I’ve now been moved in for two and a half weeks but six days of that was spent visiting family. Office and books sorted – tick. Kitchen cupboards sorted – tick. Sideboard purchased – tick. The grand box unpacking total stands at 159. The low hanging fruit has definitely been picked in this regard and I am left with a couple of boxes of total randomness and the garage. Let’s just draw a veil over the garage. There is also quite a bit of ‘stuff’ that is still off site. It has also been ****ing down with rain every day I’ve been here, so not conducive to trying to sort out the garage, which will probably need a total excavation in order to work out what’s what. I still don’t know what my home looks like in the dry.

I have investigated the welcome box left my the estate agents. It contained an eclectic assortment including, his and hers deodorant, a face mask, a tin of cider, a washing pod, a tumble drier sheet (I don’t have a tumble drier), Margerita soda, some in wash scent booster and alcohol free beer. I guess it was whatever they could get free samples of.

It seems that moving house comes with unforeseen hazards. You’ve missed the bit where I was sporting two black eyes, thanks to being head butted by my assistant when loading boxes of geraniums into the summer house. This added to the falling valance pole related injury and the head meets TV ariel encounter in the loft. Then there is the flat pack furniture. If I was married this would be grounds for divorce and I have had to promise never to order flatpack furniture again, not, based on recent experience, that that would be likely. Construction of said flatpack furniture has not been aided by the fact that one of my holiday gifts from my family was Covid. I guess I’ve been lucky to escape it for four years but now I ache everywhere it is possible to ache and then some but I digress. I left behind built-in bedroom furniture so my clothes are currently in bags and boxes and I had ordered replacements. The bedside tables arrived before we went away. They did have the advantage of being small but the ‘ten minutes to assemble’ bore no relation to the actual time taken. The assumption is that no one assembling flatpack furniture can read, so there are no written instructions, just rather vague illustrations and pieces that are supposed to be numbered but in some cases aren’t so you have to guess which piece 14 actually is.

After the efforts with the bedside tables I was having serious qualms about the wardrobe, not least because the rooms are quite small and I wasn’t sure where there was space for it to be built. We began, not without a certain, understandable, amount of grumbling, to assemble it on the bed. This was not without incident as we tried to work out which way was up. By this time, I was regretting my decision to go for flatpack almost as much as my companion, who, I must record, has been an absolute hero. Then came the point where we had to transfer construction to the floor, with the wardrobe lying face down, filling every available bit of floor space. The completed wardrobe weighs over 80kg. Even without its top, doors and back that is still a considerable weight for my valiant assistant of a certain age and a plague ridden me to raise from lying on the floor to upright. If you’ve ever seen World’s Strongest Man and Fingal’s Fingers (if not Google it) that was pretty much how it went. I do now have an upright wardrobe awaiting top, back and doors. I am just wondering when would be a good time to mention the errr flatpack chest of drawers and two bathroom cupboards that are due to arrive today.

Well, it is day five in the new home and the unpacked box total stands at 109.

The final packing up was not without incident. Firstly, I was cleaning like I was about to enter that TV show where B & B owners visit each other’s properties and examine every surface for signs of grime. I don’t think I was up to their standards but I did my best. You know what it is like when you move large, heavy pieces of furniture that haven’t been moved for years, all sorts of interesting debris emerges. Having recovered from the inhalation of cleaning product fumes, I realised that I had packed the gadget that gets grease off oven shelf bars and I was leaving the oven. Chris did a mean job nonetheless. Then there was the wisteria tree that forms an attractive arch over the gateway. For some mysterious reason instead of being its usual six foot high, it had dropped about six inches. One of the removal men, who arrived the day prior to moving to collect some furniture for auction, was six foot four. Cue a hurried removal of a side branch of the tree to allow it to resume a more convenient height.

M day dawned. It dawned very early and like a kid at Christmas, I had barely slept; M day had seemed a very long time coming. The removal team arrived and were very efficient. Our cars were loaded with rather a lot of last minute random stuff that was too tricky to pack. It seems we were supposed to bubble wrap the TVs. The men aren’t allowed to take them. I don’t have bubble wrap left. The two TVs have to be squeezed in the cars too. Then there was a brief moment of panic when the ignition key to the removal van was temporarily mislaid. The final item to upload was the spare bed. Knowing it had been built in the room and there was no way it was coming out assembled, we helpfully took the head and footboard off in advance, leaving just the flat base. I watched the removal men try every which way to get the bed base down the stairs, to no avail. The call goes out for the man with the screwdriver (Chris) to unscrew about two dozen slats and take the frame apart. He clearly doesn’t relish the prospect and with a bit of a shove and the application of brute force, miraculously the frame fits round the ‘impossible’ corner and down the stairs.

We head off to collect new house keys and deposit old ones. Unloading was super fast and by 2.15pm boxes and furniture are in, mostly even in the right rooms and what isn’t is because I’ve forgotten what my plan was. We supplied the removal men with pasty but not being a fan, I didn’t have one. I realise that I haven’t eaten for more than six hours and that I am trying to function on a couple of hour’s sleep to boot. I manage to find some crackers. There’s no sign of any knives with which to apply butter. I debate the practicalities of using the handle of a spoon. Eventually, I find a steak knife, not ideal but functional. Plenty of unpacking ensued and by evening it was time to sample the local fish and chips; time to play hunt for the salt.

The technique for now is to get things in cupboards and books on shelves, as quickly as possible. These will not of course be the right cupboards or the right shelves but it does enable us to get rid of many boxes. Those who supplied answers to the ‘guess the box’ question, it will be a while before I have the final total, as quite a bit of stuff, including the contents of the loft and sheds, was shipped out prior to M day and will only be brought back gradually. There’s still a long way to go.

