Nowhere

Sophie is not quite sure what I am doing

It's been a bit quiet on the Mara front lately. No new posts and hardly any comments on your posts. So, what happened?

Well, I didn't fall off the face of this earth if you were wondering. Nor did I take a break to go to some fantastically sunny and warm place in the Carribean (ooh). I was home all this time. Well, not the whole time, since I had to visit my Dad last week who was in hospital after a hernia operation (he's home now and doing fine). And I visited a friend one evening, since I had my parents' car to use.

Otherwise I have been spending my time at home. My garden still looks great and the only thing needed was a good brush-up to remove all the fallen leaves. So, what else have I been doing with my time?

Scribble upon scribble: all my maternal ancestors

I have been trying to find my mother's ancestors, which is a horrid and painstaking process. Writing all those names down, finding the right strains and following them up further down the line. Losing family relatively early because I can't find their name anywhere. So far I know there are skippers (both ferry as goods skippers), farmers, a publican and two council men in my family. There might also be a resistance worker from World War II, but that still needs some work to find out. Seeing that my mother's family is a deeply protestant family, I found Roman Catholics and traces of Jews, the latter also needing some work which I hope to do this week. As soon as I have more data, I will write a proper post about it. For now, I have sheet upon sheet upon sheet of names and dates and finding a particular name is like finding a needle in a haystack!

Eehhmmm....

The other thing I have been doing last week is clearing the last room. I am not the tidiest of people, not by a long stretch. So, when I clear my living room for example, I will put everything that is not needed in a big crate, take it upstairs and put it in the biggest room. You can imagine the amount of stuff building up in there! I could hardly move in there, so if I needed anything I was risking my neck. Literally. There was just too much stuff and it needed clearing. Besides that my bookcase was full to overflowing with books, most of them I had only read once and would never read again.

Books, books, books

Well, four crates of English chick-lit books found their way into crates to be taken to the second hand shop. Two Christmas trees, a loom, knick-knacks and more books followed. Six boxes and paper bags filled with paper went to the recycling thingy. As well as an old matress and electrical stuff. The car was full to overflowing, my room was seeing some air for the first time in a very long time!

My tidy book case

I am not done yet, a bit more clearing and a lot more cleaning are needed, I still need to do my laundry, I want to visit an uncle and some archives. So, a busy week ahead again. I might need another week's holiday to recuperate!!!