Things you assumed were normal

[meredithgrey1]

DH bought some weetabix to have for breakfast a few days ago and I was amazed to see him preparing it by just pouring cold milk on and then eating it like that! I can't eat weetabix now but when I was little my mum would pour the milk on, then microwave it, then mash the biscuits in to create something similar to porridge. I assumed at the time that this was the only way to eat weetabix but my husband was appalled at the very idea and after a quick google it does seem like I'm very much in the minority. So it got me thinking, what are some things that you thought were normal, but then you realised that you/your family were the only one(s) doing it like that?

@Maxineputyourredshoeson, I had that same conversation this evening. Asked DH and DC if they could make their ears rumble and they just looked at me blankly. I tried to explain and they still looked utterly baffled.

To pick up on other things upthread

• tea slurped from a saucer as a child; check

-tea poured between cups to cool it; check

• drinking tea and occasionally coffee in my young childhood; check

-lemonade floats on hot 70s days;check -buttered bread sprinkled with sugar, in a bowl of hot milk when feeling poorly(again in childhood); check

@herbsmokedchicken Do it, you won't be disappointed.

I do onion dough balls, Scottish. Cheese and strawberry jam sandwiches, ice cream drinks, roasted cheese or scrambled eggs with tinned tomatoes, salt all veg, salad, chips and potatoes. No high blood pressure fortunately. Sil likes cheese and banana sandwiches and mince with an egg poached in it.

@BritneyPeedOnALadybug I can make myself have goosebumps too! I just think about it and a wave/ shiver goes through my body.

I though it was normal, when I was younger, for people to buy cars and sell them for more money as this was what my dad used to do . I didn't know depreciation was a thing until my late teens.

Oh my goodness I just tried weetabix with a thick layer of butter and honey (no jam in) and it is amazing! I thought it would be all dry and horrible

Importantwater....i always had either tights or stockings for my stocking....xx

Wait, what Purplelion? People can actually see pictures in their head?

I don't like either Weetabix or Ribena.

Or hot milk. Bleurgh.

Oooh oooh me me!!!

I can do the goosebumps thing

Camping in France I noticed that lots of families brought their pets with them, including birds in cages.

My parents shun flavour and are terrible cooks. They pride themselves on using no salt or butter, neither do they use herbs or spices. Lots of foods I thought I didn't like, I actually do like with a bit of flavour.
My mum makes a no dairy, turkey lasagne, as it's 'healthier'. Yet it is made with a jar of pasta sauce, turkey mince, white sauce made with soya butter and soya milk. No veg.
Turns out real tomatoes, sauteed onions, herbs, cheese, butter and seasoning make for a very different dish!

@Inherdefence I lived with some Chinese people for a while and they would sprinkle sliced tomatoes with sugar and eat as a dessert

No, bacon sandwiches are rendered inedible by butter (also red or brown sauce). Just bacon, nothing else.

It's the law you have to have butter on bacon sandwiches.

See we don't shun flavour, we use lots of herbs, spices, pepper, salt sparingly. I just don't like potatoes or other veg cooked with salt, reminds me of school dinners.

Butter in a bacon sandwich really is gross though.

People who ask you if you want toast, you say yes and they bring you one spice. I mean who does that! Toast is two slices.

I love cold toast with butter and marmalade

I can eat custard hot/cold but why on earth would you have custard with bread and butter pudding?

I can’t stand weetabix hot or cold but absolutely love bran flakes with hot milk

I can sort of send a shiver down my spine but need to think about it

My Christmas stocking as a child was one of my dads red rugby socks

Mine I've only recently discovered isn't normal - whenever people talk (or I talk) I see the words written out in front of me like on a typewriter. Sort of like my whole world is subtitled. And I'm really fussy about name spellings because of it! Had no idea not everyone does this 😂 it's a form of synesthesia apparently.

I'm intrigued to know how this worked when you were a small child, so before you could read or spell words?

We used to drink muddy puddles - a third coke, a third lemonade and a third orange juice.

We had Christmas cake with a slice of Cheshire cheese on it, it’s a Yorkshire thing I believe.

Also had an oxo cube stirred into hot water, like a poor mans Bovril.

My brother was a fan of lemon curd sandwiches, and I am partial to cheese and marmite.

See I don't "see" it that clearly (virtual typewriter/subtitles) but I definitely have a very strong words to text association going on in that when I think I tend to think in text as though I am typing. But the words are "read out" in my inner voice as well (as I do while I am typing). I "think" all of the punctuation and capitalisation for example, which you can't exactly do in just audio and I can't really explain how it works. And I also like to know how something is spelt the first time I hear it or I can't fit it into this system very well and it feels uncomfortable (as well as being impossible to remember). American spelling often feels wrong to me as it pronounces wrong, for instance traveler, the ele part becomes what they now call in phonics a "split phoneme" so makes the sound eel. Color sounds to me like collar with an or on the end. And occasionally I'll come across a nickname, made-up name or foreign-but-transliterated name which doesn't quite fit English spelling rules and I find it unbearable.

I don't remember very much from before I could read, I could read at 4 according to my school records. But I do remember still differentiating sounds as I have a memory of being about three and walking through a part of the house saying (about the floor) "It's not lebel" and my mum saying "It's not lebel, it's level" and my mind being totally blown by it because I had such a strong sense that the word was actually lebel, but I think at that point it was related to the sound and not the letter. But as most small-child memories, I might have been older and already able to read by then. I remember once in reception asking the TA how to spell "the" (because it was such a confusing word that isn't spelt anything like it sounds, as I thought at the time) and she reminded me there was a poster on the wall with little words like the, he, she, etc and I had to walk about probably 20 steps around a shelf to read it. I could immediately locate the word, but by the time I got back to my table I had managed to mix it up and wrote hte :o

It means I can generally spell without very much difficulty at all. I expect it's because I read a lot as a child, as soon as I could read independently I was reading constantly.

We had Christmas cake with a slice of Cheshire cheese on it, it’s a Yorkshire thing I believe.

My dad is from Yorkshire and he has Christmas cake with a slice of Stilton

Got to be Weneydale with Christmas Cake. I prefer cheddar with apple pie though.

We used to have ice cream floats in the 70s too - usually cream soda or lemonade. I don't like them with cream soda - it's too sickly. I did make them with Tizer once, that was fun!

We never had butter on our bacon sarnies BUT we would always put the bread in the frying pan on one side only to fry it a bit - not too much, but just enough. And only on one side, which was then the inside of the sandwich. Best way, IMNVHO!

I always used to do cheese on toast "properly" - grilled under the grill - but now I mostly can't be arsed, so the toast goes in the toaster and then I put thin slices of cheese on it when it comes out. It's not the same, obviously, but it's still nice.

My brother was a fan of lemon curd sandwiches, and I am partial to cheese and marmite.

Lemon curd & peanut butter sandwiches are the mutt's nuts.