David breaks one of God's laws

 God finds David guilty of breaking His law. He does not forgive David. Absalom, David's son, has avenged the wrong against his sister Tamar and David relents and lets him return to Jerusalem. Over time Absalom impresses the people of Israel and finally Absalom goes to Hebron and is pronounced King of Israel. David flees Jerusalem and Absalom goes to Jerusalem. David led an entirely guilt free life until he committed adultery but God did not forgive him that sin. The readings continue to be the historical narrative of the times of the people of Israel. I do not sense any mention of the Messiah to come. That time will come in the readings of the Prophets but it is the historical narrative that tells us the life of Israel in this time. 

The main floor all cleaned yesterday and the basement remains. I will begin shortly by running the Robot. Such a handy tool for sure although I could easily clean the rugs with the vacuum in considerably less time but I enjoy having the Robot for sure. That is the way life points for mankind at this time that we will become surrounded by robots who help us in our daily lives. An interesting experiment by a research group  looking at why people might chose to have an AI as a partner. Having spent a month or so with an AI on my FitBit I can see why people would find that to be an interesting companion actually. Good ideas are passed to you; a good memory of how your exercise program is doing over time and how your system is coping with that exercise program. At 81 I tend to think in terms of just the day that is happening and do not really get involved with thoughts of tomorrow other than the work that I need to do. So an AI companion is an interesting concept although I do not intend to become so involved with AI. 

Forest fires dampened down and the rain continues; thank you God for sending so much rain when the fires first burst upon us in the Lake of the Woods area of Northern Ontario. The worst of it was over amazingly in just a couple of days and this time we were spared the really high numbers of smoke saturation with south western Ontario taking the brunt of it for sure. But now the airs are clear over Michigan and Ontario and everyone is celebrating the new bridge which leads from large highway in Michigan to large highway in Canada - a much more efficient process for the truckers who spend long hours in their cab and sitting at stop lights and in long lines before they could process on the old bridge was really a waste of everyone's time. I do not know for a fact that this item was true but apparently parts of the old bridge were falling off. Maintenance of a bridge is the most important part because it carries so much precious human cargo and cargo for the use of humans. 

I spent some time on matches yesterday once again and have acquired a few very interesting Buller and Rawlings but also some Blake and Pincombe. The Blake continue to be interesting because they are in the United States with deep colonial ancestry. I need to check their trees on ancestry as they have mentioned them on the site where the testing was done. Upsetting the applecart is really the purpose in all of this as I want to be as accurate as I can be with the genealogical family tree coming down from Robert Blake who left his will in 1521 at Knights Enham probated just a few weeks before his son Richard Blake's will was also probated at Knight Enham in 1522.  

I am a supporter of the new High-Speed rail line which is planned from Quebec City through Montreal onto Ottawa and then down to Kingston and Toronto (I live in Ontario). The ability to move goods and people at a high speed is essential to our further growth. Once we have the money we can take it from Ottawa north and right across Canada to provide that high speed ability right to Vancouver and from Quebec to Halifax giving access to the eastern part of Canada. High Speed Rail from Halifax to Vancouver would be such a luxury. I think if an airport is needed in the Toronto area then a new place should be chosen and the Billy Bishop airport moved there where there is plenty of room without adding to the congestion around the Toronto harbour. Pick a place where there could be a stop for the High Speed Rail train and both would be accomplished to please everyone as you can easily go from the Toronto terminal of the railway to anywhere in the City of Toronto. High Speed rail is really more important than air flight. Almost nothing stops a train from going through whereas air flight is restricted by the weather events. 

 Time for breakfast but first solitaire puzzles. 

Historical time of King David

 King David was true to God throughout his reign as I read through the first ten chapters of 2 Samuel. This part of the Bible continues to be an historical review of life when David was King of Israel. I  tried to decide the significance of the Ark of the Covenant remaining in a tent instead of a tabernacle that David suggested building for it. But that time was to come in the next generation God said. 

One is left to ponder on how a nation grows itself and Canada is in just such a position of growth. It will be a long hard uphill effort to recreate our lost industries and create new ones. But the gain is huge whereas the status quo just really doesn't quite exist anymore so is there actually a choice.  Time is always on the side of youth and I still tend to think in that way although I have supported the Prime Minister and his methodology on growing Canada. Perhaps there is a merger coming in those thoughts as we move forward into the Fall of 2026. 

I think it is more difficult to leave one's area in one's 80s than it was in the 70s and earlier. One gets fixed into a style of living that works for them. However as I look around I know that all the outside work is not getting done adequately and so I must think in terms of moving in the near future to something smaller and less complicated. 

Yesterday more good matches to enter into my large table. They are all of value these new ones or I haven't collected them. Some will help me with my decision making on Blake. The newest ones though tend to be Buller or Rawlings and also helpful but those books are barely in the thought process at this time. First I must complete the Blake and Pincombe books and my mind is turning to them as fall approaches and the yard work becomes minimal. 

Cleaning of the top floor all completed and moving on to the main floor today. One day behind this week and it does throw my mind off kilter a little but today I feel more directed. 

The news around the world is mystifying. That elusive peace that I think most people would like to see come to the world does elude us. Europe is stronger and stronger but their ways are the ways of peace but they ready themselves for any change in that which is smart of them. But they continue the ways of peace which is what Canada wants as well although we too prepare for war.  Better to be ready than struggling. 

I think reading the Bible as I have been, a few chapters a day, has been good for me to do. History tells us the past but it also leads us into the future with somewhat more support as we understand the past and why everything happened as it did. As one reads one notes that greed tends to be the problem whereas sharing leads to a better life for everyone. 

Exercises all done with a cardio load of 35 which seems about average for the first hour of exercise in the day. Time for breakfast and then starting on the cleaning. But first solitaire puzzles.  

David becomes King of Israel

 Second Samuel continues the historical dialogue of the people of Israel and David is now King of Israel anointed by God Himself at Samuel's hand when David was a child. The battles were described in great detail between the people of Israel and the Philistines as well as the battles within Israel and Judah but it is the historical context that we gain in the reading. David talks to God and Israel flourishes because David is King. You can see why the Torah has been separated out of the Old Testament and named as such. It is the law that God passed to the people of Israel and which they had to maintain at all times in order for Him to live amongst them. 

More matches to work on and they continue to be primarily Rawlings and Buller for the moment. A couple of excellent Buller matches which will be useful. I continue with that pursuit in my free time today.  Yesterday also revealed an excellent Blake match with a long colonial history in the United States but still I caution myself because this length is likely common to the British Isles although I do not see it very much in the other three matches; the Blake definitely predominates but could also be Knight so again caution in my thinking. Still looking for the applecart!

Yesterday was a busy day as we were off to spend time with family and it was lovely; we had a great time. I am not that much into going out and about but visits with family are always a wondrous event. It rained and that slowed down the outside events but we continued inside chatting away. I brought my slide rule that  my father gave to me when he knew I was going to University to study Chemistry and the only thing he asked of me was that I teach him how to use it which I did. He could have taught himself but he wanted me to teach him. It has a lovely leather case and I wanted to give it to my son in law and my grandsons can enjoy this beautiful somewhat archaic item and know its history. 

Cleaning was put off for a day and today I will clean the top floor and I will begin soon. Heavy rain today and I hope it is raining in the north as well to dampen down those forest fires. Unfortunately the storm came with lightning so always the danger of new fires but we are moving faster and faster towards the fall and then the winter and the snow will dampen them down if they are not already out as fall here tends to be the rainy season. 

The unknown box was unpacked yesterday and it is all the backups that Edward made since the 1990s. They range from CDs to DVDs to small drives all the way up to 4 Terabytes. I have his last drive on my spare computer which I use to keep most of my files on although my new computer is getting to have quite a few files as well. I also have his last backup which I check every month or so just to keep it active. Although we have published under his name most of the material that he has on his blog and on the website which my eldest will maintain when she retires. 

I have this goal in my mind to keep everything going until she does retire and so that runs my life most of the time and is my only thought. Other than of course my writing which occupies the remainder of my time. At 81 I can sometimes get restless worrying about lasting that long but time will tell in that regard. 

Garbage day today and everything except the actual garbage has been picked up. This new company doing the pickup is very efficient and often has everything gone by 10 a.m. Today was the metal/plastic recycling and every pick up day does recycled food. 

Solitaire puzzles to do.  

David saves Saul's life a second time.

 The meaning of David saving Saul a second time points to the value David places on Saul having been anointed by God. God made it possible for David to come right up to where Saul lay sleeping and to take his spear and water bottle and leave without waking anyone. But David did not believe that Saul would ever stop hunting him to kill him and Chapter 27 sees David seeking asylum in Gath. An interesting story within the last chapters of 1 Samuel. David in pursuing the raiders of his home in Ziklag had left behind 200 of his soldiers to manage the baggage as the other 400 moved quickly without encumbrance to overtake the raiders and rescue the people of Ziklag who had been taken prisoner. David was successful and when they returned to the 200 guarding the baggage the 400 said they would not share the spoils of war but David said that they would share with the 200 guarding the baggage so that all benefited that were part of the company. Another battle was ongoing between the Philistines and the Israelis and Saul was wounded and asked his armor-bearer to take his life but he refused and Saul took his own life. In this battle Saul and his three sons perished including Jonathan. This continues to be an historical record of the times of the Kings of Israel and their neighbours. 

