A beautiful fence

The fence is quite spectacular. I have quite a short length on the one side and I am already used to the sunlight being blocked off since the other one did the same. The chain link was an interesting idea but the wooden fence is quite lovely. Thank you to Fence-All for doing such a great job. Plus my neighbours will continue to have some privacy for their patio. The facing on the wood is very attractive and you scarcely notice that the support pillars are larger. Having the larger pillar lets you string things up which isn't as easy on the flat side but can be done.

 

 

 

So I have done new screen doors, new garage doors, new fences and next painting. The painting will be next spring (the outside of the house). This was the only combined acquisition. It did go fairly smoothly except for the chain link but it does look very nice and will be a good selling point for the house next door for sure. It is more private than the other fence and looks so updated. The men in all of this set of houses put up the last one 45 years ago and it was pretty heavy looking. This one looks light and airy but still better cover for privacy I think than the last one. It will be more difficult for the plants to grow through the fence as that was a problem with the last one. So all in all a great job and my neighbour on the one side collected all the monies from us and is paying it direct for all of us so that saves some work as well for both the buyers and the seller.

A perfect early fall day

 Lovely outside today and I opened all the windows to let in the fresh air first thing. The house now cooled down to an excellent 21 degrees celsius I am back to work. Today will be a work day and good news on the fence it is going in today and there are no questions for me. I needed it to be like that at 79 I do not want to have a lot of questions unanswered that I need to answer. The installers have been great and I appreciate their diligent and hard labour for sure. Growing up in a trades family hard work is generally the key word in a day's accomplishment. Lots of brain work as well because trades people need to be as proficient in mathematics and science and competent on a computer as anyone else. They do most of their planning on the computer. 

My back yard is a bit of a disaster at the front but will remedy that once the fences are all in. I have plenty of spare black earth in my large garden and can just gradually move that over and plant the spring bulbs before winter comes. Then in the spring I can put in some new plants to make up for the ones that did not survive. Gradually next spring and summer I will restore the garden beds as Edward would like them to be seen before selling the house. The front bed is good; a bit overgrown and will work on that as there are spare plants I can move to the back. The grass well it will never come up to the standard that Edward kept for sure. But I kind of like dandelions in the spring and the blue forget me nots. 

Today is a working day and it will be Augustine's son Robert who is my ancestor. The interesting historical act by Augustine Siderfin witnessing the will of Robert Siderfin of Croydon remains a clue to my mind. Robert looking around would not see that many of his relatives still living. He might have first looked at William's line (the oldest son of his grandfather Robert 3 (William 2, John 1)) but many of the males in that line were deceased and their land holdings had diminished. Looking next to Robert 4 the second eldest son of Robert 3 there was only one male descendant with descendants and that was John 5 whose son Robert had a large family including Augustine who by the time of the writing of the will was a school master with a small property at Old Knowle. Interesting really. Thomas, the father of Robert, was the youngest son of Robert 3 and had been a JP with his sons becoming prominent and wealthy but by the end of his sons (Thomas 5 and Robert 5) lives they were heavily in debt and their lines had daughtered out. So choosing Augustine although he had older brothers was a logical choice and made a statement - you are now the holders of the family name and he passed the torch so to speak is what I read from asking Augustine to be a witness to his will. 

I could not find pertinent records to help me with John being the husband of Thomasine who left her will in 1709 but the innuendos from other records have given me, I think, the proof that all of these lines descended from John Siderfin first noted at Luxborough, Somerset in the early 1500s. Which was part of my intent in publishing the revision to James Sanders book. 

The one errata that has any real significance but I think is obvious that I was missing one generation is on page 91:

Page 91: Para: 4 , Line:  2 - …A baptism can not be located for William 7 Siderfin circa 1660 but he did live at Minehead. His father (James Sanders has John 5 (Robert 4, Robert 3, William 2, John 1) I postulate Robert 6 (Robert 5, William 4, Robert 3, William 2, John 1) simply because this Robert 6 was traditionally at Timberscombe and William is referred to in a deed as the son of Robert 6 (Robert 5, William 4, Robert 3, William 2, John 1). …

The bolded text contains the correction. I waffled about a bit as I tried to establish this lineage in William's line as it was absolutely incorrect in James Sanders' book. I should have caught it but I did not and it appears on the Errata page in the Companion Book. I am still debating how to illustrate that in the online book. Normally once published you do not change a text and I feel like I should stay with that principle. The Companion Book will always be associated with that book and I could add perhaps a line to the first page of the original text linking the two books. Not really changing the book but like putting a sticker on a book to bring two similar books together. 

 Breakfast  completed, yard ready for the installers, Latin next. 

Land Line is an Emergency Phone

Our landline is an emergency phone. I seldom answer it because I do not give the number out or use it for anything. It is always SPAM although occasionally I do pick it up mostly absentmindedly and occasionally a number comes up from the deep past since we have had that number for many many years. Usually though it is someone lying which I inform them as I hang up. Not too many calls but occasionally there will be a raft of them likely the automatic dialers have picked up the number and do not let it go for a bit until the answer rate shows it is wasted time. 

The final look of the fence is apparently unknown to my neighbours which has created a bit of mystery especially as I do not want to have to make any decisions if the others are not available at the moment such a decision needs to be made. I do not have to live with the result but the others do and so it has to be a known quantity and at the moment it apparently is not. We will discover tomorrow perhaps what the plan is. I am such a knit picker personally that I would have insisted on knowing in advance right down to the last placement of the board pretty much. But I was out of commission so to speak and so here we are with decisions perhaps to make although I shall mostly hide in the house out of the sun (bad for my new eyes) and let them make all the decisions.  It is much easier to live with decisions that you have made then to live with decisions made for you for sure. 

Today good progress on the book and Augustine's son John is more or less complete. Tomorrow is Robert and then I need to decide how to display the generations from there on. The families were very often large and I shall be reduced to just parents and children on the pages.

