April Ancestral Adventures

Apologies for the recent lack of blogs. After four months, the overwhelming waves of post-Covid exhaustion are, I hope, finally abating but I still seem to be working at half speed. Apart from the gardening, of which more another time and some lovely beach-side walks, now it has, at last, decided to stop raining, there have been some family history forays.

In no particular order: I have been working on finishing off another book. This won’t see the light of day until well into next year, so I don’t want to say too much but I needed to find a case study of a Victorian midwife. This will be similar to the case studies in my Marginalised Ancestors book. Usually, you have to false start several possibilities before finding one that goes somewhere but this time I found a brilliant one first time. To be fair, I did put ‘midwife AND murder’ into the newspaper search but what a story. This lady claims to have been born in three different countries in the census returns and gave birth in a fourth country. She is also vague about her age and doesn’t always use the same forename. To add to the complications, there is another midwife, with the same, not very usual, name, well the same as one version of her name, who has a husband of the same name to boot. Once I’d realised that these were two different people I was away.

We’ve had another Forgotten Women Friday, which saw me tracing a staff member from the Fleming Children’s Hospital in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I’ve helped a member of my no longer quite so local, local history group take a dive into his ancestry and am hoping to find his ancestor’s parentage, despite the lack of a baptism.

Next, a brick wall to solve ahead of the August Devon Family History Society brick walls session. I only started this yesterday but I think I may have cracked it. It relies on signatures in marriages registers. Hopefully I can tie that one up today. Also yesterday, a history group outing to Coldridge; just possibly the resting place of Edward V aka the elder of the princes in the tower. Assuming, of course, that the ‘murdered by Richard III’, or even ‘murdered by Henry VII to discredit Richard III’ narratives are not true. The food provided by the local village ladies’ pop-up café was excellent, the company was good and the presentation in the church was thought provoking. I remain to be wholly convinced by the ‘evidence’, which is of the circumstantial variety but there are certainly several factors to consider. An interesting story if you are prepared to take it with a healthy dose of scepticism but also an open mind.

What else? I’ve led another cohort of Pharos online students through my ‘Writing up your Family History’ course. I’ve given several online talks, including the one about the Smith family of London. Excitingly, a DNA link, made just the day before, allowed another Smith descendant to attend. Mistress Agnes has chatted to a WI group meeting about her herb garden, with the bonus of being treated to an Elizabethan style meal. I’ve talked about Uproar and Disorder and Marginalised Ancestors and this weekend it is In-migration, with a dash of illegitimacy and Insanity on the horizon.

I’ve been creating a new presentation about surviving the sixteenth century, which will also be adapted to become surviving the seventeenth century. This is going to be an interactive experience. No spoilers but the audience probably won’t survive. Conversations such as, ‘bother I have six people left ……… not to worry they can get syphilis’, have been heard. Just a shame that I don’t think this one will work other than in person.

Sometimes people think speakers charge a lot for ‘one hour’s work’. Quite apart from researching and writing the talk in the first place, which will probably take several days, any speaker worth their salt will run through and tweak before every performance, checking slides, handouts and links. With this in mind, I’ve adapted my heirlooms presentation and also worked on one for the 50th anniversary of the Family History Federation, to deliver in person at their AGM. I wasn’t quite in at the beginning but I was at the 10^th anniversary, having already been involved in family history for seven years. How to make yourself feel old in one easy lesson.

I’ve had committee meetings, met up with friends and tried to learn Cornish (even after eighteen months I am still at the lots of words not many sentences stage – I did say that languages were not my forte). I’ve also had a visit from one half of my descendants, which involved extremely windy beach visits, guarding coats while they behave like ninjas (best not to ask) and building Lego, including the Lego family tree that was their birthday gift.