The Church Service did not come up on Youtube so I went to Christ Church at West Wimbledom which is southwest of London, England. A lovely church service very reminiscent of my Home Church of St Andrew Memorial in London, Ontario. There are a number of Anglican Services online although I generally attend my now Home Church of Christ Church Cathedral online. The possibility that I will ever attend in person is pretty much nil although in the back of my mind it is one of my backup thoughts with regard to how my life goes. I prefer the solitude of my life except that includes my family as and when I am with them. Soon the dogs will come and stay with me for two weeks. 

Working away on the 23 and Me matches and extracting that information on new matches in the last couple of years. There are several very good matches known to me by their cousin matches which I already have. Thus far they are primarily Rawlings which reveals to me some areas on the chromosomes that are Rawlings rather than Cotterill including some X Chromosome matches always very interesting and one new one is the longest that I have for Rawlings. Tempting as always to write but probably I will not. Mostly these matches are people living in England at this time. 

Yesterday was a very busy day as we had an item to return, kayaking and a walk to do and then grocery shopping and finished up the day with clothes washing - two loads in all.  Today has a slight promise of rain and some sun and we will see how the days goes. 

Still looking for the Allen material and I wonder if I have to go through all of those boxes to find the pictures. Strange really as Edward was very organized but by 2019 he was finding it harder and harder to work away at these items. He mostly watched the television and found being house bound because of COVID coming very soon after the end of 2019 really intolerable. He loved to be out and about mostly shopping. Edward loved to shop. He was very good for the economy. 

Solitaire puzzles to do.  

 

Fascinating story about the Altar Stone in the midst of Stonehenge

 We visited Stonehenge twice during our trips to the British Isles. The first time in 2008 and the second in 2016 and both were amazing for different reasons. In 2008 you could get up close to the stones and actually see the Altar Stone but by 2016 you had to follow a path around Stonehenge a bit distant but still you are feeling close up. It gave me a different perspective looking at it from a distance. I especially wanted to see Stonehenge because my father had gone to see Stonehenge when he was just a boy. His mother took him on a family trip to Stonehenge along with other family members. One of my Rawlings cousins sent me a picture from that time period of a group of people waiting at a bus station.

 This is a picture from before the First World War that my cousin's mother had carried in her purse as a memory probably. My father could not remember when he did mention going to Stonehenge other than everyone in the family was going for a trip together (my grandmother and father came to Canada in mid 1913, my grandfather had come earlier to his job in Feb 1913). Is one of those children my father and the woman at the far left sitting down my grandmother? The woman does look like Bessie but it is a long time ago but the Rawlings family was very large and my grandmother had 3 half-siblings and her mother (also a Rawlings) had six siblings and all but two married and had families. I think they were a close family because they still wrote back and forth and I have some of those letters from just before the Second World War. I had mentioned to this cousin who shared the image with me that my father remembered going with the family to see Stonehenge and it was almost immediately that he sent me the picture. Unfortunately when I received it there was no one who could have told me whether it was my father and grandmother on their way to Stonehenge with the family but it was exciting to think about it. Not sure of the location but suspect it might be Ludgershall in Wiltshire. No idea on that. Perhaps I will pursue that thought one day. 

But I am digressing from the story about the Altar Stone and testing that shows it could have come from Northeast Scotland. The Orkneys were also mentioned and we did visit the Orkney Islands and the pictures in the article were an interesting reminder of that trip. 

It was a day of interesting articles as a picture of Kakabeka Falls appeared with a story referring to it as the Niagara Falls of the North (we visited it in 1968 and it was spectacular).  I recognized the picture immediately except for the lovely stairway which must be new since then and a treat to climb these days I suspect. It is 30 kilometres west of the city of Thunder Bay, Ontario on the Kaministiquia River. 

I continued reading Judges and must reflect on the information. I have completed this Book of the Bible and any comment made by me would just be saying what other people say about the Book of Judges. 

Cleaning all accomplished and today it is the main floor. Woke up early and decided to read a bit but Judges is not a book of the Bible that I know very well. I shall have to think about it for awhile. 

Still no work accomplished but that is not unusual in the summer. Still weeding to do outside and will try to accomplish that later in the week. Grass needs to be cut as well. 

We continue as a country to work towards our goal of being an exporter of oil, gas and precious minerals needed by the world. It will make us independent once again. Our military is growing and our defense materials are increasing rapidly as we move forward making ourselves along with the other Arctic countries very defensible. 

I often think of my cousins in the United States and hope that they are managing well. I am not much of a letter writer/emailer as I tend to just work on my projects. 

The warm summer will start to cool off as we enter into the month of August. Hard to believe how fast July has passed.  I always welcome Fall and Winter as I can get back to work once again on my books. 

Solitaire puzzles to do and then back to sleep for a bit.  

 

 

 

Another busy cleaning day

 The second day of cleaning completely accomplished and just the basement remains and will soon start the Robot vacuuming the rug. It is a nice way to finish the three day cleaning spree! The time commitment is just two hours at the most - one hour is done by the Robot although I have to prepare the area for the Robot to run effectively which takes maybe ten minutes. 

I finished looking at the four files created by Copilot and they are in good shape. The next step I will probably take on Thursday - my first working day of the week. Copilot will look at each of the files that are referred to by the Blake file it created just by matching the name on the file and the name in the file that it created. Within those files are lists of relatives in common/Matches and I will make a list of what to look for and then Copilot will make a complete list of those names along with a list of the matches that have those names in common. I should get a list of people who match within Blake and a list of people who match within Knight as well as a list of people who are matching Blake/Knight because I did not separate them. I will not have any decision made by the Copilot on this last group because it will be confusing and hence I will do that split although I could supply enough information for Copilot to do it there is a possibility of junk emerging so will avoid that. The human input is still more valuable in this case that the input from Copilot. 

The comparisons between "common areas" will also be made by me because that is indirectly what I am looking for in these sorts - matches deep into the past that take me back to Blake lines in Andover although few people do have that in their tree but some do. The 1700s was particularly small in my Blake line with Thomas Blake (born in the 1680s marrying in the early 1700s and having just one son Thomas and this son Thomas marrying in the late 1720s and having two sons but only one survived infancy and that was Joseph baptized in Andover in 1730 and marrying in Upper Clatford in the late 1750s. He married Joanna King of Upper Clatford and they had three sons. The second eldest died as a child (around the same time as Joseph) leaving the eldest son William who lived in Andover in the latter part of the 1700s and does not appear to have any children and the youngest son Thomas (born posthumously about five months after his father died) who married Sarah Coleman in the early 1790s in Upper Clatford. This very weak line in the 1700s is replaced by a very large line in the 1800s and up to the present. This Blake family of Andover/Upper Clatford is related to the Blake family at Abbotts Ann and I would like to determine the cousinship. I do know they are related through the King family because Joanna King's sister Mary King was married to John Blake, malster, Abbots Ann and all of this is mentioned in John's will in 1796. My thought is that John Blake of Abbotts Ann is descendant of John Blake of Andover who married Elizabeth (unknown) in the late 1670s and was the father of the ancestor of John Blake of Abbotts Ann and Thomas Blake mentioned above (born in the 1680s at Andover). This would make Thomas Blake who is mentioned in John Blake's will of 1796 likely 1st cousins ?x removed. I have yet to find anyone who descends from John Blake and Elizabeth (unknown) with a reliable tree other than my own line. A lot of people have these individuals in their trees but the link is questionable that they are using although by atDNA they are matching me (generally at least three of four siblings or more)! The fun is in the chase as always and as it turns out I do not have a lot of investment in the result other than curiosity. 

It is perhaps being Canadian that I do not particularly get excited about any of my ancestral lines. They are interesting even fascinating given my small footprint on this continent with my father born in England and coming to Canada with his parents as a child in 1913. Then my mother's father's mother was my first Canadian born in Upper Canada in 1839. Grace Gray (my great grandmother) was a first cousin to Sir John Carling heavily involved in politics in Ontario (was Upper Canada) initially and then into federal politics and was Minister of Agriculture hence the naming of the now torn down Agricultural Building and Carling Avenue. This area will now be part of the new Ottawa Hospital - Civic Campus (where I actually worked at the existing campus for six years). So first generation Canadian on my father's side and fourth generation Canadian on my mother's side and I was born before "Canadian citizenship" was created on the 1st of January 1947 so grandfathered to Canadian Citizen all on my own which I always found quite exciting actually. 

