear on, but have laid cloth over the laminate where they are working.
 

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Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:
Despite the fact that photographs exist of both the late Princess of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge wearing them, even wearing a baseball cap the right way round makes a person look like a prat.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Firenze:

You would need to survey all hat-wearing classes - old ladies, cowboys, truck drivers or whatever - to ascertain whether the crucial factors were nationality, age, gender or something else.

---

Age. It's a generational thing. In the 1960s, in the Camelot days when our President had that fabulous head of Kennedy hair, hats (for men) went out of fashion. We had a whole generation of boys that grew up without them.

This first came up in church about 20 years ago when the youngsters started wearing baseball caps for more than just sporting events. Because their parents grew up not wearing hats, they were never exposed to the "rules" about when you
shouldn't wear a hat. The older folks were aghast when all these teens started wearing baseball caps to church... at least in California.

---

I am a native Californian and when I was converted into the Roman Catholic faith in my late forties, I once wore my LA Dodgers cap to mass, almost: the associate priest (age 35) removed it personally and handed it to me! I never wear a cap on church grounds and always leave my switched-off cell phone in the car 14 years later! I think people whose phones go off at mass should be excommunicated.


 

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Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :
 
I'm afraid that I have an urge when I come across someone with a baseball cap on 'backwards' to ask them 'Where do you buy those caps with the peak at the back?'

A curious thing: paying, say, for petrol at a country town where I'm unlikely ever to pass again, and the cashier ends up with 'See you later'. I feel like replying 'No, you won't.'

GG
 

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Posted by Pulsator Organorum Ineptus (# 2515) on :
 
I'd have been given a good hiding if I had taken my shoes off in somebody else's house when I was a kid. It would have been considered extremely ill-mannered. The only exception was if you were in wellies.

My parents weren't at all pleased when I started wandering around our house in socks in my teens but they tolerated it.

Let's face it: in the 60's in Britain we had a bath once a week whether we needed it or not, and nobody possessed more than four pairs of socks, two to last the week whilst the other two were in the wash.
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pulsator Organorum Ineptus:
I'd have been given a good hiding if I had taken my shoes off in somebody else's house when I was a kid. It would have been considered extremely ill-mannered. The only exception was if you were in wellies.

My parents weren't at all pleased when I started wandering around our house in socks in my teens but they tolerated it.

Let's face it: in the 60's in Britain we had a bath once a week whether we needed it or not, and nobody possessed more than four pairs of socks, two to last the week whilst the other two were in the wash.

---

Whyever would keeping carpets clean be considered rude? That's why I take my shoes off inside houses. It's rude to track dirt all over people's nice carpets.

Why would your parents object to you wearing your socks in the house? Were socks only for special occasions? It is not good for feet to be in shoes all the time.
 

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Posted by Pulsator Organorum Ineptus (# 2515) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pulsator Organorum Ineptus:
I'd have been given a good hiding if I had taken my shoes off in somebody else's house when I was a kid. It would have been considered extremely ill-mannered. The only exception was if you were in wellies.

My parents weren't at all pleased when I started wandering around our house in socks in my teens but they tolerated it.

Let's face it: in the 60's in Britain we had a bath once a week whether we needed it or not, and nobody possessed more than four pairs of socks, two to last the week whilst the other two were in the wash.

---

Whyever would keeping carpets clean be considered rude? That's why I take my shoes off inside houses. It's rude to track dirt all over people's nice carpets.

Why would your parents object to you wearing your socks in the house? Were socks only for special occasions? It is not good for feet to be in shoes all the time.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pulsator Organorum Ineptus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pulsator Organorum Ineptus:
I'd have been given a good hiding if I had taken my shoes off in somebody else's house when I was a kid. It would have been considered extremely ill-mannered. The only exception was if you were in wellies.

My parents weren't at all pleased when I started wandering around our house in socks in my teens but they tolerated it.

Let's face it: in the 60's in Britain we had a bath once a week whether we needed it or not, and nobody possessed more than four pairs of socks, two to last the week whilst the other two were in the wash.

---

Whyever would keeping carpets clean be considered rude? That's why I take my shoes off inside houses. It's rude to track dirt all over people's nice carpets.

Why would your parents object to you wearing your socks in the house? Were socks only for special occasions? It is not good for feet to be in shoes all the time.

---

Because that's how it was among working class people in East Lancs in the 1950's and 60's. My parents weren't being eccentric - they were doing what everybody else did and no doubt what their parents and grandparents had done before them. You would no more take off your shoes in someone else's house than take off your trousers.

There was no question of dirtying carpets: shoes were wiped on at least two doormats, and woe betide the child who was insufficiently fastidious in this respect! Shoes had leather soles and heels, so wiping on a doormat was an effective way of removing dirt.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pulsator Organorum Ineptus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pulsator Organorum Ineptus:
I'd have been given a good hiding if I had taken my shoes off in somebody else's house when I was a kid. It would have been considered extremely ill-mannered. The only exception was if you were in wellies.

My parents weren't at all pleased when I started wandering around our house in socks in my teens but they tolerated it.

Let's face it: in the 60's in Britain we had a bath once a week whether we needed it or not, and nobody possessed more than four pairs of socks, two to last the week whilst the other two were in the wash.

---

Whyever would keeping carpets clean be considered rude? That's why I take my shoes off inside houses. It's rude to track dirt all over people's nice carpets.

Why would your parents object to you wearing your socks in the house? Were socks only for special occasions? It is not good for feet to be in shoes all the time.

---

Because that's how it was among working class people in East Lancs in the 1950's and 60's. My parents weren't being eccentric - they were doing what everybody else did and no doubt what their parents and grandparents had done before them. You would no more take off your shoes in someone else's house than take off your trousers.

There was no question of dirtying carpets: shoes were wiped on at least two doormats, and woe betide the child who was insufficiently fastidious in this respect! Shoes had leather soles and heels, so wiping on a doormat was an effective way of removing dirt.

In the 1950's and early 60's people didn't have nice carpets. They had a patterned carpet square of a dark brown colour. It was rolled up at frequent intervals and taken outside for a good beating and rotated by ninety degrees when put back down so as to even out the wear.

The streets were probably cleaner in those days, too. Women mopped the stone flags outside their house every week (or merely swept if the weather was inclement). I can remember my grandmother keeping watch for a dog that had taken to "cocking its leg" on her section of pavement and chasing it off with the sweeping brush. Your shoes didn't get that dirty just walking on the town's pavements. You would be in bother if you arrived home with muddy shoes.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cottontail:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pulsator Organorum Ineptus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pulsator Organorum Ineptus:
I'd have been given a good hiding if I had taken my shoes off in somebody else's house when I was a kid. It would have been considered extremely ill-mannered. The only exception was if you were in wellies.

My parents weren't at all pleased when I started wandering around our house in socks in my teens but they tolerated it.

Let's face it: in the 60's in Britain we had a bath once a week whether we needed it or not, and nobody possessed more than four pairs of socks, two to last the week whilst the other two were in the wash.

---

Whyever would keeping carpets clean be considered rude? That's why I take my shoes off inside houses. It's rude to track dirt all over people's nice carpets.

Why would your parents object to you wearing your socks in the house? Were socks only for special occasions? It is not good for feet to be in shoes all the time.

---

Because that's how it was among working class people in East Lancs in the 1950's and 60's. My parents weren't being eccentric - they were doing what everybody else did and no doubt what their parents and grandparents had done before them. You would no more take off your shoes in someone else's house than take off your trousers.

There was no question of dirtying carpets: shoes were wiped on at least two doormats, and woe betide the child who was insufficiently fastidious in this respect! Shoes had leather soles and heels, so wiping on a doormat was an effective way of removing dirt.

---

This chimes with my experience too, which was well into the 1970s and 80s. Wearing just socks around the house was not allowed because it was the days before central heating and fitted carpets: houses were draughty and cold, and not wearing shoes or slippers was a fast track to chilblains. Kids nowadays don't even know what chilblains are!

