The last day of cleaning for the week

 The last day of cleaning and it is the top floor. It will be nice to be finished and have a couple of working days before I clean again. My logic in cleaning is that I never have to do panic cleaning; that was very logical in the past but perhaps less consequential in the present. Being 80 does have its perks as my desire to go shopping is always pretty much nil unless I need something. By doing my morning exercises for one hour every day I always feel like diving into the day as it turns out which is also great when you are 80. I think 80 is a turning stone and one should let it be. Time to move away from too much absorption in anything really. Just enjoy the fact that God is in the world and a part of the world but not visible to us. He is just there; always watching and waiting for us to do the right things. His commandments just two to make it easy - Love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbour as ourself. I do not claim to be perfect in that regard; I am human and we do have our weaknesses but striving to reach that goal is always good. 

In the aftermath of Easter we have so much to think about and contemplate. In Canada it is time for spring and slowly but surely the snow is leaving us and the spring flowers have burst forth - the snowdrops tend to be first (lovely tiny intricate white flowers on a green stem) and they greet the world once again reminding us that there is more to come. They are aptly named as they often come up through a pile of snow. The leaves of the crocuses are up and soon the flowers will appear once again. I was looking for buds yesterday on the tree at the front of our yard and perhaps they are swelling just a little. It is a huge tree and I would like to keep it another year anyway. I did not plant it; the city planted it and I suppose one of these days they may take it down as it is very very large now. I will likely get it trimmed this year once the leaves have burst into the open. That way I can see the branches that have died through this past winter. Thank you God for the beauty of the world around us. We are blessed. 

Yesterday I worked once again on the Blake book and preparing to start the Genealogical Charts coming down from Robert Blake who was likely born in the mid 1400s and as a very elderly person left his will in 1521 remembering his sons and in particular he notes that Richard is to receive his farm and property at Enham. Richard will only live a short time longer and his property will pass to Nicholas (his likely son although the order for these sons escapes me thus far - Robert and Nicholas and an unnamed daughter in his will but she was likely Elizabeth.  The spelling of Nicholas is somewhat unusual in his will but Robert is clearly spelt out. I think Robert is younger because Nicholas inherits the property at Enham. An interesting family this Blake family of Enham near Andover. 

Over near Basingstoke there are other families that share the same y-DNA with this Blake family (not exactly the same but obviously also Hunter-Gatherers arriving in the British Isles as much as 8,000 to 12,000 years ago is the thought with these families also tracing their lines back into the 1500s in this area). Interestingly they settled into this lovely area of the British Isles. Our first trip through in 2008 revealed a lot of farm land and an openness on this road heading towards London and the next trip through in 2016 revealed acre after acre of solar panels and the green fields of England were being greened instead of burning fossil fuels. Just eight short years made such a change; I marveled at it actually. In 2008 my cousin Ivan was still alive and we spent a couple of days with Ivan and his wife Pat traveling about Dorset, Hampshire the first day and then the second day we went to Somerset and Devon all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. It was amazing to stand on the beach looking out and knowing that thousands of miles away was Newfoundland the gateway to Canada. I will always remember that moment with my cousin standing there, chatting and looking. He had never been to Canada and I said you should come and visit us. We had been corresponding for over twenty years then back and forth. Unusual for me to keep up anything like that for so long but my mother had wanted a book about the family for my parent's 50th Wedding Anniversary in 1988 (and we just sort of fell into keeping up with each other after that). My parents asked my husband actually to write it for them and he said of course but it was me who looked everything up  in the Library at the Church of the Latter Day Saints reading room. It was also me that typed it and put it together. Edward managed it sort of and his interest level was not really high on that as he was pursuing his Kipp family at that time (and as he talked about this book on my family that he was writing his mother asked him to work on her family). It was cute actually and he did start to look at the Link-Allen family that was his mother's birth family. This family proved to be fascinating linking him back to all sorts of interesting people who had been at the forefront of many of the American Royal Colonies in their formative years. All that lost over time although he did start soon enough that he could tell his mother about some of her ancestors before she passed away in 2000. 

My world has shrunk over this past six months since I turned 80; I seldom come out of my shell now and my concentration has increased once again back into my books that I want to write. The retreat seemed to have brought that forward quickly; the dogs were my constant companions as were the cats. The fish just sort of looked at me as I fed them every day. The world around me was totally different and I have to say that it was good for me to do that retreat. It wasn't really meant as one but it became that for me. It told me that I am 80 now and it is the time for me to commit to doing these projects that I want to complete and so the rest of my thinking has disappeared into the past other than helping to grow Canada. 