 Good day for exercises - stretching exercises, weightlifting,  running, walking and calisthenics/yoga and all completed just about the right time actually. I barely went outside and really I must try to get out more often but I am basically an inside person unless it is astronomy, bird watching, skiing, swimming and all those types of things. 

Our monthly Praying with PWRDF was an excellent service today.

Interesting how this fence is getting built

The fence posts are in and my yard is the only one showing the effects with both of the flower beds beside the fence mostly stripped of vegetation. The two neighbours are mostly unaffected. But then my yard is easily accessible and my garage empty basically making it pretty easy to use that as the exit for the old fence and the entry for anything that needed to come in. I have been contemplating how to redo those two strips of garden possibly with spring bulbs when the fences are in and then some new plants in the spring.  I have to say though this company is very efficient; I like that (I do not think any of the mixup was their fault just a lack of communication mostly because I wasn't reading anything particularly especially not fine print!). My flower beds will just have to survive and a few new plants in the spring. Since I wasn't involved in the planning I have no idea what this fence will look like to be honest. It all looks very tidy except for the forest of flowers on either side basically untouched in the two neighbours yard. I actually like expanses of grass so works for me and the narrow flower beds should come back in the spring with what is hopefully still buried in the ground (the spring flowers) but I will also add more. Obviously the workers are going to gravitate to my side because it is flat with just the narrow flower beds. 

Worked on the Charting Book yesterday and still sorting out how to illustrate the people in the 1800s. These families are very large descending from Augustine Siderfin and Mary (Davies) Siderfin. The other lines basically dwindle out but having Augustine as a witness in one of the other line's wills (that line basically terminates with the testator) is perhaps the most interesting detail in that will. He had to travel from where he taught school in order to be a witness to the will. Does it imply anything? In those days most things that people did had a reason; the people they selected to do things had a reason. At least that is my thought from the work that I had done thus far. 

Another warm day about 28 degrees celsius apparently. I have opened up the windows upstairs to let the cooler air in but will soon close the blinds and curtains once again and let the air conditioning do its task. Actually the air conditioning has not come on but rather just the dehumidifying.  The house has stayed at 23 degrees celsius throughout this heat spell mostly just one day it went up to 24 so I switched back from heating (set at 19 degrees celsius to come on) to cooling. It has to reach 25 degrees celsius for the air conditioning to kick in. Once this warm spell is finished I will go back to setting it at 20 to come on which is generally at 19.5. But that will not likely be until on into October that I set it at 20 until then it will be at 19. I do not mind wearing heavy clothes in the house in the winter and I do do my exercise in the house so do not like it to be too warm. 

Another working day and changing the book to legal sized paper was a good step forward. I had thought to just do a section with legal sized but having the entire book as legal is not a problem. Digital is the greatest thing actually. When I first got into computers in 1965 I was enthralled with them and studied Fortran on the side and then eventually COBOL before I stayed home with our first child. I got back into computers working as a proofreader initially for NRC journals and then private printers before returning to work outside of the home in 1994. Computers are great for sure. They have changed our lives in such a good way but must be used carefully with all the proper protocols for printing and creating as were in place with the printed copy. 

Breakfast completed, solitaire games next and then Latin and back to work.

A good working day.

 I shall move some of the earth from the main garden into the side garden and perhaps plant some new bulbs. I will have to see where I can find some. Edward would of course have known that but I shall try to figure it out without having to go to far away. Possibly I could order some online. He used to do that. I think the actual fence goes in on Friday so will soon be here or it might be Saturday or Monday, not sure. 

I worked on the Companion Book and changed the page length from letter to legal and it is working better for me. Some of these charts are very large. I still have to decide how to break down some of the charts. The Siderfin family grows very fast in the 1800s and is a sizeable family now in the British Isles and around the world. 

All this typing is good for my finger actually. I can type now without noticing it particularly although it does get tired. But not broken which is good; I did debate going to the doctor but it just didn't look like an emergency. I was careful with it though; lots of ice and no strain on it and lots of finger movement so that it didn't freeze up on me. That reminds me I did not yet hear about my bone density test. I must call as he mentioned probably a call around the end of August from them. I think I can manage to go to the Hub for my test. Wow 79 years old amazing really. I am about to go and do my thirty minute run when they are finished working on the yard. I follow that up with a fifteen minute walk. I like to do 45 minutes exercise periods at a time. My heart beat is on average between 140 bpm and 146 bpm which is not too bad as one subtracts 79 from 220 to give an approximate good heart beat for my age at full exercise which would be 141 bpm. I have an excellent recovery rate around 20 seconds back to normal bpm. Having done my DNA with 23 and Me I know that I have inherited a rapid recovery from exercise gene. But I have run for most of my life so not surprising. I also managed to do my weight lifting this morning which now includes rowing on the new rowing machine. It is just a basic machine - no bells and whistles. I have worked up to 150 rows in five minutes and want to get that up to 210 rows in 7 minutes. I could perhaps go beyond that we will see when I get up to 210. I shall start increasing in increments of 15 next week. Jump to 180 and rest there for a bit (perhaps a month) and then move on to 210. The object isn't to build up a lot of muscle but more to keep the muscles that I have strong. 

They are all finished and do a really neat clean up. Very efficient. That was too bad that I didn't keep looking out the window as I would have questioned the black rods much earlier although they were pretty fast doing that so I might have missed it anyway with two of them working away and there were only three rods needed. 

Time for my run. I do love to run and these hot days one does really appreciate the air conditioning as running outside is probably problematic at my age.

Fence is solved and we move forward

You can see it with the fence being down just how lovely that sun would have been all year round coming in during the morning. Too bad but then I am not staying so is perhaps just as well. I might have gotten used to that and perhaps can find it somewhere else.  

The wooden supports go in tomorrow sometime in the morning. That works. I finally get to work again tomorrow morning so can just listen for their arrival and move the car. Actually I could move the car earlier and save my having to do that. Good idea. The young men were very efficient and did a great job. It was too bad I didn't look out before they put the black posts in but I was busy cleaning.

