Thursday 2 July 2009

Odds, Definite Sods and Strange Bods

I have another new follower (and vice versa). She is Sink, a fellow contributor to Mad Manic Mamas - a place to let off steam about teenagers. OK, so I don't have a teenager any more. I do, however, have Son-who-watches-films. He is at university but still living at home. It's like having a teenager with a bigger appetite and a greater right to do as he pleases. So you think teenagers can be a problem! Some of you ain't seen nothing yet. Tomorrow my first posting on MMM is scheduled to appear.

And that brings me to today's real moan. Bl***y scheduling. With gratitude to Granny I went over to the BlogDoctor to see if there was a solution to this problem of the scheduling not working. No such luck. So I looked at the blogger forums (or should that be fora) and hey presto there was one "I have problem that nowadays when I schedule any post they dont get automatically submitted at that time and date. And scheduled still comes displayed near the posts. i have checked the time and date and they are perfect. But why such problems? Before I didnt have any such problems? THen i have to click on Publish post manually later on and that gets published."
Aha! I thought, there are 44 replies so here is bound to be the solution. No. Just another 44 people saying they had the same problem. So I commented and made it 45 and the next person who goes to the forum is going to have their hopes raised even more.... Cruel aren't I?


GB skyped me from the mainland yesterday and asked me to search through the bureau for something. In the process I came across a family photo album that I hadn't seen for years. It is larger than A4 size and has a cover of shell and mother of pearl. Inside there is an annotated sheet of the various subjects in my handwriting - obviously done for posterity becaquse it is legible which my handwriting isn't normally! The photos go back to family members born in the 1790s.


This is Bryony, Helen and Richard's great, great, great, great grandfather - Robert Spencer, born in 1796 and died in 1867. He would have been 16 when Napoleon retreated from Moscow and 21, Richard's age, when the Battle of Waterloo took place.


This is his wife Sarah Griffiths Catherina Spencer (nee Griffiths) who was born in 1800 and died in 1889.


This happy soul is Sarah Lane, Nana's mother's mother who was born in 1813 and died in 1879.


A couple of more recent photos - our Uncle Eric (on the left) and Mum (on the right) in the 1910s. As you can see, the inside pages of the album are all painted.

The sun is shining. There's a nutloaf cooling on the kitchen worktop. Grieg is performing on the piano in the lounge. Well, to be pedantic it's not Grieg himself - just his music on a CD. He died 102 years ago so it would be a bit musty in there if he were playing. The washing up from last night's dinner party has all been extracted from the dishwasher. (Yes, GB, I agree that a dishwasher is a blessing after a dinner party.) So thanks to GB for allowing me to use his home to host last night's dinner - he was missed! (And where do you keep the serviettes???)

All in all it promises to be another good day. I hope yours is...


 

12 comments:

  1. I love these old pictures, they clean up well, did some of my ancestors. They looked a miserable load of b.....s too. Still probably didn't have cheese in those days.

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  2. I'm not sure which of your places I like the best...Looking forward to your MMM post!
    Sink

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  3. This album...there is one in my mother's house with a water lily on the front cover, so similar to this.

    I don't know where it is but I know it is somewhere there.

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  4. I guess back in the 1800's they didn't have much to be happy about. Life must have been pretty hard.
    I really like the painting on the album pages! Did you paint them???

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  5. S.S.:
    It must be wonderful to have a history in tangible form, preserved like that!
    (Creative title...and quite humorous, looking back.)
    ;^)

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  6. No, Shabby Girl, the pages may have been painted as part of the album when it came back from wherever it was made - Far East, I presume. Or they may have been done by one of the family. It's hard to tell.

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  7. Sorry the Blog Doc wasn't any help. I have read a solution somewhere I am sure, Now if I could only remember where, that would be of more help to you!
    Love Granny

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  8. Those are fabulous photographs and you are quite lucky to have them - So few families could afford photography at that time, I would imagine...

    Incredible and just such a tangible link to the past! I am impressed.

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  9. Hello John,

    To be without a dishwasher would be (almost) as bad as being off the internet for three weeks!

    The meal was lovely - we didn't miss the serviettes but unfortunately GB is missing one glass!?!! Sorry GB - thankfully I didn't break one of your best ones.

    Love to you both x P x

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  10. I love to see these old photos! Oh I am so glad I do not live in that ERA of time. I would not have survived to be very old...I am so spoiled!

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  11. thoughtful blog -- i'll be back to visit again.

    :-)

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  12. I have had the album for years and years. I gave it to you as the person with the interest in these things and can't why you returned it to me although it was some years ago. I also have the original of the family tree. Given that it is you and Helen with the interest in that sort of thing you are welcome to have their custody. Alternatively they can remain in the bureau which I have taken steps to try and ensure will always remain in the family too.

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