Another rainy day

 This has been truly a rainy August. Up to Day 8 with dog sitting and they are both missing their usual family so much (pretty soon their very busy time will be over). The rain doesn't help very much for sure. They enjoy the yard here and have spent a fair amount of time outside although have to bring the little one in if she barks. She is such a loving dog it is hard to get annoyed with her but at the moment she is sitting on my bed where I can watch her as everyone is walking their dogs since the rain is only getting heavier and she barks at each one as they pass down the street. 

An inquiry on one of my blog posts from 2012 yesterday but I could not be of much help for sure. It was a scan of the Flemish Grave Yard in Bermondsey just across the river from London. We spent a lot of time, relatively speaking, in this area having walked a good many of the streets in the Bermondsey area particularly noting Long Lane, Tooley and a few others where I can find associations with my Buller, Beard and Hemsley families there. It was very much a walk through time for me. None of this particular history passed down in the Buller family. My grandmother (father was Edwin Denner Buller) knew that there was a vague connection with the London area but no details. Her father, by the time she was 11, was widowed with five living children working two jobs and not a lot of time. He too would succumb by the time she was 14 to pneumonia. The children were scooped up, as my grandmother put it, by the Birmingham Union and went to Cottage Green in Soho where they lived for the next while. My grandmother, herself, could have gone to live with her widowed/spinster sisters of her father but declined the kind offer as they were not willing to take in the four younger children and she preferred to be with her siblings. Likely she would have spent her time waiting on her aunts and there wasn't a promise to let her go to school which she really wanted to do. Options! Options! But I digress and our several times in Bermondsey proved to be most interesting but did not provide names for Christopher Buller's parents (Edwin Denner Buller's grandfather). The records for St Olave Church did contain the burials for Christopher, his wife and an infant son but not too much else. I will pursue the Buller family at a later date. 

So how to spend my first working day of the week. Sunday I do not generally work but do go to Church and often spend the time in contemplation. Monday and Tuesday I clean although do have a dream of getting that down to one day but probably not until I move to a smaller place. Wednesday to Saturday are usual working days but I am spending time with the dogs as well so not getting too much done. 

Since my early teen years I have watched the National Conventions for the two parties in the United States (I always watch ours here as well when it is televised). Both are always interesting; the Americans have fascinating conventions fully televised. One gets to see and hear so much watching them. Yesterday I watched part of the Convention and it is must over two months to go to the Election in the United States. Being a Republic like the United States is very different from being a Constitutional Monarchy. I prefer our Westminster System of Government especially now that our Governor General is of the First Nations. I think it is such an obvious choice to always have the Governor General represent both the Crown and the First Peoples of Canada. Although I found Governor General Johnson to be excellent I have not been very pleased with the choices since the mid 1990s. I think selecting people without a long history in the country doesn't really suit the office. 

Latin at noon but this morning I shall begin a list of the projects that I would like to accomplish by the end of this year.