[Sandy]

I always have to choke back tears at weddings and when I see babies born, maybe I should dress up in my wedding dress on the day and have my own tea party here!! I just like watching the interactions with people on occasions like the royal wedding.

I hate Racism, how can anyone judge some one buy where they were born, what religion they are or their culture? I judge people on how they effect me, if some one robbed our house and they were for instance French, then no way would I say all French are robbers, its the  individual and not their culture.  I do understand how some one would feel if they were constantly targeted but if you replaced the word Gypsy with some thing like Spanish, German, Buddhists, Footballers etc you begin to see how silly to group the whole culture in the same class as robbers and thief's!!!! after all, how many of our politicians and bankers are Gypsy's and they certainly have been robbing us all!!!!!!!

Lets all enjoy peace good will and harmony  and get RUSTY to sort things out 

[plumseverywhere]

well tuggers will hate me too then. My maternal grandmother was a traveller of Irish descent. That gives me traveller blood. Not something you admit to all that freely because of the reaction that you get.
My grandmother was one of the hardest working women you could ever meet - all day in a factory, over night cleaning office blocks (and no, not so she could pilfer the drawers but so she could feed her children)
Mum grew up in a house. by then the travelling community had started to find ways to become settled to ensure their children were educated. having said that, my mum can't read all that well and my gran couldn't even write her own name.
the only traits you will see in my mum and I (and probably my girls!) that are 'typical' of gypsy blood are a quickness to humour, equal quickness to temper, a fierce loyalty to our family, an ability to work very hard and make money to keep our children happy healthy and  well dressed 
I'm no thief, none of my family are.
anyway, back on topic - still prefer big fat gypsy wedding to royal wedding lol. saw on facebook yesterday that someone has made a 'royal sickbag' souvenier for the big day - and there was me wondering if I should make commemorative soaps!!

[faith0504]

plums it might be worth testing the water for commemorative soaps, eh. 

[plumseverywhere]

could do his and hers baaa's of soap. the willsbaaa and the katebaaa - hmmm, back to the drawing board methinks   

[faith0504]

im liking your thinking put me down for 2 of each if you go through with it, 

[Rosemary]

I was thinking more about the party atmosphere and wonderful surroundings Rosemary. Infinately better than Brum at the moment 
Ian

You woudl be very welcome. Bring wellies, just in case 

[Rosemary]

could do his and hers baaa's of soap. the willsbaaa and the katebaaa - hmmm, back to the drawing board methinks   

How about a Baaahumbug for those unable to get into the spirit of the wedding? 

You know, I've never met a gypsy or a traveller - or at least not knowingly. We had a traveller site near us in Clackmannanshire and the Attendance Officers used to go out to try to get the kids to go to school. Generally, they would until about 14, then they were adults and left. There was quite a clear role division between the sexes and there seemed to be quite a lot of violence towards the women - their main purpose in life seemed to be bearing sons. I suppose this seems odd to "us" now. But the kids were lovely - clean, polite and with beautiful table manners compared to many. Takes all sorts - can't be a very easy life for them especially if they are pushed around. Much of the work on the land that they traditionally did must have dried up too.

[plumseverywhere]

Baaahumbug!! I love it  would have to be mint flavoured (mint humbug, royal mint...!)

hubby and I were saying the other day that the amount of children we have come to play here (and having 4 daughters, its lots!!) its very rare to hear "thank you for having me.." apart from the traveller children who say it without a prompt, without fail.
the children here go to school till the end of middle school and then its boys go to work and the girls learn how to clean and look for a husband.
the trailors are spotless, I have my coffee given to me in royal doulton (with a saucer!) and I feel like royalty when I go round there - so welcome its lovely.

[Rosemary]

the girls learn how to clean

Do they do classes? I could go  Actually, there's a lot of folk could do with lessons in household management. Pity it fell from favour in schools, like cooking.

My Attendance Officers always said the trailers were beautiful and spotless. They used to regale me with tales of the houses they used to visit - dodging the dog poo (and worse) on the floor, hairy cups, filthy houses and some seriously neglected children. That used to make me cry too - they used to do it deliberately to make me choke up, bitches that they were 

[Sandy]

Rosemary, I worked with a lot of travellers in youth work and loved every min of it, they were lovely but the girls soon stopped comming when, as a youth work topic, anything about sex was mentioned, there were some lovely moments and one had a birthday so another brought loads of food and a big cake, after they all helped clean up and one traveller boy picked up the brush then when my co worker went to take a photo he dropped the brush and said "no don't take a photo, i am not suppose to do cleaning" he was lovely and had a small disability and when I left he was a BIG lad...I remember some of the funny things he said but always polite. The worse part of working with the travellers was working out who was who and how old any were, they seemed to have ages that fit each situation!!!! I also know some one who's daughter is now married to a traveller and they seem to be doing really well. I must have put in other posts about the Hippy Gypsy who become well up in the ranks of the police, he has since retired and also a lot of the travellers I knew had nice houses in the community. I funny story was when we used to go off at weekends in our little old caravan, we pulled up at one of those small farm sites alongside another caravan, it wasn't until the morning that I noticed the men with very very shinny urns collecting water from the tap while we had an assortment of off coloured plastic containers, also the men had the most dazzling white shirts on and the penny dropped when I saw the little girls playing with ringlets and pretty dresses while my daughters had jeans and tee shirts on and to top it off, they were listening to Irish ballads!!!! yes, we camped with the travellers!!!!! I bet they thought what a dirty lot we were