An afternoon of golfing

 We did eighteen holes of golf yesterday (well I only did 14 by then I had had it and didn't want to be in the way so just watched as my daughter play her last four holes. We didn't golf last summer at all so it was two years but it was a lovely day for a walk and I thoroughly enjoyed my walk and what golf I did do. The golf course was very busy yesterday but kept moving along. 

Looking out this morning at what little of the sky is actually visible. The one side of the window is pretty much completely blocked and about 95% of the other window although it is bright enough to type without turning on the light at 5:30 a.m.   

Perhaps today some kayaking and walking (the walking for me) as I do enjoy a walk along the beach in the summer. It was very busy last weekend and pretty much every parking spot was taken up. We have a pass which allows us to park for that minimum fee but does not promise a parking spot but it is handy not to have to stand in line and collect your parking pass plus we generally go three or four times a week so is probably cheaper. 

Worked on the Living DNA matches yesterday and I am on page 7 of the third siblings matches. Hope to complete that set of matches today and move on to the fourth sibling. I also want to start to work on the files to be used for phasing of the grandparents and great grandparents. I anticipate a few changes here and there mostly created by the endogamy in our lines particularly the Knight family and the families that feed into it namely Butt, Arnold, Ellis and a couple of other ones. But also the Routledge family which tended to marry second cousins or greater through the generations (my 3x great grandparents were 2nd cousins once removed - Thomas Routledge and Elizabeth (Routledge) Routledge. The Oakshaw branch of the Routledge family were particularly known for their close marriages through the centuries. But also Nicholas Blake married his first cousins Margaret (Blake) Blake and later Richard Blake married Joan (Blake) Blake but their relationship is less obvious (she could be a Blake from the Andover Blake family or from the Calne Blake family.  Then further back the Blake name itself in the Andover Blake family was acquired likely in the late 1200s/early 1300s when I postulate that a daughter of Richard le Blak married a John (no surname known) of Knights Enham. To me it is a logical statement as choosing the surname Blake when it was already held by several different well known families in the British Isles seemed rather strange but the advantage to a Norman marriage would have been huge for sure in now-Norman England having been conquered by William of Normandy in 1066! By the early 1300s most of the large land holdings were in Norman hands although the actual property holdings further down remained basically the same and many of the large landowners under King Harold retained their lands in return for swearing fealty to the Norman Kings. 

Perhaps outside and more work on the weeds - I need to weed the bricks along the sides of the laneway and a little weeding out front. One bag of weed pullings went out to the garbage yesterday. That cleared out the rhubarb patch and raspberry patch in the back right garden patch. Never an end of weed pulling for sure. The hostas keep the weeds down along the right side but the left side needs a lot of work. The sunflowers are growing now and very visible - my daughter hoed out the large weeds but left a little greenery with hopes that the rabbits wouldn't eat up all the sunflowers before they get to grow!

Up early and will have a nap a little later so that I am ready for a good long walk in the afternoon! Slowly approaching 80 and a nap on some days might just be beneficial. Tea to drink and solitaire puzzles to do.  

Shopping Day

To the market, to the shopping plaza and then to the grocery store and by the end of all of that I must admit to having been tired. As I waited for my groceries to be all packed, I found my mind wandering a bit but rapidly back when I realized that this clerk had remembered to email my receipt and I didn't have to wait for it to print with everything all packed up and we were on our way. It was a long afternoon but then I am nearly 80. I must admit I have toyed with the idea of just having groceries delivered and not bothering with going to the store but it is nice to pick your own produce and of course going to the market is such a treat in the summer with our farmers there selling their produce to us locally. The shopping plaza was collecting up a few birthday presents and some success some failure there so will have to do a little more shopping. I can shop in the early afternoon most of the year and it is very quiet and I am done very quickly. But definitely the clerks ringing up the groceries and packing up in the store should be older people as $205 worth of groceries was jammed into 5 bags when I provide about 20 bags to do that. If my daughter wasn't with me I couldn't have picked up three of them. 