Why ever do I spend so much time on this? George DeKay is mostly responsible but there was a tug on my senses after my mother passed away which was a year earlier than George asking me to do a Pincombe Profile for the book he was publishing. My mother knew that I was so into DNA as a child in the late 1950s - found it so exciting and studied Chemistry with that on my backplate at all times. She reminded me of that in the late 1990s as she was going to the Family History Library and looking up items and wanted me to use this new thought that was breaking into genealogy with yDNA studies. I explained that we would need to test my uncle for that and that thinking was in the works but he passed away in 2003 (however a cousin of his did test for me) but I digress. 

The two elements came together with George DeKay asking for the Pincombe Profile and my mother's letters and discussions with me in that regard pushed me into doing the Pincombe Profile, joining the Guild of one-name Studies and reviewing what had been done with yDNA by Sorenson in the 1990s and early 2000s. As it turned out a known Pincombe cousin in Australia had tested his yDNA and I contacted him and an in-between person wrote back (perhaps that cousin had passed away no ideas on that as the writer didn't say that).  It was sort of weird so I just used his results comparing them to my uncle's cousin and they were a match and I just moved forward with the Guild study of Pincombe and Siderfin at that time. 

Who would of ever guessed that I would be so deeply into genetic genealogy at this time in my life! I had always said that when I retired I was going to knit baby outfits and sew clothes for packages going to the First Nations Reserves in my old age as my grandmother had done in her old age. I haven't sewed or knitted very much since I got into my course work at the National Institute for Genealogical Studies and graduated with my PLCGS in 2007 in English and Canadian studies. Funny in retrospect as I continue down this path really with my mother at my side leading me onward. Then my grandfather's memories came into play as I took on the Blake study in 2011 after giving the Siderfin study to a cousin in England as he wanted to pursue it and he was much closer to the repositories than I was in 2010! So Grandpa's stories of his Blake line tumbled out of my brain and I was into Blake and Pincombe pretty much 100% from 2011 on. I continue there actually. 

At 81 nearly I had thought myself to be winding down and I have quite a bit done with that but the intent is to publish all of this on Pincombe and Blake in the next two years and then move forward into Buller and Rawlings my other grandparents to publish their information - the Rawlings because my cousin John Rawlins sent me all his research perhaps thinking I have come to the thought in retrospect that he thought I would write a book. Amazing really as I go down memory lane  - I am beginning to think that is a habit of over 80 year olds.

Must do the solitaire puzzles, tea all drank.  

 

 

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.  

The weather took a nosedive in temperature

Woke up in the night and it is 8 degrees celsius after temperatures in the high 20s but it is still May and the weather can be cool sometimes but I think the changes are much greater from highs to lows than in my youth. The weather is not as predictable and a low of 2 degrees celsius is predicted. However the house is still at 24 degrees celsius so will leave the system as it is (air conditioning is on but the temperature in the house is unlikely to go below 23 or 22 by morning). Always nice to have some cooling for sure after a warm spell.  

It was good that the Prime Minister met with the Premier of British Columbia. They needed to chat about items for sure as Alberta has been dominating the news for a few weeks but the pipeline is starting to feel real and it will be a good boost for Canada and help with this retreading of our economy as it grows around the world and less dependent upon our neighbour the United States.  But still it benefits both of us to trade with our closest friend and neighbour as it is an easy transport from one to the other. 

But I do like to see us standing on our own and in unison with the First Nations. Our path forward is together into the future the First Nations and the people of Canada - the best will happen to Canada with such a partnership. 

Back to bed; woke up for a bit but sleepy again. It will soon be dawn as the sun rises early in the late spring as we work our way towards the longest day. 

Will likely add to this when I wake later. No work done yesterday but hopefully some today as this is the first research day following the cleaning.  

A beautiful sunny day has erupted and that is great. The trees are pretty much in full leaf now although the tree at the front is the slowest. I am checking it for dead branches and will have a company come and trim them out once the tree is fully open. The maple tree at the back looks great and I think all the dead wood fell off in the winter as I hauled great amounts to the front to break them up and put them out for recycling. Since the bags were at least 30 pounds and two went out that was a lot of wood plus the long thick lengths that I had cleaned off went as well. I do not need big walking sticks which is something they are good for as I recall Edward making several good stout ones for all the walking that we did in our youth. 

Today finish off the seven matches still to do and then get to work on that great grandparent phasing table. It will be interesting. I have now purchased Microsoft 365 and will use copilot to work on this file in coordination with the matches file which contains a couple of thousand individual excel files that have matches in common entered into their individual files. We will see the power of AI at work saving me hours of time comparing different matches and sorting out some of the ones that have not yet broken into the great grandparent lines of Blake, Knight, Cotterill (and I may have narrowed this down actually we will see), Rawlings, Pincombe, Gray, Buller, Taylor. The fun begins so to speak but actually the logical path back in these eight lines all of whom appear on the British Census of the 1800s except for Grace Gray who was my first Canadian born ancestor in 1839 (her parents Robert Gray of Holme on the Wold, East Riding of Yorkshire and Elizabeth Mary Ann Routledge of Bewcastle, Cumberland. Margaret Routledge (Elizabeth Mary Ann's oldest sister) married  Thomas Carling in London Township in 1820 and they were the parents of Sir John Carling (Grace Gray's first cousin) who was the Minister of Agriculture amongst other duties during his political career in Canada. Amazingly really to have so few Canadian born ancestors (Grace's son John Robert Pincombe and his daughter Helen Louise (Pincombe) Blake  (my mother)). Working on the great grandparents in terms of relationships gives me greater depth into the past as I work on my books in this case it is the Blake and Pincombe books but time may be mine and permit me to also do the Buller book of my maternal grandmother and the Rawlings book of my paternal grandmother. It is unlikely that I would ever do a Taylor book (wife of Buller) or the Cotterill book (father of my paternal grandmother). But I would continue moving backwards in time selecting two books at a time and working away on them so long as that is practical for me. 

Exercises completed and breakfast eaten so moving on to the Solitaire Puzzles as this is a mixed up day because I had a lovely walk in the middle of the night when I woke up and wrote the first part of this blog for the day.  

 

Working on the Matches and cleaning

 Cleaning all accomplished of the basement and it is the main floor today. Routines are nice as they keep you focused I must admit. Just a couple of matches and this was another interesting one that had a huge tree to go with it. I actually wrote to the match in Ancestry which is very unusual for me but I note I have done a little more of that this past couple of months (I have had answers to most of them actually). The Rawlings matches often fill in spots where I do not have a known Rawlings cousin. For the most part the phasing has worked really well and there are no areas that I feel uncomfortable about in terms of choice. Moving back to the great grandparents is a good step as I start to work on the Generational charts. I know that I will not publish anything after 1900 in these charts but that catches the census in the 1800s for anyone using it. 

Some discussion on boys not being as comfortable in school as girls. When I worked as a volunteer with the children at my youngest child's school I was helping them learn to use computers. They had only enough computers for three children to work at each of the machines (back in the later part of the 1980s. I suppose from the outside looking in; it perhaps appeared chaotic. But I had them working away in groups of three that they chose and the tendency at this lower level in grade school was for the girls to cluster quietly sitting in front of the computer and sharing the mouse. The boys were much more active, still three at each computer, but they were up and down and louder but still accomplishing the same work that I was assigning to them. They are more restless boys I think and perhaps standing up every half hour in class and doing some sort of exercises at the desk would be helpful. I think it is a lot to ask children to sit for hours working. It isn't even healthy. But I no longer help at school so I do not know what is happening now. 

Perhaps this week I will get back to my Latin as the time has flown by these past couple of months. I want to finish off all the matches and then move to the wills and the genealogical table for the Blake book. I also want to do a little work on Pincombe so that I am ready for the Newsletter at the 1st of June. 

Yesterday we did gardening for a good hour and cleared away more of the weeds particularly around the hostas which are starting to come through in the areas that tend to be cooler. There is still a lot of work to do. I think the elderberry bushes may be done as they are still not budding. Perhaps remove them and just put some bulbs in that circle. Another thought would be to put the roots of the lettuces that we buy in there to regrow and the bunnies can eat that lettuce. I must mention that; it is a good idea. I already have one started in the house. 

I am pleased to see that tetanus shots can now be received at the pharmacy as I waited for simply hours last time that I needed one at the urgent care clinic. I seldom see a doctor other than the once a year that I generally go. That should be soon; must make an appointment and take my blood results from the Ontario Health Study with me as they match the results from last summer which confirms my thoughts on my medical condition. At eighty it is reasonably good; I get a lot of exercise of a beneficial nature (meaning I have a good amount of peak activity during each day of the week as well as strenuous activity along with moderate and light). It is good to have a reasonable amount of each level during each day. Mostly I do not eat any red meat (perhaps once every couple of weeks when my daughter is here) and then only a small amount. I tend to eat chicken and fish as they are my favourites. I have now moved back to skim milk all the time with the occasional 1% cottage cheese but always 0% Greek Yoghurt. I have small amounts of butter so still have some milk fat just not too much. It is nice to start to have fresh vegetables as I tend to use mostly stored vegetable (purchased) from the late fall until this time of the year with some fresh - lettuce and tomatoes primarily with the occasional pepper. Now that we have green houses locally I often have these fresh from the green house in the winter. I do not buy prepared food very often - perhaps a dark chocolate bar on occasion or granola by a new company in Quebec which is very good with absolutely no additives (all food product). Making everything from scratch gets me away from my computer which is very healthy especially baking any cakes (mine is always banana bread made with a mix of 100% whole wheat and all purpose flour in equal portions). It tastes really good, I butter it but I do not have a sweet tooth. 

