Thank you for joining me once again on Whimsical Wednesday when anything goes..wherever my thoughts take me or when something stops me in my tracks and makes think or when something just wows me…

As sun sea and sand have featured quite highly on my radar the last few weeks and will again very soon as in a few weeks I am off to Pattaya to see one of my besties…

Time for a story…One which evoked memories of sun, sea and sand…This very short story came about when on a writers retreat we were given a Salt Water Taffy and five minutes to write our thoughts down…

Salt Water Taffy by Carol Taylor.

Brilliant turquoise in colour, my fingers now sticky on my screen, sweet nothing on my tongue with a sort of fudge-like texture.  Would I eat another?

“No”

The disappointment flooded over me when I realized it wasn’t a blueberry flavour.

But, instead, it invoked pictures in my memory of a hazy blue sea,  sailboats, men in boaters,  ladies in bloomers and those wonderful beach huts which are now so in vogue. Children running along with kites, donkey rides on the clean white sand. Ice Cream and Candyfloss

How one tiny rectangle of sweet stickiness could evoke long-forgotten memories of an idyllic childhood was truly amazing.

Long Live Salt Water Taffy.

What is salt Water Taffy then where did it originate?

No one really knows but a man called Joseph Fralinger who was a former glassblower and fish merchant from Atlantic City opened a small concession in the mid-1880’s selling lemonade. After taking over a taffy stand he began to perfect his own recipe for Taffy. An entrepreneur at heart he packed one pound oyster boxes with Salt Water Taffy and launched the first ” Atlantic City Souvenir” today this one-pound box still remains the most popular souvenir.

Today there are over 155 flavours of Salt Water Taffy and not a drop of seawater to be seen

The birth flower of August is the lovely poppy…A beautiful but delicate flower and the birthstone is the pretty green Peridot however in Tibetan history it is the mystical Diamond which is the birthstone.

I grew up watching Laurel and Hardy...Slapstick comedy was all the rage and I still sort of prefer it to some of the comedy about now…On this day in 1957, Oliver Hardy sadly passed away but left a legacy in the minds of many…1892-1957 R.I.P…Thank you, Ollie and Stan, for the memories…

On August the 6th 1859...A pill to cure all ills was launched…Beecham Pills …I remember those little sachets of powder the Beecham Powder which mum gave us in water for most ailments…So popular was it that no one doubted its extravagant claim in the worlds first advertising slogan.

Photo credit: Medical Heritage Library, Inc. on VisualHunt.com / CC BY-NC-SA

The sandwich was named after the Earl of sandwich when he was busy playing cards and feeling hungry and on a winning streak, he asked for some meat to be put between two slices of bread…Thus the sandwich was born…I am guessing that as it has been around since approx 1762 that it is not going to be obsolete any time soon and it has certainly come a long way since then the most expensive sandwich is this one and it holds the Guinness Book Of Record title …..That is some cheese sandwich…

Tomorrow is the date of one of the most talked-about robberies Great Train Robbery…The robbery is one of Britain’s most notorious crimes.

The Great Train Robbery was the robbery of £2.6 million from a Royal Mail train heading from Glasgow to London on the West Coast Main Line in the early hours of 8 August 1963, at Bridego Railway Bridge, Ledburn, near Mentmore in Buckinghamshire, England.

After tampering with the lineside signals in order to bring the train to a halt, a gang of fifteen, led by Bruce Reynolds, attacked the train. Other gang members included Gordon Goody, Buster Edwards, Charlie Wilson, Roy James, John Daly, Jimmy White, Ronnie Biggs, Tommy Wisbey, Jim Hussey, Bob Welch and Roger Cordrey, as well as three men known only as numbers “1”, “2” and “3”. A 16th man, an unnamed retired train driver, was also present.

The one who got away…

This week is also National Smile Week, August 5-11th. 

Smiling makes me feel good and it helps you live longer…it boosts the immune system, it is contagious and I would rather catch a smile than a cold…Wouldn’t you? So don’t forget to smile today!

Smiling Is Infectious
Author Unknown

Smiling is infectious,
you catch it like the flu,
When someone smiled at me today,
I started smiling too.

I passed around the corner
and someone saw my grin.
When he smiled I realized
I’d passed it on to him.

I thought about that smile,
then I realized its worth.
A single smile, just like mine
could travel round the earth.

So, if you feel a smile begin,
don’t leave it undetected.
Let’s start an epidemic quick,
and get the world

Smiling and music I think go together …August 1985 saw Barbra Streisand record her Broadway album also the song “Tik Tok” was the Billboard song of the year in August 2010 sang by Kesha…It is a catchy little tune which is still very popular today but I have opted for my song of the week a Streisand song and one of my favourites…Streisand dueting with Barry Gibb…

Of course, I do always pop a recipe in here somewhere as you all know that CarolCooks2 and today I am over @ Sally’s for my Cookery Column…This week was a bit of a saga as having made a scrumptious salmon burger I thought I would share some burger recipes as they are popular…Some of my images had become corrupted so I thought time to make some and take more pictures so of I went shopping sourced minced beef and some other food items and then I couldn’t get burger buns for love or money…

My post was done..written minus some images…I should have known to get the most important item first as shopping can be hit and miss here…For example, I have a recipe I want to try using Jalapenos… I have been trying for a few weeks to get them to no avail…I couldn’t get the wrappers I req either until yesterday so they went in the basket ready for when I can get jalapenos… I did, however, get burger buns so tonight it will be assorted burgers and hopefully, I will get some good images…

It was then a quick think about something quick to do that I hadn’t done before so chicken breasts and a deconstructed crumble was the order of the day…For the recipes click the link to Sally’s blog above …

You have probably gathered by now that some of my cooking ingredients are scarce and sometimes difficult to obtain …I have to plan accordingly…But it is warm and the sun shines…x

Thank you for reading my whimsical ramblings I do hope you enjoyed and it bought back some memories… xxx

About Carol Taylor:

Enjoying life in The Land Of Smiles I am having so much fun researching, finding new, authentic recipes both Thai and International to share with you. New recipes gleaned from those who I have met on my travels or are just passing through and stopped for a while. I hope you enjoy them.

I love shopping at the local markets, finding fresh, natural ingredients, new strange fruits and vegetable ones I have never seen or cooked with. I am generally the only European person and attract much attention and I love to try what I am offered and when I smile and say Aroy or Saab as it is here in the north I am met with much smiling.

Some of my recipes may not be in line with traditional ingredients and methods of cooking but are recipes I know and have become to love and maybe if you dare to try you will too. You will always get more than just a recipe from me as I love to research and find out what other properties the ingredients I use contain to improve our health and wellbeing.

The environment is also something I am passionate about and there will be more on this on my blog this year

Exciting for me hence the title of my blog, Retired No One Told Me! I am having a wonderful ride and don’t want to get off, so if you wish to follow me on my adventures, then welcome! I hope you enjoy the ride also and if it encourages you to take a step into the unknown or untried, you know you want to…….Then, I will be happy!

More and more of my blogging friends have joined me on MeWe…A social media site which is fairly new and which promises much without the restrictions some other social media sites are choosing to impose on many of us…Join me if you will on  mewe.com/i/caroltaylor3 

Carol is a contributor to the Phuket Island Writers Anthology: https://www.amazon.com/Phuket-Island-Writers-Anthology-Stories-ebook/dp/B00RU5IYNS

Connect to Carol

Blog: https://carolcooks2.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheRealCarolT
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carol.taylor.1422

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/caroltaylor56/pins/

Thank you once again for reading this post I hope you all have a creative week ahead xx