This past week has been recovering from the Really Useful Family History Fair in Dorset where there was a really friendly vibe and a chance to catch up with long-standing friends. I was multi-tasking with two stands, giving two talks and offering advice. The weekend also involved eating far too much. This was rapidly followed by birthday celebrations, more eating too much and also some serious garden centre spending (of which more in a later post) and a lovely walk round a country park, which hopefully negated a little of the too much eating.

On the 1 April I received a letter from my old school. When I attended, my school was what was known as a direct grant school; basically a private school that took pupils who had achieved a certain level in the 11 plus exam, whose fees were paid by the council. I was one of those pupils. So a ‘posh’ school for me then and loads of properly famous people went there, there’s even a Wikipedia List for notable previous pupils, on which I understandably do not feature. The school is 150 years old this year and they are creating a mural of 150 former pupils who ‘have left an indelible mark on our school’s history and whose achievements inspire future generations’. Weirdly one is me! I have no idea how or why and I assume someone must have nominated me. If that was you, thank you and wow, just wow. I am dumfounded. I do feel as if they may not have had many nominations and I have no idea how I got chosen. The phrase ‘scraping the barrel’ comes to mind. Maybe my ‘indelible mark’ was for all the wrong reasons.

My lovely daughter did point out the date on which the letter arrived and suggest it might be an April Fool but the letter was dated March and the project has a webpage, so it looks genuine. It seems some pupils are working on the chosen women to create their images as art work, embroideries and graffiti. I am placing bets on which I will be! I can only assume that the information is coming from this website, so goodness knows what the poor 12 year old who has been allocated me is thinking. If you are reading this dear pupil, all I can say is, ‘Good Luck’ and I am sorry you got the short straw. I wonder if I will be depicted as Mistress Agnes.

In other news. With more family visiting than I have bed space a whizzy new inflatable mattress thing was ordered. It arrived a few weeks ago in a huge heavy box and I shoved it in the garage until a couple of hours before their arrival. On taking it out of the box and removing the shrink wrapped plastic, it said ‘leave for 72 hours before using’ ooops. In fact it did say that on the outside of the box – bigger writing was obviously required, or maybe instructions on the advertising. If we haven’t totally and permanently  ***** it up by sleeping on it a few hours after removing it from the packaging it is supposed to be much more comfortable than an airbed – I await the verdict with trepidation.

Now for some days of beach, arcades, sweetshops, cafes (more excessive eating) and board games. I have already lost at the new dumbed down version of Cluedo; I knew the strategy for the old one.