I would like to get back to Charting. The fence certainly occupied a couple of days but remedied although not actually what I wanted probably but it does make a better selling feature for the house. I need to consider painting and will do that but not in a rush; perhaps in the spring sometime I will investigate that with Home Hardware. They have all sorts of specialists lined up. Will I sell next summer (I would like it to be at the end of the summer that I vacate so we will wait on that a little). I will be almost 80 then and this is a big house to keep up plus it would be a great family home with 4 bedrooms. 

It is lovely to see the light streaming in from the east in the morning instead of being blocked by the wooden fence but time moves onward and so must I.

All this cleaning has my finger swollen up a bit as I am straining it somewhat but not enough to re-sprain it. It is good exercise for the finger for sure. One advantage I had was my godmother who was the head nurse in the Cancer section at Victoria Hospital and I learned a great deal from her. I hardly ever went to a doctor as a child or adult really. Just that short period when I was very ill a year before we moved here. The doctor we went to here when we first moved to South Ottawa was excellent although again I was seldom there. He was very encouraging to me as I recovered from my breakdown and constantly reinforced my ideas on how to make the best of my weakened health. I did hate leaving him behind actually when we moved and did consider just making the trip when I needed an appointment but it was just a bit too far away. 

Hopefully my good health continues. Doctors are lovely people of course but not exactly where I like to spend my outings if I can avoid it! It is nice to just to be home and working away on my books.

Interesting how a simple length of 12 feet of common everyday Chain link can be a problem!

So now do I go back to wood and have a very dark backyard at the top (probably not that dark but with all the tree cover it seems dark to me looking out the window I guess it is brighter when you are outside) or do I do the chain link. But actually it isn't my decision to make since it is a shared fence. The black supporting poles  and (this was a surprise as I always thought it was grey chain link mesh until the woman in the office told me it was green (the sales person did take pictures!) )  green mesh might look a little strange one might say. There is 160 feet of chainlink from the back of the wooden fence to the street at the back on both sides of the property (it is difficult to miss that) and great respect for the city is emerging in my mind as they  managed to replace over 100 feet of this same fence at the back with the correct poles and chain link when a driver took it out a couple of years ago!   The price for the chain link was more than half of the cost of the wood fence so that is not a big deal. We will get the new contract tomorrow I assume to look at and then decide. The chain link appeals to me more. The sales person came the day after my cataract surgery so I did not do more than say hello to the person. I was relying on the people involved to read everything since my eyes were out of commission at the time.  So there you go, the difference in cost actually small. It will cost to have the black rods removed I suppose. Everything else had to be done anyway. That is one of the problems of home ownership for old people for sure but in this case it involves a set of people all of whom received copies of the contract. Generally I am such a nitpicker and I am returning to that but definitely surgery does slow one down especially when the eyes are out of commission for a period of time.

Today is the full cleaning day of the two floors and will keep me busy. Yesterday I had my teeth cleaning and descaling. I am trying going every 4.5 months to have my teeth cleaned and then the checkup every nine months instead of the six month cleaning with the checkup mostly by the hygienist at the old dentist. I had three new teeth that needed work when I came to this new dentist so felt I should maybe do a different sort of approach. I can claim the extra cleanings because it is health care after all. The hygienist was mentioning a relative who had strabismus and astigmatism and was legally blind; I was not quite that bad just blind in one eye by motor vehicle standards with no depth of vision. But now I have depth of vision and that other eye is still weak but it works somewhat better I would say. Cataract surgery is definitely a good addition to the medical lists of excellent finds.

No work done yesterday but did do some thinking on the charting book. I need to decide how to display the more modern information in the chart without having too huge a chart. I could do as James Sanders did and have one large chart but he left out a lot of lines and I am trying to bring as many up to census and even up to the early 1900s as I can. 

Latin to do and I am in a tournament apparently. This has been a fun way to learn a language for sure; I highly recommend Duolingo and will soon be picking up my French once again.  

I was reading about the doubling of the national debt. It is the reason that I never voted liberal until I did in 2015. I will not vote liberal again for sure because I do not agree with the effect that the NDP's support for the Liberal party has caused so much random spending. We all have to tighten our belts and pay our own expenses - the government is not a purse for the individual user. The government must spend its money where it is really needed like defense, like climate change. When a new "gift" is given the government must learn how to turn that into something that pays for itself. I did not like the way that PM Harper approached the problem - sacrificing our national history to balance the budget is not the way; trying to hide information on fisheries was not the way; stifling scientists is not the way. Taxes fundamentally are the way to pay for the costs of government - take the GST back up to 7% or even 10%. It will not cripple industry they will groan and accept because their bread and butter is Canada; the Canadian people are the force that purchases and keeps companies in business. We need to pay attention that we are buying Canadian. I have to do that myself as well. I was tempted to go out and measure the diameter of the black poles sticking up in my backyard as they look smaller in diameter than the grey ones that are there. I will not be able to tell where they are made but paying more than half of the cost of a wood fence means that chain link is expensive although I was willing to pay that for a chain link fence - getting things done now a days is not easy.

Fence day

The new fences go in today, hurrah. Already the old fences are gone. These young men are very efficient. On the short side there will be chain link because there is so much tree cover that the light is blocked most of the day in that area and the chain link will help to open that up. On the other lovely wood to replace the old wooden fence. Looking forward to both. The short length of fence really was inefficient. It didn't really block anything as it was just very short. Probably the neighbour on the other side benefited the most from that  wooden fence as they put in a patio off their sliding glass door but still it was very short and scarcely provided a really private area. Our patio was always secluded because the house next door is set back about 4 metres further from the street than we are so we actually had that quiet personal area. We lose just that short length of it but the payback in more sun is worth it. Mind you I am going to move so the real benefit will be to the people who move in. Likely they will put in a big swimming pool and a deck and change the entire look of this yard. But it is a long yard made for children for sure; mine loved it. 