I guess, put like this, I’ve had a productive month but I am haunted by the twenty-five things still on the April to do list. I guess there’s always May, except I have a very full May diary (currently stands at one free evening), including a family reunion weekend and hopefully a trip to Kresen Kernow (Cornwall’s Archives), which means I need to prepare for said archive visit and then there’s the job we must not mention looming, a journal and newsletter to edit aka write much of and …. and ….. and…….   Good to keep busy I guess.

Up the Garden Path 6

We moved the shed into its new position! It was quite a performance involving crashing through undergrowth and nearly getting stuck behind the shed, as we attempted to get it as far back as possible, without knocking next door’s fence down. We had to do a bit of random shoving of bits of wood and stone under the corners to get the doors to open and close. There was plenty of ‘a bit more under this side’, ‘no a bit more under that side’, rather like cutting a fringe and trying to get things level. Getting the pipe we’d rolled the shed into position on out from underneath it was a challenge. It involved my trusty assistant manfully lifting one corner a fraction, me laying on wet gravel and risking life and fingers trying to shove the pipe sideways with a spade until it finally rolled out from under the shed. This is not the last of the shed moving saga, as it really is very wobbly and we should have constructed a better base. When we can face it, it will be emptied, moved a little and have slabs put underneath. It is also just a couple of inches too large to fit, so it does slightly cover the office window but I am going to live with that.

The shed is a must. Having just retrieved what I hope is the last lot of things from my old shed, that were being stored in a handy barn, there were a lot of diverse bits and pieces to fit in. Believe it or not, the shed contents was triaged and things were disposed of, before I moved. Nevertheless, I seem to have seven tin of brown fence paint and having just purchased two tins in sage green to repaint things, I won’t have much brown wood left, apart from the back gate. I could probably paint that every year for the rest of my life and not run out of paint.

I was asked where I would like to go to celebrate my birthday. My previous birthday was spent at a funeral, so the bar was pretty low. I opted for Trago Mills, hoping that their garden centre might provide cost effective plant, planter and potential replacement summerhouse buying options. It was Easter Sunday, so I checked online and was informed that it was open. After a forty mile drive we discovered that it wasn’t open. We were also going to walk round Stover Country Park but there was no space in the car park, so some frantic Googling of ‘garden centres near me’ ensued. The first one we tried, about six miles further on, was also shut, despite being advertised as being open. Returning to Stover to see if there was a parking space, we spotted Plants Galore, allegedly open Monday to Friday but with a discrete sign that said ‘Open Easter Sunday’. This was huge, with plants at very reasonable prices. I did go just slightly mad. Amongst the purchases was a wisteria, an apple tree, some hanging basket plants, three herbs, some lavender and tomatoes, peas and beans, because growing veg is always fun. As a bonus, we did manage to park at Stover, though the cold wind made it less pleasant that it might have been.

If you are thinking, surely she won’t have room for all those plants in her tiny garden, you would probably be right. We have investigated the lifting some of the patio option and it does seem particularly well concreted down, so I have ordered a raised bed instead. There is just enough earth beyond the patio, behind where the shed used to be, to plant the wisteria and apple tree. They are still waiting patiently because I want to paint the fence first and there hasn’t been a dry enough day to do that yet. I have also decided to go for the repairing the summerhouse option, as I prefer the shape and size of the one I have to any that are available. I am using the summerhouse as a greenhouse come potting shed. The search for fence paint and liner for the impending raised bed took me to other outlets where a clematis and some heather found their way into my trolley. So, some planting as been going on between showers but there’s still a long way to go.

RootsTech Round-up Days 2 and 3

I didn’t get the chance to watch as many presentations as I’d like on Day 2, as life got in the way but I have reduced my playlist to something more realistic, partly because some of the talks I’d earmarked are not available virtually and were live at times when I wasn’t available, or was asleep. It is great that so many can be watch online, especially as they are free of charge. So this is my round up of Days 2 and 3. I enjoyed giving my own Marginalised Ancestors talk live but remotely and thankfully the technology behaved itself. This is one that is available for you to watch when you have an hour to spare. It was so difficult to decide what to miss out and I have fun varying the categories and case studies each time I give this talk.