Besides, little girls wore white socks, which would become incredibly grubby very fast if worn without shoes and never wash pure white again. It was a shameful thing, to have to wear grubby grey socks to school.

---

Feet should be barefoot as much as possible when not outside, but I guess people didn't know that then, and houses were too cold for it. What did people have as flooring if not carpet though?

The only houses without fitted carpets that I've been in have had very expensive wooden floors or laminate flooring.

Were white socks part of all school uniforms for girls?
 

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Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on :
 
In answer to what if not carpeting: bare floors, tiled floors, linoleum and scatter rugs.

We took off boots at the door, and immediately put on slippers which had been left there when we booted up to go out.

Shoes would be worn in the house at other seasons, unless Mother yelled at you to put on slippers as she had just washed and waxed the floors, or linoleum.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Were white socks part of all school uniforms for girls?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:
What did people have as flooring if not carpet though?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Feet should be barefoot as much as possible when not outside, but I guess people didn't know that then, and houses were too cold for it.

---

You really don't know what chilblains are, do you?

quote:

---

What did people have as flooring if not carpet though? The only houses without fitted carpets that I've been in have had very expensive wooden floors or laminate flooring.

---

quote:

---

Were white socks part of all school uniforms for girls?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I am interested as to when tights for little girls became normal. Thick cotton tights were what girls wore most of the time when I was small, along with white ankle socks with or without a lace frill and gingham that matches their school dress.

Oh and I wore those long patterned white socks sometimes but now they're really uncommon.

---

We wore tights in the winter and socks in the summer, up to the early 1980s. The socks were almost always the knee-length variety, although I recall occasional white ankle socks.
 

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Posted by Rowen (# 1194) on :
 
Remote rural Australia. No central heating. Wood, Lino carpets.... Not just my house, but in genial. In winter 2.c inside at night.
No one really cares what we do with our feet, as long as we stay warm, and wet, muddy farm boots stay outside. Shoes, bare feet, socks. Whatever is fine.
 

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Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :
 
My childhood bedroom, in the 70s, was bare floorboards, if you walked in bare foot you risked getting splinters! I didn't have a fitted carpet until the early 80s. Shoes were always worn in the house, slippers when in night clothes. And my bedroom was freezing, with no radiator or heater.
I wore white knee high socks until my teens, my old fashioned parents insisted.
I had a South African friend who was always dropping her toddler off at the child minders with no shoes, which was rather frustrating for the minder as she had to pick other children up from school later.
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
Re chilblains, I grew up in my great-grandmother's house in the 90s and there was no central heating, but a gas fire in the front room. I was always warned about getting chilblains but never got them so never got to find out what they were

Even though they must be quite unhygienic, I am in the first house I've been in for a while that has a carpeted bathroom and it is much nicer on cold mornings. The tiled kitchen floor is freezing. I naturally tend to go barefoot (just because I prefer it) but regret it when I have to enter the kitchen....
 

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Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cottontail:
We had carpets, but they were not fitted. They went to about a foot from the wall, and the gap thereafter was linoleum or floorboards. Plenty of room for draughts to whistle under the skirting boards.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cottontail:
We had carpets, but they were not fitted. They went to about a foot from the wall, and the gap thereafter was linoleum or floorboards. Plenty of room for draughts to whistle under the skirting boards.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by A.Pilgrim:
I'm a shoes-on-indoors person, myself. Unless I've been outside and got them unexpectedly dirty, or if I want to put my feet up on the sofa. Otherwise I feel incompletely dressed - not quite as bad as if I wasn't wearing any trousers, but the same sort of uncomfortable 'not ready for action' feeling. I think I feel a sense of not being in secure connection with the ground if I'm wearing just socks (or slippers, which I absolutely loathe and therefore never ever wear.)

Occasionally I visit people whose practice is to remove outdoor footwear, some don't bother to ask guests, some make polite hints, and I do understand if people have got expensive, easily spoiled carpets (e.g. deep pile cream-coloured) that politeness requires the removal of footwear. But for my own place I'd much prefer tough, hardwearing carpet that takes all the punishment that can be thrown at it - after all, a floor is for walking on, so why put something delicate on the floor that you will damage if you walk on it when fully dressed?.

And I never feel at home in 'shoes-off' houses - I'm always a bit wary that I'm going to spoil something by being there. I usually feel much more at home in a mate's workshop or garage, or shed, and you don't take your shoes off to go in any of those, do you?

Angus

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by A.Pilgrim:
I do understand if people have got expensive, easily spoiled carpets (e.g. deep pile cream-coloured) that politeness requires the removal of footwear. But for my own place I'd much prefer tough, hardwearing carpet that takes all the punishment that can be thrown at it - after all, a floor is for walking on, so why put something delicate on the floor that you will damage if you walk on it when fully dressed?.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by comet:

quote:

---

Originally posted by A.Pilgrim:
I do understand if people have got expensive, easily spoiled carpets (e.g. deep pile cream-coloured) that politeness requires the removal of footwear. But for my own place I'd much prefer tough, hardwearing carpet that takes all the punishment that can be thrown at it - after all, a floor is for walking on, so why put something delicate on the floor that you will damage if you walk on it when fully dressed?.

---

something to keep in mind if you ever visit here (or similar places) is that while the practicality of it may have been the reason this custom came about, taking shoes off isn't just about cleanliness at this point - it's about respect.

Lots of rural AK homes are far from "delicate". most people would say something like "sturdy" and "practical" instead. But wearing your shoes in the house here denotes a sort of looking down on those who live there. like you said above, you'd wear your shoes in the garage or shed... and the implication is that you think that person's house is lowly or filthy. So if you're over this way, assume shoes off unless you're told different, or you risk insult.

also, on that note - don't refuse offered food. small amounts is good, but you try everything. otherwise you insult the cook. allergies are a legit out, though. or alcoholism if you're refusing a drink.

since the shoe tangent is determined not to die, I have to ask for you indoor shoe wearers - what about babies? they crawl all over and stick everything in their mouths. surely you don't think wiping your shoes is clean enough when there's a baby scooting by on the floor?

PS - as for splinters - surely you sand your floors, if not finish them?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by comet:
... So if you're over this way, assume shoes off unless you're told different, or you risk insult.

also, on that note - don't refuse offered food. small amounts is good, but you try everything. otherwise you insult the cook. allergies are a legit out, though. or alcoholism if you're refusing a drink.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by A.Pilgrim:

I much prefer the honest, open, unmanipulative transaction of 'Would you like something to eat?'

---

quote:

---

Or as we say in Scotland: You'll have had your tea.

---

Now that's manipulative in the other direction
 

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Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :
 
For those of you who offer slippers to your guests, are they brand new slippers for each person who walks into your house? Or are people forced to wear slippers that have been worn by someone else? How do you know sizes?

I like to wear my own shoes -- they fit me, they're comfortable, they are chosen to match what I'm wearing. (Sometimes my skirt or slacks are too long to wear with flats -- if I were forced to wear slippers I'd trip over the hems.)
 

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Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :
 
I don't *expect* people to take their shoes off at the door. I wouldn't even raise my eyebrows at them if they didn't. All I am saying is that where I live, people usually remove their shoes in the hall if visiting someone else and wander around in their stockinged feet for the duration of their stay.

Weekend guests (by definition, Not From Around Here) sometimes bring their own slippers with them, but if they don't I am happy for them to keep their shoes on provided they haven't stepped in anything disgusting recently.

Taking shoes off at the door might be something people do when they have small children; most of the locals who visit our house have children the same age as ours.

If you lived somewhere like Japan, a good host might provide slippers for guests. Of course, a good guest would bring his or her own...
 

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Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jane R:
I don't remember pavements being any cleaner when I was a child either. As Penny S says, it was before dog owners were expected to clean up after their pets so as well as all the usual fag ends and sweet wrappers you had to dodge the dogshit. There wasn't so much debris from fast food meals, though.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Can I ask what the 60s standards of hygiene were? Were they really that different?

