Forget Bell, Book and Candle, this week has been more about Blind, Book and Stone. First of all though, there were more utilities to deal with, as my internet provider sent an engineer to try to work out why my once stable internet had become decidedly flaky. A new router was installed and not wishing to tempt fate, I won’t say much but fingers crossed. This of course meant that all my devices that were connected to the wifi had to be reconnected using the excessively long and totally unmemorable password. I long for the days when the password was ‘hop-think-lazy’ and not a garbled string of two dozen letters and numbers. At least two people in my family will have memorised it after being told it once but as for me, no chance.

Next, having lived here a year, I treated myself to a new kitchen blind to replace the slightly manky and unattractive one that came with the house. Then came the learning curve known as ‘how to  install a blind’. To make life more difficult, the kitchen window is over the sink so there wasn’t even easy access. The fisherman of my acquaintance personfully attempted to install said blind. This was accomplished and I didn’t even hear any swearing, ok so I was six miles away at the time but hey. The process did involve the complete disappearance of a dropped screw, which I suspect probably ended up down the plughole. Despite the liberal use of a spirit level, said blind did look just a tad on the wonk. I was just grateful that it was on the wall and not thrown in the bin in frustration, so was going to let this pass. I treated the harassed workman to celebratory cake in the best café in the world, which meant I got to eat cake too – win! Bless him, he arrived next day, determined to correct the list to starboard. To be honest, I was all for letting sleeping blinds lie but no, it was removed from the wall and after a certain degree of exasperation, it is now parallel to the ceiling. I did wonder if he was angling for another portion of cake.

Stones then. This should probably be a garden make-over post but I will write about their installation there. I decided, as it seemed to be the week for spending ridiculous amounts of money (I’d also booked three expensive holidays), I would buy some chippings to cover some unsightly tarmac. I ordered the chippings, carefully calculating that their ‘delivery in 3-5 working days’ would fall on a day when I was home. Day 5 has come and gone and I am still waiting and according to the tracking, they will now arrive on a day when I am out. I just hope that they don’t deposit them in front of the outward opening back gate. Watch this space for the next episode.

Family history has not be forgotten. I am enjoying leading my Pharos Female Ancestors course.  It is quite an intensive course but the students are lovely and seem to be enjoying it. I had visions of working alongside them to get on with a biography of my mother but I am also trying, for the sixth time, to finish my biography with my Society of Genealogists’ biography club members and it just isn’t going to happen. Still, female ancestors runs again in September so maybe I will have better luck then. On the subject of women’s history, my blog for women’s history month has appeared on the Pen and Sword website. In more book news, my publisher has now brought out the second and much revised edition of Putting your Ancestors in their Place in paperback. This weekend will see more family history fun as I multi task at the Really Useful Family History Show in Kinson, near Poole. I am speaking, personning an advice desk and dividing my time between Devon Family History Society and A Few Forgotten Women stands. 

Another of this week’s adventures involved a nighttime (well, it was after 9pm) drive out to some nearby countryside in order to look for a forecast aurora, where there wasn’t much light pollution. The only other cars in sight probably contained courting couples – I didn’t look too closely and I spent the time worrying that the gate to the area would be shut early and we, or at least the car, would be stuck until morning. I am not convinced that the vague light in the sky that my phone picked up was anything remotely aurora-like but we tried.