We had a lovely meat loaf for dinner - fresh beef and fresh pork. I cook the chopped up vegetables in just a little butter for five minutes and then mix it into the beef, pork and oatmeal along with two eggs, salt and pepper, worcestershire sauce and then pack it into the glass meat loaf dish and cover it with a mixture of ketchup and mustard to keep it moist for the hour of cooking. Along with small potatoes on the side and a couple of salads we had a beautiful dinner and then cold slice meatloaf for a few days. I prefer jellied cold cuts and they are hard to find these days (at least the kinds that I prefer) so the meat loaf will be a nice treat. 

Worked on the matches yesterday and completed the fourth page for the third sibling. There are 154 new matches to enter into my databases. Will carry on today with the fifth page checking to see if it is time to go to 2 segments and 1 segment only. I found that five segments on the 4th page did not have any significant matches and four just a couple and the same with three so will check that out first and see how it goes.   

Life is slowly settling into the summer time and yesterday I pulled yet another bag of wild flowers this time out of the rhubarb/raspberry bed at the back which also hosts tulips in the spring.  Gardening is definitely not my thing but my daughter's sunflowers are springing up (about eight rows of them) which will be lovely to watch in the fall if they survive the bunnies eating up the fresh green. 

Early today and will have a nap in a bit after I drink my tea. I think my one room concept continues to come to me these days as the house is too big but not when my daughter is here; I do not need a car actually although it is handy to go and get groceries a couple of times a month when I am alone but that is it; I do not drive anywhere else except to have the tires changed twice a year which I may start to leave for my daughter when she comes at break times (Christmas) and summer research break. But I could just take a taxi back from the grocery store for sure. 

A bit of work and then my tea and then a nap! 

Continuing on the matches

 As I reread the Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter I found a few unclosed brackets and a couple of other tiny items so will fix that. My mind is on my extraction of matches and it shows. Either that or I am nearly 80 and that shows. 

Continued with the match extraction  and the growth will be slow now that I am into page 3 of the matches with 144 extracted into separate files. When page 4 is completed in the extraction process (50 matches to a page) then I will check page 5 and see if it is time to go to 2 segments and 1 segment as I do want to get into the last two siblings match pages. The middle of the month is past and I am heading up to the Blake Newsletter for the first of July. Keeping up the regular work seemed easy in the winter but somewhat difficult in the spring and summer with the garden beckoning although I do not follow that beckoning very often to be sure. The rabbits and other four legged mammals are enjoying the products of my non-attendance for sure. 

Continuing today with the matches extraction and it is raining. Not so bad actually as one really can not easily garden in the rain and my mind can be totally devoted to the matches. 

Drinking my tea now somewhat cold as I was busy working the solitaire puzzles for the day! but is lemon ginger which still tastes really quite good even cool. One of these days I will get back to my green tea but I need to wait until I can manage all of that caffeine. I am a hyperactive person normally and do not need the added caffeine in my bloodstream at the moment - life is busy. 

We are moving along here in Canada with our new way of doing business with the provincial barriers pretty much resolved by the first of July - free trade between provinces with no restrictions will make a huge difference here and some companies are really prospering where the products came up from the United States in that north south pattern that has existed on this continent for thousands of years. But time changes and so must we. Canadians do not generally institute change that is noted on the world scene; we are a helper country for the most part doing the best that we can do to help the peoples of the world when that help is needed. But we are a strong ally to our friends and neighbours which indeed include both hemispheres since we share a border with the European Union through Greenland and with the United States here. I think Prime Minister Carney does bring the strength of Canada together in a way that is good for us as a country. I also think that once Pierre Poilievre returns to the house he too will bring forward the conservative part of this country in a good way supporting the initiatives which both parties (Liberal and Conservative) put forward during the past election and which received 85% of the support of all Canadians voting. The mandate is strong and a party in opposition can do as much good as the party in power in these instances when much change is needed. It is good to see so many First Nations in the house as well and as Premiers in the Provinces/Territories. We need to keep having the voice of the First Nations in our decision making to keep change flowing as quickly as is possible. 

