H for History (ABC Wednesday)

Ever since my last visit to The House a few weeks ago, I’ve been trying to sort out some of the family history; concentrating for now on my grandmother’s huge family, with help of old photos and postcards. In one of her photo albums I found this photo from around 1920 showing family members and probably a couple of extra farm hands or neighbours helping with the hay harvest. And of course they’re using a horse for the job as well. With most of the photos I’m having a hard time dating them to an exact year, since there are very few dates and notes in the photo albums or on the back of the photos. However, fashion details may sometimes give a clue. Here, the men except one (the youngest) are all wearing hats, and the women headcloths. I guess they would hardly be exactly “dressing up” for the hay harvest. But on the other hand, they might have made a bit of an extra effort for the photo.

Do you know a lot about your own family history?
Have you tried to collect what you know in some way?
I just recently started a separate blog for my own research project: Greetings from the Past. (There is a button to it at the top of the sidebar in this blog, if you want to check it out some other time.) The photo above will probably turn up again on that blog as well, together with a few more photos showing life on the farm.

Have a nice H-day, and if you want more H’s, go visit

ABC Wednesday - H

Macro Monday: Orchid

Orchid in my bedroom window.

For Macro Monday.

Weekend Reflections–SOOC

Weekend Reflections AND Straight Out Of the Camera Sunday

Saturday offered a nice and sunny afternoon and I was not the only one taking the opportunity for a walk into town. There were even people sitting outdoors at the riverside café. Presumably, most of them smokers! We are still having frosty nights and most of us still find it best to be properly zipped up when going outside. (Why I chose that particular expression you’ll hopefully understand if you keep on reading.)

Actually I was in town twice yesterday. First in the late morning, by bus, with my shopping bag on wheels, to get groceries from the only grocery shop in the town centre. So crowded that I heard more than one customer muttering to partner or friend: “Remind me never to go in here again"! I can only hope that they stick to their resolutions (and so diminish the crowd by a few people), because I know I shall have to visit the place again. It’s not my only option but the best from public transport point of view, when I want to shop a little more than I can carry. (And as regular readers know, I don’t have a car.)

Well, anyway, after that adventure: some rest, lunch, more rest, and I was ready to go out again. This time, free of burdens, I walked into town on my own two feet; with the main purpose of exercise and getting some sun; and the additional purpose of handing in a coupon at a clothes shop,  where they had been kind enough the day before to already give me the discount in spite of having left the coupon behind in my other purse at home. But I did have my membership card, so I asked.

No hassle at all, in spite of them not being able to check it by help of my card. I still got the immediate reply that they’d give me the 20% discount anyway; but if I could, they’d be grateful if I popped in some other day with the coupon, for their statistics. 

I’m sure that attitude is a lot more profitable to them in the long run than saying “sorry, no, we can’t do that”. At least with me it put me immediately in a good mood, both having made a bargain and being treated as a valued customer. It also made me actually take the trouble to go back with that little piece of paper; for which I received thankyou’s; which made me feel even more pleased with myself; so happy faces all around!

 

Now if anyone is wondering what it was I bought, it was a knee-length blue denim (‘jeans’) dress with a zip all the way down the front. Actually I’d gladly have bought it even at full price just because it fit, it feels like “me”, I can wear it with leggings, and with various tops underneath according to season, and I don’t have to be an elite gymnast to get in and out of it.

I took a few other dresses with me into the changing room as well, which might possibly have fit me (I’ll never know!) if I had had an assistant zip-upper/unzipper constantly at hand whenever I wanted to get in or out of it. Since I don’t, any dress with a zip (or buttons) down its back or even down the side is out of the question! 

 

Now What?!

My “Labels” line below the posts seems to suddenly have gone AWOL (absent without leave). On all three blogs in current use. Can anyone else see it? (I still see them on other people’s blogs.)

I did fiddle around with the posts settings yesterday, removing the buttons for “blog this” and “facebook that” etc.  So I went back (to Design-Blog Posts-Edit) to check if that had anything to do with it. But putting those back does not bring back the Labels. And I see nowhere to sign on or off to show Labels. (The labels themselves are still there on the Dashboard, and also in the sidebar/footer gadgets.)

Sigh. Little things like this make me so tired!

BTT: Bookish Romance

Booking Through Thursday question from Ted (via Deb):

Have you ever fallen in love with a fictional character?
Who and what about them did you love?

Laughing a little at this question… I think that back in my pre-teens and teens I sort of did, occasionally. Not so much lately ;) - not in that truly (hm!) “romantic” sense; although I do still very much enjoy whenever I come across a well-written, pleasant and interesting fictional character.

Skipping over some possible childhood/early teens infatuations, I think one of my more long-lasting bookish romances may have been Lord Peter Wimsey (Dorothy Sayer’s gentleman detective). Handsome, clever, polite, rich… What more does a girl want? LOL

Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter Wimsey, image from dvdtalk.com.

Now look what you just made me do! Still not able to find the classic TV-series on DVD at any of the online stores I usually buy from – but I just went and ordered a set of BBC radio dramas on audio-cd instead! (I know I enjoyed two or three of those on loan from the library on cassettes in the past.)