Interesting about the underwear thing - nowadays most women at least have at least one pair of fun patterned socks, it's seen as normal to show them.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pulsator Organorum Ineptus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Can I ask what the 60s standards of hygiene were? Were they really that different?

Interesting about the underwear thing - nowadays most women at least have at least one pair of fun patterned socks, it's seen as normal to show them.

---

No showers. No deodorants.

You had a bath once a week. Other than that, ablutions extended only to washing your hands and face and cleaning your teeth.

People changed their underwear, shirts and socks only once a week, or maybe twice if you were particularly fastidious.

Unless the PE teacher made us, we didn't have a shower after games or PE and we certainly didn't have fresh clothes to change into. I can remember our English teacher complaining about the stench in a classroom on one occasion after we had had PE. She must have mentioned it to the PE teacher because he made us shower for a while after that.

The ever-present smell of sweat was masked to a considerable degree by the ubiquitous fug of cigarette smoke.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:
The stench must have been horrendous.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by comet:
... if we all stink together our noses are blind to it ...

---

Is that the same principle that chicken with 40 cloves of garlic is fine as long as everybody's having it?


 

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Posted by M. (# 3291) on :
 
Growing up, we only had baths once a week as well, but we washed more than our hands and faces - did no-one else have the 'all over wash'? And I certainly had to change my underwear every day (at least, as a young teenager, as I remember, I don't remember as a younger child).

Ah! That's brought the school knickers to mind! We had to wear horrible navy blue knickers as part of our uniform: most of us wore other knickers underneath (which were changed daily) and just had a couple of pairs of navy blues to wear on top.

M.
 

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Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
And I thought the food disaster thread was nauseating.
 

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Posted by bib (# 13074) on :
 
We came to live in Australia after the War and my mother said she found several custome odd. One of the funniest was when the whole family was asked to a neighbour's house and it was suggested that Mum 'bring a plate'. Mum thought there must be a post war shortage of plates and so took 4 as we were a family of four. She was very embarrassed to discover that 'bring a plate' in Australia means to bring a plate of food to share.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Can I ask what the 60s standards of hygiene were? Were they really that different?

---

Back to what I was saying about effort. Water was heated by a boiler - which often meant lighting a fire. Or, for the more technically advanced, an immersion heater. It took time, and there was a limited amount.

None of my primary schools had showers - and you didn't go to the (outside) toilets unless you really had to.

And you probably did change clothes less frequently (see laundry, above).
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Not everybody had a bathroom in their house. It’s difficult to imagine a house without a bath or shower these days, but even into the Sixties there were still homes that didn’t have them, though by then it was the norm. The area where my grandmother lived in Dublin had houses without bathrooms, and outside toilets. I’ve heard this was true of Paris at that time as well. Showers were considered Continental or American or something you might find in a hotel. You could get a handheld shower attachment - one of those hosey things you fitted over the taps, but baths were the norm for those that had bathrooms.

It didn’t mean that people weren’t clean, though. Obviously some weren’t, but when I stayed with my grandmother, each morning a kettle would be boiled on the range downstairs, a large jug with a lid filled, and the good old Edwardian system of the basin and jug of hot water in your room came into play and believe me, you were scrupulous about it. We were thoroughly clean and well presented with, I might add, daily changes of clothes.

Cigarette smoke did mask a lot of lack of personal hygiene though, and men generally refused to use deodorant. Some did wash every day but there was a certain odour to public places, transport, pubs, etc.
 

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Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on :
 
I grew up in the fifties and sixties. Although baths were on Saturday night (unless you had been sick) from youngest to oldest -in our house there was often a change of water after 4 kids - my mother would have been mortified if we had been considered unclean. My dad worked hard and every night when he came home he would do a sink bath in the kitchen with Sunlight bar soap and a grease remover (pumice soap). Even now, although he has been dead for over 45 years, I still remember that combination of smells.

It wasn't until I had a place of my own, with the cost of hot water included in my rent, that I had more than 2 or three baths a week. But that was the early 70s, and by then it was an entirely different world.
 

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Posted by Gracious rebel (# 3523) on :
 
Friday night was bath night in our house. The church started a new club for kids on a Friday evening, but my sisters and I could not go because it was our bath and hairwash night.

We changed our knickers and socks daily, but shirts were worn for several days - I had 2 school uniform shirts (this was in the 70's when I was at grammar school) and one did for mon-wed and the other one did for thu-fri. PE kit was washed once per half term - only brought it home in the holidays. When I started to wear a bra it had to last a week, just like the vest I wore previously.

I still don't change my clothes nearly as often as the teenager in the house, who seems to put everything in the wash after one wearing, even trousers. This seems a bit excessive to me!
 

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Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :
 
I was a working class child of the 70s but we were rather old fashioned as my parents were older and I have 7 siblings. Bath day was Sunday and us 3 youngest were sent to my Grandmother's for our baths as there wasn't enough water for all of us at home. We took it in turns with the same bath water. I'm sure my older teenage sisters had more regular baths though and they certainly washed their hair a lot knickers were changed daily though not vests and school uniform was worn for days at a time. By the 80s when I was 10+ I was having more regular baths, my sisters having left home and freed up space. I can't be sure how often my 4 brothers bathed though!
It's a world apart from the daily baths/ showers of my own children.
 

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Posted by Ian Climacus (# 944) on :
 
Birthdays... I've recently become re-addicted to Scandinavian TV and I notice the Danes seem to love their flags at birthdays -- they are everywhere. This short clip shows a few, but I am interested in that Trumpet Song: does anyone know if it, or made-up songs, are popular in Denmark/Scandinavia? Makes Happy Birthday seem rather dull.

Ian,
who also left his shoes on at home until I had Asian/Middle Eastern friends...
 

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Posted by Gill H (# 68) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by bib:
We came to live in Australia after the War and my mother said she found several custome odd. One of the funniest was when the whole family was asked to a neighbour's house and it was suggested that Mum 'bring a plate'. Mum thought there must be a post war shortage of plates and so took 4 as we were a family of four. She was very embarrassed to discover that 'bring a plate' in Australia means to bring a plate of food to share.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sir Kevin:
I find it extremely odd that English families sometimes had sod floors in the early 20th century as well as no indoor plumbing.

---

Oi! don't knock it, those roundhouses were cool. It used to be nice coming home. You'd open the door and there'd be a flurry of hens around your ankles to greet you, along with the savoury smell of whatever my mother would be cooking in the cauldron over the central fire, and grandad would be working on carving one of his lovely wooden items. He was quite a craftsman and could make a pretty good spear handle with all the decorations you could want.
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
And if you lived in one of those fancy lakeside crannog developments, of course there was indoor plumbing! That hole in the floor over there behind the bear pelt.
 

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Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :
 

 

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Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 
Bear pelts? You were lucky! We had to make do
with frost-dried carp skins.
 

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Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :
 
And remember ironing? My Mum was not into ironing socks or towels but sheets, yes. I don't think my daughter has an iron; I have few garments that need 'touching up'.
From my facebook page via The Real Hoosewives of Glasgow City:
Laundry schedule: Sort - today; wash - later; fold - eventually; iron - Ha Ha Ha!
 