I watched Liz Craig’s second One-Place Studies presentation on studying a street; a great introduction and Liz’s enthusiasm is infectious. I saw the Impact Forum live, with several presenters discussing the impact of family history on resilience, metal health and a sense of identity. Also on my watch list was ‘Reconstructing the Lives of our Female Irish Ancestors’ with Stephanie O’Connell. Plenty there for those with Irish ancestry and it was good to hear the emphasis on the importance of the social historical context. I have squeezed several short, Ancestry-sponsored, case studies from television programmes into odd moments. These included Every Family has a Secret and Finding your Roots.

With my Smith ancestors in mind, I watched Shaunese Luthy’s ‘Finding your Common Name Ancestor’. She utilised the F(riends) A(ssociates) and N(eighbours) principle in her case study of the Brown family. My interest in the history of medicine meant that ‘Diseases our Ancestors Faced and how those Illnesses Changed our World’ from Gregory C Gardner, was a must-watch. This is highly recommended and covered UK and US records. I am very envious of the US mortality schedules.

‘From Research to Draft: Rapidly Writing Your Ancestor’s Story’ by Devon Noel Lee contained some interesting ideas for turning basic facts into a narrative, although using AI for this doesn’t appeal to me personally. Her marking-up technique is similar to the work that I do with my writing your family history students and I am looking forward to leading a new cohort of Pharos students through the writing process in a couple of weeks. There is still time to join in on this one.

I have some great RootsTech talks still to watch, including Nick Barrett’s ‘Researching English Industrial Labourers’. I may even catch up on some that are lingering in the playlist from previous years.

A Bit about Grass but Nothing to do with Gardening

There is life beyond the garden. I am three talks in to an eight talks in eight days marathon. Why did this seem like a good idea at the time?

Then, last weekend, we braved drizzle and bracing winds to take part in a harvest mouse survey in the nearby country park. Given that I had barely moved further than from chair to bedroom since New Year (thanks Covid), we decided to drive to the car park rather than walk, as we normally would have done. We had studied the risk assessment – we were therefore aware that we night get hit by a golf ball (it is near the golf course), or get sand in our eyes, or get kicked by a horse, or get spiked by spiky grass. Spoiler alert, none of these calamities befell us. A couple of dozen intrepid volunteers set out to ferret around in clumps of grass, on muddy terrain, looking for last year’s abandoned nests. As you can see from the photograph, these are pretty jolly tricksy to spot, yet within about thirty seconds one was found. As usual our luck with wildlife, or even evidence of wildlife, was out so, although we didn’t find any, in all the team located ten, a significant increase from last year, which bodes well for the population of our second smallest native mammal. Having wandered a couple of miles across the country park in our quest, we were very glad we’d decided to take the car, especially as, by the time we’d finished, the drizzle was seriously persisting and the wind was positively howling.

What’s this with the grass? You might well ask. Well, deep breath and bear with. In the new house the former garage has been converted into two rooms. What has become known as the ‘posh’ half has double glazed patio doors leading on to the garden and a smart light fitting. The un-posh aspect was the flooring, which was very bumpy, painted concrete and I clearly needed a floor covering. I wasn’t up for spending a fortune on a room that isn’t really part of the house, so I investigated the options. What might be described as a glorified shed really wasn’t suited to cream, deep-pile carpet, so I was looking for something rather more hard-wearing and dirt resistant. I headed off to the local carpet shop, thinking I might get some form of coir or jute matting. The first problem was that carpet tends to come in four metre widths. The room was 2.6 metres square, so I’d be paying for a lot that I wouldn’t be needing. They could order me the sort of thing I was thinking of but it would, at nearly £400, be a tad over budget. I looked at the remnants but again may of these were larger than I needed. Then my eye alerted upon a fake grass offcut. Hard wearing, cheap, fitting for what may become a garden room when it is no longer required for toy storage for visiting grandchildren.