No work yesterday. I went to Church, did some reading and did all my exercises. Made my favourite chicken stew and finished off the salmon as a lovely canape mid afternoon with cranberry juice and buttery crisp pitas. It was delightful. Occasionally I can be a foodie but it needs to be just the right food!

Today the basement is being cleaned. It is almost finished actually. I was up early today with the fence people coming. I want to paint the other side of the stairs today and will get that done. Then I think there is enough paint to paint the stair lift once again all the way down just to give it a really good coat of paint. It looks good already. The bright red is appealing actually. I liked it when Edward chose it years ago. It brightens the stairwell and I definitely did not want carpet on the basement stairs. 

I will miss this house but it is a lot of work and I only get older. Right now I can manage it quite well although I know that I have cleaned it when I have completed the task. Until then I do not think about it; better that way. 

Latin next and then vacuum the furniture in the basement and that is complete.  

Just noticed that the support poles for the chain link are black and when I checked the contract it calls for black mesh. Trying to get that sorted around (I should have read it with a magnifying glass so accept the blame on that). I was not really involved in talking with the people as my neighbour organized the couple of fences. Strange that anyone would put up black chainlink beside grey chainlink. It is difficult being old for sure.

Sunday and it is going to be another bright sunny one

 Reading one of the Bible Readings for today and it talks about Faith and says "Faith that doesn't lead us to do good deeds is all alone and dead!" How do we do good deeds? Is it by being a monthly contributor to the Ottawa Mission; that sounds like a good deed and I have done that for quite a few years. There isn't any involvement on my part except providing the monthly contribution. Is that a good deed? I think it is; not everyone can do "hands on" type of work to help people. I am not one of those people for sure. I have done things that help a lot of people but I am not really seen; treasurer for Camp Bitobi was one of those good deeds. I did that for a few years and a lot of people benefited from that Camp being available and I liked it that I did that. I was a Brownie Leader and served on the Guide Council in this area for all the time my children were involved in Brownies or Guides. Again that was a good contribution but was it a good deed; my own child benefited from my being involved so it wasn't selfless at all. But then a lot of children benefited so perhaps that too is a good deed. I also helped one day a week in schools particularly after computers were put into the schools because I have an expertise in computers having worked with them since the mid 1960s and my children were in school in the late 70s and 80s when I was helping. That was selfless for sure and required a lot of patience but it was an asset for the future watching the children learn to use this new method of learning/communication. So that was a good deed as well. I was volunteer secretary at Edward's United Church for a number of years and was there every Sunday handing out bulletins and providing answers if asked to various questions that new people coming had. That was surely a good deed because I never really felt comfortable there, I am after all an Anglican - I think like an Anglican, worship like an Anglican but I did try to be hidden so as not to interfere in the Worship style (it was not too difficult as I had attended the United Church with my maternal uncle and grandmother); Edward loved it singing in the choir being Church Treasurer and for me that was part of the good deed helping with something that my husband enjoyed doing. So I guess I have done good deeds when I think about it. But now what good deeds do I do? I guess my surname research does result in a lot of emails coming my way with queries about the various families that I study so I do help in as much as I am able without using up my research time but do provide suggestions on how one could do their own research if asked. I support PWRDF with a monthly contribution but that doesn't really involve my doing anything but providing money. I support the mother Church here in the diocese as well on a monthly basis but again I do not actually do anything. I have gone to Church online now since the beginning of COVID so not even there in person.

But do my good deeds stem from faith; are my good deeds of value? I think when one is coming towards 80s years on this planet you think of good deeds differently as you age. Perhaps it was growing up in the shadow of World War II and seeing the news reels about the war and hearing the stories of savage genocide against the Jewish peoples and other death and destruction. So many children in Germany died during the war. There was no escape for those children really although some may have escaped. The children in Germany during the 30s and 40s had spent their school years worshiping Hitler as a hero and saviour of their nation. They grew to adulthood believing all of that and became part of the military that attacked Europe on all sides. It was sad that the only way to stop Hitler was to keep bombing Germany. I learned that as a child so when I see that another "country" attacks a peace loving country like Ukraine or Israel I relate back to that time when the only way to stop it was to keep bombing until the arms were laid down; the guilty Nazis surrendered and we could once again try to create a peaceful world. Now we have the Nazi Russians, we have Nazi Iran and their supplicants Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis forcing war on us once again. Is there another answer? I wish there was. But so long as you educate children to believe lies then the threat of war is always with us because they grow up believing those lies and create war against the peaceful peoples of the world. In this case though the children of Gaza could have come to North America if the Muslim community had organized that and many would have been saved; there has been lots of time to do that. I really do not understand why the effort wasn't made. It is unusual to be able to save the children of an aggressor "country."

So what are good deeds that I could be doing now other than what I am doing? I shall think about that today whilst I am at Church which will be on You Tube from Christ Church Flackwell Heath which is near High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire. This is another area of England that we did not really notice in our travels between London and Oxford although we traveled through this area a number of times. I do not have any ancestors from this area of whom I am aware but likely Edward did back in the early 1600s when his Dissenter ancestors were still living in England. 

I think faith is something you have within you and perhaps that is what leads one to do things they do through life. God is and always has been my best friend as long as I can remember and yet I have never spoken to this best friend except through prayer and thanksgiving. God does not speak to us in a way that we can hear; He no longer walks and talks with man. It was reading the old wills that revealed to me the deep faith of my ancestors (and other people's ancestors) and I understood my own faith better. 

Now on to Latin, breakfast is completed. The day begins.

