Sunday and cloudy

 The slight breeze in the trees always makes me think of God all around us watching and waiting for us to do the right thing. To love our neighbour as ourself. Seventeen degrees celsius today and cloudy is the promise of the day thus far. 

Lots to do. Kitchen is slowly getting all washed up from one end to the other. The last of the cupboards are now washed and just have to wash all the dishes that were in those cupboards. They are old style cupboards. Came with the house nearly fifty years ago now. My husband and daughter repainted them a few years ago (like maybe twenty actually or more years ago. They are slowly showing signs of wear here and there. I should paint and perhaps I will. Time will tell. At nearly 81 I find that my time spent on such activities is less and less. I just keep it clean. I will be glad to move as it is too big for me. 

Yesterday I mostly worked at cleaning so not much work done on the genealogical tables. I also need to do some outside work and will try for that today maybe. The FitBit continues to be interesting and Google has pretty much taken over that name as it is their property but I have been using the AI on it a certain amount. I know more about my health and ability than the AI but it has interesting comments that I am thinking about on occasion. I like the FitBit as it tells me how many steps a day that I do which I consider important. We always have to move about; we are meant to do that for our health and welfare. 

Sunday and Church is very soon. The last day of May and it is Trinity Sunday. That begins the Ordinary time that follows until Christ the King Sunday and Advent to follow the next Sunday. It is cyclical the Church Year and as a child it pretty much was how I thought of the year as it passed through each special time.  

The sermon today was timely and captured my thoughts partially. The many names of God on this earth. When the first explorers arrived in what is now Canada they learned that God to the First Nations (Huron Nation) was Gitchi Manitou (Great Spirit in several Algonquian languages). For the First Nations it referred to the supreme Creator, the Giver of Life  and the Great Mystery which formed the world we live in and all that is in it. As a child I found it extremely exciting to learn about Gitchi Manitou and still do find learning about the First Nations to be a fascinating set of knowledge. Our cultures (mine descendant of many of the ancient peoples of the British Isles (both England, Scotland and Ireland as my DNA shows) went all the way back to the Western Hunter Gatherers who first populated these Isles (8,000 and perhaps as much as 12,000 years earlier than the Common Era we now live in as the ice slowly withdrew from the lands and the First Nations dating back even further in time on this Continent of the Western Hemisphere dating back 13,000 or more years. I felt akin as I learned more and ore about the First Nations as my brother's yDNA clearly led us back to those Western Hunter Gatherers. My grandfather Blake always said they had lived in the Andover area for ever because it was so very very long ago. But DNA does tells us we arose in the African Continent (all Homo sapiens) and so we spread out around the world from there. My 3% Denisovan and 2% Neanderthal tell me that in the far past my blood line led back to these earlier Homo species. But the written record only extends so far back and Blake was in Andover in the 1300s but the people of England did not have surnames and so they had to adapt to surnames after the Norman Conquest. The reason for choosing Blake tantalizes me very often; why would one chose a name that so many people carried in Europe and in the British Isles. The reason never to be known by me probably but the logic points to taking the surname of a wife way back in the 1300s and the benefit of doing so huge if I am correct that it was the le Blak family of Rouen, Normandy which came to England in 1274 with permission to set up a market in England. Such a family exists and are first seen along the coast of Hampshire and later the same name appears on the Pipe Rolls of the Bishopric of Winchester 1301. I must explore the earlier Pipe Rolls which begin in 1208. 

Still cloudy and Church has finished. I was restless but I am like that sometimes. I have a lot of thoughts in my mind these days. 

As a country I remain convinced that we are on the right path. We want to be independent and in charge of our own natural resources. I think it was very cruel at the time when it was suggested that we could be taken over just by ruining our economy. We must not let that happen as we slip into a technical recession. We are diversifying our trade around the world but it will take time.  We must create new industry in Canada. PEI said they need workers because their industries are increasing. It just takes time. Why not twin the Trans Mountain pipeline as that is a thoroughfare already created and goes directly to tidewater. But we do need private money to do that. Ontario needs to do more to create industry but again that is happening here and there but still there is too much time spent on useless items like an airport on Toronto Island. I see no value in that for 90% of people in Ontario. Time for a change but no party/individual is providing us with their concrete ideas to improve the economy in Ontario. 