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Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :
 
A weekly bath night and in between, a face wash, though I know an 'allover wash' also came into the picture. At boarding school in the mid forties we had baths twice a week and washed our hair once; we sometimes had a shower after sports, when I think seniors went first and there wasn't any hot water for the rest.
There was an ad (in newspapers? women's magazines?) in about the late forties: 'Are you a change daily girl?'
A friend tells how her new husband was surprised to find that she showered everyday; he'd got used to that when a niece came to stay and showered several times a day.
Wooden houses are still more common here than brick/concrete but now they are insulated or retro-fitted: ceilings, underfloor, and walls, and increasingly with double glazing. Our 1970s house is on a concrete slab but we fitted pink bats in the ceiling; they should be replaced but now as superannuitants we couldn't afford it or move 40-odd years of accumulated stuff up there.
I remember an outdoor toilet in the ageing schoolhouse where we lived in 1940 (and when the inspector came round my Dad kicked the lower board outside and his foot went through). That house would probably have had a coal range with a wet back to heat water, and open fires for heating; I don't know when electric heaters reached us. I know that Dad, headmaster of a small country school, bought Mum a Vactric vacuum cleaner and a Beatty washing machine – it was depression time but his pay was relatively good and Mum's health was poor.
When we built this house in 1969 we had an open fire, a good electric hot-water system, and electric panel heaters; we soon put a log-fire in, but now we enjoy an efficient heat pump in the living room (the bedroom isn't heated) which is an efficient air conditioner on hot days in the summer.

GG
 

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Posted by ecumaniac (# 376) on :
 
The first party I got invited to after moving to the uk I asked if I should bring a plate.I got some very strange looks.
 

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Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :
 
Shower after sport at school - definitely, but ours only had plumbing for cold...

But then the summer was designated the 'swimming term' and I have hideous memories of being made to swim when it took real force to break the ice on the foot bath
 

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Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :
 
School swimming when the pool was cold and the teachers are too bust trying to coax the timid into the water to notice the kids with cramp struggling to keep afloat. I remember it well.
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
We had to have showers after PE and games, observed by the PE teacher - we hated it. No curtains or anything. Once in a while (OK, a month) we could avoid it by uttering the magic words "usual reason, wash", and the teacher would enter the results in a register. Presumably a tick for shower and W for wash. Presumably tracking our wellbeing. It felt darned intrusive. And we had doubts about the teacher's interest in observation. And back then, how could one complain that we didn't like the way Miss Soandso looked at us? (We were uneducated about LGBT matters, but she could have done her supervision without actually looking towards the showers. Count us all in, count us all out and check our backs were wet. At the very least, she was insensitive.)
 

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Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :
 
She sounds just like my gym teacher, bless her heart!

We (baby boomer class) had about 40 girls in senior gym and yet, almost everyday, the scheduled activity was basketball, requiring only 10 girls. It was never any problem, though, I always got to play, in fact we often had trouble finding 10 girls who could play, because the other 30 all had the biological excuse every day of the month. I found that odd.
 

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Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Penny S:
...And we had doubts about the teacher's interest in observation. And back then, how could one complain that we didn't like the way Miss Soandso looked at us? (We were uneducated about LGBT matters, but she could have done her supervision without actually looking towards the showers. Count us all in, count us all out and check our backs were wet. At the very least, she was insensitive.)

---

Are you sure her name wasn't Miss Smith? We had the same concern about her.
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
No, don't think so, it was far less ordinary, and I have complete failure of recall. She had a group of favourites, and fencing club was regarded as something no-one would join unless they wanted to be part of that group.
 

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Posted by Zacchaeus (# 14454) on :
 
Baths became more regular as central heating spread to us ordinary people, but in winter in a house with only a coal fire in the downstairs rooms, baths were weekly events. There was also the cost of the water and the sheer difficulty of heating that much water

Unless you have lived without heating the horror of undressing completely in winter cannot be imagined, wealthy people who could afford heated bathrooms (and the cost of the hot water) have always had more frequent baths

As to going without shoes – which I often do in my own home, I am always told off by the doctor as I am diabetic and have to look after my feet – horror tales are told of people who went shoeless got splinters/bangs/cuts and ended up with amputations, loss of sensation….

and yes we had enforced shower after PE - it was what had to happen after we were sweaty. It must have been some sort of prevailing wisdom at the time about it being healthy..
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
One of the changing rooms had a sunken bath of curious dimensions, about seven foot long, two and a half wide and one and a half deep. I never saw it used, but word had it that the physics mistress had used it to demonstrate Archimedes' eureka moment. We looked forward to a repeat performance, but this never happened. Someone must have objected.
 

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Posted by Abigail (# 1672) on :
 
Showers after PE/Games were completely unknown at my secondary school in the second half of the '60s. We changed into white Aertex shirts for PE. In the first year we just wore our navy-blue school knickers with them, but after that we wore gym skirts which we had made ourselves in needlework class. After the lesson we just changed back into our school uniform. It must have got a bit whiffy at times, but I don't really remember. It seemed perfectly acceptable at the time.

As for baths at home... yes it was once a week for me too until 1969 when we moved from a flat in an old freezing cold house with a shared bathroom two floors up to a new modern flat with CENTRAL HEATING AND A BATHROOM OF OUR OWN!!! I still remember the excitement.
 

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Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Abigail:
Showers after PE/Games were completely unknown at my secondary school in the second half of the '60s. We changed into white Aertex shirts for PE.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Abigail:
We changed into white Aertex shirts for PE. In the first year we just wore our navy-blue school knickers with them...

---

You didn't go to my school, did you? We hated that - you were only allowed to wear your gym skirt over your knickers if you had your period, then everybody knew. Also, on our way to the gym we had to go barefoot. I remember the soles of my feet being black by the time we got back. The Aertex and knickers hugely embarrassed most of the self-conscious under-14s.

[ 25. January 2014, 15:38: Message edited by: Ariel ]
 

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Posted by Chocoholic (# 4655) on :
 
While not about showering etc it's in a similar area. A little while ago I started using alcohol gel after the peace. As a hospital worker we use masses of the stuff and have continual reminders of hand hygiene and the thought of all those hands and what's on them then putting something in our mouths

But I've managed for years before as have my family, and to my knowledge we're none the worse for it!

I'm a bit embarrassed to do it though and try to do it as unnoticeably as possible cos I don't want anyone to be offended although I'm a little less self conscious than I was. I've never seen anyone else using though. Am I the only one?!
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
This was partly because changing, the class itself, and re-changing all had to be done within 40 minutes.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Abigail:
Showers after PE/Games were completely unknown at my secondary school in the second half of the '60s. We changed into white Aertex shirts for PE.

---

In my (quite posh, boys-only) school we showered after Rugby and, I think, Swimming but not after Gym. This was partly because changing, the class itself, and re-changing all had to be done within 40 minutes.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chocoholic:
While not about showering etc it's in a similar area. A little while ago I started using alcohol gel after the peace. As a hospital worker we use masses of the stuff and have continual reminders of hand hygiene and the thought of all those hands and what's on them then putting something in our mouths

But I've managed for years before as have my family, and to my knowledge we're none the worse for it!

I'm a bit embarrassed to do it though and try to do it as unnoticeably as possible cos I don't want anyone to be offended although I'm a little less self conscious than I was. I've never seen anyone else using though. Am I the only one?!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:
I was astonished to read about your use of hand gel: if I saw this in someone with whom I'd just exchanged the SoP I'd be mortally offended.

---

I know, that's why I do it as discretely as possible. I don't want to offend anyone.

I'm not a great one for receiving on the tongue, but even if I did would still feel my hands needed a clean. I have had weeks where I have run out / left it at home so receive with my left hand.
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
When I was at secondary school (all girls' comprenensive/state school in the early 00s) we didn't shower unless after swimming (and as a non-swimmer I didn't swim), this was to cut time.
 

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Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chocoholic:

I'm not a great one for receiving on the tongue, but even if I did would still feel my hands needed a clean.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by comet:
the secret is, nobody bathe. and when one does, we all do. So the weekly bath routine would work fine assuming we all bathed on the same day.

this message brought to you by rural Alaska. Come visit soon!

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Chocoholic:

I'm not a great one for receiving on the tongue, but even if I did would still feel my hands needed a clean.

---

Out of interest, do you also sanitize your hands between tucking your chair in and eating your lunch? Or between greeting your friends in the church hall and getting to grips with a choccie hob nob?

