Sat, Jun 30th

It's been another hectic week at work for the two of us, and we were glad to make it to the weekend. Today we ran over to Welwyn Garden to pick up the bedroom skirting boards, and then onto Morrisons to do the weekly grocery shopping.

We then went home and after lunch I installed the skirting boards while Dawn did the laundry and vacuuming.

Once we got down to relax, I continued to update our family tree stuff into Family Tree Maker and load it on the net. I'll post the website address in Sunday's entry.

Sun, Jun 24th

Our bedroom finally looks like a bedroom instead of a war ravaged scene. For the last 9 months we have slept in a room where one of the walls and part of the ceiling had plaster damage as a result of me ripping out one of the fitted wall cupboards. Well, as you will know, last weekend we had a plasterer fix the damage and plaster over all the walls and the ceiling. That in itself made the room look 100% better. Well, today we moved the bed into the spare room again and with roller and brush I attacked the room with a pot of white emulsion. Now the room looks nice and clean. What a difference. All we need to do is put down some new skirting boards (baseboards) and find some new curtains and we can celebrate another room completed. It's just a shame that the rest of the house needs to be done, too. Watch this space for further improvements to our little home in Cecil Road. Unfortunately, you'll be watching for quite a while as we have plenty to do.

Sat, Jun 23th

Today was chore day again. We headed into Hertford town centre to do some errands, popping into Woolworth, the Co-op pharmacy, WH Smith to play the lottery (surprisingly we'd won £10 that we didn't know about), and Boots pharmacy. Then we headed over to Welwyn Garden City to pick up paint stuff for the bedroom and our groceries at Morrisons.

Back home Dawn did laundry and cleaning. She even found time to cut my hair. This was the first real cut I'd had since the hairdresser at Supercuts butchered my hair back in April. From now on Dawn will try and keep it under control. She shouldn't have too much of a problem as it's not really growing like it used to.

Fri, Jun 22th

Success on the family tree work. Following our visit to North Warnborough the other weekend, I have been trawling the net to try and find information about the White family in Hampshire. Well, through luck more than judgement, I have found out some more interesting stuff.

Firstly, I have been able to find out that my great-great grandad married someone called Emily Herridge. This had been a problem for me as two official records had her name as Merridge and Horridge. However, I'm confident that she was really a Herridge. What made this awkward to research was that she was the illegitimate daughter of Lucy Herridge who later married George Simpson. A half sister of Emily's later lived in Ealing before the turn of the century (1900) in the very same street that my grandad was born in. George Simpson was also a dairyman in the same area.

It's amazing how every direction I look in brings me back to milk. Emily Herridge, who married George White in 1869, remarried again after he passed away in 1889. Her second husband, Nathaniel Hatcher, also had ties to the dairy trade. One day hopefully I will be able to find the connection.

Sun, Jun 17th

Father's Day - Started the day by receiving a card from Dawn and Tiny. I also got a little ornament of a bear with Dad on it. Then, after breakfast of fried porridge and grits, we headed to Islington Cemetery to lay some flowers on Mum's grave. It was her birthday on Friday. I could have taken time off work and gone on my own (Dawn had to stay home because of the plasterer). But, seeing as we were going that way today to see Dad, we went today instead.

At Dad's we gave him a Freeview box and aerial, so he can watch up to 30 television channels. At present he can only see 5. I then copied a spreadsheet onto his laptop which had all the family tree stuff that I had been researching. It went back about 8 generations on both his mother and father's sides.

We then had a ride to the Gatehouse where we met my brother Phillip and the five of us (Jean stayed in Rainham to visit her dad's grave instead) had a nice meal and chat before we dropped Dad and George home and Phillip headed back to Essex.

Fri, Jun 15th

Today Dawn took the day off work to let our plasterer in to fix our bedroom. The walls and ceiling had been in a pretty bad shape since I pulled down one of the fitted cupboards. So to say we were pleased to get the walls repaired at last was an understatement. The guy arrived about 9.00am and didn't stop until around 6.30pm. He worked all day solid. But, by the time he left the room looked 100% better. However, he advised us that due to the damp in the room we should leave the windows open and sleep in a different room. This meant that we had to cram the bed into the spare room. This we did, and (pardon the phrase) we didn't have room to swing a cat. Needless to say, neither Dawn, Tiny nor I got a good night sleep. At least the bedroom looked ALOT better.

