I thought that it was about time I wrote something, so that people didn’t start enquiring after my welfare. It’s been the season for the descendants to descend; typically, they were here during the few days of less good weather. Plenty of board game opportunities, with Taverns of Tiefenthal being the current favourite, alongside the obligatory visits to the pick and mix sweet shop, the ice-cream shop, the rock pools and the playground. We also watched people attempting to paddle cardboard boats across the river and some of us acted like ninjas (best not to ask) and that was summer fun done for another year. There then followed what passes for a spring clean, as I removed buckets of sand from various corners of the house, washed a million sheets and towels and returned things to their rightful places. Though, to be fair, the visitors were pretty good and setting things to rights.

Now it is back to the computer, interspersed with occasional paddles and even a very quick swim. A quiet month for talks this month but I am gearing up for a hectic September. I’ve done some brick wall busting. Well more of a chipping away, as Devon FHS members have got too good at solving their own, so we tend to only get almost impossible ones sent in now. I have practiced my ag labs workshop for the end of the month and am very excited to launch that on the unsuspecting public at the end of a whole day of exploring agricultural labouring ancestors.

Biography club was concentrating on household tasks this month. This must be at least the eighth time I’ve run courses to help people write their life stories and this time (like all the other times) I am determined to keep up with the participants and finish mine. On the strength of having done quite a bit already, I am just about on schedule. The plan is to finish in time for next year’s ‘big’ birthday. No one will want to read it of course but it is fun to write, if an exercise in self-indulgence. Seriously though, everyone has a story to tell and everyone’s story is important. Of the planned fourteen chapters, eight are done, two are almost done and four are figments of my imagination. One of these will be about voluntary work and that’s going to take some time. I’ve got as far as making a list and have come up with twenty different things I’ve done over the past fifty-five years that come under this category. Some were short-lived, most were fun and almost all are chocked full of memories. The trouble is that voluntary work and hobbies, another chapter that is as yet a blank page, overlap so I am going to need to distinguish between then somehow. The first three chapters alone are 40,000 words and run to 145 pages including illustrations. I told you it was self-indulgent – I may not be printing this out! The expurgated versions of some of the chapters are over on Granny’s Tales, just in case anyone is curious.

Related to all this looking back, I’ve been preparing a talk for the 40^th anniversary of Isle of Wight Family History Society, which is one of three big live performances scheduled for next month. As well as what I hope will be some thought-provoking comments on the family history community’s past and future, there’s plenty more self-indulgence in the shape of ‘do you remember?’s. Family history has been and still is an enormous part of 70% of my life. Most of my friends are those I’ve made through family history. It has been a blast and it isn’t over yet.

In between all this, I am still plugging away at my seafarers and shoemakers in Southampton – see I didn’t even have to try to create the alliteration. This too is growing like topsy. What I should be doing is more to the next book. It is on the, rather dauntingly long, to do list! By way of encouragement, reviews have been coming in for Women’s Work. I am particularly chuffed with Julia Packman’s review in this month’s, Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine ‘a creation to be reckoned with’. Oh and it is currently on offer at 30% off from Pen & Sword, that’s a hardback at paperback price (ebooks also available). So if you want a creation to be reckoned with you know where to go.