As regular readers will know from yesterday’s blog post, I am down in my home county of Devon. I say ‘home county’ but I have never actually lived in Devon, though I have tried pretty hard to find reasons to live here. My father (Pa FWL) was born in Devon and all his ancestors lived and worked here as far back as I have researched, so …. do the maths! A quarter of my ancestral research is based in Devon.
Having been welcomed to the home of Dr JF last night, we did what all good geneamates do this morning – sat on our laptops (in the conservatory) and killed a few jobs from the task list. OK, so she added a few to mine, but I’ll forgive her for that! My afternoon entailed a visit to the Pollyfield Centre at East-the-Water, Bideford for my lecture on An A-Z of Victorian Occupations. Well attended and a few of my Tracing Your West Country Ancestors books sold, plus a few random conversations which will undoubtedly (in some cases) add to any future renditions of the lecture.
Heading down various A and B roads, the A388 was eventually discovered by the ‘yet-to-be-named’ new car and ‘Gertrude’. We passed through many villages from Stibb Cross to Milton Damerel, eventually pottering through Holsworthy (via the amazing van of Merv Sillifant in the centre of town!) to Clawton to reside, this evening, at a jolly fine bed and breakfast establishment (Claw House). En route, my tiny brain cell managed to fathom that in fact, I have been staying at said B&B for over seven years…. not continually though, I hasten to add! I have helped both girls through GCSE and the senior version of the two through A-level Maths and when I first stayed at Claw House, they were in Year 5 (aged 9) and Year 7 (aged 11)!
So, the great question is: what will tomorrow bring? Good weather? I hope so…. then I can do some cemetery trekking before returning to the FWL offices on Monday morning. [Smiley face!]