I headed to the check out. Firstly my partner in crime asks if he qualifies for a staff discount. The assistant asks how long ago he worked for that establishment. He truthfully admits that it was fifty eight years, to be told his qualification for a staff discount must have expired the previous day! She tactfully describes my choice as ‘unusual’. I didn’t tell her that she was speaking to a woman who once papered a room with rolls of brown wrapping paper. A couple of days later the carpet was duly fitted and that’s another space almost sorted. The shelves still need to be arranged but I am pleased with the result. I’ll draw a veil over the condition of the adjoining half a garage, which currently contains everything that won’t fit in the roof or anywhere else.

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Battling Storms and Other News

Having barely moved from my chair for three weeks, whilst desperately search for my energy and motivation, which have both gone awol post Covid, Sunday was a day to venture out. We’d booked to see a Fisherman’s Friends concert in Torquay, about 70 miles from home. Although driving back after the concert was an option, plan a was to take the caravan down overnight. Site duly booked, all was well until the prospect of Storm Isha loomed. ‘Keep clear of the coast’, they said. The theatre is right on the sea front. ‘Don’t drive unless you have to’, they said. Hmm. Having braved both Storm Agnes and Storm Gerrit with the caravan this season, the decision was made to think of a plan b. Driving back along country roads in the dark at the height of the storm wasn’t it. Because it was a last minute booking, we managed to secure a budget motel room at little more than the cost of the caravan site. This seemed like a win so far.

With wind freshening, we set off on Sunday afternoon. We even avoided the learning curve of struggling with the accommodation’s parking app, as there was a space in the road, which had the added advantage of being free. Next, a drive down to the seafront car park that is fairly close to the theatre and not too far from where we’d booked to eat. ‘Not too far’ when there’s a 70mph wind and rain is actually quite a long way. I know from my handy not actually very fit watch that it is 1100 steps, about half a mile. Still, getting as far as the restaurant wasn’t too bad, considering my step count had averaged under 300 a day for the last three weeks. The only casualty so far was my feet. I’d gone for comfortable shoes, which, it seems, have holes in the soles as I was now squelching along nicely.

Meal eaten, it was time for the return walk paddle to the theatre. We waited for a heavy hail shower to pass and set off in what was a light drizzle. As a bonus, the wind was behind us to begin with. Optimistically, I was heard to mutter, ‘I don’t want to speak too soon but this isn’t too bad.’ Dear reader, I spoke to soon. About half way along the sea front, with wind crashing in the masts of the moored yachts and Torquay’s palm trees struggling to stay upright, we turned a corner just as driving hail hit us straight in the face. We could see the theatre up ahead, we knew we were walking towards it but somehow it didn’t seem to get any nearer. By the time we reached it, everything from neck up and knees down was as if I’d been plunged in a bucket of water. I was also really noticing how I so hadn’t recovered from Covid. I went to ineffectively attempt to dry my hair under the hand dryer. Not helped by the fact that it cut out automatically after about five seconds. What was really weird was that people who arrived moments before and after us seemed to be completely dry. Women with beautifully coiffured hair surrounded my drowned rat look at every turn as we crowded into the foyer. The rain hadn’t stopped, how had they kept so dry? I’ll admit, the wait to be let in to the auditorium and thus gain access to the ability to sit down, was a struggle. Upright is not a position I’ve encountered much lately, especially not after fighting against wind and rain.

We gradually got our breath back and steamed our way through an excellent concert. Then it was back out into the elements to the car park. I sat dripping in the car whilst my brave companion queued in the rain to pay. We were very thankful to have a few minutes’ drive to the hotel, rather than best part of two hours to home.

Next up, breakfast. We’d opted not to pay £9.95 each for an all you can eat breakfast that we didn’t actually want. I am though really bad at missing some kind of breakfast. Not to worry, we had brought the ingredients with us. Granola, formerly frozen berries and yoghurt awaited. What, in our hurried change of plans, we’d neglected to do, is remember that a bowl and spoon would have been a good idea. We managed to improvise by using one of the ingredients’ containers as a bowl and appropriating the room’s tea spoon. Then it was time to return home, in conditions that were much calmer than the night before. Now we await storm Jocelyn.

