Normally, Sunday is at least a partial day off…. a slower, more sedate day. Not today. A cacophony of alarms woke the FWL household at 7am. Rude words were uttered and momentary wondering ensued – why had the alarms been set so early? On a Sunday? Well, the lecturing marathon must continue, even on a Sunday.
Having done a quick route planner calculation last night on the AA website, I set off on what I was told was a journey of 1 hour and 15 minutes. Gertrude immediately disagreed vociferously. If I wanted to go the fastest route, 1 hour and 30 minutes was her prediction and using the shortest route (as suggested by AA), 1 hour and 53 minutes. Cue rude words…. I had allowed 1 hour and 15 minutes and that was including the stop for fuel.
At early o’clock, you can imagine how many staff were working to allow customers to pay for fuel. Yes, just one. OK, it was my next door neighbour but that didn’t mean I was served any quicker! Even better, it is Sunday today (of course). Very few of the usual slow moving vehicles (tractors and trucks) were present, but the other drivers of the morning still managed to infuriate me with their irritatingly low speed on national speed limit roads. I even had to overtake a BMW!
However, all this aside, I managed to arrive bang on schedule at Everest Community Academy for the Hampshire Genealogical Society Open Day. I had been booked as one of three speakers for the day but more than that, I was the first one! Setting up my table of goodies, I had plenty of time to go and chat with fellow stall holders as well as checking the technology for my lecture.
You can never judge a book by its cover but I think I made the right decision to leave out the section on putting your research online from my lecture. Having slightly restructured it over the last few days, it ran perfectly to schedule whilst allowing time for questions, and there were some really lovely comments from the audience members during the day who took the time to come and talk to me later on. [I wish I could ‘can them’ and put them in my testimonials!] I do believe that My History might have completely run out of Flip-pal scanners and Family Historian today due to mentions in my lecture – perhaps I should be on commission, Tony?!
Flying the flag for FWL as well as the two voluntary organisations I am involved with, I think that Sunday’s lack of rest was a day well spent. Sadly, Monday won’t be the new Sunday. Two lectures tomorrow! [Cue tired face…. Zzzz….]