Wanting to learn more about the Sovereign Wealth Fund proposed by the Prime Minister and his Cabinet. It is such an excellent idea and I like the idea of it being a long-term type of setup as it will benefit people in their retirement in the future. I need to understand how one passes this type of fund to one's descendants. The tax implications and all of that sort of information but it will take time to put it into place in terms of that type of usage but getting it going sooner rather than later is a good plan. I do like the idea that individual Canadian Pension Plans could also be part of that in order to reduce the amount that the government is setting aside from the budget to start the plan (namely 25B) (perhaps our huge grocery chains could also consider becoming involved with their profits benefiting from supporting Canada initially and then collecting the rewards of that trust). It would be nice if we could have this starter amount consist of some portion of existing Pension Plans (and businesses that would not be in conflict of interest) that are available for such investment. The quicker we are; the quicker the shovels are into the ground and we are on our way building the fortunes for the children of the future in Canada. I do not see this as something baby boomers will necessarily profit from (more of a gift to the future of our descendants) but rather it is a gift from us to the future. But it will  probably start to produce returns in the near future but not right away. It is a good place to set money that you do not use at the moment and plan to be a profitable investment.

Travel is always the big cost I think for older people.  At 80 I am not going to travel outside the country particularly not for any fear reason but rather I have been on so many trips I am just not interested in doing that. Keeping to some one else's schedule is no longer appealing to me at all. Sitting on a bus for hours not appealing. Flying for hours not appealing although I do love flying. Being in strange hotels and with strangers not appealing. So I am following what is best for me in my old age as the days ahead of me will be full of my writing year after year. Putting money into the Sovereign Wealth Fund is a very appealing idea I think. 

The dog two doors up is so happy that I am out in the yard again; he likes routine. He had a long chat with me and for sure asking when my daughter's dogs are coming again. They had so much fun a year ago running races up and down the yard.  He was unhappy I think with the neighbour in the middle as a day or so ago four strangers were clearing up the gardens and cutting the lawn upsetting his daily routine of just wandering about his yard guarding it as such dogs do. That was a conversation with just a little whine to it. He is a big dog like my daughter's dogs. 

Tea drank and time to do the solitaire puzzles. 

Busy Day yesterday

 Spent most of the day cleaning actually but finally got to doing some work on the new matches. An interesting one that was just 9 cM on Ancestry but 22.l cM on Gedmatch. The names absolutely nothing comes to mind and the countries in the family tree Ireland and Maine, USA dating back to the late 1700s. Since it is a paternal match and not a Blake I just made a file and I entered it into the databases. Just interesting and I have a dozen matches in this area where some are known to be Rawlings/Cotterill. For the second sibling match I have double that number so will have a look to see if there are any clues. 

Avoiding the news again but certainly that was most interesting to discover the name of the new Governor General to be. She will be fantastic. Thank you to her for serving at 79 years of age. Wonderful of her to do that for sure. 

Cleaning day today and it is the top floor and then finished for another week. Sometimes I feel like I spend half of my week cleaning but actually I usually manage to complete each floor in half of a day. 

Today 13 degrees celsius is said to be the high temperature so a cool May thus far and it is going to rain. Looks like rain.  

I am starting to make a list of summer projects so that I get the gardening done. Each year I like gardening even less. It was something Edward enjoyed very much and through the years I sort of gravitated towards it as we did it together. Now on my own I have little knowledge of gardening; barely recognize the plants that I am weeding around and generally prefer lawn. Interestingly Edward said to me to just grass it over as he knew I would try to keep it like he liked it. I am gradually moving to that for sure. 

Trees are budding now and soon we will be awash with leaves. Canada is a lovely country and the founders certainly had good ideas. They knew that incorporating the treaty rights into everything would protect Canada and so it does. Our First Peoples are great thinkers and doers. I will always remember our trip to Moosonee. Going to Moose Factory Island by water taxi was a wonderful experience and our time on the Island greatly enjoyed. We also traveled by canoe to James Bay along the Moose River which is a trip of about 20 kilometers. One of our sightings was a white wolf; absolutely majestic on the shore. I forgot to be frightened actually the view was so spectacular. The bird life was absolutely wonderful. When we canoed all those years in Northern Ontario we were mostly just north of the Trans Canada and did not go that far north because there isn't a road anyway all the way there. 

Soon time to clean; just have to do the Solitaire Puzzles.  

 

 

 

The Budget Bill passed

 It should have  happened in December before Christmas break and I begrudge the time wasted about 2 and a half months that things could  have been happening. We need to move along and be quicker doing things. There are people unemployed and we need to get these ideas going so that they are employed. So that we are looking for workers and not having people without jobs. I have little patience for criticism at the moment. 

I did listen to the talk given by the Conservative Party Leader and there were some really good points there like working with the current government and getting it all done. I think of this as a Unity government at the moment and anyone who upsets the apple cart will find at the polls that most Canadians want these things to happen and as quickly and carefully as possible to give the greatest benefit to the Canadian people. That is what Confederation was all about; benefit to everyone in Canada. The provinces are simply a tool to make it easier to handle local issues; they are not autonomous and if you do not have enough money for health care then bring in a health tax and stiffle the complaints. 

I go to a doctor maybe once a year and the $750 health tax I pay is barely scratched by that visit although overhead affects this for sure as rent/equipment costs money and doctors pay for their own clinics (plus I pay more than that monthly in Income Tax which also goes partly to health care). I am actually part of the Ontario long term medical study and have to get my blood work for that and will very shortly when one of my daughters has time to take me. It is not that far away to drive but I have never given six tubes of blood and then driven and this is not going to be the first time when I am 80. Looking forward to the results of that test actually. I sort of think these days that people should know how much a doctor's visit costs even if the system is universal. Generally I think doctors are underpaid often enough for the work that they do. I like and dislike universal health care - it becomes too soft a cushion and one doesn't regard the actual cost of their medical care. Yet I do not want to see children without health care wandering about and it is a measure of a community that the people who live in it care for the people that live there. 

We have to be careful when we are over 75 and driving I think. Extremely careful with our mind totally on the road at all times and not to drive if we are tired. It is a must and if you fail to follow that you should not be driving. The world depends on that driver behind the wheel being aware at all times; no drugs and no drinking of alcohol.

Yesterday I worked away on Ancestry with some work on Gedmatch. A few more very interesting matches on Ancestry with Cotterell cousins and given the frequency of Cotterell on their side the matches were quite good for sixth cousins as they traced back to William Rawlins and Mary Ford (my five x great grandparents) through their daughter Mary who married Stephen Cotterell. They have a good tree and now I have all the children of Stephen and Mary which is so very helpful. There was also a long length of shared matches in Ancestry also very handy. Is the Cottrell family at Upper Chute/South Tedworth related to this Cotterell family? Are they both related to the Cotterill family at Kimpton (and I think Stephen is by the records I extracted but I am always looking for anything that contradicts any of this research). I do like it to be correct. So that made the day very interesting and obviously I do have Cotterell DNA (unless they are in a common area but that is the treat of Ancestry as they remove common lengths with TIMBER so generally your match is a true match with a similar family line). Since my only connection would appear to be through my paternal grandmother the priest recording her name as Ada Bessie Cotteril Rawlings was capturing what he believed to be true plus she was registered with that name and I must check the dates on those two items. I think the baptism was before the registration actually. In both cases Rawlings should have been Rawlins as her mother was baptized as Rawlins and Cotteril should have been Cotterill if the father was from the village of Kimpton. So very interesting and I am avoiding it looking like a soap box opera as far as I am able and sticking to facts. 

My mother used to watch all these soap box operas on the television and when I used to get home from university she would say come and watch and so I did a few times just to give her company but it gave me a dislike for soap box opera and whenever politics or anything begins to look like a soap box I avoid it if at all possible. 

Collection Day and I have already been outside to put the collected items out to the curb. This is the first time I have put out a garbage bag (I didn't even bother with the container which generally sits way at the back of the garage) which has basically one white garbage bag in it which has dental floss for six weeks, a few bandaids and the furnace filter which I checked and it is garbage not recyclable. Amazing really how much is being recycled. I am busy using the bread bags to collect up the smaller plastic bags from freezer goods and others, I use one of the yoghurt containers to collect up the small tinfoil, flexible plastic lids and the like, items that look like paper but do not tear so have plastic in them and then I put that filled container into the waste container and start a new one. It is starting to look neater when I put it out to the street but it all recycles. How wonderful that is. I do want to start buying my meat in butcher paper though although having these sealed plastic containers gives it a longer shelf life so it becomes problematic and I understand that. So I use that method when I want a little more time and the butcher paper from another store which generally has that for immediate usage. A new company has been formed to take care of all that addition to recycling; great for business. 

