Family History GOLD - times 2!!!

Yesterday one of my cousins from Hampshire visited with her husband.  It was SO good to see them both again.  She bought stacks of family photos for me to look through (from the house of our aunty who died a couple of years ago).  I have looked through about half so far but was amazed when a fat envelope of postcards came to light, most written by my grandfather Sam to gran Maud, whilst he was posted to Gibraltar in WW1.  There are a variety of addresses but the Chateau at Grand Saconnex was one of them.  This bore truth to mum telling me that gran had worked in Geneva, but I hadn't been able to find out who she worked for at that time, and thought it was between the 1901 and 1911 censuses.  Now I have all the details.  I assume there was a relationship by name - however distant - with this family and Louis Pasteur. A family a lot more interesting than the Accountant she worked for in June 1911 (census time) anyway!

Another family rumour was borne out too - that Gran had an admirer who wrote to her every day she was in Geneva.  She had some postcards written in English and often French (who knew Granny was a fluent French speaker?) from someone called Cecile (female I am supposing) but this one is I think in Italian. If Cecile was female then she was just a good friend.  Gran worked as a domestic servant for Marc Henri Pasteur and his wife, who had property in Geneva and Hertfordshire, and also a grand house in Mayfair.

A postcard my grandfather sent to his future wife (my gran, obviously!) There are LOTS more.

Postcard from my g.g. granny Emily Brown whose family moved from Glastonbury to London.  The family roots go back 150 years in Glastonbury and doubtless long before that too.  

So if that wasn't enough excitement, this morning's post bought a long-awaited envelope with some more family photos in - though sadly not the ones we had been hoping for, which we got photocopies of from the same source some years back.  BUT, there was the original letter dated 1902 detailing some property belonging to the family.  They were unable to get to the Isle of Man with the Deeds as they simply couldn't afford to go.  The property went to the family of the remarried widow (g.g.grandmother) and was then sold on.

A busy baking day here.    I made a batch of Chocolate Marshmallow Muffins for our next door neighbour as a thank you for him changing the UV filter for me (they're for his kids who will be here for the week of the Royal Welsh Show).

Then Keith asked me to bake his favourite Chocolate Apple Cake, so here that is. 

I also baked Courgette Frittata Muffins.  HERE is the recipe.  The small courgettes were home-grown I rescued from the garden before the slugs had them, as they've had all the rest.*However, my cousin and her husband had sandwiches on the way, so I've frozen them now. Sorry photo's a bit fuzzy. I made them a Lemon Drizzle cake too, and got them to take it with them.  Keith isn't keen on it and no way was I going to eat the other half. Forgot to take a photo of that.  (*I've now put lots of eggshell around the plant and hope that will work).

Lemon Drizzle cake below:

Anyway, I shall end for now.  I am planning to go to Malvern Fleamarket tomorrow as it doesn't look to be quite such a rainy forecast and we haven't had the threatened Biblical deluges here today.  Just a normal rainy day really.

Keep dry everyone.