Birthday Celebration

We have just spent a super weekend with Luke and Ruth in Bradford. Luke celebrated his birthday, which was actually on Tuesday last week! On Sunday James and Tanya came over from York with little Sam. It's lovely to see them all so happy and settled where they are. We were however happy to be home again in our little corner of Herefordshire.

New Publication

Life has been rather busy over the last week or so, with the publication of my book One Step at a Time, The story of the Harpenden Group. It has been over a year in the making, but I feel the finished book was worth all the effort. As well as being available from me in paperback format, It is also available in a Kindle Edition on Amazon.co.uk. Unfortunately the ISBN No takes some time to find its way onto the Amazon Library so we will have to wait until it does before it is fully available through them.

So far the response has been fantastic, and we shall shortly be into a second printing!

And I thought I'd retired!

I've just got back from a week in York where I have been helping my youngest son James fit a new kitchen into their new house. I'm not used to all these late nights and hard work! It was however very satisfying watching it all come together. They still have lots to do in the house to make it as they want it but at least they now have a nice bedroom and a dream kitchen. the rest will have to follow as funds allow. Anyway I want a rest now, and time to concentrate on my writing. Watch out for my new book announcement!

Croft Castle

We took mother to Croft Castle yesterday where she brought us lunch. Very nice! While they were looking around I went and sat in the walled garden and enjoyed a peaceful ten minutes sitting on a bench and letting the garden speak to me. It's amazing what you can hear if you are prepared to sit quietly and just listen. I found myself back in the 1700's building the brick wall that surrounds the very large garden. I saw in my minds eye the team of gardeners who maintained the beauty while making it a place where the family could stroll and enjoy. I saw children playing on the grass and helping with the apple harvest. Then it was over, I was back in the twenty first century and other people were moving through the beauty and tranquillity. At first I felt resentful that they had intruded into 'my space' But then I remembered it wasn't 'my space' at all. As I got up to leave I said a quiet 'Thank you prayer' both to the mighty creator God who made all things so well, and to the National Trust who keep the place so beautifully and make it available to us.

Bash, Bang!

I walked into a glass door yesterday. Oh I know it was a silly thing to do, but it just happened. I wasn't thinking about anything in particular, and suddenly I had a terrible headache and blood streaming from my nose. As all life events are there to show us something I tried all day to reason what was the lesson to be learned by such a bash. The only thing I have come up with is the resolution to put a big coloured sticker on the door to prevent me from doing it again! Oh, and I suppose to think before trying to pass the barriers of my 'safe domain.'

Family Tree

We've got my Mother-in-Law staying with us, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to pick her brains about her side of the family. With the help of Ancestry.co.uk I have managed to push our knowledge of her family back to 1511! Oh the joy of wading through census information! I wish we had more of the stories behind some of the facts.

We are taking her to see her sister today. I expect she will tell me I've got it all wrong! We shall see.

The problem with genealogy is that its addictive! I spent the whole day at it, but it was worth it to see her pouring over the final printout, which I embellished with the family crest. Now I suppose, it's time to start on my own side of the family!

New Look

Well, this is my new look blog, I mean den! 

Having spent a year building with bricks and mortar I have moved into my new den and thought it was time I created a virtual den as well. So with the help of my very talented daughter here it is.

At first I thought about combining my three blogs and making one big one, but the more I thought about this the more I realised that the other two were very specialised and it would be difficult to combine them in a meaningful way. Instead I shall make easy links to them so, if your interested you can look them up as well. I suppose the most difficult thing now is to find something interesting in my life to write about!