We are a country that produces boxes and other paper containers and we need to move to that where it is possible. It is easy to recycle paper. I can remember life without plastic bags so it can be done but it is more difficult to keep items fresh, to keep brown sugar from caking and there are other examples. One step I have taken is to use a freezer bag for storing brown sugar and wonder if a movement towards brown sugar in paper bags would work and just store it in the freezer bag. It can still clump in the lighter plastic but the freezer bag does a really good job and you just wash it and I have been using the same one for a couple of years now. 

Today I continue working on Gedmatch as Ancestry is mostly complete although will check for new matches and I am going through the four accounts that I have for siblings and looking at all the Common Ancestors and placing them into their coloured groups for ready recall in the future. That was how I located one set of Cotterell (sixth cousins) sharing 20 cM as my cutoff is 23 cM in Ancestry which can be quite a large number and likely I am missing items between 18 and 22 cM and in particular this one but I can only do so much of this and I have a lot more to do. 

Drinking my tea and time to do the solitaire puzzles.  

 

Cleaning Day two

 Today it is the main floor and I will begin in an hour or so. It is minus 17 degrees celsius and the ice is building up here and there. Yesterday was busy although I did not accomplish a lot with the ancestry matches. I continued to check out the match with a South Newton Blake family. I will do a bit of searching on that as I have collected quite a bit of material on the South Newton Blake family including all the wills. They just always struck me as likely being descendant of the Calne Blake family. Some of the family sizes were large and certainly land was passed to the eldest and any monied items in order to keep it intact. I can understand the principle and it worked well for the times. Generally the other sons went into the military, the church or business as that grew to be a suitable occupation. Other sons stayed and worked for the eldest. That was just the way of life. 

One other item caught my eye and it was in the Cottrell line. A large match with a Cottrell family at  Upper Chute, Wiltshire and is located 3 miles NE of Ludgershall and 7 miles NW of Andover and interestingly 7 miles north of Kimpton. I am, as I said, ambivalent about the father of my paternal grandmother. Interesting that the young man similar in age to her in this family is also named George. But why did the priest use the spelling Cotterill on her baptismal record - strange really. I will have a look at the records on Find My Past and investigate. This is sizeable at 54 cM on ancestry considering the use of TIMBER. This is primarily though a Northhamptonshire family so was surprised. The furtherest back is a John Cottrell born 1804 at South Tedworth, Wiltshire. The shared matches are certainly interesting and include my two brothers tested at Ancestry. The other question of course is this a descendant of Stephen Cotterell and Mary (Rawlins) Cotterell where Mary is one of the children of my 4x great grandparents William Rawlins and Mary (Foord) Rawlins. Knowing that their daughter married her second cousin a William Rawlins leading to a possibility of large matches if I happen to actually have Cotterell/Cotterill/Cottrel DNA inherited from my grandmother. But this is the largest match that I have had thus far. This George Cottrell married in 1879 in London but in 1875 he is named as the father of a daughter in London (my grandmother was born in 1876).  Very very interesting that the name is George perhaps and close enough at just seven miles away. His marriage appears to be to the mother of the child born in 1875. Wouldn't that be amazing to find a solution. The only way that I am going to match a Cotterill/Cotterell/Cottrell is through my grandmother as my tree shows thus far. None of her direct line ancestors though are Cotterill/Cotterell/Cottrell that would have passed DNA to her. 

So Ancestry, as always, proved to be most interesting and I always check my matches there simply because of the vast amount of information that comes with the match even though it lacks the actual area where I am matching on an individual chromosome. 

Charging up my FitBit as it was down to 30% and I generally charge it as soon as I notice that it is 30% or lower. Sometimes I do not notice until it starts to send me messages but generally I notice before 20%. It is now up to 92% and does charge quickly this new one. The older one was taking somewhat longer to charge so another bonus in having a new one. This is a Charge 6 and the last one was a Charge 5. I have been a FitBit user for a lot of years now but about seven years ago I stopped using it for almost an entire year because I felt like it was driving my life. Now I have a different attitude to the FitBit and how I use it and perhaps one has to progress to that. 

So this looking at matches I have missed over the last year as I work away is proving to be most interesting. I have my lists for the others but I do like to go into Ancestry first and then have a look at GedMatch and then start pulling the matches that I found in the other databases. I am looking for anything that would upset the applecart so to speak. But also for anything that is new and adds information that I have been thinking about and Ancestry has certainly filled the bill on that one the last couple of days. Just a few matches to go there and I will be into even more indepth looking as my excel file will be built completely with all of the sibling's results filled in and any MRCAs noted on the Ancestry matches file. 

Tea all drank and must do solitaire puzzles, then breakfast and cleaning.     

 

Surprise snowfall overnight

I missed the weather report that said snow and woke up today hearing the laneway being cleared by the company and realizing my black box was not far enough away although it was on the grass next door as I am hoping to get it emptied this week. Went out and moved it and cleaned out the snow and added some more so that it is about 3/4s full now. When the newspaper was delivered we didn't have any problem filling it but that is a long time ago. 

Just the sidewalks to clear and they will be around later to do that. This is southwestern Ontario snow as I call it; moist and great for making snowmen not our usual dry snow that does pack well on a hot sunny day but otherwise is pretty light and devoid of a lot of moisture. The trees all have a dusting of snow and look quite beautiful through the window of my workroom. Winter is lovely; I do love winter the best but a lot of the reason is all that solitude and time to work. Edward did not enjoy the solitude as much as I did and was out and about doing all his projects with me accompanying when he asked. He was so involved in so many things especially when he retired. For him, I think, being retired was sleeping in which he loved to do. That and just all that time to do anything that he wanted to do and his genealogical endeavours paid off big time for him in terms of unknown family to him but so well known to the world - Roger Williams, Hannah (Peak) Bowne, even the Royal Governor of Massachusetts and so many others. 

It was incredible that so much was lost. He found it amazing that I knew all of my ancestral stories but my first ancestor did not arrive here until 1818 and it was Thomas Routledge and his wife Elizabeth (Routledge) Routledge with their eight children, son in law and several grand children. They were joined in 1832 (still proving) by Robert Gray who married their daughter Mary Elizabeth Ann Routledge in 1835 at St Paul's now St Paul's Cathedral in London, Ontario. Unknown to each other but they did come from neighbouring counties sort of (Routledge from Bewcastle, Cumberland and Gray from Holme on the Wolds, East Riding of Yorkshire). Their daughter Grace Gray (my first born Canadian ancestor)  married the next new arrival in my family line namely William Robert Pincombe from Molland, Devon who was one of the children of John Pincombe (Bishops Nympton, Devon) and Elizabeth (Rew) Pincombe (Bratton near Minehead, Somerset). The only surviving child of Grace and William Robert was my grandfather John Routledge Pincombe and my second born Canadian ancestor. John married Ellen Rosina (Buller) Pincombe (Birmingham, Warwickshire) who had arrived in Canada in 1908 and their daughter Helen Louise (Pincombe) Blake was my third born Canadian ancestor. My father arrived in 1913 with his parents Samuel George Blake (Upper Clatford, Hampshire) and Edith Bessie (Taylor) Blake  (Kimpton, Hampshire, aka Ada Bessie Cotteril (Rawlings) Blake). So I am fourth generation Canadian on my mother's side and first generation Canadian on my father's side. Since I was born before 1 Jan 1947 I was initially a British Subject but grandfathered to Canadian Citizen as I was born here in Ontario, Canada and hence forever more a Canadian citizen no longer a British Subject. I did find that fascinating as a child. Probably many times a year as a child those emigration stories were talked about and all the names were familiar to me. 

But life was different for Edward's families in those days in the 1600s/1700s and a lot of time was just spent surviving I suspect so that the stories simply did not pass down through the families. Well educated many of Edward's ancestors were but they had to turn to the plow to grow food for their very existence and that was hard tiring work so that at the end of the day there just perhaps wasn't time to talk about life as it had been. The Dissenters paid a huge price for their dissent for sure but the gain was huge and my husband would have been celebrated by his ancestors I am sure as he made the kind of accomplishments made generations earlier by his ancestors in learning. His first ancestors arrived from Amsterdam to New Amsterdam now New York in the early 1600s so his first footpaths on this Western Hemisphere were his Dutch and French (Huguenot - it appears that dissenters attract each other) ancestors followed quickly by his German (Palatines and in a way they too were dissenters) and Swedish ancestors with his small number in actual fact of English ancestors (all dissenters initially) arriving between the 1630s and the 1660s primarily and to Massachusetts for the most part. Edward certainly had his own opinions and the genes were definitely there for that. 

A trip down memory lane does work very well to get the brain moving in the morning. It reminds me why I am doing all of this work - my mother wanted to write a book about her Pincombe family and my grandfather a book about his Blake family and so here I am in 2026 writing the books. My memory serves me well very often and both of these individuals (my mother and my paternal grandfather) repeated themselves many many times. In a family of seven children that is not surprising that repetition would be a pretty constant item on the menu. 

