The nights are drawing in.
The air is distinctly autumnal...and have you noticed that since they told us we were going to be banned from using hosepipes(even thought ban was retracted before it came into force) we have had a fair old share of the wet stuff?
So, it seems that sun has packed her bags and left...though she might make a brief return visit for a weekend....in October( Luke's little Summer).
Since we lost Ma my life has been somewhat disordered.
Full of trials and tribulations.
They seem never ending and I dread seeing an
e-mail in my inbox from the solicitors...it usually
means unwelcome news from the antipodes.
So my distractions have been my saviour.
Designing and making Christmas cards....and then trying to sell them to my neighbours has taken up some of my time...and I am still in the process of getting a stock of these to sell at the School Christmas Fair.
The proceeds will be going to a very good cause...sending my daughters boy on an expedition to Borneo.
Not a holiday, but a volunteering experience.
We(the family) have to raise £4,500 for this expedition...no mean feat when my cards are raising just a pound each.
Obviously not all the money will be raised by my selling my cards....there will be other fund raising efforts.
My other most recent distraction has been to do with hunting down ancestors.
Not mine, but for someone I only know through the internet.
Tracing someone else's ancestors is an absorbing pursuit...and it takes every one of your brain cells so there is no time to be thinking about what is happening with Ma's estate.
In that way it has been very therapeutic...but also it has made me question the way we teach our children history.
I have found that doing this kind of research stimulates so many questions about the times that these ancestors lived through...and the act of doing something(looking up their lives) means that I remember what I am researching.
My current searches are around a family that originated in Ireland.
So it made me ask why they would leave their families and their homes there to come the England...most of them came like most migrants do...to better their lives.
Except in many situations their lives were just as hard, but in a different way.
Researching family history not only teaches you what was going on at the time they lived.
It teaches you about social history and geography too....so why do we not teach children in this way at school?
They would learn more, retain the information because it would have a relevance to them personally...best of all it would be enjoyable and stimulate their curiosity.
Ah well, better go there is a man from 1874 I am chasing...he should not take a lot of catching.
The air is distinctly autumnal...and have you noticed that since they told us we were going to be banned from using hosepipes(even thought ban was retracted before it came into force) we have had a fair old share of the wet stuff?
So, it seems that sun has packed her bags and left...though she might make a brief return visit for a weekend....in October( Luke's little Summer).
Since we lost Ma my life has been somewhat disordered.
Full of trials and tribulations.
They seem never ending and I dread seeing an
e-mail in my inbox from the solicitors...it usually
means unwelcome news from the antipodes.
So my distractions have been my saviour.
Designing and making Christmas cards....and then trying to sell them to my neighbours has taken up some of my time...and I am still in the process of getting a stock of these to sell at the School Christmas Fair.
The proceeds will be going to a very good cause...sending my daughters boy on an expedition to Borneo.
Not a holiday, but a volunteering experience.
We(the family) have to raise £4,500 for this expedition...no mean feat when my cards are raising just a pound each.
Obviously not all the money will be raised by my selling my cards....there will be other fund raising efforts.
My other most recent distraction has been to do with hunting down ancestors.
Not mine, but for someone I only know through the internet.
Tracing someone else's ancestors is an absorbing pursuit...and it takes every one of your brain cells so there is no time to be thinking about what is happening with Ma's estate.
In that way it has been very therapeutic...but also it has made me question the way we teach our children history.
I have found that doing this kind of research stimulates so many questions about the times that these ancestors lived through...and the act of doing something(looking up their lives) means that I remember what I am researching.
My current searches are around a family that originated in Ireland.
So it made me ask why they would leave their families and their homes there to come the England...most of them came like most migrants do...to better their lives.
Except in many situations their lives were just as hard, but in a different way.
Researching family history not only teaches you what was going on at the time they lived.
It teaches you about social history and geography too....so why do we not teach children in this way at school?
They would learn more, retain the information because it would have a relevance to them personally...best of all it would be enjoyable and stimulate their curiosity.
Ah well, better go there is a man from 1874 I am chasing...he should not take a lot of catching.