---

Most of the time where I eat I don't need to, we have chairs round the side of our staff room, if I ever go to the canteen whatever I get I'm using cutlery for.
With a name like mine you think I greet people before having a bickie?! No no no, I'm first in line, no one to greet
but I don't shake hands with people when I do (no one does, we say hello!).

Hand shaking during the peace was banned during the swine flu outbreak a few years ago and hand hygiene has massively cut hospital infection rates. At work we not only have to wash/sanitise our hands but do it in a certain way.

Piglet, I do agree, same with antibacterial house cleaners, I was bought up without 'em! I suppose frequent videos/teaching etc about bug transmission rubs off and having a household member who does need protecting from stuff means I want to avoid getting sick myself and passing it on.

Choccie (beginning to wish she hadn't started this)
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
Given the general trend of the thread heretofore, we could shortly be on to foot washing.... (Do you wash your own feet, or wait for a passing pope?)
 

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Posted by Meerkat (# 16117) on :
 
What I find odd here in the south-east of the UK is that when (a considerable number of people, but obviously not everyone) people in a small group decide to go out for lunch or 'coffee', they invariably go to a 'Garden Centre', as against a pub; restaurant / cafe or the local Sta*bocks or the like.

Mrs. Kat and her mother meet once a week and go out for a drive and then it approaches midday. "Shall we have lunch?" "OK, where shall we go ". "Let's go to Wibbledore's Garden Centre". Why? There's a perfectly lovely little cafe about half a mile away!

Would you go to a restaurant to buy plants or garden tools?
 

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Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :
 
I never buy plants. If somebody gives me flowers, I give them to my wife. I never try to grow roses. I rarely water my orange tree. It needs a good trimming and an electric drip-watering system. I cannot be bothered to go out in the back garden on a regular basis!
 

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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Meerkat:

Mrs. Kat and her mother meet once a week and go out for a drive and then it approaches midday. "Shall we have lunch?" "OK, where shall we go ". "Let's go to Wibbledore's Garden Centre". Why? There's a perfectly lovely little cafe about half a mile away!

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quote:

---

Originally posted by piglet:
I reckon people use hand-sanitisers too much, for two reasons: (a) if we kill all the bugs our immune systems will forget how to fight them; and (b) the smell of some of them makes my eyes water.

---

• You turn the tap on - there is no plug for the basin so you leave it running.
• You wash your hands.
• You then touch the tap WHICH YOU LAST TOUCHED WITH YOUR SOILED HAND to turn the tap off.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Okay, this is freaking me out. You have restaurants in garden centers? I am imagining how far you'd need to place it from the manure bags...

---

I consider the best garden centres, here in the UK, to be the ones that offer a Grand Day Out. We are fortunate to have one locally. You can buy tableware and crockery there, all sorts of gifts, cards, a limited range of books... Other sections have clothes, both the fashionable sort and the outdoorsy rugged sort, pet care, sweets, cakes, and a vast range of Christmas trees (real and artificial) and ornaments in season; also Santa's Grotto. There's a large restaurant where you can enjoy drinks, cakes, or a full blown meal, complete with a soft play area for the kids.

Oh, and some plants.

You could spend hours there.

Nen - who has.
 

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Posted by Chocoholic (# 4655) on :
 
Yep, I'm with Nen, you can spend hours at them. Start with lunch, tootle round, have a coffee. I have done a fair amount of a Christmas shopping at ours. If only they'd put in wifi!
 

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Posted by Meerkat (# 16117) on :
 
I agree with the 'destination' comments and the 'spending hours there'... I am quite happy to do that. However, when all you want is a quick bite to eat...
 

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Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Penny S:
One got a write up in the county magazine and had as a selling point that she wouldn't serve solitary customers. (Could this be unlawful discrimination, or a hate crime or something?)

---

At least they're up front about it. Many places pretend they don't have seats if you're a woman by yourself, try to make you sit at the bar, or pretty much ignore you.
(Hint -- I'll be in and out of your precious restaurant a lot more quickly than a couple or group, and single women usually tip well if they're given decent service.)
 

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Posted by Rev per Minute (# 69) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
The manure is normally very separate from the restaurant

---

Normally?!? Remind me not to accept a lunch invitation to that centre! (Mind you, our nearest one burnt down before Christmas - perhaps someone was cooking the compost)
 

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Posted by M. (# 3291) on :
 
Right near where mother M. used to live, there is a garden centre and we would go there just for the tea and wonderful cakes, made by the proprietor of the little on-site cafe. If we had a look around and bought a plant or looked at the little blacksmiths or wanted some manure, well, that was a bonus. But we went there for the cakes.

M.
 

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Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rev per Minute:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
The manure is normally very separate from the restaurant

---

Normally?!? Remind me not to accept a lunch invitation to that centre! (Mind you, our nearest one burnt down before Christmas - perhaps someone was cooking the compost)

---

Yeah, because there is always the odd occasion when something does not function as it should. The occasion when a guy restocking manure has a heart attack outside the restaurant and leaves it there on a the trolley. Given that it is bagged up in thick sealed polythene bags the contamination risk is still very small.

Jengie
 

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Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
This place is a splendid restaurant situated in a horticultural nursery not too far from us. Lovely on a summer's day! This place also gets a good reputation, though I haven't been there for years.

[ 26. January 2014, 15:01: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
I've never been to a garden centre to go to the cafe or for a day out and find it a little odd, but then I can't drive and also think it's probably an older person's activity.
 

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Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
Our local garden centre has a restaurant and free wifi.

I like to potter round, buy a plant or two, have a coffee the browse the (very expensive) pottery and crafts.


 

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Posted by Nenya (# 16427) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I've never been to a garden centre to go to the cafe or for a day out and find it a little odd, but then I can't drive and also think it's probably an older person's activity.

---

Are you a teenager? I spent several happy hours at our local one only yesterday, with my daughter. She's 24 and also goes up there with friends - those with small children play in the soft play area while the adults have coffee and chat.

Nen - young at heart.
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nenya:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:
I've never been to a garden centre to go to the cafe or for a day out and find it a little odd, but then I can't drive and also think it's probably an older person's activity.

---

Are you a teenager? I spent several happy hours at our local one only yesterday, with my daughter. She's 24 and also goes up there with friends - those with small children play in the soft play area while the adults have coffee and chat.

Nen - young at heart.

---

I am 24. I just don't understand why you wouldn't go to a proper coffee shop? But then I don't have children and don't have local friends my age with children, and don't have any local garden centres accessible by public transport. I just think of garden centres as being for old people. Not even my parents visit them except for specifically buying plants or garden equipment, my parents would prefer to go to the pub. Perhaps it's a split between pub-goers and non-pub-goers? We've always been a pub-going family from my grandparents down.

It wouldn't occur to me to cater for children, although if children are in garden centres and not in my favourite coffee shop, that is a bonus for me I go to coffee shops when I've been shopping in town, and sit in them with a magazine and a pastry or maybe use them for a lunchtime panini.
 

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Posted by Starbug (# 15917) on :
 
Excuse me, I'm only 47 and I love garden centres! * They don't just sell plants - I've bought clothes and Christmas decorations there and they also have a small range of electrical goods at my local centre. My friend's wife is the chef there and her cakes are wonderful, so I make a point of going to the coffee shop.

I didn't learn to drive until I was 42. When I was taking lessons, I used to promise myself that one of the first places I would drive to on my own would be the local Haskins. **

* Suddenly realises that 47 probably sounds very old to someone in their twenties.

** Other garden centres are available, but not so close to my house.
 

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Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Crockery, cakes, electrical goods, clothing--Are you sure we aren't discussing a shopping mall with a wee place for plants attached to it???? And a drive-thru????



Okay, now I REALLY want to go to one of these places and see for myself. So much more than the basic US "get your bulbs, weedwhacker and manure here."

[goes off to meditate on Pond differences]
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Crockery, cakes, electrical goods, clothing--Are you sure we aren't discussing a shopping mall with a wee place for plants attached to it???? And a drive-thru????