In other news, box emptying is awaiting more energy and slightly warmer weather, as I am on to the rooms in the garage and the sheds now. Current total of emptied boxes is 189 and we are not quite done yet. I was also challenged to count my books. Despite several serious culls, 1145 remain, with the children’s books still to be counted. The next challenge is trying to fix heavy shelves to a cavity wall. This is not going to be easy folks.

Some fruits of research that I did last year can now be revealed. Back in the summer, I was contacted by a BBC researcher, in conjunction with Lucy Worsley’s Lady Killers podcast, which was due to feature a local murder. Could I identify the property involved in the story? With help from a friend, I located the ruins of said property and was able to report back to the production team, along with providing other information to help with the local background. I am not sure this quite came across in the finished episode but I did get an honourable mention. You can listen to Sarah Bird’s story here.

Flatpack Furniture, House-moving Hazards and Plague

I’ve now been moved in for two and a half weeks but six days of that was spent visiting family. Office and books sorted – tick. Kitchen cupboards sorted – tick. Sideboard purchased – tick. The grand box unpacking total stands at 159. The low hanging fruit has definitely been picked in this regard and I am left with a couple of boxes of total randomness and the garage. Let’s just draw a veil over the garage. There is also quite a bit of ‘stuff’ that is still off site. It has also been ****ing down with rain every day I’ve been here, so not conducive to trying to sort out the garage, which will probably need a total excavation in order to work out what’s what. I still don’t know what my home looks like in the dry.

I have investigated the welcome box left my the estate agents. It contained an eclectic assortment including, his and hers deodorant, a face mask, a tin of cider, a washing pod, a tumble drier sheet (I don’t have a tumble drier), Margerita soda, some in wash scent booster and alcohol free beer. I guess it was whatever they could get free samples of.

It seems that moving house comes with unforeseen hazards. You’ve missed the bit where I was sporting two black eyes, thanks to being head butted by my assistant when loading boxes of geraniums into the summer house. This added to the falling valance pole related injury and the head meets TV ariel encounter in the loft. Then there is the flat pack furniture. If I was married this would be grounds for divorce and I have had to promise never to order flatpack furniture again, not, based on recent experience, that that would be likely. Construction of said flatpack furniture has not been aided by the fact that one of my holiday gifts from my family was Covid. I guess I’ve been lucky to escape it for four years but now I ache everywhere it is possible to ache and then some but I digress. I left behind built-in bedroom furniture so my clothes are currently in bags and boxes and I had ordered replacements. The bedside tables arrived before we went away. They did have the advantage of being small but the ‘ten minutes to assemble’ bore no relation to the actual time taken. The assumption is that no one assembling flatpack furniture can read, so there are no written instructions, just rather vague illustrations and pieces that are supposed to be numbered but in some cases aren’t so you have to guess which piece 14 actually is.

After the efforts with the bedside tables I was having serious qualms about the wardrobe, not least because the rooms are quite small and I wasn’t sure where there was space for it to be built. We began, not without a certain, understandable, amount of grumbling, to assemble it on the bed. This was not without incident as we tried to work out which way was up. By this time, I was regretting my decision to go for flatpack almost as much as my companion, who, I must record, has been an absolute hero. Then came the point where we had to transfer construction to the floor, with the wardrobe lying face down, filling every available bit of floor space. The completed wardrobe weighs over 80kg. Even without its top, doors and back that is still a considerable weight for my valiant assistant of a certain age and a plague ridden me to raise from lying on the floor to upright. If you’ve ever seen World’s Strongest Man and Fingal’s Fingers (if not Google it) that was pretty much how it went. I do now have an upright wardrobe awaiting top, back and doors. I am just wondering when would be a good time to mention the errr flatpack chest of drawers and two bathroom cupboards that are due to arrive today.