My doorbell rang

 Amazing, I actually did fix that doorbell. It rang today whilst I was in the midst of my weightlifting routine. I was walking between lifts and walked upstairs to look out the window and I could see that there were two children as close to my front door as you can get because I could barely see them. Why are they there; they should have a sign or be wearing a uniform if they are selling apples or cookies but this is two children. I am fairly sure they are trying to get me to support them for the Terry Fox Run. I do support the Terry Fox Run; I have grandchildren running in that and I just want one receipt and so I do not answer the door. I refuse to answer the door unless I am expecting someone or they have some sort of a uniform that I recognize including a car that I recognize that I can see or it is perhaps my direct next door neighbours as we watch each other's houses when we are away - a courtesy that one does to close neighbours. They only rang once as their parents probably told them that people knew why they were coming and were not planning to support their run in the Terry Fox Run. I got an email from the Terry Fox Run telling me I could support the individuals that I supported last year in his/her school online and could make my contribution there. I did that last year anyway and it is the best way. I liked the way Cairine Wilson did their food drive last year with a flyer - they let me know what they needed and when they would come for it so I could just leave it on the front porch. The schools could do the same for this run and just have an ability to support any child with a particular sum. I could have thirty or fourty children coming to my door, I am not doing fourty different tiny donations - the bank would not thank me for doing that!

I do not really believe in children going door to door without a parent. I really dislike people trying to sell me something at the door. I am not going to buy it and I have so much work to do I am not answering my door unless I know you are coming, you are going to drop a tree on my car, or there is a gas leak which I would have already noticed likely. Or I am actually needed to call someone to help them which I would do most willingly if they are injured otherwise they should go home they need their medical information to get help.

Back to work, weightlifting completed. I will soon do my contribution to the Terry Fox Run when I have the details from my children for their children. I think it is a great thing to do that but I question this method of sending children door to door. People just do not keep money on hand for such things and children have no way to do credit card type things. If you have a brochure just leave it in the box I will find it. The school could have a parent volunteer at the front area and advertise it so that people could come and do contributions if they want. Anyway my thoughts on my door bell ringing when I am working; I have so much work to do and at 79 the years are passing. Must put my note up on the door.

Trying to remember the group that I belonged to when my children were in school - Block Parent. We had a sign that we put in the window if a child needed support on their way to and from school. I had that in my window on school days when I worked at home after it was set up. Excellent idea actually do not know if it still exists.  

As a child, I did not go door to door to collect anything and so I just do not see a value in that unless it is administrated in a manner which works for people in the route. Like the Cairine Wilson Food Drive; that was excellent. I did sell cookies as a Girl Guide and later as a leader but I actually do not think they do that anymore. Which is a good thing I actually think.

Another good day of work

 Working on the William and Robert lines in the fourth generation. Still thinking about the next chart for the William Line but the Robert line is pretty straightforward. This is really turning out well. 

Went shopping yesterday for groceries and that was a good trip. About the only time I wear my glasses is driving because I can not read the speedometer well enough and my license requires corrective lenses anyway. Otherwise I live my life mostly without glasses just using them for reading and the computer. It is most pleasant actually.  Groceries are expensive for sure. Clothes too but what stops me from bying new clothes is more that I just never make it to the stores except when I have company. Clothes have never been this huge item with me anyway. I tend to find something I really like and then wear that pretty much all the time for whatever purpose I bought it. When it wears out or when it is just too big as the case now I take it to Salvation Army if it has any life in it. I will miss this Metro when I move as they are very helpful when you can not locate something. Mostly I know where everything is; I have shopped at this Metro (and the earlier smaller store) since they opened here in my area. Although they have changed the store I have always quickly adjusted to the placement of the goods. It is really very logical.

Today I will vacuum the car and wash up the stand for the outdoor shoes and boots to move everything to the basement for the winter. That leaves the garage almost empty except for the lawn mower. With this warm weather I will probably have  to cut the grass once again before putting the lawn mower away. Probably towards the end of September. 

Other than that it is Saturday, so wash day and all the other usual things that I do which will include the charting book. I may take a look at the newsletter that I have not published yet. Some work needed on both of those. 

Sadly I had to turn the air conditioning on yesterday and probably it will be on for a couple of days. Usually in September and May I try not to use it. I actually had the furnace come on one night in the cool spell but I set my furnace at 19 until the cooler weather actually comes and then I keep it at 20 degrees celsius. I do not like the house to be really warm in the winter. My brain works better in the cold I always think. Edward found that too cool as I knew he liked it warmer and just left the heat alone when he was alive. But now I can have it as cool as I like. Mostly I have the air conditioner set at 25 to come on but it does dehumidify which also tends to cool the house down in the heat of the summer. But 25 is cold enough for sure when it is in the high 30s outside - it feels like a freezer coming in. 

Today more on the Charting Book as I would like to complete the rough draft this next week along with the two missing newsletters. I did find it somewhat overwhelming as my eyes healed from the cataract surgery with all those eye drops and then getting used to not wearing glasses all the time. I still reach for them when I wake up after wearing them since I was a year old probably not surprising! It is funny when I weight myself and I can actually read the scale. That and the depth of vision continue to amaze me. 

Slept in a bit today as I turned the air conditioner on in the night when I realized that the house was just too warm; maybe about two o'clock and the dehumidifier on the furnace ran for quite a while actually so I should have turned it on a day earlier actually. Will try not to make that mistake again. 

Solitaire games all played and the Expert one had a bit of a twist in it today. I do so love playing solitaire first thing in the morning. Exercises all completed (my morning wake up drill) and on to Breakfast and then Latin. The day flows forward in its usual routine which I enjoy. Although I often move the routine around quite a bit depending on what I am doing. Right now I wait for frost to kill off the plants so that I can cut them down and move into the winter cycle. 

On to the charting

I worked with my Legacy program and the charts are coming along nicely (all black and white) and the size should not be a problem as I am working on the third to the fourth generations now and the size of the file is 407 KB so I am looking at a fairly small book although likely 100 pages as I am up to 10 pages now. 