Time for lunch; the morning was interesting and always lovely to go to Church.  

Saturday and Sun

 A beautiful day out there and will likely observe mostly from the inside as lots of work to do. Yesterday we cleaned the entire set of kitchen cupboards and re-arranged them. Eliminated a whole lot of plastic dishes that were for the grandchildren but they eat off of regular dishes these days. Slowly down sizing and getting rid of items that I never use anymore. 

Completed the matches and glanced at 23 and Me and My Heritage for new matches that would be interesting for my great grandparent phasing file. Will do Ancestry, Gedmatch, FT DNA  today. 

Tonight is a full moon so can plant next week. The lettuce roots that we planted have new lettuces forming which is always very interesting, the ability of the roots of a lettuce plant being able to recreate the lettuce plant itself is quite fascinating. The bunnies will enjoy the lettuces likely if they let them grow. Weeding to do out there and must put aside some time for that. 

Emptied the pantry and will wash the shelves with bleach and soap to get them ready for another year. I expect to be in this house for just another three years although earlier would be interesting but not practical. Moving twice in three years is too much trouble. 

It will be a time for hard work and re-calibration for Canada as we continue forward into the life that the Fathers of Confederation planned for Canada walking hand in hand with our First Nations. They know the land so much better than we do and we need to listen to their thoughts. Greed must disappear from this land if we all want to be successful in this life (greed destroys; it does not build). The Prime Minister has good plans for Canada and we must help support his ideas as we move forward slowly but surely. Nothing will be fast; it never is. The Conservatives need to concentrate on working with the youth and get them situated into jobs that are needed or they could become entrepreneurs and make me a vacuum cleaner that doesn't sound like a jet engine! After all it is the youth that will still be here voting in the  next election and the ones that follow on into this remarkable century marred by violence which is just greed once again - greed for land and greed for opinion. Every person gets to live unobstructed in this world whether you agree with the opinions that they hold. When opinions do not match God's laws - love they neighbour as thyself - then those people are wrong. God will probably not destroy them as in the Bible times but they rot from within eventually; it does seem to take a long time though. You must live for the good of the many not for the good of the few; the few can not maintain Homo sapiens - look back at what has preceded us and you can see that. No Neanderthals walk the face of this earth, no Denisovans walk the face of this earth and the many that preceded these early peoples known to us by their DNA left behind. 

Moving forward though is the aim as we are now one quarter of the way through this century. I did not expect to even see this century so every day/month/year is a gift of God Almighty and I thank Him for that everyday. At twenty eight years of age, quite ill, I could feel the winds of God pushing me forward and I continue to feel those winds of God swirling around this world as He watches and waits for us to live the life He commanded. 

Antisemitism must disappear from Canada in all its ugly forms. If you cannot live within the laws of this country then go back to where you came from and take your ugly antisemitism with you.  Our Jewish neighbours have every right to live at peace in this country. 

Must get some work done the day moves quickly and just twelve hours to bed time once again! 

Another cloudy day

Yesterday turned out to be a quiet day and not a lot of work done but a pleasant day none the less. Sometimes my days are just full of thinking and that was yesterday. Plus we went to the market and got fresh vegetables and to the grocery store for the remainder. These days I am spending slightly more than $200 per week on all the groceries. We do eat fairly basically preparing all of our meals from basic ingredients. We aim for lots of good protein in every meal - for me because I am old and for my caregiver because she is very active doing lots of good cardio. 