And Breathe

Well, it is day five in the new home and the unpacked box total stands at 109.

The final packing up was not without incident. Firstly, I was cleaning like I was about to enter that TV show where B & B owners visit each other’s properties and examine every surface for signs of grime. I don’t think I was up to their standards but I did my best. You know what it is like when you move large, heavy pieces of furniture that haven’t been moved for years, all sorts of interesting debris emerges. Having recovered from the inhalation of cleaning product fumes, I realised that I had packed the gadget that gets grease off oven shelf bars and I was leaving the oven. Chris did a mean job nonetheless. Then there was the wisteria tree that forms an attractive arch over the gateway. For some mysterious reason instead of being its usual six foot high, it had dropped about six inches. One of the removal men, who arrived the day prior to moving to collect some furniture for auction, was six foot four. Cue a hurried removal of a side branch of the tree to allow it to resume a more convenient height.

M day dawned. It dawned very early and like a kid at Christmas, I had barely slept; M day had seemed a very long time coming. The removal team arrived and were very efficient. Our cars were loaded with rather a lot of last minute random stuff that was too tricky to pack. It seems we were supposed to bubble wrap the TVs. The men aren’t allowed to take them. I don’t have bubble wrap left. The two TVs have to be squeezed in the cars too. Then there was a brief moment of panic when the ignition key to the removal van was temporarily mislaid. The final item to upload was the spare bed. Knowing it had been built in the room and there was no way it was coming out assembled, we helpfully took the head and footboard off in advance, leaving just the flat base. I watched the removal men try every which way to get the bed base down the stairs, to no avail. The call goes out for the man with the screwdriver (Chris) to unscrew about two dozen slats and take the frame apart. He clearly doesn’t relish the prospect and with a bit of a shove and the application of brute force, miraculously the frame fits round the ‘impossible’ corner and down the stairs.

We head off to collect new house keys and deposit old ones. Unloading was super fast and by 2.15pm boxes and furniture are in, mostly even in the right rooms and what isn’t is because I’ve forgotten what my plan was. We supplied the removal men with pasty but not being a fan, I didn’t have one. I realise that I haven’t eaten for more than six hours and that I am trying to function on a couple of hour’s sleep to boot. I manage to find some crackers. There’s no sign of any knives with which to apply butter. I debate the practicalities of using the handle of a spoon. Eventually, I find a steak knife, not ideal but functional. Plenty of unpacking ensued and by evening it was time to sample the local fish and chips; time to play hunt for the salt.

The technique for now is to get things in cupboards and books on shelves, as quickly as possible. These will not of course be the right cupboards or the right shelves but it does enable us to get rid of many boxes. Those who supplied answers to the ‘guess the box’ question, it will be a while before I have the final total, as quite a bit of stuff, including the contents of the loft and sheds, was shipped out prior to M day and will only be brought back gradually. There’s still a long way to go.

Purchasing a fridge was a priority as my old one was built in. This was easily accomplished but more of a problem was the fact that I wanted the door altered so it hinged on the other side. This, dear readers, is not as simple as it sounds, as one person has to brace themselves with a tipped fridge balanced on their knees, whilst their accomplice lies on the floor and fiddles with some tricksy screws on the underside.

The delayed Christmas decorating was also a priority and having been prepared by buying the tree on Friday, Tuesday was earmarked as decorations day. Everyone puts up Christmas decorations the day after moving house right? The Christmas decorations, having been loft dwellers, were some of the boxes that had been sent on ahead and should have been in Chris’ house. Other early departing boxes had ended up in three different garages but the instructions were that these should be in the house. Six boxes of decorations were retrieved. Where though were the tree lights and the all important historic decorations, some dating back to the 1940s? Yes, these would be the precious decorations I had mislaid once before. I was pretty sure they were in a plastic box with a blue lid. Frantic searching in all possible locations and no box with a blue lid. To cut a long and sorry story short, the decorations were found where they should be but disguised in a cardboard box.

