Well, HELLO!

Dear Blog and Dear Blog Reader(s),

Three posts in three months is just the worst record I've ever had. My dear friend Congo pointed out to me that I hadn't been turning up here since January 23rd and I knew instantly she was right because on February 23rd, I came over here and had a look around and thought 'I should post something today' and then went off and just jolly well forgot all about it.

What on earth have I been doing and yes, Scott, what did happen to February? Well, I think a fair proportion of my free time in February, as in January and March, disappeared in hunting down birth, marriage and death certificates for a growing array of strangers whose choices of partners have determined much of my life to date. The Ancestors. I've never seen so many cotton weavers. The whole of northern England was into weaving cotton for what seems like 200 years but was probably only 150. They were either spinning it or weaving it, or selling the cloth they made from it. And all those years I lived there and watched while one factory chimney after another disappeared from the view from my bedroom window - and thought that it all had nothing to do with me at all. Those were my roots going up in smoke...

I have found two railway station masters - suppose in the mid- to late- 1800s that was the equivalent of being an airport manager - and one saddler, last spotted living with his servant. So they weren't all as poor as church mice but there must have been some damned hard workers amongst them. They were the cogs in the big industrial wheel of Britain. Reading the census returns, with street after street after street of cotton weavers and spinners, it makes you realise that it wasn't only the Great Wall of China that required thousands of hours of man, woman and child labour.

And all the while, the gentry were living the life of Reilly in their big houses. We watched Jane Austen's Emma on TV the other night - a lovely film - and I found myself occasionally thinking that this was all very well but my old folks were busy working themselves to the bone while this was going on. (I reckon when it grips you like that, it's time to take a break and go and visit your blog or do the washing up, play the clarinet, book a flight somewhere or whatever.) We live like kings nowadays. What a lucky escape, just by virtue of having been born 100 years later...

I've met a cousin, on internet, that is. A fourth cousin. We share a great, great, great grandfather. Now how weird is that? His grandson, who - along with him - I'd never heard of until two or three months ago, was the witness at her grandfather's wedding. Don't you just find that amazing? (What do you mean, NO!)

Anyway, chaps, it's getting late - five over midnight - and this girl has to be up bright and breezy tomorrow to get back to the bread factory, currently going through a spot of bother. I've been reorganised back into a previous department, fortunately under two very nice guys. Bye for now. PROMISE, I'll try to come back here before the end of March!