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quote:

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Originally posted by Starbug:

* Suddenly realises that 47 probably sounds very old to someone in their twenties.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Starbug:
Excuse me, I'm only 47 and I love garden centres! * They don't just sell plants - I've bought clothes and Christmas decorations there and they also have a small range of electrical goods at my local centre. My friend's wife is the chef there and her cakes are wonderful, so I make a point of going to the coffee shop.

I didn't learn to drive until I was 42. When I was taking lessons, I used to promise myself that one of the first places I would drive to on my own would be the local Haskins. **

* Suddenly realises that 47 probably sounds very old to someone in their twenties.

** Other garden centres are available, but not so close to my house.

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quote:

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Originally posted by ken:
I'm from the south-east of England and I've never heard of or imagined anyone going to a garden centre for lunch or to meet friends.

Coffee shops maybe, though they aren't really part of my culture. The place you go to socialise is the pub.


I tend to divide coffee shops (which in England are not the same thing as cafes) into three categories

- real ones, which are independent and not part of a branded chain and where the staff wear no uniforms and are almost always Spanish or Italian. They mainly exist in central London and overlap with sandwich bars. Mostly used by office workers buying lunch to take back to their desks. Often totally packed out a 1am and closed by 4. They have big old shiny esprrsso machines that still show their historical origins on the Italian railways. They can also make decent tea.

- fake chain coffee shops like Costa Lotta and Cafe Plastico. Staff wear uniforms and get minimum wage. Found in railway stations, franchised canteens in universities and motorway service stations, small towns where real local businesses have been murdered by Tescos, and in mid-market shopping malls and high streets. The espresso is often OK, the tea is crap, the food overpriced and oversweet, though alright for a hurried takeout breakfast if you are feeling flush.

- pretentious twat chains like Starfucks and, er, I assume there are others. Found everywhere. Customers mostly seem to be 19-year-old girls trying to look cool and wasted gay men with expensive clothes and Apple laptops. As far as I can tell they don't actually sell coffee so much as a variety of horrendously expensive mildly coffee flavoured milkshakes. I'm not completely sure as I've never been in one and never had occasion to either.

---

Costa is actually genuinely Italian (or rather started in the UK by genuine Italians). Their coffee is certainly nicer than Starbucks whose coffee tastes burnt. Costa also pays all their taxes which is also good.

I am pretty at the 'wasted gay men' comment. I see as many older people in Starbucks as I do younger people, they just have normal people in like any other coffee shop. I've never seen anyone who's 'wasted' in a coffee shop of any description, and wouldn't assume their sexuality anyway
 

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Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by ken:
I'm from the south-east of England and I've never heard of or imagined anyone going to a garden centre for lunch or to meet friends.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:

Well my mum is 43 but I wouldn't say 47 is old.

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I should hope not! What would you say about 60?

These garden centers with food sound like something someone should try around here. That might be a money-maker for the big box hardware/garden center stores. The hubby happily looks at routers and lumber, and the wife sits with a coffee or tea and has a sandwich. (Or in the case of several of my friends, the wife is the one admiring the routers and cabinets and such.)
 

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Posted by Rev per Minute (# 69) on :
 
For us it's often a Bank Holiday standby - weather's not looking too good, nothing specific to visit, let's go out to the garden centre and we'll have lunch there as well. We often go to one which has a tent/camping centre as well ("Let's get another tent!") and other places as well, though we have resisted the temptation of a hot tub and a conservatory to put it in!

The clothes and other goods can be on the naff side of twee, but it's a decent time out of the house that isn't a shopping centre or similar. And it usually gives me my annual kick up the bum to do a little bit or gardening and fill some pots with plants (I generally have the same effect on plants as Herod had on small children, so this is only an occasional urge!)
 

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Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by balaam:
They should forget about sanitised hands and sanitise the taps. Will someone not invent a self sanitising tap?

I find those "Now wash your hands signs sometimes found in pub and work toilets odd.

Let me explain. After using the toilet and cleaning yourself and adjusting your clothing you wash your hands. But it isn't that simple:

• You turn the tap on - there is no plug for the basin so you leave it running.
• You wash your hands.
• You then touch the tap WHICH YOU LAST TOUCHED WITH YOUR SOILED HAND to turn the tap off.

How can that be hygienic?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

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Originally posted by balaam:
You then touch the tap WHICH YOU LAST TOUCHED WITH YOUR SOILED HAND to turn the tap off. How can that be hygienic?

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You turn the tap off with a bit of paper towel.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:

I am just baffled as to why garden centres are so much more desirable to eat in than an actual cafe in a town/city centre?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:

---

Originally posted by balaam:
They should forget about sanitised hands and sanitise the taps. Will someone not invent a self sanitising tap?

I find those "Now wash your hands signs sometimes found in pub and work toilets odd.

Let me explain. After using the toilet and cleaning yourself and adjusting your clothing you wash your hands. But it isn't that simple:

• You turn the tap on - there is no plug for the basin so you leave it running.
• You wash your hands.
• You then touch the tap WHICH YOU LAST TOUCHED WITH YOUR SOILED HAND to turn the tap off.

How can that be hygienic?

---

You turn the tap off with a bit of paper towel. This method is explicitly taught on some public "wash your hands" signs here.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Lothlorien:
Practically very self respecting nursery in Sydney has a coffee shop attached. I guess it is a big money spinner as they usually sell fancy gardening goods and other bits and pieces.

Coffee is very often quite good and meals are served. Nothing fancy, just convenient. Surroundings are pleasant.

Few people down here would go to Starbucks. That is why there are few Starbucks in Sydney or Australia to actually go to. Around 90% of them were closed some years ago because of lack of patronage. Just as well too.

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quote:

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Originally posted by ken:
- pretentious twat chains like Starfucks and, er, I assume there are others. Found everywhere. Customers mostly seem to be 19-year-old girls trying to look cool and wasted gay men with expensive clothes and Apple laptops. As far as I can tell they don't actually sell coffee so much as a variety of horrendously expensive mildly coffee flavoured milkshakes. I'm not completely sure as I've never been in one and never had occasion to either.

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I love it!

"I've never been in one so I know they are terrible!"

Mrs. S, mother of a Starbucks devotee aged 29
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
I remember walking to meet someone at a Starbucks in New York City. I passed two other Starbucks on the way there.
 

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Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :
 
Incidentally, the Australian Starbucks site indicates just 24 stores in Australia now, and they're only in Sydney, Melbourne and the region around Brisbane (including the Gold and Sunshine Coasts).

Apparently there about 11,000 of them in the USA.

[ 27. January 2014, 12:35: Message edited by: orfeo ]
 

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Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by orfeo:
I remember walking to meet someone at a Starbucks in New York City. I passed two other Starbucks on the way there.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by PeteC:
Krispy Kreme does not exist in Canada, to my knowledge. I only wish that I could say the same for *$$. An overpriced cup of burnt tasting coffee... I ignore them.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:


NZ even invented the flat white.

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quote:

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Originally posted by ken:


After all if they really liked the taste of coffee they'd drink it neat, not cut with sweeties and milk to take away the nasty taste of actual, er, coffee.

.

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quote:

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Originally posted by ken:
Its hard to imagine anyone pernickity enough to care about the exact difference between a "flat white" and three-dozen other commercialised overpriced tiny variations on basic coffee. It just doesn't matter that much. It's all too twee and precious and yes, pretentious.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Spike:
I'm not even certain what a "flat white" is. Do you get "lumpy white" as well?

---

I'm not even certain what the difference between a flat white and an espresso macchiato is.
 

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Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :
 
I'm just gobsmacked that you go to garden centres for ANYTHING.

Plants - either grow from seed or obtain from proper nursery. I'm also lucky enough to be given seedlings/cuttings by green-fingered friends.

Nice lunch - a decent pub is great: just not one that caters for the well-heeled OAP member of the Ramblers Association because the beer is usually terrible (they don't understand about cleaning the pipes and the need for proper rinsing) and the food is mass-produced, unimaginative and frequently horrible.