Hanging the Christmas cards necessitates finding the drawing pins. I can’t find the drawing pins and have to purchase new ones. My whole life is a giant game of Tetris at the moment. Today I was  in the half garage (it has been converted into two rooms) looking for the box with the laminator in. At one point I thought I’d irretrievably blocked myself in but I escaped. I’ve still not found the laminator. I don’t actually need to laminate anything, I just knew I was an ‘office’ box missing.

Achievements so far: Spare bedroom is sorted, including the fiction books in the right order. Office coming on well, although non-fiction books are a total jumble. Bedroom is awaiting the arrival of new furniture. Kitchen needs some work. We will draw a veil over the garage. Next on the agenda is assembling bedside tables, which are the vanguard of the new bedroom furniture delivery.

Christmas is Coming

What does the average person do three days before moving house? Buy a live Christmas tree of course. I am determined to have Christmas decorations, despite moving at a ridiculous time of year and wanted to get in before the weekend rush. Said tree is now stashed in a friend’s garden waiting to be moved in asap. Christmas decorations will indeed come before unpacking boxes.

Creating long blog posts probably isn’t on the agenda at the moment, though but I have posted about Christmas Memories and my vintage Christmas decorations on my Granny’s Tales website. I have also posted about my Christmas decorations, some of which are more than seventy years old, on this site before.

Now back to packing all those awkward last minute bits – you know the sort that never quite fit in to the boxes you have left. This is definitely the most disorganised pack I’ve ever done for a move and I can’t quite work out why. Still unpacking will be a voyage of discovery, with random mixtures in every box. I may not be here until I am on the other side and will need to wait for the wifi to be connected, hopefully that won’t be too long. See you when I have swapped the rural seventeenth century idyll for a home that is once more by the sea.

Almost on the Move (Fingers Crossed)

Well, after much anguish and many ups and downs, it looks like I am into the final week of being the proud custodian of my current home. I am still worried that there will be some last minute hitch but contracts have been exchanged and all being well, I am heading a few miles north, so that I am once again within short walking distance of the sea and useful things like bus stops. I am not really liking this preparing to be old lark but I know it makes sense.

Let’s just hope that I’ve been dealt my share of dramas associated with this move already. You couldn’t make it up. There was I surrounded by boxes, hoping to move within a week or two, when a cyber attack caused havoc for solicitors (not mine but others in my very short chain) and resulted in a whole lot of paperwork disappearing in a puff of ether, cue a two week delay. I have also discovered that books are very heavy. To keep boxes under the prescribed weight of 20kg you need to mix hard backed books with something random and light, so the box isn’t half empty and won’t squish when stacked. I started off well with the decluttering and packing logically but the ‘don’t fill boxes with books, top them up with something light’ is an issue as I have long since run out of light things and the boxes are full of seriously random mixtures. I am pretty much left with just my underwear in the ‘something light’ category. I am sure that was never a problem before, when removal men lifted heavier things. I am working on the principle that if I can lift it a fit, young removal man should be able to. I should point out that I am using the word ‘fit’ to mean healthy, rather than attractive. I’ve not seen them yet so the latter’s an unknown quantity,

My greatest sadness is that all this delay means my precious Christmas decorations are firmly in their boxes. Any other month of the year and a week or two either way wouldn’t have so much impact. The current plan is move in one day, decorations up the next and then I shall be following the tradition of leaving them up until Candlemas (February 2^nd).

Insuring the new house, which you have to do from exchange, was tricky as you are asked all kinds of questions about types of locks and I officially have no idea. Weirdly, it seems the patio doors count against me, understandable if they were external but these just lead to the conservatory, which has a conventional door to the outside. I have arranged for wifi to be transferred with trepidation, as I really need this to be reliable. For some reason my existing company can’t supply me with a landline (although they do currently and I am going to a less remote area) and the twelve year old I spoke to couldn’t really explain why. Possibly something to do with the switch to digital phone lines. I don’t actually use the phone much, except to put the phone down on cold callers, so am going to try to manage with just a mobile. I am a relatively new convert to mobile phones. This means I am a) going to have to try to remember what my number is, b) learn how to put it on speaker phone as I’ve never made more than a 1 minute call on a mobile and don’t fancy longer calls with it stuck to my ear and c) I am going to have to remember to turn the darned thing on. At the moment I only turn it on when I want to use it.

