Retirement : Redux

In January 2011 I decided to take 'early retirement' from my job in the local town library. After the first few weeks of  feeling as if I was just 'on leave' I soon settled down into having the delightful luxury of not having to flit round the place like a headless chicken and being able to say 'mañana' where housework was concerned! I indulged my passion for reading and writing, as well as genealogy and yarn-crafting.

Then a few months later 'life' got in the way: one chick returned to the nest, along with their attendant paraphernalia (and furniture!) and the other chick had some major medical issues which meant we had to rally round and help with her household chores and chauffeuring. 

Eventually, we settled into a new 'normal' - covering the bases, but not really progressing with things.

Well, 'life' has intervened again - hubby recently retired from his 'day job', younger chick has just this last week 'flown the nest' again and relocated in the north of the country and elder chick is contemplating returning to (self-financed) educational studies, whilst keeping her independence.

This, of course, means hubby and I are 'empty-nesters' once again. Elder chick has claimed we might kill each other, being in the same space at the same time after 32 years of marriage, but we have a plan: we commandeered the 'spare' bedrooms as our individual space - one for him and one for me. I used to joke that he'd have the 'east wing' and I'd have the 'west wing' - as if our home was rather larger and grander than reality! As it's turned out, he gets the morning sun and I get the sunsets - so it seems we really have got the geography of our personal spaces correct, after all! ;-p

Between us, we have a few holidays coming up: elder chick and I are off to Amsterdam and Haarlem in a few days; then hubby and I are touring Vienna and Prague (the highlight of that trip is to Ceske Budejovice to tour the brewery!); then later in the year while elder chick and I visit relatives in New England, hubby and younger chick are off to the Italian Grand Prix!

It looks as if it will take a while for hubby and I to finally settle down to proper 'Darby & Joan' retirement (although he might get a little part-time job, so he'll be out from under my feet! ;-p)

So, I'm gradually reclaiming the 'craft room' I set up when the nest emptied first time around. I'm allocating space for yarn storage and working out how to organise all my Family History documents and images, etc.

I have great plans......!

.......and who knows - I might yet get back into writing.....!

A-Z 2013 Reflections!

Well, that's another A-Z challenge over and done with!

Er, no, actually - the challenge for the month of April might be over but trying to get round all the 1,650+ bloggers taking might take just a little longer! ;-p


This year I scheduled my posts every few days so that in theory I would have lots of time to visit other blogger - alas, 'life' and family got in the way of my free time, so that I haven't had chance to get to as many blogs as I would have liked, although I did try to make a point of responding to everyone who left comments for me.

And thereby hangs a tale because some comments did not link back to a blog, but to the Blogger's a/c, some of which only showed the blogs they followed. True, I could have used the email option, but with time in short supply I'd rather just go straight to their blog. In future, make it easier for people to contact you (and why would you want to hide your blog in the first place....?)

This year I found far less obstacles (captcha/moderation/approval) on blogs I actually visited - so that is an improvement - thank you everyone who made it easy to leave a 'calling card'! ;-)

Of course, some bloggers decided to write VERY LONG posts each day - I'm sorry, I had to give up on a few due to the time factor. Those that intrigued me have been noted so I may return but I feel the A-Z challenge, by its very nature of introducing us to new blogs and Bloggers, means that 'short and sweet' wins the day.

What I missed most this year was not having  a 'surprise me' button on the blog hop (it may have been available but I didn't see it anywhere.....?)

Giving bloggers the option to use a code to indicate what subject they were blogging on was a good idea, so I had fair idea of which ones I'd prefer to read, with the limited time available - the only thing that would improve this (for me, anyway) would be so have each category separately listed (e.g. all the Craft/CR together, likewise a separate list for Writers/WR, etc.)

Finally, I am in awe of the 'hosts' with such an overwhelming number of entrants to keep track of - well done, medals all round! Weeding out the non-starters, spam and those who ground to a halt must have been an onerous task for you all.

