reality bites...

Goodbye April…Hello May, well tomorrow will be May.

We were chatting to an interesting old chap on the station at Canada Water after work we were waiting for our train home. 

He’s a professional bridge player. Yes that’s what I thought… OK I am pretending to be a mind reader there. But I did think it was an interesting occupation.

He explained that he doesn’t actually get paid, but he does get a free trip.

And what a trip, his latest one was way over to South America and even up the Amazon.

And all for playing cards.   

He said that he had lost his wife, a few years ago and this was a great occupation for him as he wasn’t home very often.

On the plus side…OK I don’t think there is a down side.. but if his card playing skills are not required then he has absolutely nothing to do.

He can also go on any of the tours, again at no cost.

That’s got to be a great job.

I wonder where I could find a deal like that.

So am I any closer to deciding what The Man and I will do for the coming long weekend?

Actually no… but I do have e few ideas. Not going to tell you what they are yet tho.

There is an interesting, well I think it is, TV programme called Embarrassing Bodies. If you’ve never seen or heard of it, it is a reality show. Now as rule I dislike reality shows with a passion.

But this one is actually pretty good. 

No one is scared witless by the intrusion of creepy crawlies or knocked about by a pretty violent obstacle course. EB is a show where folks can ask the resident doctors for help about their medical problems. Some of the conditions can be of very long standing, up to many many years. It amazes me that people put up with uncomfortable or anti-social conditions.

The EB docs refer their unhappy contestants to specialists generally with very good results.

EM also educates, the programme I am looking at right now is teaching blokes how to examine their own testicles and actually show it on screen. 

The catch cry of the programme is ‘there’s no shame, we’re all the same’

They recently had a very educational sexual heath session.

There are also apps that can help with anything from melanoma to self-examinations.

Good on you EB. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embarrassing_Bodies

Not holding my breath...

Hmmm found out today that this weekend will be a day longer. Bank holiday is what they call it over here. This one has snuck up on us. So what shall we do this weekend? Well we won’t be going offshore that’s for certain because we are still waiting for The Man’s visa. Honestly we really are. Well the letter from the border agency said that it could take up to six months and at the end of May that’s how long it will have been. Good thing we haven’t been holding our breaths. We’d be awfully blue by now wouldn’t we?

After doing that genealogy course on Saturday I have realised that I need to go back almost to square one to recheck my data. 

Why you might ask.

Well I’ll tell you. The reason is that I really want to be absolutely certain that the branch I am following is the right one. Then once I am sure of that I will try to find out as much as I can about the events surrounding the elusive ancestor. 

OK so that sounds logical, but it is something that most of us amateur genealogist can overlook. 

It’s all about verification.

Goodness me anyone would think that summer was coming…

Well they would if it wasn’t for the fairly chilly breeze that had us both wrapped up in our warm jackets to go for a walk in the sun.

We were going to go to Borough market but the info we have said it doesn’t run on a Sunday.

So on with the thinking caps, well on with the computer actually and ask Mr Google what is there to do today.

Its ages since we had a wander along one of London’s may canals.

The trains weren’t running from our station today, engineering works probably.

So we hopped on a bus to Anerly and caught the overground to Canada Water and switched from there onto the Jubilee line and got off at Canary Wharf. This is the run I do every weekday on the way to work. It was a short walk to catch the DLR to Limehouse to begin out walk.

But first a meander around Limehouse Basin.This used to be where ships would unload coal and timber onto canal barges that would transport them further afield. I bet it was noisy and messy back then.

 Wow look at those beautiful boats. Lots of money sitting on the water there. And those apartment buildings, well Him and me could never afford to live here.

 It was up one of those canals that we were headed. Limehouse Cut. It is hard to imagine that these waterways were all created not  by machines but by manpower.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limehouse_Cut

Times must have been very hard.

Not so for us today. Though we did have to watch out, well listen out, for runners and cyclists. And there were lots of those out enjoying the day.

It was very pleasant to meander along the old tow path, catching glimpses of moorhens and cootes that had nested in reed clumps. We even saw a couple of chicks.

A bit further along The Man pointed out the first ducklings we have seen this season. A mama and papa mallard with six babies cruised along the opposite side of the bank to us, and kept a wary eye on our progress as we passed them. I wasn’t fast enough to get a snap of them before they ducked under overhanging branches, so this picture is from the web.

Later on we, or should I say The Man spotted a cluster of four large eggs in the reeds. They were very dirty looked abandoned. You could hardly say that they were in a nest either, just sitting on the mud with a few reeds around them. Neither could we see any geese or swans nearby. I wonder what happened to the mum.

Onward we walked looking for a nice spot to stop and have lunch. We passed a couple of seats along the towpath but wanted something a bit more picturesque.

We found it at Three Mills, where we sat and watched the seagulls and ducks fossicking in the river.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mills

There was quite a bit of mud exposed as the tide was low, it made us laugh to watch a duck making heavy going as it waded through the obviously very soft stuff. Then a seagull grabbed something out of the mud and took it over to the water to wash it before skoffling it down. There were three or four folks paintbrushes in hand very focused on capturing their subject onto the canvases they had resting on easels.

Fed, watered and entertained we continued our walk.

We spotted the monstrosity that is the Olympic Park sculpture. Goodness only knows what other people think, but both The Man and I shake our heads in wonder at the very very costly creation that looks just like a mass of tangled metal. Somebody must be laughing up their sleeve. Just our opinion you understand.

We found our way through and under a new DLR construction side to Pudding Mill Lane station where we caught the train to Lewisham and then a bus back to Crystal palace.

All in all a nice days outing with excellent company.

Excelent day...

Well that was an interesting day.

And what did I do?

Well I’ll tell you…

I caught the trains, well trains actually, into the city and went to the Society of Genealogists to an afternoon course about Good Research Techniques.

I was hoping that there would be something there for me that might help me to break through the brick wall and verify that James Harvey is indeed my three times great grandfather and that his parents are William Harvey and Judith Musk.

And while there was no actual research done today, I now have a whole lot more knowledge about where else to search.

The speaker was Celia Heritage, isn’t that a great name for a genealogist.   She was very knowledgeable and interesting as well as being a very informative teacher.

Not only is that she also a published author. The book is called  tracing your Ancestor Through Death Records. I’m hoping it will provide me with even more clues in the hunt for those elusive ancestors.

I’ll keep you posted.

So I went off and left The Man to his own devices. He’s a great fella my man and got tea underway while I was on my way home. 

A yummy roast chicken.

We followed that lovely roast dinner with fresh strawberries and cream.

What more could a girl ask for.