 

 

Last day of cleaning for this week

Today the top floor and then the cleaning will all be accomplished. The weather looks like rain today so perhaps not a walk on the beach which we enjoyed last evening although rain had been promised yesterday but it was still okay to walk after all. 

The Pincombe-Pinkham newsletter was completed and perhaps the next one will have more exciting details as this was merely a summation of items and ideas for where I could obtain needed material for the next chapters to come. 

Continued with the matches and about half way through the third page of 50 matches. Still some new ones although not very many but I am now up to 140 new matches to put into the system. Not all of them will go in but I will put them into my interesting file but not entered so that I can look at them in the future. One feature of the Living DNA bookmark is looking at the chromosome results for everyone in the box which I have not yet looked at very thoroughly other than to note that it was possible. That will be interesting to work with as well. I am pleased with the Living DNA setup as it is a time saver for extracting the information for a set of siblings. Although I am not actually using that to a great degree I could do so and likely as I check the account in the future after this very first go through on my part years after I tested has been most interesting. I could see back when the chromosome browser first came out that I was showing endogamy quite extensively in some of the results and just avoided it at the time as life was pretty busy. 

The weather today does look a little gloomy so will be a good inside work day which is my favourite - gardening is never going to be something that I eagerly go out the door to do. At least I recognize most of the plants that have survived my not recognizing them. The Hosta does dominate the garden as Edward found they were less work for him and occupied a lot of space keeping the weeds down as they are much more aggressive than the smaller weeds. 

The sunflowers are doing well and the rows are very visible now. I think it was a good plan to just turn the garden patch into a sunflower garden. It will be lovely when the flower heads form. The many animals who run through this yard will enjoy the seeds. The larger birds might also nip down and clip off a plant head perhaps. There is a good clear run down into the garden. I shall watch for that as well. The raspberries are doing very well and all this rain will give a lot of berries for sure. 

Tea drank, solitaire puzzles completed and time for breakfast. I am a bit late today. I was working away on a couple of projects before I went down to make my tea. The time does pass quickly.  

The commitment of time

Cleaning of the basement all accomplished yesterday and today it is the main floor. I shall begin after breakfast as usual and should be all accomplished around 11 or so. The routine of cleaning is so very helpful and the exercise is also very good. 

Yesterday good work on the matches and I have nearly completed the first 200 for the third sibling. A few surprises here and there but for the most part this was smoother going than the first two because many of them are repeats so the page for them is already set up and just have to add in the new result for that sibling. Endogamy though does appear to be seeping through the results and particularly in the Blake line which I anticipated although it is actually the Knight/Butt/Arnold line because Maria Jane Knight married Edward Blake in 1870 at Upper Clatford but also the parents of Edward (Ann (Farmer) Blake and John Blake had 54 grandchildren and hundreds of great grand children but that didn't cause endogamy!

I must get outside though and do some weeding and I also need to finish the Pincombe-Pinkham Newsletter. Perhaps I should tie myself to the Newsletter first thing and get it done. 

Lovely morning at 7:00 a.m. and it is 18 degrees celsius and we are expecting rain and it is always handy to keep everything green. The Air quality at 46 is high for this time of year but is considered to be good.  I do not see rain in the forecast online but time will tell. Certainly it is cloudy. 

Yesterday another lovely walk on the beach and I have to start getting ready to do my driver's license renewal. I only use it to drive to the local grocery store a couple of times a month but I will read the rules book and be ready. I booked my Optometrist appointment and I need to book my Driver's License appointment so will look into that today. Since I will be 80 there is extensive testing I think so will prepare for that. I do not see myself driving other than to the grocery store though. For one thing our roads are still are in disarray with the new train coming and I just do not want that hassle although I do, twice a year, drive to have the tires switched which is the only other time that I drive. Otherwise I just take the bus as it is easy and gets me where I am going without any need to figure out the parking or anything else. 

Cleaning today and the newsletter and the matches and must try to keep that order until the newsletter is completed. 

Drinking my tea and doing my solitaire puzzles.