What did I think of another Conservative MP crossing the floor? I say congratulations for recognizing that we have to put our shoulders to the grindstone and get this moving and it will take 100% cooperation by Parliament to get it done as quickly as possible. If the Conservative that I voted for here wanted to do that he would have my 100% support. An election would cripple the progress that has been made thus far. Knowing that what you needed to happen quickly can make a big difference. When we built the railroad from ocean to ocean back in the late 1800s it took such dedication on the part of Parliament to get it done. Canada is a stable out-looking country that has always been part of the world and shared in its wonders and its tragedies. The First Nations here have always been our guides through life whether they think that or not; we look to them to show us the way to maintain Canada and to make the future of Canada the best that it can be. They are of this land with thousands of years of knowledge that we do not have. My grandfather used to say that; one can not learn the ways of a country without knowing the peoples who have lived there through time. He was thinking of England of course when he said that but as I remember the things he used to say to me I realized how much like the First Peoples of Canada my grandfather was because his people had lived for so long in England and likely within a couple of kilometres of Andover or in Andover itself all of that time. It wasn't until he moved to Eastleigh near Southampton that he left his birth area and went to work on the railroad. Opportunity and desire to travel took him to Canada in 1913 to work for ten years on the Railroad. It was his intention to go back home but World War One decimated the Canadian population and they needed all of those men to stay that would and he did. Then six grandchildren kept him here after his wife died and so I, as a child, had the treat of knowing my grandfather who lived with us until I was six and then decided to be nearer his mates from work and passed away two years later although I still saw him very often as a child even then. I missed him for a very long time after he passed and thought about him all of my life carrying his memory in my mind as I too traveled through life. 

 Tea all drank and must do my solitaire puzzles. On to the day.

Cleaning day two

 Still one day behind and it is the main floor that will be cleaned today. Life is always busy. 

I did spend  more time on the Blake book adding to the acknowledgements and they are more or less complete now. I shall now begin the genealogical charting starting with Robert Blake who left his will dated 16 Dec 1521 although the coding for this will says 1522 but reading the actual will the year is M ccccc xxj so quite clearly 1521 and he lived at Enham, Hampshire, England. His name is spelled Robertij Blayke in the will and I do not think he has written it himself because there is a note added to the will in a different hand and in English rather than Latin. Interesting. I still remain conflicted for this Robert Blake since his eldest son appears to be Richarde and the individual coming to Salisbury from Ireland 10 Jul 1440 and 7 Sep 1441 as mentioned on the Emigrants' Database 1330-1550 held at the Archives in  England also had the name Richard (an interesting coincidence perhaps). He is said to be Irish in ethnicity. Record I have collected ages ago and not well documented in my early days:. a family tree (no longer online) showing a Robert Blake marrying a Maude Snell circa 1486 at Benham, Hampshire.  There is a Benham near Speen Berkshire other than that too far away. I have not been able to find that this Robert was in records prior to the early 1500s but I still have material to look at in that regard. It was the match on the yDNA that caught my eye (my brothers match an individual with the Blake surname who lives in Dublin or has history in Dublin (hard to tell really why one would put Dublin in as a reference). He could easily be an English Blake who went to Dublin sometime in the past or present so it doesn't colour my thoughts other than isn't that amazing. So initially I will begin with Robert Blake at Enham leaving his will in 1521 and bring the descendants of this individual as far down as I am able. I will continue working on the documents to see if I can find something earlier to connect back to the John Blake I found in the early 1300s in the Andover area and my suspicion that he took the surname of his wife as his own at the time of adaptation of surnames in the British Isles which was happening pretty much from the mid 1200s on. The advantage of taking on a surname that was Norman can readily be seen looking back in time. 

Today I return to working on the Gedmatch as I did get distracted from that. Life was busy for five weeks but great for the soul one might say. The retreat excellent and I highly recommend it. 