It was interesting that not long after my new neighbour arrived (in 1978!) she asked me to work on six years of income tax that her husband had not filed. I did think at the time it was a strange request but I was in a new area and one of my many skills was doing income tax having done it for a very long time already so I agreed to help her. With seven children I could understand the need to do that of course. Perhaps where they were posted before was not convenient to do the taxes no ideas on that I do not ask a lot of questions just provide the knowledge. Besides it seemed like a nice thing to do to help someone out. A few neighbourly acts like that and being volunteered as volunteer secretary for the new United Church I was very busy albeit at home. It was nice to work at home especially because I was there 100% of the time with my children and when the proofreading came along that really filled a niche and pretty much all at home - just had to go in three times a week to pick up my work; I can verify that and likely there are lots of jobs still that let you work primarily at home; one just needs to find them if that is your keen desire. It was at that point that I realize looking back I became a recluse for the most part having initially been involved in a welcome program for new people on the street. It just wasn't me; some people are excellent at that but I am not one of them. I could always be counted on to help out with community efforts but individual welcoming no; that just wasn't me.

Now I work at home once again (and even more reclusive than all those years ago) but I am the boss and I decide when to work or not to work and being a workaholic I do work quite a bit of the time. God gave us brains to work with and my philosophy has always been to go with that and do what you can do. Does my work have any meaning? Depends on what you need and some people do benefit from the work that I do. I regularly receive emails from people with questions on one or another of my blogs. A few want me to help them with their research and I seldom do that; I can not do other people's research - I am too old. But I do give them pointers if I am able to do so. You need to fit into my family somewhere for me to help to any extent as I do not do other research that does not fit into my family lines. 

I already have 35 boxes of Edward's research that I need to work through and although I helped him a lot through the years I do not know his families; I only know a few of the current family members to whom he was close so doing anything new is not going to happen but preserve what he did I am working away at that. 

So today is a working day and I will continue with the Companion Book and also preparing my Errata page for the Revised Siderfin book published six months plus ago. I will likely produce a new copy which I will put on my website with the link that still exists on my blog site. The number of changes will be slight but I guess that is one of the luxuries of the modern world to be able to correct a book although I will likely add the Errata page to the new book directing individuals to the changes that were made. I will also include the Errata page in the Companion book since it will directly link to revised and updated book as well as to James Sanders' original book on the Siderfin Family. 

Soon I will begin the two newsletters that are late as well. My finger is doing quite well as I type away. I have an exercise ring that I will start to use when I am not working starting with perhaps five repeats and work my way up. I would like to do therapy perhaps but my time always get swallowed up with things and I suspect that unless it creates problems for me that will not happen. But it is a really good idea. I should do it but at 79 nearly my should do attitude is slowly being replaced by I really would like to just work quietly away and get all this stuff done!

Breakfast next and then Latin. I am into the second year of Latin and we are doing the lessons I am most familiar with in Latin talking about the various gods of the Romans. It should be interesting. I hope that they keep expanding the Latin course but I am getting comfortable with declensions and need to do more work on them but do have old Latin textbooks that I could turn to and just keep on practising with the Latin drills to keep my vocabulary intact. I need to continue with my French as well. I want to get back into my son in law's French Canadian studies. My Heritage has just purchased a large French Canadian depository which looks interesting for some of those areas of research that can be difficult. 

The end of the 12th generation is in sight

I have just seventeen pages left to do. I was surprised as there was a lot to enter into my family tree program from this last set of 35 pages of data. Also I had to do some checking and found more errata within the text; mostly just little things that my eyes were just probably too tired to catch at the end. I could have let it wait a little longer as it turned out and will do that with the next two books. A learning curve for sure and I will publish the errata and perhaps create a new copy to put on my website. I will think about that. It does not involve that many changes and most of them are cosmetic; correction items missed or errors in typing which surprised me but my eyes it turns out were not quite as strong as I thought they were before the cataract surgery. You can not really tell that because the decline is gradual for sure. 

I did yardwork yesterday and more to do today as I had forgotten that I had this 5 metre long black metal fence that was along the wooden fence at the back to keep the bunny out (at least my husband thought it might) but it did not. I will move it to the front and remove the shorter now rusty white fence from that garden as this black fence is meant to withstand the weather. Plus it will match the black fence that is there. The front yard is mostly cleaned up for winter. Just a little more here and there to do. The concentration will now be on the back where there is a lot of weeding to do but I will not rush it as I want to just pull the weeds and let them rot on the ground through the winter for the most part. I have lost more flowering plants this year because I just couldn't keep up with the weeds. At least I thought I couldn't and didn't as a result.. Perhaps that is getting old. At 79 I am old and can still do things but the age of being in control of items that are of ultimate value in a big way are past. I can just have suggestions now really. 

My finger was somewhat tired last night after a busy day but doing well again this morning. I might do less typing today. Instead I am still typing and I am thinking maybe I need some therapy on that finger. Must investigate how I do that these days. It is a long time since I have injured one of my limbs! Since it is my left hand I do use it less than my right.

Breakfast is next and then latin.

Continuing with the 12th generation

 Finally I have reached Thomas, the youngest son and child, of Robert Siderfin and Grace (Kent) Siderfin in the twelfth generation. The next 38 pages will be the descendants of Thomas and are all his 3x great grandchildren. This work was done by my cousin Auriol Carney and as I gave her full credit in the book so I will do so in this companion charting book. Like most small surname studies the number of descendants is around 800 (I have added in some lines for the charting that I did not include in the revised and updated book first created by James Sanders. If the charting was taken to the present the numbers do increase substantially as that would be another three generations added on with some into the sixteenth generation from John Siderfin who lived at Luxborough, Somerset, England by 1500. 

Today is a work day and I will continue with the preparation for charting. Paint is all dry on the stairs and next week will see me paint the other half side of the stairs. Still lots of paint so I could add an extra layer just to the stair itself. I would like to use up all of that red paint. Then I move to the blue paint to do some patching in the only room that is light blue. It was Edward's study and finally being able to see all of those walls not covered by bookcases filled to the brim and on the top with books and in front of those bookcases stacks of boxes (even as much as four or five high). There really was just a narrow path in and a narrow path to the window as he did like fresh air  coming on in occasion. It is always a shock looking into that room which now has so little in it. But I need to have rooms that look like that so I can move in the next year or so. But the paint does need a few spots repainted and we will see how that goes. From there I move on to the painting that we did of most of the other areas just four years ago. Here and there where the chairlift was, where the original railing for the stairs was and such need touchup. I notice that a couple of the new doors we put on all the entrances (rooms, closets and cupboards) do have a few spots where the paint was a bit thin. Since I painted most of it that is on me for sure as my talents do not truly extend to being a great painter! For the remaining rooms I do not have any paint. I need to get paint for the kitchen cupboards to do some touchup and will do that this winter. 