For myself I look back and I think why would they choose only Pincombe or Blake and of course it was the name that they were born with and so their thoughts centered on that surname. My mother also remembered the surnames of her grandparents and great grandparents but also included in that mass of data were family lore which I still investigate when paperwork becomes available that I have not seen but family lore does not always lead you to the correct place but then these stories were repeated to her and sometimes the repetition doesn't always follow exactly the same line of thought I have discovered. The intent though is interesting and I do like to not miss any possible leads when I am missing information. So I search those brain cells of mine for any tidbits that sit there dormant for sixty or seventy years or more and pull them out and look at them. I have a very lucky memory it appears as just little bits of conversation (tagged in a way by the manner in which my brain works where particular words cause a flood of memory). Yesterday I started writing once again in the Pincombe book and will continue with that today along with working on my lovely new file as I input the new information, if I do as I am being very selective. Mostly I am looking for anything that could upset the apple cart which is important for me to find that now rather than later!

Tea all drank and time to do the solitaire puzzles to really wake up that brain. The laneway is cleared and now the snow shovellers have come and gone and the path out is clear once again although I am not going anywhere. It is Saturday and I prefer not to be on the roads on the weekend. I stick to school times for my outings as there is very little traffic especially walking traffic!

 

 

And another Tuesday also a working day

Yesterday the basement cleaning went very well and was accomplished in good time. I even had a 25 minute run before lunch. This is just running around my indoor track so to speak (I have created it with so much furniture gone now). I can see why people did not always have so much furniture in years gone by - the space is wonderful. I did grow up in a house that was post-bankrupt when money was tight but my father had time to read to us which was lovely (that was after my grandfather died I think). I used to read to my grandfather and he loved that. I can not really remember if he read to me perhaps he did but the memory is lost to time. But  he loved it when I read to him. But mostly he liked to talk and tell me all about Upper Clatford (and other places in England that he had been in but mostly he talked about Upper Clatford and not Eastleigh where my father was born). Sometimes he talked about Eastleigh but not a lot. 

I have completed the R's now in the matches and into the S's and there are perhaps 34 matches left to do. I am just guessing because I did not count them and there is just one page of matches to go so about right. It may take the two days though that are ahead of me for cleaning. Today is the main floor and I will not run today. It is more work to do the main floor because I do the vacuuming, the scrubbing and the dusting. It takes about three hours or slightly more in total. But it is finished when it is finished. 

My fingers are itching to get at the file now to sort it to suit myself and see how many great grandparents I can successfully pull out of it. I know that Gray and Knight are fairly clear and if it isn't Gray or Knight then it is Pincombe or Blake but it has to be definitive to make that call. The Buller is sticking out not too badly as well and again the same justification if it isn't Buller then it is Taylor. Rawlings I have quite a few matches and if it isn't Rawlings then it is my Grandmother's father said to be George Cotterill but I remain on the sidelines on that one. I will simply have separated out that individual where it is possible and await a good match to really determine that. It may not be in my lifetime. 

The Olympics is going very well with lots of winners. I like that actually when many countries win a medal. It is a powerful message for the athlete to take home to the people in their country (any medal is a powerful message).  Sixth four percent of the medals have been awarded so still quite a bit to go. Twenty six countries have won at least one medal. A lot of cheering when the athletes come home even if they did not win they competed and that is the most important part I think. I used to sit and watch for the entire time period but life is busy and I do want to get the books written and so I just check in every once in a while when I am doing my ten to fifteen minute walk every hour. The FitBit buzzes me to tell me if I have not yet done my 250 steps for the hour and up I get and do the 250 for that hour and the 250 for the next hour except I notice generally that I have been sitting a long time and so up I get and often I do do the 250 at the beginning of the hour! Exercise is wonderful especially for the young but the old benefit too. As I look around me I think anyone under 55 is still young  really. Then I see 56 to 75/79 as middle age and old is definitely hitting 80. Somehow you feel the difference. Perhaps it is the necessity of redoing the driver's license although it was just the eye test after all that brings the age of 80 home to you. 

 The Buller family is huge I am discovering and a lot of that hugeness is actually in a cousin family not my Buller line. One might say that the Welch family is huge (Henry Christopher Buller married Ann Welch and she had a twin sister who like her sister Ann had a very large family (between them twenty four children)). The number of grandchildren was huge and it continued through the generations as I have so many cousins who match me on this Buller line of mine and for them it is a different surname but we all share the Welch (but William Welch and Sarah Cheatle (our most recent common ancestor were my 3x great grandparents and so are not in that level where I am separating out the eight members (namely the great grandparents of whom there are eight). The Taylor line (Edwin Denner Buller married Ellen Taylor) is considerably smaller which is a surprise although it appears to have this huge Irish branch so still working on that but it is likely the Irish portion that is found in all of my siblings including myself. The only confusing part in that is my portion tends to be from the Irish Republic (Eire) and their portion from Northern Ireland. All in how you inherit the DNA and I am the most different from all of them - if there is a place to differ than I do although I also have the usual amount shared although it is on the lower side rather than being strongly related to each other. 

Time moves onward and my tea cup is empty and I need to do my Solitaire Puzzles. Had a great time playing Sudoku last evening with I think four of five games. Sometimes I do that. I love the thought process; it completely occupies the brain as you look from square to square and length to length to find that one item that will unlock all of those numbers and there you with a complete nine square Sudoku neatly arranged and finished. No flashing of light but I still miss doing my sixteen games of Spider every week. I did it from its inception as a new challenge until I stopped. I hope to return to it one day when my eyes have adjusted to sparkling. One never knows. Breakfast and then cleaning follows. Generally I begin around nine o'clock.  

I had a request for Rathbun/Rathburn information the other day from one of Edward's likely cousins in the United States but we did not go to the graveyards in Pennsylvania (that was planned but did not happen as COVID did) and I could not answer her question. It is sad to write that Edward has passed away; that sadness remains as I did really want him to be 90 like he wanted to be. It is not a morbid sadness he would not want that but rather a genuine sense that he had missed out on turning 90.  I wrote and thanked her for her kindness in her note back when I let her know that Edward had passed and I did not have an answer. 

 

Cleaning day One

An ever repeating sequence in my life is cleaning days. I do not mind cleaning it reminds me of my grandmother teaching me how to clean and I do try to follow her clear instructions. Life has changed though and now at 80 I do do things somewhat differently. She was a fascinating person though and my memories of her are very strong and clear in my mind. She managed though to say only certain things about her families leaving one to wonder many times. I wonder if she visited the area of Bermondsey where her great grandfather Christopher Buller had his Slop Shop on Tooley Street in Bermondsey. We were on the tour bus when I was looking out the window as we drove across the Thames from London and I just happened to glance up at the right time to see the street marker with Tooley Street upon it. Generally I can not read those signs but it was a large sign and the bus was right beside it and of course one is sitting up higher in a tour bus with huge windows. That was our first trip to London in 2008 (my husband and I). I had been in London in 2001 with my oldest daughter when we did my pilgrimage to Rome and then a side trip to London on our way home to Canada.  I had asked Edward first if he would like to come but he declined although he regretted that after our Tour of Europe as he saw little of Italy compared to what I had seen with my older daughter. He always wanted to go back and do a trip of just Italy. But once he went and enjoyed it he wanted to go much more often than I did. I wanted to see everything that I could see so it took a good six months to prepare for each trip and so it was generally every second year that we went. 

My grandmother did mention all of her grandparents - the Taylor grandparents were shoe makers/shop keepers and the Buller grandmother lived with her children except not their family. Henry Christopher Buller, her grandfather, had died twenty six years before she was born. My grandmother attended her grandmother's funeral not long before her father died actually and she had met her father's sisters at that time. Both of her parents had come from fairly large families. But Buller is one of my challenging lines which I will have a longer look at after the Pincombe and Blake books are completed. 

 I worked on Chromosome 1 yesterday and managed to get through to the C's. The number of matches is huge so it will be a while getting through this chromosome. However, some of the dust has settled on the common area as I was able to prepare a good list of matches for Buller and Blake as well as Pincombe (my Rawlings matches are very few actually overall but the ones that I do have are close so good coverage). 

The start of the work week is always interesting and today it is minus 24 degrees celsius with a wind chill of minus 35 to minus 40 degrees celsius. So a very cold day out there and I believe I will just look at the snow from a distance whilst I clean. The desire to go out in that is pretty weak. I did put the skis away until March when I might ski again - time and the snow will decide that. 