Now, I shall keep the list handy and as and when time allows I shall try and get to a few more blogs over the coming weeks and months. (before we start all over again with the A-Z 2014!)

A-Z 2013 'Z' is for Zero-ing in!

(click on the pictures to enlarge)

Rounding off the 'A-Z' for this year, I find myself with many gaps in my Family Tree (that's it, above!)

There are so many question-marks regarding the 'missing links' - the gaps of generations unaccounted for. 

I don't like having large blank areas - I know these people must have existed, but finding the documented proof is another matter!

However, every now and then I get a break-through and suddenly we're off back another generation or two and I have to add extra 'twigs' to the edge of the 'branches'. ;-p

However, some remain lurking in the shadows; almost like rumours and whispers. Well, I'm 'zero-ing in' and tracking down these elusive people - who knows, I might actually find out the 'truth' about the family mysteries ........one day!

Thank you all for joining me on this whistle-stop A-Z tour around the

wonderful (and addictive!) world of Genealogy!

I hope you enjoyed it - and feel inspired to go and do likewise.

Please let me know how you get on!

A-Z 2013 'Y' is for Yesteryears!

(Post-WW1 street party, Carlisle, 1919;

my Mum, Grandmother and Great Grandmother feature here!)

Nearly at the end of this year's 'A-Z' blog-meme, my brief look at Genealogy has reminded me of the differences and similarities between the lifestyles of the previous generations and the present day.

Looking back, their lives were generally harder - struggling to keep land and livestock, coping with almost constant child-bearing and dealing with mortality (both infant and adult) from diseases and illnesses that would today be quickly remedied.

Also there were great separations when families emigrated, rarely to be seen or heard of again, often the only communication would likely be to inform those 'back home' of someone's demise. Nowadays, we have instant global contact by telephone and internet.

Yet, for all their material deficiencies, I've realised that (mostly) my families had a greater sense of community. Then, they would often live within a street or two of each other; older relatives would play their part in raising the younger ones, imparting wisdom as they passed on their cultural heritage and trade-skills. Nowadays, families are often geographically miles apart; older relatives pursue their own careers for longer and are often more financially secure and able to indulge in pursuits for their own ends.

Our forbears may not have had the convenience of supermarkets and 'wall-to-wall' entertainment, but they also did not have the level of depressive illnesses caused by stress that our hectic lives can induce at times. When they fell wearily into their beds they generally were so physically exhausted that they would not likely lie awake fretting about life's worries!

Our modern day labour-saving gadgets would seem miraculous; we take for granted a machine that can wash clothes with the flick of a button or dial, whereas even our grandmothers would perhaps have spent hours boiling up water and scrubbing collars. (however, although assisted by electricity ironing still takes time!)

(as a child, even I remember using a washboard like this and a 'dolly' in the washtub 

-  how many times I nipped my fingers in the mangle, too!)

Vacuum cleaners and a less dusty environment mean keeping our houses clean is not the herculean task Great-Granny might have faced.

Cooking on clean and efficient stoves at the click of a button would seem magical to someone who would have had to find kindling and coal and wait for the oven to heat up - and also require the skill to know when it was hot enough to cook thoroughly but not burn the food.

So, looking forwards, I wonder what the generations yet to come will make of our lives today?

A-Z 2013 'X' is for His or Her 'mark'

With formal registration introduced into England and Wales in 1837 (1855 in Scotland), Births, Marriages and Deaths were required to be collated and administered by law.

Alas, a lot of the general population, certainly in these earlier years, were generally illiterate; thus when required to append their signature to these legal documents they would simply scribe an 'X', leaving the registrar to write the name for them.

I volunteer at our local Register Office, collating and checking registers onto a searchable online index. This requires going through each register for the local area and inputting details onto a database. This last week I did a 500-entry register of Births from 1891, for the area of Leamington, Warwickshire - there were surprisingly few 'X' entries and it was interesting to see how well even the possibly lowest educated person at least had the skills of reasonable penmanship!

