A Visit from Christina James

A few days ago Christina James visited my local library in Oadby, on the outskirts of Leicester. The weather didn't give her a warm welcome but her audience certainly did. While the rain poured down outside, a small but enthusiastic group sat listening to Christina talking about her writing, her motivations and her childhood memories of houses steeped in the past, and how she has woven so many of these places and people into her novels.

Christina writes crime thrillers featuring DI Yates. The action takes place in the Fenlands of Lincolnshire where she grew up. The house that will feature in her third novel was her Grandparent's home in Stutterton. It was called Sausage Hall and this will be the title of the book. Christina explained that the house was built by a butcher who went bankrupt. After the house was sold, it was given the name Sausage Hall and the name stuck. I love it and it's a brilliant name for a novel too. She read an extract. In fact, she gave her book its 'world premiere' just for us and we were hooked straight away.

This is only the third time I've met someone who I've got to know over the Internet. It's a strange experience. We had never met and yet we knew each other as soon as she walked into the library. The others thought we were old friends. It was difficult to explain to them how friendships can grow out of Twitter and blog chats but they do. It was lovely to meet Christina for real and I am now eagerly awaiting the publication of Sausage Hall.

If you want to know more about Christina and her books then pop over and visit her here .

Well, aren't you the cat's whiskers...

...which means, you think you're pretty amazing.
 
And I'm sure you are amazing but this post isn't really about you, it's about cats and it's about my ruminations on why there are so many sayings that use cats to put the message across. Here are just a few by way of illustration:-

• cat on a hot tin roof
• raining cats and dogs
• cat nap
• weak as a kitten
• scaredy cat
• like herding cats
• fat cats
• grinning like a Cheshire cat

I could go on. In fact, I will:-

• copy cat
• cool cat
• cat walk 
• a catty person
• cats' eyes in the road
• cat-in-hell's chance
• cat got your tongue
• cats whiskers radios (It wasn't really a whisker. It was a fine wire that looked like a whisker.)

"So why all this talk about cat words?" I hear you ask.

Well, I was watching our two cats wash their faces after their supper yesterday and I couldn't help admiring their whiskers. Mabel's are black and shiny. Charlie's are white and bushy. Both sets are fine examples of cats' whiskers and both cats are quite convinced that they're the cats' whiskers!

Mabel

Charlie

And anyway, I needed a break from Richard III and Cemetery cataloging and it was a perfect excuse to post up photos of my two furry girls :-)

The Children's Book of Richard III Update: The illustrator, Alice Povey, has started the colour work. It's looking amazing. The front cover will be completed for viewing very soon and you'll be among the first to see it. Watch This Space!

Can you research a family tree?

Project Update

Cataloging a Cemetery and researching some of the older headstones is, I have to admit, far harder than I ever expected but it is such a worthwhile task that I can forgive it all of its difficulties.

The Cemetery Entrance

We've sorted the names for the unmarked plots and now the Stone Mason is working on our order, creating plaques and row markers. Meanwhile, we've moved on to writing the information for our Website, designing Interpretation Boards for the Cemetery entrance, inputting basic data so that our Website has a fully functioning genealogical search facility and then of course there's the family research. For many of us this was the main attraction but even this is harder than I thought it would be.

You may have created your own family tree and know all about what I'm going to discuss. I hadn't and so this was a steep learning curve for me.


This is what I've learnt so far:

The first place to look is the Headstone. It should provide the date of death, age, relatives and possibly birthplace. Unfortunately, there's always the possibility that it's so old, it provides nothing more than a difficult-to-read name! 

The Censuses from 1901 and 1911 are freely available to the public now and they can give valuable information about family members and addresses. 

In the Records Office there are shelves full of local Trade Directories which provide people's names and addresses covering the last two centuries and more. They also have sections organised by trades. 

The local newspapers are on microfilm at the Records office. You need to have a good idea of what date you're looking for as they are generally not indexed which means hours of sliding screen after screen of old newspaper pages. This can take even longer than expected as there are always fascinating articles to take you off on irrelevant tangents and as for the adverts… they’re hilarious! 

Our Records Office has a Person Index for anyone who ‘hit the headlines’ during their lifetime and a lot of information can also be gleaned from Congregation/Parish records. 

We have signed up for www.ancestry.co.uk and www.findmypast.co.uk but there are a number of free family research websites. Free Births, Marriages and Deaths can be found at www.freebmd.org.uk. The National Archives catalogue is at www.nationalarchive.gov and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is at www.cwgc.org. 

Failing all that you can always try Googling a name to see if there’s anything out there.

We have until the end of October to get the project completed so I shall take another deep breath and throw myself back into ancestry.co.uk. If anyone would like to help with researching any of the names then do please let me know. This is one of those jobs that is never done! We can never have too many volunteers!

This is a Heritage Lottery Funded Project.

A Pink Pants Challenge

This week is Endometriosis Awareness Week

I am very aware of Endometriosis. I suffered from it myself but nowhere near as badly as my daughter is suffering right now. As this is Endometriosis Awareness Week I thought I'd do a bit of awareness raising myself so here goes:

A Pink Pants Challenge:  If I was fitter and maybe a few years younger I would join these brave ladies. From 3rd to 5th May they are going to be climbing Wales' highest and most spectacular mountain, Snowdon, in the Snowdon Horseshoe Challenge. They're hoping to raise money for research into finding a cure for this painful and debilitating condition.You can read more about them here. I may not be fit enough to take part but I can and will be donating.

Endometriosis: If you are one of the lucky people who have never suffered from this condition then I'll explain. Endometriosis is when the lining of the womb spreads to other organs of the body. It creates sticky deposits causing pain and sticking organs together. The bowel is one of the common organs to be affected. We're not just talking about painful periods. This is an all month round, 24/7 kind of pain.

My Daughter: Last year my daughter was referred to the specialist Endometriosis Unit at London's University College Hospital. She has just had an exploratory laparoscopy to inform the surgeons in preparation for more major surgery sometime soon. We haven't got the date yet. Time feels as if it's standing still. She's been in pain for such a long time now.

Research: One of the problems for sufferers is the difficulty in successfully diagnosing the condition. While my daughter was in the hospital last week she agreed to donate tissues for research. They're hoping to develop a blood test to diagnose Endometriosis so that future sufferers won't have to wait until the Endometriosis is severe before a correct diagnosis can be made. They might even, one day, be able to dissolve it without painful and intrusive treatments. If you want to find out more about Endometriosis then please go and visit The Endometriosis UK site.

If you weren't aware before, then hopefully you're a bit more aware of Endometriosis now. Who'd be a woman!