Dansette Birthdays and Genealogy

It seems like an age since I last blogged. It has certainly been a couple of weeks.

A Cold

I caught a cold and yes, my thoughts immediately turned to the awful virus. For the past 12 months or so, I have stuck rigidly to the rules, even shielding for the best part. For those people who don’t know what shielding is. It’s a form of protection for those deemed vulnerable to the virus and meant that you stayed in your home (self-isolating) for a period of time as recommended by our medical health teams. So after all of that plus two vaccinations later, I catch a cold! Being a man, catching a cold means we are very ill. I did have a test for the virus which, thankfully, proved negative.

Ancestry

I have found myself back on the ancestor hunt again. I will probably spend a month or two subscribed to Ancestry and see what information I can find of the people who helped make me who I am. One thing that fascinates me about ‘family history’ is that over several hundred years or even more, had one ancestor married someone else or if a great great great great great grandmother been born a grandfather, then I wouldn’t be here today. It really does hit home how so many variables come together to give us the life we have today.

Return To Normality

Life for many of us seems to be slowly returning back to near normality. We are the fortunate ones and no one appreciates it more than I do. Getting back inside the pub and meeting other people again over a beer feels so good. We really don’t appreciate what we have until it’s gone. The live music and the open-mic nights are still something missing from my social calendar. I’m sure it will all come good, but in the meantime, I’m happy to enjoy the occasional night in the local pub.

Happy 60th

We celebrated my wife’s 60th birthday last week. Although we have only lived here for three and a half years, we have made so many new friends. It was good that they turned up last Saturday in the pub gardens, a complete surprise for my wife, organised mainly by my daughter and her family and the landlord and his wife at the pub. There was cake too, a fantastic specimen of a beast it was. Such a shame we had to eat it! She wanted a Dansette record player, one of those box things from the late 1950s and 60s that seemed to be a feature of every household at the time. They cost a small fortune now, all refurbished and looking like new. Me and my daughters all chipped in and purchased one for her from a collector. She is very pleased.

Nice To See You

It was so nice to see the family again, both daughters and the grandchildren. As it was a holiday here last Monday, we went for a drive to the beach about 40 miles away. Would you believe it was the first time it had rained for a few days. The kids didn’t mind, they played away on the beach while we all watched from the car eating cheese and pickle sandwiches. I spent most of Tuesday taking the carpets out of the car and vacuuming the sand from it. It really does get everywhere, but hopefully, most of it is now stored inside ‘Henry’ the cleaners tummy.

Who Thought?

Who thought I would get a blog post from writing about why I haven’t written over the past couple of weeks? Thanks for reading and as always, it is very much appreciated. I’m off to dig my old blues vinyl records out and give them a spin on the Dansette. All great fun.

If you’d like to discover your genealogy, more here: Find My Past