aye, they were great days ...

who needs modern facilities?  you can keep them.
in the old days, men were men, and nobody had ice and lemon in their sparkling water, because there wasn't any sparkling water, see.

welcome to lesson 4, in which we once again defy the boundaries of time ...

once upon a time, the floor inside houses was just dirt. only the wealthy had something other than dirt. hence the saying - dirt poor.
the wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on the floor to help keep their footing.
but as the winter wore on, they had to add more and more thresh and it would build up to such a depth that, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside.
a piece of wood was placed in the entrance to stop this happening. hence the saying a thresh hold.

all of which is very interesting.  but a deep straw floor would have been very handy when i attempted to carry doris over the thresh hold.
i needed something to cushion my fall.  as it was, i spent most of my honeymoon night pinned to the parquet.

if you really are keen to learn, you can click the history tag at bottom left of this blog to see the others lessons in this award winning series.  (best history lessons award, the isle of kevin 2008)