The first workout of the day on my part already completed and was 1 hour and 5 minutes  with a cardio load of 32. Always an interesting workout with light at 43%, moderate at 29%, vigorous at 20% and peak at 8%. A good way for me to start the day and with the AI on FitBit chiming in I have even more interesting insights into how well a workout is going from a cardiovascular point of view. An interesting experience having an AI reviewing my workout actually.  I will see how I like this interesting addition to FitBit. 

I wonder if we will see what happened to Quebec when separatists arrived on the scene half a century ago now and completely destroyed Montreal's place as the economic powerhouse of Canada moving it to Toronto. Quebec has had a hard battle keeping industrial giants in Quebec and the Alberta separatists may well destroy the economy of Alberta if they are not tamed quickly and put to rest. Separatism is a disease in democratic countries where there isn't an obvious prior existence dating back centuries and should not be permitted the sort of headlining that they get. Plus there are still no charges against the individual who posted the voter's list of Alberta quite illegally on the internet. Lots of law suits against his illegal release of names and pertinent information to tame that nuisance and a term in jail would be a good news story for sure. There are no gains in separatism only losses and mostly for the people who get sucked in by their lies. 

Ontario though needs to get moving on creating industry. A Conservative voter myself but we need youth in office with the vigour needed to start new industry in Ontario  instead of spending all the time on a tiny little airport on Toronto Island.

Back to research and writing my books. The days pass so very quickly. Time to do the Solitaire puzzles.  

 

Research day

 Another research day finally and I shall complete the last two matches as I did not do that yesterday. Life has been very very busy. However we have made it over to Petri twice now - me for a walk and my caregiver for a kayak. Research is dominating our days for both of us. 

It was good to have visited my usual doctor and my flareup of diverticulosis (2 lots in the past year) has passed although I will repeat the blood work and probably I will call in and see if I can just get a request sent to the clinic to get that done early in the New Year. Interesting that each time I had blood work followed a flareup in the diverticulosis although not related at all but rather just how life flowed at that time. I had my usual result for white blood cell count but the reduced lymphocyte level to 0.8 from the usual 1.0.  The blood smear was produced from a badly drawn blood work as the technician had moved the needle about needlessly as the blood was flowing likely creating false artifacts and a very very bruised arm. I changed the company for the blood draw for the second time but it also followed a period of flareup. Shall try to pick a calm period in my life if there is one for the next one! Diverticulosis can be a nuisance for sure. 

I do watch my blood work though carefully because I was advised to do so after the birth of my first child and the enormous blood loss that I underwent at that delivery (blood was down to 28 and I had to drink Stout three times a day). For a non drinker of beer in particular and only the occasional glass of wine that was an experience in itself for sure.  But my blood did come back up to the usual level (I was always anemic in my young days; menopause was a great gift for me!) after a month or so of really carefully planned eating plus I was nursing the baby. Cause of the blood loss was a partial placental previa not noted prior to delivery. 

So today it is a research day and perhaps I should get a leap ahead on checking for any new matches in this past month that I have spent working away on the newly discovered matches a month ago just to make sure I am not missing anything interesting. It should be a quick glance. 

I need to do the Pincombe Newsletter as well for the 1st of June. Hard to believe it is nearly June and almost half way through the year. 

Our progress in becoming tariff proof is moving along very well. The purchase of the SAAB airplane for the Arctic is a perfect decision for us because they will be built here by Canadians and they are created and built for the Arctic by Sweden an Arctic nation and another member of NATO. I think it was a wise decision. We still need F-35s of course and have another order ongoing because we also have a large part of our nation that is not Arctic only although we do get long winters but the SAAB can land on quite short runways which is important for us. Plus it helps our GDP and our NATO expenditure. 

Our expenditure is rapidly going to 4% GDP for military which will speed up our path to 5% which is the desired level now in NATO. The north is opening up with climate change and the ability to use our deep ocean ports in the north will be very handy as we diversify our trade around the world. If anyone had said to me that we would be doing this in 2026 back even two years ago I would have doubted it but life flows as it flows and we just have to flow with it. We had no complaints with CUSMA although the extra tariffs which were placed on non-CUSMA goods through the years were surprising. But now we are trading all around the world and our GDP slowly increases. It will take time and once the new pipeline is built to tidewater then that will move quickly. We sell our oil at a discount in CUSMA but full price round the world.  