God works in wondrous and marvelous ways to bring to our attention the need to preserve this world and restore its newness so that it can also be enjoyed into the future. Sometimes that process is difficult because it takes money to make all that happen and so we must on occasion back-track a little in order to benefit in the long run.  Canada has so many resources to sell around the world and we must get them to tidewater to make that easy. As a people we have grown enormously this past year, recognizing our desire to live the life that we are used to with the attitudes that we have developed over time. Our First Peoples have great ideas and think in terms of 50 year plans which are far more beneficial to the country and to the people in it. Five years is too short and our politicians need to be aware of that and stop trying to buy votes by suggesting cutting here and there just because events tip the scales on occasion. All the money is needed to progress forward at the best pace possible. Shovels in the ground; it is spring and time to get this process going and growing Canada. 

I have always supported trades especially as I come from a trades family - my father and three of my brothers were all tradesmen and very accomplished. Trades are needed desperately and I do always find it interesting to tell the story of my father who dutifully went to school and trained to be a banker as his parents wished. But when he was finished and even got a job he told his parents he really wanted to be an electrician and he spent his spare time apprenticing to do that very thing. Gradually he moved to being an electrician and attained his Masters license and set up his own company. Soon he had developed the skills to create refrigeration including refrigerated rooms for restaurants and the like and air conditioning was soon in that list as well. Trades are very interesting; you get to work with all those fantastic tools and my youngest brother did all of his set up on the computer - lots of skills needed for trades far more than sitting at a desk inputting data into endless spread sheets. On your feet getting lots of exercise and there is a great amount of work for tradesmen these days. 

 Time to do my solitaire puzzles and then cleaning. 

 

Cleaning Day

It is the basement cleaning day today (I am a day late this week but it still works!). I will begin later this morning as the day is a topsy-turvy one. 

Snow (light) is promised for today but has not yet appeared so may just be a thought rather than a reality. It is cold though at minus 5 degrees celsius. April tends to be like that though. All of this snow across Canada is a good thing though as the run off from snow is much slower than rain and the more we get the later the forest fires will begin. Hopefully not such a busy year with that as last year. We have had a lot of snow and rain and that is helpful. Most of our snow is gone but there are still patches and it was a slow runoff this year. 

Yesterday I worked on the beginning of the Blake Book; revising my Preface and my Acknowledgements got partially written as I had not yet done that. Principally the acknowledgement is to my grandfather as I would never have written it without his stories to me as a child. He was an interesting person in my life; always there when I was fairly young and then he moved to a small apartment when I was around six years of age as I recall but I used to visit him every Saturday and then he came back to our house to stay the night as I recall and we all went to Church on Sunday. My recollections are from a long time ago though and I can always be corrected. But he was always there for Sunday I remember. I missed him very much when he passed away. Although I clearly remember him in his coffin when I was eight years of age I still looked for him around me somewhat which was strange perhaps but a child of six has just so much comprehension and then dreaming and desire takes over I think. By eight years of age that changes somewhat but still the dreaming and the desire conflicts with what you know has actually happened. 

This book definitely acknowledges the stories of my grandfather as the prime driver in the writing of this book. Although many of the stories were repeated by my father in the years that followed my grandfather's death I always consider them to be his stories rather than my fathers. Sometimes my father would forget parts of a story and I would fill it with the memory of what grandpa had said. 

Perhaps this morning I will have a look at the Hinxman information that exists in the books and other records that I have and prepare them to send on to my correspondent in this family. This family line (Elenor Blake married Joseph Hinxman 10 Dec 1610 St Marys Andover) does not really add anything to my Blake line other than the often used forename Joseph which was carried by my 4x great grandfather Joseph Blake who was of Andover when he married Joanna King at All Saints Upper Clatford  8 Jun 1757. Both of these individuals (Joseph and Joanna) had mothers with the surname Carter and tracing them back gave me Edmond Carter and Ann (Monk) Carter (married 8 Sep 1700 St Marys Andover) as my 5x great grandparents and grandparents to Joseph Blake. Joanna's grandparents were John Carter and Jane (Woods) Carter (married 4 Aug 1701, St Marys Andover). The two Carter families do not appear to be related although both Carter marriages are at St Marys Andover with one in 1700 and the other in 1701. Interesting but I have not yet collected any information earlier than that. 

Comments on layoffs because of AI but I do wonder if part of the problem is the lack of training for young people. AI will need proper oversight and training to really be an effective addition to the workforce. It is unlikely in the long run that it will diminish the number of jobs overall as the requirements for managing AI will be considerably different from human input into the various jobs that are currently being considered for AI work. In order to have AI do the best job on the designated work one must have management and control (judgement) and security in place but it will be a gradual turnover if one is to have the best results from the implementation of AI. 