As for coffee outlets - we have a local sandwich bar/greasy spoon which boasts a splendid Gaggia machine, so the coffee is first-class: lunch there is a joy.
 

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Posted by Chocoholic (# 4655) on :
 
Our local garden centre is a nursery too, its started as a small holding and nursery. It's just grown and grown
Gets coat
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
A folk thing I used to frequent
Met at an inn here in Kent

That has started, so I'm going to have to finish

Till they turned out our club
To go gastropub
But the food wasn't quite what that meant.

The last meal I had there was sausage and mash. The bangers were smooth textured and pinky grey, the potato poorly reconstituted packet stuff, and the gravy from powder as well.

We do have some good ones hereabouts, but they cost.
 

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Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:
I'm just gobsmacked that you go to garden centres for ANYTHING.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by lily pad:

quote:

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Originally posted by PeteC:
Krispy Kreme does not exist in Canada, to my knowledge. I only wish that I could say the same for *$$. An overpriced cup of burnt tasting coffee... I ignore them.

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Ahh, but it does! I've looked at them but can't bring myself to eat one. They just look sooooo greasy.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:
I'm just gobsmacked that you go to garden centres for ANYTHING..

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spike:
I'm not even certain what a "flat white" is. Do you get "lumpy white" as well?

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No, silly. You get flat white or long black.

Eventually in America I managed to vaguely approximate a flat white by having an Americano with milk. Um. I think that was it. In Vienna a 'large brown' did the trick. I think. I don't remember whether I even tried in the UK.
 

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Posted by Starbug (# 15917) on :
 
I really don't think I want to walk into a cafe and ask for a 'large brown' anything.
 

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Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gee D:

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:
I'm just gobsmacked that you go to garden centres for ANYTHING..

---

Obviously, an English garden centre is different to one here. Ours are proper nurseries with the cafés added on. You can buy your seedlings, compost and what have you, then go for a decent morning tea/lunch and some coffee.

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quote:

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Originally posted by ken:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:


NZ even invented the flat white.

---

Its hard to imagine anyone pernickity enough to care about the exact difference between a "flat white" and three-dozen other commercialised overpriced tiny variations on basic coffee. It just doesn't matter that much. It's all too twee and precious and yes, pretentious.

After all if they really liked the taste of coffee they'd drink it neat, not cut with sweeties and milk to take away the nasty taste of actual, er, coffee.

One of those things that seems odd to me, anyway.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by balaam:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Spike:
I'm not even certain what a "flat white" is. Do you get "lumpy white" as well?

---

I'm not even certain what the difference between a flat white and an espresso macchiato is.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:
I'm just gobsmacked that you go to garden centres for ANYTHING.

Plants - either grow from seed or obtain from proper nursery. I'm also lucky enough to be given seedlings/cuttings by green-fingered friends.

Nice lunch - a decent pub is great: just not one that caters for the well-heeled OAP member of the Ramblers Association because the beer is usually terrible (they don't understand about cleaning the pipes and the need for proper rinsing) and the food is mass-produced, unimaginative and frequently horrible.

As for coffee outlets - we have a local sandwich bar/greasy spoon which boasts a splendid Gaggia machine, so the coffee is first-class: lunch there is a joy.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:

quote:

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Originally posted by Lothlorien:
Practically very self respecting nursery in Sydney has a coffee shop attached. I guess it is a big money spinner as they usually sell fancy gardening goods and other bits and pieces.

Coffee is very often quite good and meals are served. Nothing fancy, just convenient. Surroundings are pleasant.

Few people down here would go to Starbucks. That is why there are few Starbucks in Sydney or Australia to actually go to. Around 90% of them were closed some years ago because of lack of patronage. Just as well too.

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In fairness, Australia and NZ have their own coffee cultures to rival those in continental Europe or US cities like Seattle or NYC - NZ even invented the flat white. The UK doesn't have that, and hasn't since the coffee houses of the 17th Century.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Yes - why anyone would prefer a garden centre to a nice CAMRA-friendly pub is beyond me.

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quote:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Reminds me of this.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Reminds me of this.

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I realise this is a spoof, but are there really adults who wear braces on their teeth, or is that a curious fashion in dental jewellery?

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:

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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Reminds me of this.

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I realise this is a spoof, but are there really adults who wear braces on their teeth, or is that a curious fashion in dental jewellery?

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Yes, it happens. The gymnast Beth Tweddle used to have an absolute mouthful of wire.
 

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Posted by Pigwidgeon (# 10192) on :
 
I had braces (for the second time) when I was in my early 30s. There have been a lot of improvements, and they are often almost invisible now.
 

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Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :
 
The second worst pub I went to was with a Shipmate near St. Austell. I ordered the special of the day and although it wasn't horrible, I fear that it may have been roadkill because they wouldn't tell me what it was!

The worst was in a town called Sticker. We were seated right away, but the cook was so slow, it took nearly an hour to get our food and when we changed or added to our orders, it took even longer!
 

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Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
The food will be with you dreckly, Sir Kevin. And as for them not telling you what you were eating, what else do you expect from Wreckers, me 'ansome?
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Drifting Star:

quote:

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Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Yes - why anyone would prefer a garden centre to a nice CAMRA-friendly pub is beyond me.

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You're comparing apples and oranges. Lots of people upthread have pointed out that when they have lunch or a drink at a garden centre they're going there for other things as well as the cafe.

Why slate something you haven't experienced, and admit doesn't interest you anyway?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Sir Kevin:
I fear that it may have been roadkill because they wouldn't tell me what it was!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Drifting Star:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Yes - why anyone would prefer a garden centre to a nice CAMRA-friendly pub is beyond me.

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You're comparing apples and oranges. Lots of people upthread have pointed out that when they have lunch or a drink at a garden centre they're going there for other things as well as the cafe.

Why slate something you haven't experienced, and admit doesn't interest you anyway?

---

But I have experienced eating in a garden centre cafe and have been to lots of garden centres, just not since I left home and so had to rely on public transport - I never said I'd never been to one, just that I didn't understand why people would choose to do so for reasons other than buying plants/garden equipment. Still think a nice pub is vastly superior - less twee, more booze.

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Not everyone wants to spend their leisure hours in a pub, Jade! but that's your choice. When I go, I tend to take a friend, mooch round a variety of shops like a mini-shopping centre, enjoy a cream tea (and free parking). If I'm driving I wouldn't be drinking and I wouldn't be drinking in the daytime anyway. Going to a pub and NOT drinking seems like a waste!

So, we have different ideas of where we want to go on these occasions. Just because you don't understand why we'd want to go somewhere else doesn't make either of us wrong

Mrs. S, frequenter of Hillier's for the Belgian buns
 

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Posted by Fredegund (# 17952) on :
 
Our nearest large garden centre is also the venue for a cafe church. My spies tell me that even the staff join in. With the best will in the world, I can't imagine that in a pub.
 

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Posted by Nenya (# 16427) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by The Intrepid Mrs S:
When I go, I tend to take a friend, mooch round a variety of shops like a mini-shopping centre, enjoy a cream tea (and free parking). If I'm driving I wouldn't be drinking and I wouldn't be drinking in the daytime anyway. Going to a pub and NOT drinking seems like a waste!

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I agree and I do all of that too; but I also go alone, have a mooch about and a bit of retail therapy, and then ensconce myself in the cafe with a book. I also go to coffee shops on my own with a book, but I wouldn't go to a pub alone. That I would find odd (I guess people do it, but is it because you're likely to meet people you know there?) and someone might interrupt me while I'm reading.

I can see the transport could be an issue. I'm fortunate enough to have a car, and you could walk to our local garden centre. It's quite a long walk - which would justify the cream tea.

Nen - also a fan of Belgian buns.
 

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Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
I can see that transport is an issue both ways - if you're driving then you won't be drinking, although when I'm in the pub I'm often not drinking myself, but having a meal and soft drink. I just associate garden centres with OAP afternoon tea I suppose, not that my usual pub has a lack of old men mind.

