Now if you are of a certain age and grew up with Richmal Crompton (not literally of course) you will know exactly who Violet Elizabeth Bott is/was.
She was a character in the Just William books, famous for what we in Norfolk refer to as "puttin her parts on", stamping her feet and acting generally like a spoilt brat. Her most famous phrase was "I'll scweam and scweam until I'm sick." Violet Elizabeth had a lisp. William used to put up with her because he really didn't want her to scweam and scweam until she was sick.
For some reason I always think of Violet Elizabeth when confronted with any youngster who is lovingly precocious.
So we were at cricket where Hethersett finished off their season with their 11th consecutive victory to end comfortably second in the Norfolk Alliance First Division and cement their promotion to the Premier Division.
The children of one of our friends was there with another youngster who immediately told us that she wasn't the sister of the other girl: "I'm just her friend and I'm six and threequarters," she said as if the two facts were linked. When you are that young the therequarters is very important as it is in my life, living with my other threequarters.
I used to love the Just William stories, along with Billy Bunter and Jennings. Biggles also featured in my teenage reading. Later on I turned to the Hornblower series.
Overall yesterday was a pretty quiet day on the blog front as we spent almost eight hours at the cricket club. Got there in time to take a team photo to print out to put up in the clubroom.
Once again my camera seemed to have a mind of its own. The settings keep changing as if by magic and usually I don't find this out until its too late. Thankfully one of my team shots just about pass musters and I include it here along with a couple of action shots.
Taking cricket shots is quite difficult but, having played the game in the past at least gives me the chance to focus my lens on the batsman and know from his movements just when the ball is coming. Keeping the camera steady is another matter, however.
I have used a couple of phrases in this blog. The first is easy to explain. To pass muster is obviously a military term meaning to succeed. A muster is the calling together of military personnel for inspection. And pass muster means exactly that - to pass the inspection.
The other phrase puttin or putting his/her parts on is a more difficult one to explain. Obviously it means to throw a wobbly, to be difficult. If it's used to describe an adult it suggests that the person is being childish and throwing a strop.
It does look as if this is a peculiarly Norfolk expression. I would love to hear from my readers whether it's used in any other parts of the UK or abroad.