The fence man is coming to do the new fences and the roof man will repair the roofing done just over a decade ago that is faulty. I had thought about doing a new roof but it would mean tearing off perfectly good tiles and filling the landfill with that and I decided no that wasn't the way to go plus I would have wanted to stay and enjoy my new nearly $12,000 roof. It was a good decision for me and anyone buying would be able to wait a while before having to do roofing. I need to wash the front windows on the outside and will get that done before winter. 

Other than that there is just the final garage cleanup and the yard cleanup before winter. But today I shall work on the book and do my exercises in between. A quiet day and I am looking forward to that. My hand is improving steadily and I am back to typing although try not to be too forceful on that small finger that does the a, q, z line and fortunately just the a gets a lot of hits which works but it also works the shift key for capitals on the right hand. So a little more work but I will take it easy. Bruising diminished quite a bit. Probably I would have gone to the doctor but getting there is difficult sometimes with the roads all torn up as the new light rail is going through in this area and if I had needed x-rays that is another trip somewhere else. I can see that being elderly has its problems. I could ask my daughter but she has thousands of patients and my hand was definitely not broken so I didn't actually go to the doctor but I would recommend that one do so for such a badly bruised hand personally if you do not have someone to talk to about your hand. It will be nice to be closer to my family since my other daughter is a thousand miles away teaching her students and doing her research. 

Latin is next. Breakfast is completed. Since it is the same meal every day it is pretty straightforward and I enjoy it. I think I could eat the same meals for a very long time although Edward certainly would have pushed me to have more variety as he did himself. Edward definitely liked his food and he enjoyed cooking as it turned out when he retired and actually when I went back to work outside the home. The girls and he made many meals together and had a great time doing so.

How an area influences where you live

 When we came here we sold our lovely house on 1/4 acre outside of the city of London, Ontario. We could have family there (we both had family) and it suited where we were living. But coming here I really liked this carriage home where we live. No plans to entertain particularly since no family (close that is) in the area and it was close to NRC where Edward worked and near the highway once I started to work again proofreading for printers at home. Fortunately Edward tended to see socializing with friends as going out but I was still ill in those days and by 8:00 pm I was finished for the day; not going anywhere and that persisted a long time actually. I went in to work three days a week to touch base and pick up my work; it was the principle under which I was hired although when their proofreader retired they asked if I would take on proofreader in house and we compromised on my being there from 9:00 ish until 2:00 ish and the rest of the work I did at home. That worked for them, the print run was before 2:00 so everything in a rush was read and it was ready to go. Also, initially, the plan was that I was going back to do my masters when my daughter had settled into school and that was practical. I was never really into leaving my child with a sitter after we moved here. It just felt mean since she had left behind all of her grandparents, her cousins, aunts and uncles and to take her to a stranger just didn't sit well with me. The carriage home I loved from day one and although Edward and the girls did go looking at singles up on the hill as they started to get built, Edward was just never that enthused because the lots were too small. He wanted to move further out which didn't work well with my working at home - too much traveling and so we were here the entire time nearly that we lived in Ottawa. When we first came we rented in the south end until we found a place that we liked. We knew people near by as well from Library/PhD days. It was lovely and the years passed so quickly although it was actually 46 years since we moved here in the spring. Looking back coming here was a long time ago. I was young and now I am old moving towards 80. It was interesting thinking about this when the doorbell appeared to not be working. In the small town where we lived we actually didn't have a doorbell. Funny really. I think perhaps Edward cleared the doorbell mechanism here routinely but it is three and a half years since he passed and I never thought about it. It was pretty packed with more than the dog's fur - lots of dust! Easily remedied and I just happened to recall that he did do that. It actually sounds very loud now, perhaps one could turn it down, I will check that out next time I am climbing the ladder. 

Basement all washed and the painting is next. I am just putting in time and occasionally like to write it down as I save my blog in case some one wants to read it some time in the future long after I have passed. I saved my mother's letters over a twenty five period for the same reason. She was an interesting person. Her father died when she was eight and it had a great deal to do with her attitude as an adult. He talked to her a lot especially about his mother (my mother did look quite a bit like her grandmother Grace (Gray) Pincombe). Grace's first cousin was Sir John Carling and they were part of the social circle in London when her father was young and he always said to my mother that his mother loved all of that special activity that she attended because Sir John was her first cousin. Interesting really remembering her saying that but it was actually more my grandmother (my mother's mother) who told me about Grace. She said that John (my grandfather) never really let go of his mother when she died (he was just fourteen years of age) and her death was followed a year later by his young sister at the age of thirteen. Sad times for John I suspect, I think it was a very hard life for him and my grandmother thought so too. He was one of those eligible bachelors that people talked about where ever he went my grandmother said and my grandmother was none too popular I suspect for capturing this very eligible bachelor. But they had a happy life although short my grandmother was just 38 when she was widowed. It was fun matching up our autosomal DNA with all of our cousins. I have hundreds of cousins tested that are 2nd, 3rd and 4th in my lines but particularly I have about 30 2nd/3rd Pincombe cousins.

Well enough reminiscing and back to the painting. I actually have done a lot of painting the last ten years as Edward found it difficult as his illness progressed. I mostly painted the entire main floor and some of the top floor. Edward always painted before that; he was very very good at it. I was passable and still remain in that state even with all that practice! He was a perfectionist; I just got the job done as carefully as possible. 