Acquiring boxes has become an art form. It seems supermarkets don’t have piles of them to give away as they did pre COVID. Banana boxes work best as they are sturdy but only seem to come as half boxes, which then need pairing up if possible. I currently have a stack of half boxes, hoping a future haul will produce other halves that fit. I just hope all my neighbours are binge eating bananas. My secret shopper has built up a network of friendly supermarket assistants and does a daily sweep of the local shops but often to no avail.

In a version of ‘How Many Sweets in a Jar’, I thought it might be fun to have a sweepstake on how many boxes I have. It may take a few months for the result as I shan’t count them until they are either emptied or stashed away. No entry fees and no prizes, just a bit of fun. To help you decide, I have 3 bedrooms (2 are very small) but 13 full height book cases, what was a large and full loft (now emptied and stashed wherever I can find room), quite a few boxes of copies of books I have written and what seems to be a ridiculous amount of stuff for someone who has already downsized.

Mostly about Packing and Presenting

Just a short post so that you know I am still here. It has been all go lately, although not in the sense of the moving house type of going. I don’t want to say too much on that front but things are looking positive. I am at least on the hunt for packing boxes and realising that I do seem to have an awful lot of stuff. In case anyone needs to know this, bedding is surprisingly ‘big’ and tricky to stuff into bags or boxes. I just discovered a box that I don’t believe had been opened since I moved in 17 years ago. Its contents can best be described as ‘eclectic’. A pile of family history notes, a set of scales dating from the 1940s, a pair of bookends, a pair of compasses (the sort that tell you which way is north), a pair of compasses (the sort you draw circles with) and some random ornaments, some of which will not make the cut to be moved on again.

Mostly life has been about giving and preparing various talks and leading back to back courses for Pharos Tutors. We are currently in the midst of Sickness and Death but will be moving on to look at Agricultural Labourers after Christmas. If you have ag labs on the family tree you’d be welcome to join in. Today is about the Really Useful Show, when I shall be listening to the presentations of colleagues and friends and chatting about Misfortunate Women. In between, I have a talk to host for Devon Family History Society. Coming up, amongst other things, I have a short presentation about websites for London research to record for Rootstech 2024. That will have to wait until my voice sounds less croaky. If you haven’t registered for the free online event that is Rootstech, you can do so now. I also have a workshop on researching the maternal line to give for The Society of Genealogists, which I hope will be fun. Another red letter day in the diary is the next collaborative research event with A Few Forgotten Women, this time we are investigating students who attended a Somerset school of housewifery. I’ve also been looking at the alleged trip that my great grandfather made to the far east, or did he? You can read about that over on Granny’s Tales under ‘Eastern Artefacts’

This month, two organisations that I have been involved in celebrate their tenth birthdays, our local history group and the Society for One-Place Studies. Where has that ten years gone? It is good to reflect on the fun we’ve had, what we’ve learned and what those organisations have achieved, as well as looking forward to future plans.

Having not been up to speed on where to visit in Ireland that might link with my grandchildren’s Irish ancestry, I am getting in ahead with their Scottish ancestors, as I plan next year’s trip to Scotland. I even managed to add a couple more generations to that tree and have discovered that my daughter and my son in law’s ancestors were both in the same tiny Scottish parish at the same time. In fact, if you believe 300 online trees, they share common ancestors but sadly 300 people can be badly wrong.

I leave you with an elephant, which fortunately I don’t have to pack, as I am no longer its custodian.

An elephant acquired during ancestral travels to the East