The week before, I was doing a Marriage register for the same area but from 1837 - far more 'X' entries that time! Mind you, some of the incumbent Ministers of the parish concerned seemed to have almost illegible writing - 'a', 'e' and 'o' took a bit of guesswork in interpretation on my part; likewise the fashion for not crossing the 't' mid-word. It required a bit of detective work to determine whether they meant 't' or 'l'!

Mind you - here's my 2xGreat Grandparent's marriage recorded in the parish register for Wetheral, Cumberland, 1835:

 (click on the picture to enlarge)

He managed to make a good signature but she, poor lass, had to make her mark - and couldn't even manage a 'X'! 

A-Z 2012 'W' is for Workhouse

(Bermondsey Union Workhouse, Lewisham, c.1900)

Searching through my Family Tree I have so far not found any reference of any family members being forced into the Workhouse. Poor though some of them may have been, it seems they were able to keep the wolf from the door - or at least had other family and friends willing to support them.

For that, I am grateful - reading of the harrowing and spartan conditions in many workhouses, especially in Victorian times, it is no wonder that it really was the last resort for many.

Many of these establishments were grim and prison-like, with different accommodation blocks to segregate the genders. On arrival, families would be separated, mothers nursing children would be kept together, but most often older children were housed separately - I wonder if some ever saw each other again.

Diet was poor and subsistent - despite regulated inspectors, Workhouse overseers were largely masters of their own domain and would often seek to save money by serving low quality food.

Aside from all this, the days were long and tedious with menial tasks to be performed - it is small wonder so many inmates developed mental problems.

Census records for Workhouses list the Overseer as the Head of the 'household' and then his own family, followed by a list of all the inmates and details of their age, place of birth and occupation. Given the fact that they were housed and treated indifferently, I suppose at least with every decade-wide census they were afforded the courtesy of appearing as individuals in their own right.

This verse perhaps sums up the despair that so many tried to avoid when faced with the prospect of ending up in the Workhouse:

Hush-a-bye baby, on the tree top,

When you grow old, your wages will stop,

When you have spent the little you made

First to the Poorhouse and then to the grave.

(anonymous verse from Yorkshire)

A-Z 2013 'V' is for Villages

(Parish Church of St Mary and St Peter, Weedon Lois, Northamptonshire)

Hunting down my elusive forebears has seen me tramping through various cemeteries and churchyards, sometimes in large towns and cities, but more often in small and out-of-the-way villages.

So often, in British history, the 'village' has been the entire universe to some of our ancestors. Some lived and died without ever moving out of their bucolic environs.

A lot of these villages have amazing names - some small and mono-syllabic, others double-barrelled or hyphenated; often the smallest hamlets have the longest names!

Here in the English Midlands, near the meeting point of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Warwickshire, we are surrounded by some of the quaintest of village names; for example: Bishop's Itchington, Leamington Hastings, Ashby St Ledgers, Claybrook Magna, Husbands Bosworth, Luddington-in-the-Brook, Yardley Gobion....old and curious names that have survived the generations.

Then there are the odd little ones: Crick, Hope, Leire, Aynho, Old, Griff - all tucked away in the gentle rolling countryside.

At least when my ancestors stayed put it made it easy to look for them - then some got the wanderlust and they were up, off and away!

We discovered a couple of hubby's ancestors were buried in the nearby village of Roade - odd, as the family all seemed to come from London. On further investigation, we discovered that this couple, man and wife, had set off from Roade at the start of their marriage and set up in the shoe trade in London. (We think he was a master shoemaker and Roade is in Northampton, a traditional site for the shoe industry.)

It seems they raised a fairly large and extended family in the London area, but then returned to their roots in their latter days, being buried with their own ancestors. I've pieced a line back (via their siblings) as far as 1592 - all back to that same village! And knowing how these family names changed their spelling over the years, I've made a tenuous (but so far unsatisfactorily proven) link back to the early 1400's!

Now hubby's just retired, I think we might pack a picnic and take ourselves off to Roade, for a tramp around the churchyard - to think his family are virtually on our doorstep!