The sooner that I get all of Edward's material organized and placed the sooner I can move is the real reality. I simply can not take 35 boxes of research material with me. I only have one box of my own but Edward researched through all that time of paper (mid 1960s to the 2020s) with my beginning in 2003 and I meant to have everything online and mostly it is but I do have one box (about half full). Edward did a lot of scanning but there is still a lot of paper to work through. Plus I need to check and make sure that everything is scanned and so there are four more boxes waiting to be shredded but need time to look at them. Fortunately I am a workaholic and can completely shut out the world and work for hours, days and weeks on end coming out for food mostly although I must replace some of my clothes because they are getting shabby. But then everything is expensive so I just sort of shrug my shoulders and continue wearing my twenty year old corduroy slacks and jerseys and some are even older. 

Perhaps a snack of yoghurt and a piece of banana bread before I start.

Hand is improving

 Slowly steadily the bruising is being reabsorbed in my hand; probably another week though before it will be all gone. A little soreness in the finger first thing but much improved. Today is another cleaning day - the basement and I will continue painting the stairs. The regular routine is helpful to get me back into writing my books. It is a slow process though writing books. 

I must investigate with Rogers whether they install those door bells that let you see who is there plus I actually need a working doorbell (when Rogers was installing the new cable I think someone might have rung the doorbell but it didn't make a sound). This one does not ring any more or rings sporadically as far as I can tell but I actually haven't heard it ring for a bit. But then it is old for a doorbell - 46+ years old. I always know when someone is coming so it doesn't really matter. Actually I think doorbells are extraneous really as delivery people seldom ring the bell anyway.Turned out to be a quick fix; I do not usually climb ladders on my own but I discovered that our beautiful grand dogs had left a lot of hair even up that high. All cleaned out; I thought I had vacuumed absolutely everything but not quite. Working again but I may put my note back up when I am writing as it is nice not to have to go to the door when I am writing. I really can not help anyone especially with my sprained finger!; at 79 I am not doing CPR or anything like that and I do not babysit children normally especially other people's children. Not my thing. Lovely people, children but I raised mine and if needed would care for my own but tend not to get involved with babysitting. I am much too old. Plus I never buy anything at the door. The City kindly leaves notes when they are doing work so unless you are going to drop a tree on my car or the gas line is leaking probably you do not need to ring my door. Plus I do plan to move in another year. I hope a young family moves in because this is a street for children for sure; mine loved it.

No work on the book yesterday; it was entirely a cleaning day. I actually never even opened the door except to check the mail. I seldom get any mail; I have everything coming on the email that can come that way. 

The reheated chicken stew was excellent once again and there is still two more days. I baked a banana bread last night; I haven't baked anything for quite a while. Last week the other three days I had a piece of salmon that lasted that long. I really do enjoy having left over meals. It gives me more time for my writing. I am still on the 12th generation with about 37 pages left to go. Then the charting can continue and I hope to complete it in the next couple of weeks along with the two missing newsletters. I have been somewhat tardy with that for sure. 

I see it is just 5 degrees celsius this morning. Must check on that back tap and turn it off although it is supposed to warm up and I still need it for a couple of days. No frost warning though on the weather channel. The nice thing about frost is getting rid of the pollen - my eyes and nose are running as I do have a couple of fall allergies to things like ragweed. Come on winter!

Breakfast next. Then Latin. Cleaning follows and the painting. The days pass very quickly.

Frost and a warming trend

 Apparently a slight frost warning this morning and now back to a warmer couple of days but definitely into Fall weather. I am glad that I shut off the tap out front and will do the same by next weekend with the tap at the back. In between I want to clean up the car, vacuum it and get the garage ready for winter so that I can put the car in whenever I want which will be soon. I would rather not scrape ice off of the windows! That will be a chore for later in the week. Today is large cleaning day and I begin very shortly.  My FitBit does not charge up as easily nor does it hold its charge as long as it used to. I think it is now nearly three years old so I must invest in a new one one of these days. I do find it handy. Mostly I know how much exercise I am doing and how effective it is but I must admit that the change in ownership has done away with the webpage details and you need to subscribe to really be able to look at a long term view of results. I do not plan to subscribe at the moment but will consider it for a bit and that will be the consideration that goes ahead with the type of FitBit watch that I purchase. 

I definitely do not need a lot of memberships beyond what I already have. I have four that I maintain for my writing and that will go on for a while yet. I class my house bills as another sort of membership which I pay monthly and that will go on for a while yet. But otherwise I limit my belonging/memberships in things. They need to be helpful for my maintenance, for my writing or my tithe to God which I give to the Church. One reason I was so in favour of going to Christ Church Cathedral was for that reason it is a "Mother" Church and as such will remain in place for a long time likely and so I would prefer to support it rather than local Churches which may or may not remain as a Church. It is sad to see Church dwindling but I also understand why people do not attend; I didn't understand when I was young and not really into my 30s but I have come to that understanding. I always simply loved going to Church every Sunday (and still do now that it is online) which I always made clear to anyone who knew me. It was a major choice for me to do that and voicing it was what God through Jesus asked us to do. To take the word of God to the people who do seem to forget it from one generation to the next for whatever reason. 

Cleaning day and it begins soon. First Latin and then cleaning. Generally I begin around 9:00 give or take. Today I slept in which was nice but that is 6:30 instead of 6:00 at which time I did my early morning exercises that take about ten or fifteen minutes (I started about the time that I went back to work outside of the home because when I was home I could build in exercise periods during my work day (called coffee breaks!)). I do tend to just live the day that is in front of me. Then I do my solitaire games which perhaps takes me fifteen minutes give or take and then play some spider solitaire if they haven't taken too long and then it is time for breakfast and that is now eaten but before breakfast I do my reclining warrior, rotation of the hip and knee joints in sitting position, jumping jacks and shoulder stand with walking in between each exercise which takes about ten minutes. Now back at the computer writing my blog and then into Latin. 

The day begins and it is very sunny today although just eight degrees celsius at 8:30 a.m. My finger is still somewhat stiff from the sprain but I can type fairly normally now. Taking the day off was a good plan that and the icing and heat treatment. Half of my hand is bruised but slowly diminishing now.