On the first chromosome at the beginning there are quite a few matches (as many as 40 actually but I did not collect all of them) that are early Colonial American and in the Blake/Knight line. I am still trying to find a match that will reveal which of the two. There is also a length on this same chromosome that is definitely Blake and both ancient and  modern so again I wonder are these the descendants of the Sedgewick family where Joanna Blake married Robert Sedgewicke  the 6th of Jan 1634 (old style) at Andover St Marys in Hampshire, England. Earlier in the history of Ancestry DNA I did collect five or six matches that were small but traced back to Sedgewicke (I do need to pull them up as I saved them when Ancestry removed the very small matches from their database). I will spend some time looking at these matches when I am doing the genealogy charts. Some really good lengths of Buller on this chromosome especially with my two Buller cousins testing recently (descendants of Clement Charles Caswell Buller (brother to my Edwin Denner Buller) and I already have two other descendants of siblings of my great grandfather Edwin Denner Buller so an interesting length of this chromosome is known to me along with two descendants of the Welch family which was the mother of Edwin Denner Buller. Not quite as large but in a significant place which has aided the investigation quite a bit from an earlier time. But the addition of the last two was memorable as it solved the problem on Chromosome 3 for sure. I do have eighteen known matches but this is a very long chromosome and there are spots (particularly the common area where more Known matches would be nice). Although time is providing answers that weren't there earlier. 

 Time is moving onward and I must finish off my tea and do my solitaire puzzles before breakfast and then cleaning. Exercises completed and a snack to fortify me until breakfast. Another beautiful day on God's world. An interesting discussion on the location of Heaven which I found very thought consuming. The scientist who discussed it is a physicist. I loved studying physics because so many of the early scholars were very religious and constantly brought science and religion together. I have always felt that the examination of the atom revealed God to us as it is so perfect and designed in a fundamental way that does make one believe very deeply in the presence of God in our world. Randomness doesn't cut it with me mostly because randomness is chaotic and destructive and the atom is perfect because it follows a logical course that is beneficial not destructive like plants and animals where the best combination of DNA is always chosen. 

 

Chromosome 1 progressing

Awake early and probably sleep again but decided to write my blog. Chromosome 1 went well and will continue with that later today. It is the longest chromosome and I inherited an all Blake/Knight chromosome from my father. Some of it is known and some of it I will see what I can find. 

Bought hand soap and detergent from a company in Montreal instead of the usual big plastic bottles of it. These come in a thin plastic dispenser inside of a cardboard box so decreasing the amount of plastic but still quite a bit of cardboard but the bonus there is that we make all those cardboard containers. Trying very hard to only buy Canadian but sometimes I do make mistakes like buying my Turbo Tax which I really like. But next year QFile will do the trick I am sure. The $27 for the Turbo Tax is well offset by what I paid for the huge containers of hand soap and detergent. I generally spend only on Canadian products in the stores but one has to read the labels very carefully as they are mentioning on the Television. Just thinking it is Canadian doesn't work. 

I did buy the shoveling for the remainder of the season from the company that does do my laneway but it didn't happen yesterday. We will see I may have to remind them as it isn't on the sign the person on the phone said but then it is set up until the 1st of April like the laneway. Generally I pay the extra to do the laneway in April just in case of heavy snows.  

 I do have a puzzle generally with Chromosome 1 as there is a set of matches in a common area which is either Blake or Buller or Rawlings or Pincombe. I have more or less got a list of matches so that I can separate them out readily but it doesn't always work and then I just assign them to the "too small" category file and do not use them. That file is going to be the largest I suspect in that this is a very common area for the British Isles and Northern Europe. 

Sunday and another service online from my Church. I do enjoy being able to attend in that way; it isn't exactly what God planned but at 80 years of age it works very well for me. The need to move is very strong in me I must admit. I do not want to wait too long but eventually this house will be too much for me even with the helpers that I purchase to assist me. I will have this company that does the laneways and porch/patio do the yards this year. That way there will be the cutting every second week I think which will make life easier. The exercise is good but sometimes it is also exhausting as it is a large yard. 

Sometimes when I look back at all of my years the amount of volunteer time that I have put in seems huge but all of that is also way back in the past. Although I did do some volunteer work with some healthcare projects during COVID and after and still do some. All online making life much easier - online is great really. But my girls are long grown and a lot of the volunteer work was with their groups or their schools.  

God is always with us in the wind and the rain, in the skies and the rich land around us. Thank you God for all that you have given to us. Help us to be better administrators of this land bringing peace to the world for all peoples so that everyone can live a good life in these lands. 

 Back to sleep and another day is dawning although not quite yet it is early at 3:40 a.m. 

Two Newsletters

I do have two newsletters to write - H11 Newsletter and Kipp-Kipp Newsletter. They are both looking only at the DNA groups within the FT DNA study. I shall work away at them today. I always mean to do them as I used to a couple of days before the due date but writing books has distracted me from this task the last year or so.  In the case of the Kipp Newsletter I really do not know this family (it is my husband's family) and feel somewhat in left field working on it although I always did write a portion for Edward on the yDNA study that he managed at FT DNA. I took it over until someone does come forward to take it on. 

The basement completely cleaned yesterday and today it is the main floor and soon will begin that process. I also worked on the matches and I am about 1/3rd of the way through at this point I think. A new Rawlings/Cotterill match where the testing was at 23 and Me so a nice list of Relatives in common in this last batch. An interesting find in that the  Farley family does appear to have a Knight connection. This actually would be a step forward in solving one of my largest matches outside of family so we will see how that flows.  David Farley (son of John Farley and Mary (Yeates) Farley) married Mary Ann Blake (daughter of John Blake and Ann (Farmer) Blake) 12 Jun 1853 at Upper Clatford, Hampshire. Two known Blake matches were very handy as well. Today will see me working on the J's and there is a long list of them. I hope to complete Chromosome 2 this week and perhaps into Chromosome 1 which has over 250 matches and will take a good week or two to accomplish but then complete and I can start to use the file in ways that should give me interesting tables to explore with regard to the four great grandparents being noted in this particular rendition of the phasing as they match these five siblings tested (five tested out of three girls and four boys) of the great grandparents. I find I talk more about my brothers but they were all closer in age to me than my sisters (one sister is six years older and another sister is eight years younger). Just one brother is outside of that closeness to me as he is ten years younger. My prayers are very much with my older sister who had to have surgery lately and for a speedy recovery for her. 

I do feel a great desire to get back to writing the books Blake and Pincombe these days and a bit impatient to have that begin. But it is a process and will involve my transcribing the latin documents that I have at hand with regard to this Blake family way back in time. I feel I can progress from Robert Blake who left his will in 1521 living at Enham and will begin there initially. If I can take it back further I will but time will tell me that as I work through the material. With regard to the Pincombe book (which is really Pencombe as that was their surname when they arrived at North Molton it does appear) I can begin with John Pencombe who is on the Tax rolls and work my way forward but there to I have information on the Pencombe family of Pencombe Herefordshire which can be added in once I have transcribed the documents at hand. In this case I am working on a family that probably came from the modern Belgium area of the Continent perhaps in the early 1100s as there are records back that far. I  shall have to have a look at the archives there to see if there is anything. But the yDNA line points to a European line and not a Western Hunter Gatherer as is the case with my Blake line. 

But also I want to start scheduling myself to work on the index of the photo albums and to start collecting matches using Edward's present charts and the Excel files that I gave to him as I downloaded his matches from Ancestry. I need to see if any of them are on Gedmatch. Unfortunately collecting from 23 and Me did not happen in his case although he has many many excellent matches there. I may try writing to people to see if I can acquire the matching lengths to help with phasing his grandparents as it might interest people to have that information as well that are his 2nd cousins since they share great grandparents. For the other testing companies I have that material at hand and can search for those matches. It is a long shot for sure but I think it does make me feel happier about breaking up this set of fourty albums that covered all of his life really but they are all scanned. The early pictures I scanned for him maybe six months before he passed away and he found that to be something very pleasant to look at as he organized them in an online type of photo album so thinking about that does make me think he would like what I am doing. He and I belong to the generation that viewed everything in place not online. But this generation that will receive the photo albums  will view it online by preference. But perhaps in the future there will be a child who wants to see those original pictures in their binders; no one can know that. 

Vanilla tea all drank; a gift of my daughter, and now solitaire puzzles and then breakfast and the cleaning. I am a bit late today.  

 

  

 

Chromosome 3 completed

 A whirlwind day and the completion of Chromosome 3 made it a successful day. Plus I realized that I had finally thought through a methodology that would work for the photo albums. I will work with the indexes and create a full index of all the family photos and then create the photo books. The hard copy pictures that are not in the photo albums (7 or 8) will be shredded. That will be thousands of pictures I think. There are so many but remaining is a fully scanned set of pictures by date that fits into the indexes and the original slides prior to the digital cameras. It does sound much easier for me to take on except the eye work will be heavy but I can work away at that in batches not quite so long as working on the photo albums which are more of a physical work job plus mental it would appear. 

So today I begin Chromosome 2 and it has 116 matches with 20 known cousins. These cousins relate to my great grandparent lines with two Rawlings,  four Buller, four Pincombe, two Gray, four Knight and four Blake. I do not have any known Cotterill or Taylor lines. The spread is excellent across the chromosome with just a few breaks where it is unknown. That doesn't mean it will be fast because I will be downloading Relatives in common, Matches shared etc depending on the nomenclature of the various databases. 