Nen, my usual pub has some booths to sit in - much nicer and no interrupted reading. Yes, I go to pubs alone and read! Strangely I find coffee shops more people-heavy - in a pub everyone's at the bar, so wouldn't be talking to you if you're tucked away in the corner.
 

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Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Fredegund:
Our nearest large garden centre is also the venue for a cafe church. My spies tell me that even the staff join in. With the best will in the world, I can't imagine that in a pub.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:

Nen, my usual pub has some booths to sit in - much nicer and no interrupted reading. Yes, I go to pubs alone and read! Strangely I find coffee shops more people-heavy - in a pub everyone's at the bar, so wouldn't be talking to you if you're tucked away in the corner.

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quote:

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Originally posted by ken:
[have attended church services in pubs.

Its not quite "cafe church" but our parish has a monthly "beer and bible" session where we sit round a table and read an entire book of the Bible aloud (or part of a long one) while eating and drinking.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by ken:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jade Constable:

Nen, my usual pub has some booths to sit in - much nicer and no interrupted reading. Yes, I go to pubs alone and read! Strangely I find coffee shops more people-heavy - in a pub everyone's at the bar, so wouldn't be talking to you if you're tucked away in the corner.

---

Whereas I go to pubs precisely because you can meet people and talk to them. So I'll be the one at the bar.

That's not the same in a coffee shop or cafe or restaurant - they are places for couples or small groups who spend time with each other and avoid contact with strangers. A less open and friendly feel than a real pub.

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As a frequenter of both pubs and cafes (and garden centres) may I suggest you're going to the wrong cafes. Maybe a London thing? Who knows.

Re: churches in pubs, I'm reliably informed that my church was originally established as a congregation before it had a building and they began by holding mass in the upper room of the local pub. Not so odd for a RC parish with a high proportion of Irish and Scottish people.

[ 30. January 2014, 23:21: Message edited by: ArachnidinElmet ]
 

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Posted by Jolly Jape (# 3296) on :
 
I don't find pubs to be congenial places, by and large. Sure, things have got better since the smoking ban, but many still smell of beer, an aroma which I find distasteful, and they are often, shall we say, less than spotless. Compare this with a garden centre, which is likely to have clean table linen, be more child-friendly (not that I'm worried about that any more), and have a wider range of food available. Horses for courses, really.

Interestingly, in the light of the comments from our western cousins here, I'm sure one of the first Garden Centres round our way was founded by a couple of USAeans; I'd always assumed that Garden Centres were an American import.
 

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Posted by Vulpior (# 12744) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gee D:

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:
I'm just gobsmacked that you go to garden centres for ANYTHING..

---

Obviously, an English garden centre is different to one here. Ours are proper nurseries with the cafés added on. You can buy your seedlings, compost and what have you, then go for a decent morning tea/lunch and some coffee.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jolly Jape:

Interestingly, in the light of the comments from our western cousins here, I'm sure one of the first Garden Centres round our way was founded by a couple of USAeans; I'd always assumed that Garden Centres were an American import.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Vulpior:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gee D:

quote:

---

Originally posted by L'organist:
I'm just gobsmacked that you go to garden centres for ANYTHING..

---

Obviously, an English garden centre is different to one here. Ours are proper nurseries with the cafés added on. You can buy your seedlings, compost and what have you, then go for a decent morning tea/lunch and some coffee.

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And of course, Canberra being Canberra, round here we have one suburb that specialises in garden centres!

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quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I've spent the last few posts trying to visualize what you're describing. Round these parts a "garden center" would be the section of the local hardware store where you purchase a rake or a hose or some potted plants-- not at all a place where anyone would sit and chat, and not a bit of food or linen tablecloths to be found, and the only chairs are the plastic ones for sale.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Gee D:
This will give you an idea of what I was describing.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Jolly Jape:
I don't find pubs to be congenial places, by and large. Sure, things have got better since the smoking ban, but many still smell of beer, an aroma which I find distasteful, and they are often, shall we say, less than spotless. Compare this with a garden centre, which is likely to have clean table linen, be more child-friendly (not that I'm worried about that any more), and have a wider range of food available. Horses for courses, really.

Interestingly, in the light of the comments from our western cousins here, I'm sure one of the first Garden Centres round our way was founded by a couple of USAeans; I'd always assumed that Garden Centres were an American import.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Vulpior:
And of course, Canberra being Canberra, round here we have one suburb that specialises in garden centres!

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quote:

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Originally posted by M.:
This is the type of place - although they can be very much bigger and more elaborate.

M.

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quote:

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And this one is a bit further away, daily variations, no choice. More crowded, more "where are the plants?" Polhill, above Sevenoaks

[/QB]

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quote:

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Originally posted by Penny S:
Here's the menu for the one I have patronised in the past. Greencafe

However, I notice that the accountants have been in again. It used to offer things like chicken in mushroom sauce, vegetarian lasagne, shepherds pie and a dish of the day, so there was a good choice of hot meals. The pies now are in individual dishes, with more crust than filling.

And here is the one I don't go to - note absence of prices. Twig and Spoon

And this one is a bit further away, daily variations, no choice. More crowded, more "where are the plants?" Polhill, above Sevenoaks

With its own medieval chapel. Can't answer for the food. No prices again. Ruxley

Not just sarnies

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Wow - how fancy! I feel a bit too common to go to places like that
 

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Posted by Chocoholic (# 4655) on :
 
Ours serves wine too
 

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Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Carex:
Pond difference I expect.

We know most of the local nurseries as we ran one ourselves. None that I know of have a tea room or cafe (though a couple of the larger nurseries take enough time to tour that it might be worth adding one.) On hot days we provided cold water bottles free for our customers.

But my guess is the difference has more to do with beverage habits: Americans would arrive with drink in hand from a drive-through expresso kiosk rather than stopping for a proper cup of tea.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:

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Originally posted by M.:
This is the type of place - although they can be very much bigger and more elaborate.

M.

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We do have some high-end nurseries such as this here in US that look like that, but to my knowledge none that serve food. A great idea, though.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:

quote:

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And this one is a bit further away, daily variations, no choice. More crowded, more "where are the plants?" Polhill, above Sevenoaks

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Their sister garden centre is near here and includes the village general store and post office as the original high street one was closed down a few years ago and Polhill decided to take it on. So that garden centre is very much the centre of village life. [/QB]

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Penny S:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Heavenly Anarchist:

quote:

---

And this one is a bit further away, daily variations, no choice. More crowded, more "where are the plants?" Polhill, above Sevenoaks

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Their sister garden centre is near here and includes the village general store and post office as the original high street one was closed down a few years ago and Polhill decided to take it on. So that garden centre is very much the centre of village life.

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I wondered if they were connected - it's a bit of a leap from a place actually called Polhill in Kent up to Cambridge. Millbrook has leapt from Crowborough in Sussex to Gravesend. The other two are standalones.

And Jade, I wouldn't say any of them are not aimed at working class, if that's what you mena by common! Mind you, I didn't include the one with cabaret evenings as it didn't have a menu on its web site. (And some other reasons.) [/QB]

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Haha I wasn't being quite so specific as saying they're not for the working classes, I just prefer a pub or a greasy spoon - I have common tastes, is what I meant
 

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Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :
 
We're a bunch of elderly cousins who regularly gather for lunch at a cafe next to a Council library but not connected to it (our original venue was at the cafe situated in the City Library building).
Last week the cafe was temporarily closed so we went to the MitreTen Mega cafe in the same town, and had an excellent lunch. Mitre Ten Mega are hardware, timber, everything for the do-it-yourself home handyman, household stuff (kitchen and bathroom stuff, you name it) and garden supplies, and all have cafes, of which our is reputed to be the country's best.
It was very good but we'll be glad to get back to our friends at the Library cafe – they don't mind if we break into songs of the 50s.

GG
 

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