Wild and Windy

 Monday. 8.05 a.m. Thank goodness the high wind has gone. It's relatively mild as I write this.

Tuesday. 3.45 a.m. Here I am again, early hours of the morning, wide awake. I might just as well be on the MacBook writing this than not being able to sleep.

I have been doing family research for the past few years. I don't think I've ever mentioned it on here. I have had a subscription to a website called Myheritage and had done a considerable amount of work on there and got back to around the time of William Shakespeare. There are quite a few holes in the research, and I've built a family tree to which other people who are doing their own family research can contribute.  I have now set up a subscription to Ancestry.co.uk and managing to continue with the research. I am now building up an index file of people in my family tree, which seems a better way of collecting information rather than merely putting it in a notebook. I can add information (i.e. birth, death, where they lived and anything else relevant.) on these cards when I discover it and in this way make sure that individuals are easily identified. With so many of my ancestors having the same Christian names, it's quite difficult at times to identify individuals, so to have as much information as possible makes things a good deal easier. As a result of my research, I can get back 12 generations on my mother's side. Quite an achievement, but I hope to get back even further, with continued research.

I got the inspiration for doing my family history from the BBC television series 'Who Do You Think You Are?' where celebrities follow their family history back in time and make interesting discoveries. I think I had intentions of doing this before this show, but it was the spark that set things going. Probably quite a few other people have followed this path. It has obviously been made easier because of the internet, with such sites as Ancestry and others. Once you've signed up it's merely a question of putting basic information in about your ancestors, dates, places they lived and so on, and off you go.

Weds. 2.20 p.m. There are two washing machines for the use of the tenants in Dexter House. They have been on what you might say their last legs for months, and one has been showing more than usual signs that it isn't working properly for the last couple of weeks. It has now been removed from the laundry room and has now been condemned, which means that it can be replaced. Or so it would appear. But there are so many layers of management that things have to go through before a new washing machine can be installed. The old machine is standing in the entrance hall, so we only have one fully operational machine. But now this working machine is showing signs of not working properly. They (meaning the company who installs and presumably, supplies the machines) have said that it would be the faulty bearings, that's the mechanism that controls the spinning and revolving of the drum within the machine. The mechanic has said that it could get hot and start a fire. This isn't surprising when you consider the speed these machines revolve at when in operation. Presumably, if the brake within the machine doesn't work properly, it could cause it to get hot and then cause a fire. It's crazy that there are so many levels of management it has to go through to get anything done here. Nobody wants to take responsibility. Which means we, the tenants, are the ones who have to suffer when the machines don't function properly.

6.00 p.m. So, we could see the end of pandemic restrictions. That is, if the statistics look good, and seem to be doing just that at the moment.

Alfie needs a haircut. This is why I wanted to book him an appointment with The Groom Room at Pets At Home in Bletchley. I had the phone number from their website. You ring up, and then you have to go through a menu and once you press the relevant number button you get another menu and when you ring that number just rings off . . . Then I found a card I was given by the staff in The Groom Room some while ago, and it had another telephone number on it and when I rang it took some while for the young lady to find me an appointment and the only one was on 7th April. Hopefully, it will be a good deal warmer by then. It does seem rather cruel to have him trimmed when it's quite cold because he does suffer if it's chilly. Likewise, he doesn't like it too hot either. It's just that his face is hidden under a mass of rather scruffy hair.

Reading and Watching-2

Some worthwhile history television programming being shown on BBC2 at the moment, in the shape of a series called "A House Through Time," which traces the history of one house in Liverpool from when it was first built and occupied right up to the 20th century. Historian David Olusoga is the presenter who uses archive material to find out who owned and lived in a terraced house, number 62 Falkner Street, Liverpool, over 180 years, right up until the 1940's. It's a sort of "Who Do You Think You Are," but instead of following backwards to discover the ancestors of a celebrity it traces the house's inhabitants. Infact it made by the same production company who made "Who Do You Think You Are?", Wall-To-Wall Television. It's totally enthralling and if anything else, shows the various sources you could use yourself if you were to trace your own home's history. As a result of doing some of my own family history I've discovered some interesting material and from watching this programme might even think of tracing the history of my home as a child when I lived at Malting Farm in Cardington, Bedfordshire. The farm house was built in 1764, so there would be some history behind that and it would be fascinating to discover who lived in the house over the years before my family moved in.

A series of documentaries across all BBC channels is on about the Royal art collection as well as the Crown Jewels. The Coronation was an hour-long documentary on BBC1 to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the Queen'sCoronation. A rare glimpse of the actual crown she wore in the 1952 ceremony at Westminster Abbey and an even rarer chance to hear her actually talking about that occasion. It's very unusual to hear her Her Maj actually speaking in a more natural voice than to the one we've come to expect, for example,  for such occasions as the Christmas Message.

There's quite a few television programmes which visit various places throughout the United Kingdom. 'Great British Railway Journeys,' which is presented by Michael Portillo. This has covered a great deal of the United Kingdom, and he has used the Victorian 'Bradshaw's' railway timetable for various years to explain a wide selection of historic events as he stops off along the way. I'm not certain how many series he's done of this, but last week he was covering the Edwardian period and this week he's in America, and the show is now entitled "The Great American Railroad Journeys." The other television stations seem to have caught on to this type of programme, a sort of amiable amble about the countryside, stopping off to view the scenery along the way. Channel Four in the afternoon has a series presented by Penelope Keith called "Village of The Year," where each episode is from a different region of the British Isles and four villages are profiled and then one is chosen to go forward to the next 'heat' and then eventually one village will be chosen as the winner. There have been a few series about villages, presented by Penelope Keith, 'Hidden Villages,' as well as 'Coastal Villages.' She did another series, I think for Sky Arts, where she visited National Trust properties. I have a feeling it was also bought out on DVD as I've seen them in either National Trust or English Heritage shops whenever we've visited any of either organisations properties as we're members of both.