Schools must be more attentive to the students currently learning to assure that their management skills are probed and perfected as they will enter the workforce at a higher level of proficiency than currently (that is why language skills are so important even in four year old kindergarten and the students should all be at a similar level and if not those who can not work at that level need to be in remedial until they can). When I was substituting for absent teachers the going thought at that time was to have students work together which does encourage good co-operation but sadly doesn't teach management skills to all of the students that are in a group as they did not know how to do that so my process was to have each student manage the initial project at their desk and then work together to create the final product (that makes better use of their skill sets and eliminates ideas that are less effective much quicker). They didn't like it as much but their efforts were too slow to reach the stage where working together was effective; too much conversation and not enough productivity I did note at that time. But personally I did not care to teach particularly and only did substitute teaching to help out so did not attempt to create any thoughts on eliminating the idea of working together at initial stages but rather have each member of the group prepare for the bringing together to save wasted time on discussion which was too wide-ranging for the task at hand. Focus is definitely much more important than abstract ideas that take up too much time to bring to a point where they are useful. Better that the abstract idea is constructed singly and then either used or discarded. More effective I think. 

Must get some work done. Tea all drank and solitaire puzzles are next to sharpen the brain for the next stages of my work.  

 

 

The work week begins

 Beautiful sun today and a light snowfall just to remind us that winter has not yet left us behind. Snow into April is pretty common. Repotted the orchids and they are looking good. Still flowering and a couple of them are ten years old and more. 

Today not a lot going on just catching up on a few things. Exercises all done and need to do the solitaire puzzles.  

 

 

Happy glorious Easter! Christ is Risen, Alleluia

 The most important day in the Christian Church year, Easter Sunday, the day that fulfilled God's Promise that His Son would rise again from death. But God, His Son and the Holy Spirit are the Trinity that is so much a part of the Christian Church. It is the Miracle around which the Disciples of Christ elevated to Apostles found the will and strength to create the Christian Church which has existed through more than 2000 years of Homo sapiens existence. When one goes to St Paul Outside the Wall in Rome and gazes upon the pictures of the Popes that are all around the walls on the inside, one gets this sense of continuity although there were times when the Church was fractured but always came back together and stronger. Although the Anglican Church (Church of England) was long ago excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church, yet they continue in dialogue even to this day. Will they ever be one again? I have no idea really but the roots of the Church of England lie in the Celtic Christian Church first noted in the historical records at the Council of Arles in 314 with three British Bishops attending. The council called by Constantine following the Edict of Milan (313)  when Christianity became a legal religion. Earlier information on the Christian Celtic Churches in the British Isles is mostly folklore handed down by word of mouth generation after generation. My grandfather greatly believed that Joseph of Arimathea brought Christianity to England  not long after the Resurrection of Our Lord and when we were at Glastonbury the stories that my grandfather told to me were once again brought to my attention and I was amazed at how the story that I had learned as a child was once again in pretty much the same words learned by me at that visit. The art of passing information through families in those ancient times and even up into the latter part of the 1800s was very efficient. 

Although the Anglican Church was long ago excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope remains in my mind and heart the head of the Christian Church on Earth. What God has wrought can not be put asunder - the Pope, to my mind, will always be the head of the Christian Church on Earth.  

It was in the Tomb that Joseph of Arimathea had built for himself that Jesus was buried.  Joseph was a wealthy Jew who regularly visited Cornwall to purchase tin. It is said that Joseph (said to be the uncle of Mary the mother of Jesus Christ) brought Christianity to Britain having been sent there by St Philip (Apostle and Disciples of Jesus Christ). He was also said to have brought the Holy Grail to England and hid it in a well at Glastonbury (the Chalice Well). All of this I learned as a child and as we wandered about on our tour the feeling of being on Holy Ground was very much in my mind to be honest. This trip, like my pilgrimage to Rome in 2001, was a fulfillment of a childhood desire to go and be there including my grandfather's home town of Upper Clatford which I also went to as well as the Church of All Saints also in Upper Clatford. Standing beside the font felt like a trip home to where my grandfather was baptized. 

Once I had done all of these things and the first two trips I made to Europe concluded that dream I must admit to losing the desire to continue going back but my husband found his wings across the ocean on that first trip to England with me and from then on it was he who led the way for all those trips later. Interesting really in retrospect. 

Church a little later and a few things to do first.  Prayers for the World as always; may peace come to our world. Prayers for Artemis II as they continue their path to the moon.