Dressed and up and at it by seven thirtyish this morning. Woot, I hear you say. Is this a new Tref? There is an element of shaking myself out of a relaxed and easygoing attitude that I felt would waste my life away. Life is too short to not be dressed by seven thirty. Well maybe that is a bit extreme but you get the idea.
Been at the family tree research. Last night whilst my life partner was watching a cookery programme I stuck my headphones on and distracted meself by listening to a bit of Nina Simone. Her live stuff on YouTube is v good, if a bit sad.
Anyway whilst listening to NS I looked at checking a few facts on the family of my great, great, great, great, grandfather Daniel and looked up his gravestone. Amazingly I found a few other family graves that I’d taken photos of and promptly forgotten so I was able to add some more info in than I had been looking for. Death dates and names of spouses. Stuff like that.
Well the new information prompted Ancestry to push a few hints my way and I found that Daniel’s grandson, also Daniel, had married his cousin Margaret who lived less than a mile away. I now have a whole new batch of hints that will soak up my time.
When you dig into your past like this it reveals a lot about life in the period you are exploring. For example cousin/wife signed her marriage record with “her mark” suggesting she couldn’t write her name. This was the same for her sister Mary when she married Benjamin Davies from Cwmduad. Their mother Margaret however, who was the daughter of Baptist minister Daniel could write her name.
Mother Margaret had nine children including four girls. You wonder which of them could read. I’m going to see if I can find all their marriage records to see which of them signed their names. Shame really but that was life in the hinterland of nineteenth century rural Wales. We are talking 1820s and 30s.
Just finding this info out is going to take ages but I think it is worth it 🙂 In the meantime I will fit in a little work work at some point. Keep it ticking over, knowworramean.
Outside the shed the birds are bellowing away. It is a nice, if somewhat crisp, sunny morning. A pesky squirrel scampers along the deck foraging for nuts. The football, which was more or less in the middle of the lawn, has moved to about eight feet from the path. This must have been down to wind effect. I doubt anyone has kicked it. Just a small example of how the powerful forces of nature shape our environment 🙂
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Took a break from the research to sort out my somewhat large in/filing tray. Removed some bits of paper for actual physical filing (gawd knows when that will get done but it is now in a different pile on the spare desk). Some went to shredding and a few sheets of paper left for actual action. This is mostly tedious stuff I’ve been putting off for months but will need to get done sometime soon.
The shredding is typically the most satisfying bit of it all. On this particular occasion the shredder was playing up and on examination found it to be chock a block full of shredded papier. I knew what to do obvs and emptied all the shreddings (?) into the now quite full compost bin at the side of the shed.
Shredder still didn’t work so set to picking out all the bits of paper that might be blocking up the mechanism, gave the waste tray a good shove into place and hey presto I was in business.
Emptying the shredder does result in collateral damage in that I then have to sweep up bits of paper from the floor to the side of the desk. OK not a biggie I know but the whole shed really needs hoovering. A job for tomorrow maybe. Manãna.
So the decks are almost cleared for action. The desk certainly needs a bit of a tidy bit it isn’t urgent. I do have an old acoustic guitar, a banjo (needs a few bits) and a telescope up for grabs if anyone wants them. They were just taking up space in the corner in front of the hatstand. Lemme know.
Next up was the neon tropical trefbash sign. It was delivered a few days ago but at some stage needs putting up. To this end the sign company sent me a very good ceiling hanging kit (fair play) but one of the holes in the perspex wasn’t quite big enough to take the bolt. I jumped into action and gave it a bit of a filing down using a suitable drill bit. Hey presto again, the bolt fitted.
That was the relatively easy bit. The sign now needs hanging from the shed ceiling but I have not totes decided where. This act will also mean drilling into the pristine plasterwork for the first time. I have held off doing this on any of the shed walls and ceiling since it was built a few years ago but I feel that the time is now right.
The question is whether I hang the sign somewhere that can be seen from the outside or whether it goes in the obvious place in the corner above the spare desk. The other alternative is to my left when sat at my desk but that would mean I’d have to find somewhere else for the yacht which does look good on top of the bookcase there. Decisions decisions.
I’ll let you know when I’ve figured it out. The Lagunitas sign is visible to the outside when switched on and is an indication to the whole world that the bar is open. Not that you can see the Lagunitas sign from anywhere other than the back of our house. Wouldn’t want any old scrote coming in.
For Mara’s benefit I need to decide what to have for lunch. Still got some nice ham left so could have another ham salad but tbh I had that yesterday. Dunno. Couple of sausages maybs. I’ll have to see what’s in the fridge. These are the important decisions we all face every day of our lives. The make or break survival decisions. Do or die. Liven up your life or blandly plough ahead with the same old thing day in day out.
I can understand doing that for breakfast. Lots of folk just have porridge for example. Fills em up. Sets them up for the day. I don’t particularly like porridge. Too bland even for me. You have to strike a balance somehow.
In “the old days” people often had no choice. My miner grandfather David Charles Davies for example was the only person in the house given bacon for breakfast. He needed it to sustain the hard physical work that lay ahead of him. They hung the bacon in the pantry after slaughtering it. It would last all winter afaik.
We don’t hang a pig in the pantry. We haven’t got one. No pantry or pig for that matter. We did used to have one together with a coal hole next to the downstairs loo but they all disappeared when we extended the house. It was quite nice having a pantry but it’s gone. The coalmen would be able to fill the coal hole from the outside. The forgotten practices of yesteryear.
Gotta go. Food to be hunted and gathered…