Monday was a beautifully warm sunny day and of course I was lured outside into the garden. The biggest job was the lawn, parts of which were threatening to become a hay meadow! I managed the side and the longest bit at the back but am still paying for that as my neck/shoulders sore and I have not one iota of energy today.
I've been busy on the Bank too and have eradicated most of the thicket of wild raspberry canes which made it look a mess. That freed some space up to plant a big pot of a tall daisy I got last year and which got overlooked. I also took the mattock to a little bit of the grass hillocks up there and carefully cleared out around two of the three Rhubarb plants and got rid of the grass round a few fruit trees in the orchard. So progress has been made, but at a price.
No photos of kittens in onesies as I tried one on Lulu (the vet helped fit it) - she got home, out of the travelling crate and by the time she'd fled to the Library, it was on the floor behind her! I didn't open the 2nd one so will send that back.
I am now going to force myself to walk to the postbox and post a letter, then it will be teatime. I need to clear my head a bit from snoozing on the sofa, and also making inroads into Manx Wills from the 1700s and trying to work out which William/John/Thomas/Philip is which - WHY did they all call their children the same mix of names! Finlo and Patrick easier, and there was a Mold earlier on too! For girls it was Eleanor, Isabel, Margaret and the occasional Joney. Oh, and an Averick, which is really unusual. Manx records are just THE BEST!
Sleepy-faced kittens! I'm looking forward to a garden day this weekend, when the planets will have aligned to produce both sunshine AND civilized temperatures. It will likely be too wet to do much, but I'll enjoy having a potter and doing a bit of post-winter-storm tidying. Hope your muscles have eased up!
ReplyDeleteThey have their lunch, and then a kip! Generally wake up for a hooley late afternoon . . . Hoping the planets combine for a nice Easter Weekend. Enjoy. Muscles complaining again as I had to push Keith in his wheelchair up the rather steep hill from where we were parked to the Solicitor's this morning . . .
DeleteI cut my grass too yesterday, a whole year's growth of the wildflower meadow but it won't need cutting again apart from the paths.
ReplyDeleteGosh, once a year cutting. That would suit me!
DeleteFamilies seem to bring down fathers and grandfathers names as middle names. I suppose it is the ancestral need to remember those that have gone. I pity my poor granddaughter who has my name as her middle name though.
ReplyDeleteIn genealogy, it's generally the rule (in the past anyway, before they started calling kids silly names like Brooklyn and Parish et al) that the first boy was named after his grandfather, first daughter after her grandmother etc. Can come a tad confusing when brothers are involved - have 3 candidates for a William C. on the Isle of Man, two of them born a month apart!
DeleteI am enjoying seeing the grass slowly appear between new snowfalls. Hopefully things warm up very quickly.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
Oh gosh, poor you still having snow. You must get so fed up with it when you're heading towards spring.
DeleteI perceive that in spite of aging bodies we are going to garden until we simply can't! An elderly friend once commented that it would be nice to have the help of a strong man to dig, mow, move things about, but one willing to take direction rather than argue.
ReplyDeleteI don't think cats take kindly to be 'dressed up' in anything [re the cones or onsies] although dogs seem more tolerant. Fortunately, if surgeries are carefully done and cats tended indoors after, recovery seems to progress well. Granted, Lulu's hernia op made the process a bit more involved.
Re genealogy and family names: the most difficult research I've encountered was J.'s paternal line--a whole county's worth of intermarried families with recurrent names. Richard, William, James, John for the men with [predictably] Mary and Elizabeth showing up in the women, although there was a spell in the mid to late 1800's where women's names became quite flowery and inventive.
The local Amish are a conundrum--only a few surnames and quite biblical in the naming of men: Jacob, Mose, Levi, etc. When needing to point out relationship they rattle off a convoluted line of family background to indicate the correct individual. Quite often the women don't have to change their surname from maiden to married--although they will insist that the two families involved 'aren't really related.'
Until we drop my dear! I have a strong son arriving next weekend, who has offered to do the jobs lined up I can't do. Hooray!
ReplyDeleteMy sympathies over J's paternal line! They weren't very adventurous with the names but I suppose all families stuck with tradition until recently.
We have a few biblical names in one line of the family but they are on my step-gran's side, so not too relevant to chase back generations. I was chatting to a distant relation in Oz (on the Somerset biblical name side actually) and he said that line - one person had 100 first cousins so they must have bred like rabbits!!