Our air quality at 7:00 a.m. is 103 so back to smoke in the air again although we are expecting rain so that will help to clear the air. Not as bad as before but still smoke in the air isn't good for anyone actually. Cleaning all accomplished yesterday and just the basement to do today. I do not go out very much; just shopping and any appointments which I might have. Mostly I do not drive on side streets unless I know them very well. However, that being said my vision is actually quite good still given that I have worn heavy lenses my entire life. The way my mind works I tend to recognize by particular markers like most people probably but not perhaps as spontaneous as most people. I have to sift through all the markers for people that I know before I recognize people that I probably should know on sight but need those markers to let me know that is who it is. So I tend to keep to myself very much and that is easy now that I am nearly 78 because I do not go out to work; I only shop for groceries and at least I am not blind yet anyway. Is it my eyes or is it my brain; as a child I was tested for my hearing when I was five because I didn't seem to follow instructions and now as I watch my grandson grow up I realize that probably I do have autism but it was hidden in a large family although I was always regarded as somewhat strange as a child. That didn't bother me actually; it kept people away from me most of the time.
Kayaking has been fun this summer for sure and my daughter ordered me a wet suit to make it easier for me since my kayak has drain holes in it; that way I do not get wet. It was supposed to come on Friday but still has not arrived. That is really weird as my daughter could see that it never left Vars and we are assuming it is lost. After all Amazon has been delivering to us for years and never missed even once to get an item to us unless it just wasn't available after all. I have my cheap plastic wet suit and use that but this item looked interesting although I think it will probably be too large anyway but it never arrived so will never know I guess. I am still using my usual wet suit when I go kayaking.
Waiting now for my two ordered items for Siderfin; one from Somerset Record Office and one from the National Archives. The National Archives will likely come first which is great as it is the more meaningful of the two items as I thought that Robert Siderfin married to Ursula had died in 1636 but there they are as a couple in 1653 in a record. So I will wait patiently for that item; I am sure they are very busy although promise a response by the 28th of July. I will carry on though with transferring information to the revised book. My daughter suggested just having the original book as an appendix and then I can just link to the various items once I have completed the book and remove some of that heavy text from the revised book within the revision and just have hyperlinks to James Sanders text. It will reduce the size of the revision although the overall result will be pretty much the same in terms of page length. Finding the item at the Somerset Record Office though does make me think I need to have a deeper look at the index for Siderfin in case there are other wills attached to land documents. I had thought I found everything years ago before I gave up the study but I was a newbie then and was forgetting that. Ten more years has quite ripened up my skills and knowledge. The courses are great but actual practise gives one much more breadth of research. My daughter is busy with her research most of the time. She doesn't get much research time during the teaching year - that time pretty much goes to her students so treasures these long weeks of research in the summer.
The Pencombe book is starting to revolve around in my mind as I develop my thoughts on that next book due to begin next January hopefully or whenever my eyes have adjusted to the cataract surgery. I will not have a book to revise as there has never been a published book on the Pencombe family beginning with their roots in Herefordshire back in the 1300s. The latest record that I acquired from the National Archives is quite interesting and I will, when I want a change, continue transcribing it from the Latin. My mother would actually be quite thrilled with all of the information that I have acquired on her Pincombe line through the years. She did talk about her family quite a bit the twenty years that I lived at home from birth to marriage and then in her letters to me after we moved to Ottawa. Her father died when she was eight but she did have her Father's first cousin right next door (he married my maternal grandmother's sister so ended up being her uncle) and he liked to talk about his family so she did have that continuation as he lived until I was six years of age so my mother was 35 when he died and we did visit them very often and always when we went my mother and uncle would talk about the Pincombe family so I do trust her memory of all those details and they do bear witness when one checks the records of the family in Bishops Nympton, Devon, England.
Occasionally I think about the Blake book which will follow but there are a number of items that I must acquire from the Hampshire Record Office and will start doing that once the Pincombe book is underway so that I have them at hand. Each book will probably take the same amount of time as the Siderfin book which is about two years. Although I did have a book for Siderfin to revise it doesn't actually make it easier as one must check all of that information and given that the format was unusual (really a collection of facts from documents that James Sanders located and found interesting) not the usual surname study type book. It was not very helpful in the actual evolution of this final book.
The poor air has been helpful in terms of working on the book although I would not wish that as the air quality is bad for every living thing around me. However, it has been nice to have the extra time for research this summer.
The day advances and must accomplish the rest of the cleaning after breakfast; the next event of the day.
I must say there is so much spam in the email these days and also in texting online and on my home phone I receive spam calls. I actually do not order things from Amazon to come here as they are mostly gifts that I am sending and I ship them to the relevant address. I do buy everything in the stores for myself most of the time; good for the economy. But Amazon is very handy when you can not get something easily which may be more the case for me as the years pass by; the grocery stores/drug stores deliver as well. Still no wet suit but they are not showing it shipping from Vars so must be lost or delayed so will let them know. I guess the old purple cheap plastic wet suit will just have to do. It was a sort of spontaneous thought but the size wasn't quite right anyway.
And very kindly the person to whom the wet suit was delivered has dropped it off (and it is a bit big but will likely do for the little bit of kayaking that I do - it was the smallest size and it has a lovely pink racing stripe!). Most kind of her to bring it around. My daughter said that we used to get parcels for our same number but actually should have been Fortune Drive that she used to drop off at that house. I guess it happens, I never remember that but once I went back to work I really did not notice what went on in that way. Hopefully I do not get any parcels when I am on my own probably my neighbours would drop it off though for me; they are most helpful. I would not be comfortable driving other than my route up to the grocery store and back when I am on my own which isn't many streets for sure. Other than food my only reason to leave would be if I had an accident and then an ambulance would take me away.
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