It can’t be Wednesday afternoon – already?

It can’t be Wednesday afternoon – already?   Doesn’t time fly when you’re enjoying yourself / busy / have got too much too do/ are not quite as quick as you used to be, and people keep wanting to take your blood pressure and stick electrodes on you..…    So what have I been up to since my Sunday stroll?

 

Embracing Cousins

First and foremost I have had a very enjoyable few hours with a couple of ‘new’ cousins. Actually they’ve always been my cousins it’s just that we had never met before.  Looking up the name of a common ancestor, Pam came across one of my blogs and as a result got in touch.  We’ve been e-mailing for a couple of months and on Tuesday she came around, along with her partner Rob and her mother, my second cousin Edith.  

 

Edith and I

Pam and Rob (with Pam studiously avoiding looking at the camera - wielded by Jo!)

Pam is my second cousin once removed (the 'once removed' bit means we are a generation adrift).  Edith is my second cousin – i.e. our grandmothers were sisters and we share these common ancestors (and all their ancestors) –

Louisa Sophia Spencer (nee Lane)

1849/1915.

Thomas Robert Spencer

1846/1890. 

Thomas Robert Spencer died of consumption when my grandmother was just 12 years old.    Louisa Sophia went into deep mourning for a year as befitted the event and she is pictured here with her black spotted veil.

Breaking with tradition Louisa, Grandma Spencer as she was called, is smiling in this photo from 1899 despite being in her widow’s weeds.  Widows quite often wore black, or primarily black, for the rest of their lives not just for the first year after their husband’s death. 

It was great not only meeting such a great trio of people but also catching up on missing pieces of family gossip from as long ago as the Victorian era.   Some misconceptions about relatives were cleared up.  For example, although a lot of our relatives died in the First World War, one that I had down as killed in action turned out to have been killed crossing the railway line at Huyton station trying to catch the train to work!  Maybe not such dangerous and unpleasant surroundings as the trenches but no less fatal.  Meanwhile we no doubt fuelled the misconceptions as we tried to work out who ‘Great Aunt Lizzie’ had really been….

It was a thoroughly enjoyable occasion . So much so that they were nearly out of the door before we thought to take photos. That's not like me!  We shall be meeting again soon to add to the store of family trivia to pass on to future generations across the country.

 

Teasing Teasel

 Every year our Teasels seed themselves somewhere or other in the garden – often in the most inconvenient places.  Some of them then grow to enormous heights like this 9 foot 6 inch specimen outside the Wendy House door.  (My shed is called the Wendy House to distinguish it from the gardening shed at the bottom of the garden).

 Also brightening up the garden at the moment are the Japanese Anemones.

And some of the garden greenery made a beautiful background for these carnations from the local flower shop.

 

A new motto

Actually, it isn’t new, Partner-who-loves-tea has always had this motto.

 

The Juicer

The household has a new appliance – a juicer.  Son-who-watches-films has bought a juicer and has already put it to really good effect.  

  In addition to banana ice cream (all banana but tasting just like ice cream) he has made some lovely juices.  My favourite so far is a combination of apples, carrots, watermelon, cucumber, spinach, lemon and lime.  

Right - must go next door to the doctors. There is a nurse waiting with her electrodes to do a heart trace.   I presume if they can't find any trace of a heart they put you in a box.....