‘Tis the season of mists and not so mellow busyness. With the Irish holiday now a dim and distant memory, what have I been up to over the past month? The problem with extended holidays is that the work gets squeezed into the days when I am home. This means that I have been giving talks almost daily since arriving home. This included a plagues and epidemics session for the Society of Genealogists’ ‘Sick London’ course. Having spent a few days with the descendants, I was generously given some real germs, so was able to add verisimilitude by coughing and spluttering my way through this one. For those wanting more germs, my Sickness and Death online course for Pharos Tutors starts soon and there room for more to join in the fun. Next year is already looking ridiculously busy, with forty five talk bookings and I have even taken a booking for 2025. It is all a bit ‘stop the world, I want to get off’.

It has also been Christmas cake and pudding making time. I will draw a veil over why we ended up with industrial amounts of ground almond, which I don’t even like but we did. I offered to donate some of the excess to the descendants. This meant travelling with small bags of white powder and hoping the car wouldn’t need to be searched for any reason.

Now this year’s holiday is past, it is time to look to next year, when we hope to plan to return to Northumberland and Scotland. Cue revisiting my children’s Scottish ancestry and managing to add a couple of new generations. If I were to believe umpteen online family trees, I too have Scottish ancestry but I don’t feel I have enough evidence to make that link. Right (fairly unusual) name, rightish date, no other candidates, seventy miles away – could be him give me something linking these two men somewhere please and as for the longstanding ‘almost crumbling’ Northumbrian brick wall…….. I may never know if my John Hogg is the John Hogg I am almost certain he must be. Still, it wouldn’t do if it was all to easy would it.