This is like the first day of my changed life. As I drove back from the airport yesterday I realized that this was the first time that I have driven that path on my own in 47 years. Always I had a child in tow for airport duty otherwise Edward would have been driving. His dislike of my driving was legendary but gradually as the disease overtook him he was happy to have me drive. I do not mind driving I am just out of the habit in terms of highway driving and I consider it bad manners in the least and criminal at the most for someone to drive on the highway going much too slow. You are an accident waiting to happen and I do not want to be that person causing possible grief to others on the highway. However coming back on 417 that short distance from Hunt Club to Blair proved to be quite exciting for me. It is a path that I have used many times (Walkley to Blair) in my working days as a proofreader/copyeditor from my place of occupation. It just felt really comfortable but it was a relatively short distance over in the flash of an eye.
Now this house is very very large; much too big for one person considering that entire families are living in just a quarter of it in other countries. My footprint is much too large and reducing it has proven to be a challenge. At the moment on my front lawn I have probably 100 clay plant pots of various sizes hoping someone will give them a home. There is also an animal cage dating back to the racoon days. There are plant holders for large plants in the garden of various types. Perhaps someone will give them a new home. Taking them to Salvation Army may be a choice but I probably will not do that this time although have taken them a great deal that has downsized us somewhat. It continues to be very full this house. Having taken so much out I wonder how we ever managed to have so much in the house to be honest.
But Edward enjoyed owning stuff and the industries of Canada depend on you wanting to own all that stuff. It wasn't a bad thing to do; it kept people employed all of our married life as we bought more and more stuff. Fortunately some of that stuff did gradually move on through the years as it would have been much worse if not for that. I want to get the bicycles hung up in the shed today so will work at that later. Should be interesting; fortunately I am fairly strong and can still do such things. Why keep the bikes? Not sure at the moment but I do enjoy a bicycle ride and my bicycle is relatively new. The other two are older and could go and perhaps they will go in the spring. We will see about that. But for the moment they will spend the winter in the shed.
So what to do now that my changed life is beginning. There are my newsletters due on the first day of each month. Not planned as a stabilizing device in my life they just flowed that way. As I developed each one it seemed logical to pick the next month that did not have a newsletter to begin. The next one due the 1st of October is the first one that I started - Blake Newsletter. I have a few ideas in mind already that I will work on.
I need to start on Edward's research publication as well. I haven't really helped him since 2011 other than when we were at repositories in which case he just gave me a list of what he wanted and I did that for him but did not feed it into his narrative nor did he particularly want to discuss his research other than the occasional time when he wanted me to be a sounding board on any British Isles Research which he was doing. He was probably 5 to 10% British Isles with the last person born in the British Isles in his genealogy being his Great Great Grandmother Link's birth 29 Sep 1819 at Aylmerton, Norfolk, England and she emigrated to Canada with her family in 1832. There is just a sprinkling of British Isles born ancestors with most of them being dissenters in the 1630s and 1640s coming to the American Colonies in those early days where they met and married his Dutch/French/German/Swedish ancestors. The English literally disappeared in his family's history with most people that we met considering themselves to be of Dutch or German descent.
Today is a work day and I must finish cleaning the basement. Will start the robot vacuuming and then wash the floor and do some dusting and that chore is done for a bit.
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