Mon, Jun 11th

Follow up to the problem with the wall light in the bedroom. You will be pleased that after picking up a switch today in town I was able to reconnect the electricity and lights this evening and now have it working. We just need to find an electrician to sort out the ceiling fan now.

Sun, Jun 10th

Today we picked Dad and George up and did a 160 mile round trip to North Warnborough/Odiham in Hampshire to do some genealogy. Dad used to tell me as a kid how he used to go down there and visit his Aunt Emmy with his dad back in the 1930s and during the second world war. So, we headed out early to see if we could find the house he used to visit. The drive took about an hour and a half, and when we got to Odiham we couldn't find a house that Dad remembered, or a house that looked like the one that a local historian sent us a photo of a few years back. Dad suggested that we try looking in Hook. So we drove the half a dozen miles and checked this out, too. This was when our luck all changed. I bought a local map in a newsagents in Hook and we immediately saw landmarks that Dad remembered. In particular a castle and stream. So we headed back to North Warnborough and on immediately entering the town for the second time I saw the house in the picture. We parked the car and walked back to check it out. In the window was an elderly man looking out. So, I made my way up the garden path and introduced myself and see if he could be of any assistance. We hit gold. After a brief chat he informed me that Emily White (Dad's aunt Emmy) lived in the Thatched Cottage next door. Unfortunately, she moved out during the war without leaving a forwarding address. The cottage, which was built around 1445, had been obscured by trees. But, Dad was pleased once we saw it. He was also delighted to see that a little bit up the road was the stream he kept mentioning and the pub across the road from where Aunt Emmy lived. We decided to have lunch there, The Jolly Miller, before heading home feeling so pleased for Dad. We later found out that the old man that helped us lived in a house, The Albion, that my great-great-grand parents used to live in way back in the 1890s.

Sat, Jun 9th

What a day. This morning we ran our usual weekend errands. Then this afternoon I tackled three electrical jobs in our bedroom so the walls and ceiling would be ready for plastering on Friday. However, things didn't work out as planned. First, I chased out part of the wall behind where the bed is so I could install a single wall light to replace the two we had. Did everything I was supposed to and then turned off the electricity to upstairs lights at the fuse board so I could disconnect the supply to the old lights and connect it to the new cable and new light. Problem number one was that whoever installed the lights connected them to the sockets circuit, not the lights circuit. So I had to turn off all the sockets in the house and do the wiring in the loft by flashlight instead.

Second problem was that when I connected the new dimmer switch to the light it blew. This resulted in the light staying on permanently. So I had to disconnect the light completely. As for replacing the ceiling light, there were three twin and earth connected to three connector blocks inside the light rose. I decided pretty quickly, as I couldn't tell which cable went back to the switch, to forget this job and get a qualified electrician to do it. Especially as the wall lights had been connected to the wrong circuit. The final job was a complete success. But, disconnecting an electrical socket that was three quarters up the wall WAS the easiest of the three tasks.

Wed, Jun 6th

Back to the physio again today. My shoulder's mobility and movement range has improved since my first visit. However, at the cost of more pain. I'm not complaining, as it's not too bad. I'm more relieved that I can move my arm more than I have been able to the last 6 months. It's still only about one fourth what I can do with my other arm. But, hopefully in time, and with exercises, I'll get there.

Sun, Jun 3rd

We had a hectic and busy weekend again. Yesterday we had a ride up to Welwyn Garden City to do our groceries and have a look in B&Q for some light fittings for our bedroom, and ordered a couple of fence pieces for our back yard. Back home, I spent most of the time on the computer.

Then today Dawn had her weekly video call before doing the weekly chores. I then spent a couple of hours scraping wallpaper from our bedroom wall. All I need to do is one more wall, and then replace the ceiling light with the new fan-light fitting we bought yesterday. We still need to find some replacements for the ones on the wall. Hopefully we'll be able to do them before the end of the weekend.

I also made some monster muffins for us. I baked a dozen or so for lunches and breakfast this week.

The day ended with a call to check on Dad and then an hour or so chilling out in front of the television. By which time we were both ready for bed, but not looking forward to the week ahead.