I am deciding when I will begin the extraction of Edward's matches from the various databases using the same methodology as I have used. I did collect more information which at the time seemed superfluous but in the long run was a good idea. It will be a large task although I already extracted them into a list for Edward which I can use as a reference point to aid me along the path. 

 Sunday again and it is hard to believe how fast the weeks pass. I have my chicken all ready to make my chicken stew and that sounds delicious. Generally I eat chicken for four days and then fish or eggs for three days. It works well and my expenditure of time on planning meals is very short. My grocery list is ready for the next trip to the store but I want to scrub my refrigerator first this time. I like to clean it in the winter when it is less full. Although I wipe any spills when they happen generally but getting out the shelves and drawers really lets me give it a good cleaning. 

Church later this morning and I do enjoy going to Church very much online. I wonder sometimes if I ever will go back to in house worship and time will tell. We are meant to gather as Christians in our Churches and celebrate the gifts of God. It is  my constant omission for quite a while now (since before COVID for sure). Edward loved the music of the choirs and the organ at my Church although he did prefer his own United Church but certainly the draw of the music and the organ was very strong for him. 

Parliament back in and will watch Question Period next week. It is a time of hard work here in Canada as we work to make ourselves Tariff Proof. It is coming along but lots more to do. We need good jobs for our young people and I am hoping that they leap into creating new companies within Canada to make items like vacuum cleaners and other small appliances that we no longer make here. There are lots of new ideas on how to create and make things and it is the youth that will do that. What they see on their video games they need to now create in real life. They can do it; they are clever and well educated - creative thinking is what is needed to create items that exist digitally but give them that extra creativity to make them better, quieter, more efficient and Canadian. Go Canada Go. 

Drinking my tea and solitaire puzzles are next to wake up the brain.  

A good working day on Chromosome 3

 This chromosome will take a couple of days more likely because I had to repair a difficulty with it when I re-phased the grandparents DNA. Still a couple of the matches needed a deeper look at them before I could assign them and I am collecting Relatives in common this time as I work my way through. I am about one third of the way working on the F's. 

A lot happening with the Conservative Convention but I have not re-established my membership in the Conservative Party. I generally vote Conservative but I decided long ago that I would not be a member of a political party anymore. 

The meeting with the Prime Minister and the Premiers was most interesting and everyone on the same page these days for the most part. We need to grow Canada for the generations to follow in a way that is sustainable and not influenced by the changes in administration in other countries. Self-sufficient we actually are so long as we do not mind eating stored vegetables all winter once the fresh run out type of thing but our greenhouses are also doing a good job of giving us some fresh vegetable. But I leave all of that up to the leaders; my musing is just thinking out loud to myself. There are much more able people than me running the government. 

I think today will be the day that I get back to working on the photo albums. Perhaps try to do an hour here and an hour there just to get back into it. I did find it to be somewhat disturbing taking apart something created that covered the life of my husband pretty much from the earliest times of his life but mostly from the time that we knew each other until he passed away. He scanned all of the pictures and they are all in files so he probably realized that as time passed the binders would decrease. I just had to accept that and I have. Phasing  his grandparents will be a nice addition to the work that he did on his lines. 

Although I thought I had looked at all of these matches when I rephased the grandparents I rather think that I just passed through some of them since they were not of value to me. This time every file is being carefully examined for extra details to assist in phasing the great grandparents. So I am finding some interesting items that I missed the first time through not that they alter the grandparents; they do not that was why I passed them by but they do have a role to play with the great grandparents. Mostly I have collected 2nd, 3rd and 4th cousins so looking back to 3x great grandparents at the limit but some of these were 5th and 6th cousins and even further on occasion when endogamy influences the matching. These are definitely the matches I want to regard carefully because they will help to separate Buller from Taylor and Rawlings from Cotterill, even Pincombe from Gray (and as I have learned this especially is showing up in this chromosome where the known Pincombe occupies perhaps half of the total but now I can see the Gray (and Routledge) match extending backward through time where I hadn't really noticed it before). Separating Blake and Knight is generally straightforward as I have many many matches but still some are still in the unsure column. 

Today streaks of cloud in the sky and it is minus 21 degrees celsius and another cold day promised. We have been in the deep freeze now into the second week. Generally it last several weeks to a month but it has been a couple of years since we experienced it. All in how the systems move about and right now the polar vortex is being dragged down from the high Arctic into Canada and parts of the United States. But the snowfalls have been excellent and generally when it is so cold not so much snow. So that has been a bonus this cold spell to help fill up the lakes and rivers with good fresh water. 

I think when people trade with us they do see us as a source of fresh water for the future as Climate Change dominates the landscape of the world around us. Climate Change has occurred many times in the past and because records do not exist that far back we do not know if it was because of very very active volcanic eruptions which we are now duplicating with our industrial output or wildfire which cleans out the forest and is needed for some plants to regenerate. So Climate Change is real in archaeological records but the cause of it not known to us other than in our own generation. Looking into the very deep past may help us with our quest to handle Climate Change. 

Collection Day and it is the large collection day which includes garbage. I am putting out one sole white plastic bag which is perhaps one third full in a large green bag. I would like to just put out the white plastic bag but I think it has to be in a green bag for them to take it (I tried it and it was left). Perhaps there will be a change now with so much more being recycled (flexible plastic like bags and freezer containers, etc used to dominate my garbage can but not any more with the new pickup rules). Either that or make smaller green bags perhaps; we will see how that flows. But it has taken me six weeks to collect up one third of a bag so amazing really when you think about it. All the rest is recycling except for the power tool from my old vacuum which I had forgotten to place out until now. That is the end of the old vacuum. The ShopVac is doing a great job whilst I wait for vacuums to be made in Canada once again. Since I am 80 it probably doesn't matter what I do others will do differently I am sure.

Drinking my tea and about to do the solitaire puzzles. Yesterdays most difficult one was a challenge you really had to watch very carefully every single solitary move. It is fun to be challenged with these puzzles first thing getting my brain warmed up for work for the day. One hour of exercise also already done and a snack to tide me over until I eat my breakfast.  

Chromosome 5 completed

 Some difficulties in chromosome 5 as I did not separate out a few matches from the grandparent lines. Sometimes they were probably too small anyway other times just not enough information but I have kept them in the chart as I want to see how they correspond to other known matches. That will be something that AI will do for me once I have this chart ready to go. Could AI have made the chart? Perhaps in the future no idea on that although for privacy concerns in the databases I think that AI can not be just randomly used by people in a database although that is one item that these databases could offer in the future as part of their advanced searches such as Ancestry has now set up. Eventually I will use that because I can see some items that I wouldn't mind having more information as I pursue these early colonial Blake lines and as it turns out in I have also found that their are Buller/Taylor early colonial lines in America. I have the one known Blake line mentioned earlier (Sedgewicke-Blake in the mid 1600s in the Royal Colony of Massachusetts). The Buller/Taylor (and I do suspect Buller because like Blake they were out in the world in those early years) line appears to be a southern one in the Virginia Colony or the Carolina colony. 

I did start Chromosome 4 and there are  82 matches. This chromosome has eight known cousin matches several of them quite good lengths. Blake is heavily represented along with Knight, one singleton Rawlings and Dear back to my 3x great grandparents which was a good find. One match back to my 2x great grandparents Pincombe and Rew. The process through these chromosomes has been quite fascinating and I find myself contemplating doing Edward's grandparents with more confidence considering I do not have many of his closest relatives (sibling, sibling descendants, 1st cousins) but many many second, third and fourth cousins who were very kind to test for him in that decade before he passed away. I actually maintained all of the tests extracting the new matches as they came in since I was doing mine but he did all the work of actually looking at them and preparing charts (by hand) as he worked through them. I think he enjoyed that actually. I said from the beginning my genealogy would all be on the computer and for the most part it is but I still do have a couple of thousand fiche, books (not as many as he did - 2 bookcases (small)), DVDs that I purchased some on our trips to the British Isles and Europe. Records that I have purchased but I did scan all of them but did keep the originals if they were close family data. 

I also want to get back to the fourty binders of pictures and reduce them to just the family moments so that they are not lost over time. They are all scanned so in fact they would not be lost but it is nice to think that Edward's grandchildren will be able to enjoy the binders looking through them and perhaps his great grandchildren. His grandsons still miss him very much; he would have been so perfect with them but they are lucky to have a wonderful father who is also very good with them. As well they have a grandfather and a step grandfather that they both love very much and they were younger than Edward and will be with them for a much longer time which is wonderful. Creating the phasing of Edward's grandparents just seems to make it easier for me to do this downsizing. 

Moving on and must drink my tea and do my solitaire puzzles.  It is minus 26 degrees celsius in the great outdoors. The snow continues to be sucked dry by the cold air so not a good time to be wandering about outside here. The bare road is starting to show a sign that it is very cold out there. Apparently we are to get 10 to 20 centimetres of snow which will be light flaky stuff for sure in this cold if it actually falls.

Sunday today and Church very soon. I guess all the world excitement of the past week has distracted me from the actual day that I was living in.