Part way through my exercise but thought I would put pen to paper so to speak and write down my thoughts as I exercise. There exercise and breakfast completed. Back to work although I need to clean the refrigerator at my next break time.  Never a dull moment for sure. Looking forward to that one room concept; I think my desire to do housecleaning has lessened as I reach 80 years of age. 

Solitaire puzzles to do.  

Attempting to change the Confederation of Canada which first began in 1867 and its gradual assumption and the enactment of treaties with the First Nation for the entire area from east to west through the 1880s/1890s which resulted in Canada from sea to sea to sea (including Rupert's Land) cannot be altered by anyone without the agreement of the First Nations (and that is the entire First Nations of Canada; all of them should have a vote in the lands that are Canada since they are all stakeholders). The founding principles of Canada which were gained over the initial period with regard to the treaties is not changeable at all as far as I am concerned as a voting Canadian. It is the basis on which we, the peoples of Canada at every stage, created Canada. Attempting to alter this was properly understood by the judge ruling on the objection of the First Nations to the entire process of a proposed referendum. Personally I do not believe in separatist referendums in democratic countries where there is no prior by the side requesting such a referendum (separatists are basically small groups of potential dictators and their adherents attempting to take away the rights of the many; it is not democracy at work). There was no Alberta until Canada created Alberta in 1905 as an administrative unit; there were the many First Nations that still occupy their historical areas of Alberta and a whole lot of unceded First Nations land which individuals have been permitted to buy with the understanding that they can own it under the laws of Canada,  sell it, pass it on to their legal heirs but they can not remove it from Canada (if they die without naming heirs then it reverts back to the government of Canada in the case of Alberta it reverts to Alberta as the administrator of the provincial jurisdiction known as Alberta which was created by Canada). Just because the numbers of the First Nations are not as great as the numbers of non First Nations does not alter the founding principles. If people do not like how our nation is formed and managed the door out is always open. I agree with that concept.  

The deal with Germany for low-carbon Canadian LNG is wondrous and congratulations to the Ksi Lisims LNG in British Columbia. We are on our way to being tariff proof as we continue to diversify our trade. Shovels in the ground for the new pipeline to Pacific tidewater are anticipated. One can feel the excitement in the air with all of this good news. 

We have had nearly 20 years of particularly poor government with regard to trade. Although the Harper government came in with a lot of good ideas the economic reality was recession and the reaction of the then Prime Minister was one more of panic than careful reasoning and it intensified as we moved towards 2015 with a number of poor choices including pouring all available money into oil production in Alberta and basically ignoring the rest of the provinces. Although oil is a good product all of Canada has good products and he should have used more measure in his selection of worthy projects (perhaps he could have listened to the advice given at that time instead of making decisions that did not benefit all of Canada). That poor selection continued and worsened under the Trudeau government (although the shut down during COVID was also part of that difficulty) resulting in stagnation in our trade around the world which was mostly not sufficiently explored. Under the Carney government we are seeing much better distribution of the ability of Canada to diversify its trade and create new industry across the entire country. I would like to see my party (the Conservatives) pull themselves together; get out of attack dog mood and get the youth of this country working. They will soon be back in their ridings and could put 100% of their time (which we pay for) into working with the youth instead of attacking the Liberal government constantly. We voters are all adults in the room and we want to see non panicking adults in the House of Commons.  

Basement cleaning day

 Yesterday the  main floor did get cleaned a little later in the day than usual but it is complete except for washing the floors that are linoleum and the stairs which are wooden. Today it is the basement and the Robot is doing its chore. I always check it first now to ensure it is fully charged. That is our duty as the caretaker of robots; to maintain them and keep them well appointed to do the task they are assigned. 

I did glance at the next of the last two matches to do and it is an interesting one mostly because of what is not there.  It only matches my sister and is a good Rawlings matches including at X match at FT DNA but it should also have myself in the one length (there are three interesting lengths in this match). Why am I missing, that is very unusual with FT DNA. Both are original kits with FT DNA Family Finder testing two years apart. But the interesting part is that my kit uploaded from Ancestry does match my sister so it does tell me that there is a difference in the two years with the chip used to test in those time frames. So I do match as proven with the Ancestry (taken into Gedmatch by the owner)  matching the FT DNA result. I will likely complete those two matches today and as I approach the end of the month I will start to think about using CoPilot from my new Microsoft purchase of Microsoft yearly software as I move on from Microsoft 2016. I meant to upgrade it many times but just never got to it. But now the desire to work with AI necessitates my moving on. But first I will check all the databases for anything new in the last month in terms of large matches. 

I can feel a huge cohesion developing in Canada these days as we forge ahead with our Arctic protection with the global warming affecting the accessibility to the many deep water ports in the north that belong to Canada. The ability to alter how trade moves between continents is about to take place. Really it should be a friendlier world with so much to gain from co-operation but rogue nations continue to plague that ability and create difficulties that do not need to exist in the human picture. That they exist pose the greatest threat to humanity yet really. People are too selfish that demonstrate this rogue attitude in the world. It is all about them and nothing about humanity in particular. 

I am slowly getting used to this Google takeover of FitBit which I believe they own in terms of aggressive chatter directed at the user. I have managed myself these 80 years and intend to continue doing so until I cannot. However, it is collecting the data in a way that I used to look at having collected it myself so that is probably handy. We will see but I have no interest in the Premium package as it takes up too much of my time to look at and decide it is interesting. My exercise is done on the fly so to speak. I come to a point where I decide to exercise and prefer that as it doesn't interrupt my day. At the moment I need to get my 250 steps for this hour and will stop and do it and then return to writing my blog.   

So what do I actually hope to create with my large matches file (nearly 4400 lines and includes all of the chromosomes 1 to 23)? The intent is to bring together all of my known information simply drag it into a Legacy chart and then add what I find in terms of known matches and the cousin knowledge unknown matches to see how far back this information can take me. Then all the Blake wills that help to fill in the missing items from the 1400s on will be rolled in to this chart and I will have my genealogical chart from 1400 (or earlier if the material I have warrants their addition) to probably the end of the 1800s and into the early 1900s. My father was born in 1904 and likely I will include him as a child of Samuel George Blake my grandfather born in 1875. That should work for anyone looking at the chart as the census pretty much helps everyone in my Blake line with placing themselves into the correct sibling descent with Samuel or into the John Blake family (baptized 1799) and the father of Edward Blake (born 1845) who was the father of Samuel. I do have known descendants of Thomas (father of John baptized 1799) who was baptized in 1767 and the first generation of this Blake line at Upper Clatford with his father being Joseph Blake (baptized 1730 at Andover) and the son of Thomas Blake (baptized 1709 at Andover) and the son of Thomas Blake (baptized 1685 at Andover) and the son of John Blake (baptized 1649 at Andover) and Elizabeth (unknown) with John being the son of William Blake (baptized 1615 at Andover) and Ann Hellier. William (baptized 1615) was the son of William Blake and Dorothy Madgwick and William was the son of Richard Blake and Jone Blake with this Richard the son of  William Blake and Elizabeth (unknown) and the son of  Nicholas Blake married to Margaret Blake and the wills preceding Nicholas will support this furtherance back in time to Richard Blake and then Robert Blake and potentially the John Blake found at Knights Enham in the early 1300s having likely adopted his wife's surname as his own surname. So an interesting trip for sure. It fits in with what my grandfather told me although this seven year old going on eight but not quite there has a somewhat hazy memory of some of that information prior to Joseph. Forenames all jumbled but Nicholas stood out very prominently. 

Time to check on the vacuum it has had its hour to do the rugs.