Purchasing a fridge was a priority as my old one was built in. This was easily accomplished but more of a problem was the fact that I wanted the door altered so it hinged on the other side. This, dear readers, is not as simple as it sounds, as one person has to brace themselves with a tipped fridge balanced on their knees, whilst their accomplice lies on the floor and fiddles with some tricksy screws on the underside.

The delayed Christmas decorating was also a priority and having been prepared by buying the tree on Friday, Tuesday was earmarked as decorations day. Everyone puts up Christmas decorations the day after moving house right? The Christmas decorations, having been loft dwellers, were some of the boxes that had been sent on ahead and should have been in Chris’ house. Other early departing boxes had ended up in three different garages but the instructions were that these should be in the house. Six boxes of decorations were retrieved. Where though were the tree lights and the all important historic decorations, some dating back to the 1940s? Yes, these would be the precious decorations I had mislaid once before. I was pretty sure they were in a plastic box with a blue lid. Frantic searching in all possible locations and no box with a blue lid. To cut a long and sorry story short, the decorations were found where they should be but disguised in a cardboard box.

Hanging the Christmas cards necessitates finding the drawing pins. I can’t find the drawing pins and have to purchase new ones. My whole life is a giant game of Tetris at the moment. Today I was  in the half garage (it has been converted into two rooms) looking for the box with the laminator in. At one point I thought I’d irretrievably blocked myself in but I escaped. I’ve still not found the laminator. I don’t actually need to laminate anything, I just knew I was an ‘office’ box missing.

Achievements so far: Spare bedroom is sorted, including the fiction books in the right order. Office coming on well, although non-fiction books are a total jumble. Bedroom is awaiting the arrival of new furniture. Kitchen needs some work. We will draw a veil over the garage. Next on the agenda is assembling bedside tables, which are the vanguard of the new bedroom furniture delivery.

Well, after much anguish and many ups and downs, it looks like I am into the final week of being the proud custodian of my current home. I am still worried that there will be some last minute hitch but contracts have been exchanged and all being well, I am heading a few miles north, so that I am once again within short walking distance of the sea and useful things like bus stops. I am not really liking this preparing to be old lark but I know it makes sense.

Let’s just hope that I’ve been dealt my share of dramas associated with this move already. You couldn’t make it up. There was I surrounded by boxes, hoping to move within a week or two, when a cyber attack caused havoc for solicitors (not mine but others in my very short chain) and resulted in a whole lot of paperwork disappearing in a puff of ether, cue a two week delay. I have also discovered that books are very heavy. To keep boxes under the prescribed weight of 20kg you need to mix hard backed books with something random and light, so the box isn’t half empty and won’t squish when stacked. I started off well with the decluttering and packing logically but the ‘don’t fill boxes with books, top them up with something light’ is an issue as I have long since run out of light things and the boxes are full of seriously random mixtures. I am pretty much left with just my underwear in the ‘something light’ category. I am sure that was never a problem before, when removal men lifted heavier things. I am working on the principle that if I can lift it a fit, young removal man should be able to. I should point out that I am using the word ‘fit’ to mean healthy, rather than attractive. I’ve not seen them yet so the latter’s an unknown quantity,

My greatest sadness is that all this delay means my precious Christmas decorations are firmly in their boxes. Any other month of the year and a week or two either way wouldn’t have so much impact. The current plan is move in one day, decorations up the next and then I shall be following the tradition of leaving them up until Candlemas (February 2^nd).

Insuring the new house, which you have to do from exchange, was tricky as you are asked all kinds of questions about types of locks and I officially have no idea. Weirdly, it seems the patio doors count against me, understandable if they were external but these just lead to the conservatory, which has a conventional door to the outside. I have arranged for wifi to be transferred with trepidation, as I really need this to be reliable. For some reason my existing company can’t supply me with a landline (although they do currently and I am going to a less remote area) and the twelve year old I spoke to couldn’t really explain why. Possibly something to do with the switch to digital phone lines. I don’t actually use the phone much, except to put the phone down on cold callers, so am going to try to manage with just a mobile. I am a relatively new convert to mobile phones. This means I am a) going to have to try to remember what my number is, b) learn how to put it on speaker phone as I’ve never made more than a 1 minute call on a mobile and don’t fancy longer calls with it stuck to my ear and c) I am going to have to remember to turn the darned thing on. At the moment I only turn it on when I want to use it.

Acquiring boxes has become an art form. It seems supermarkets don’t have piles of them to give away as they did pre COVID. Banana boxes work best as they are sturdy but only seem to come as half boxes, which then need pairing up if possible. I currently have a stack of half boxes, hoping a future haul will produce other halves that fit. I just hope all my neighbours are binge eating bananas. My secret shopper has built up a network of friendly supermarket assistants and does a daily sweep of the local shops but often to no avail.

In a version of ‘How Many Sweets in a Jar’, I thought it might be fun to have a sweepstake on how many boxes I have. It may take a few months for the result as I shan’t count them until they are either emptied or stashed away. No entry fees and no prizes, just a bit of fun. To help you decide, I have 3 bedrooms (2 are very small) but 13 full height book cases, what was a large and full loft (now emptied and stashed wherever I can find room), quite a few boxes of copies of books I have written and what seems to be a ridiculous amount of stuff for someone who has already downsized.

Just a short post so that you know I am still here. It has been all go lately, although not in the sense of the moving house type of going. I don’t want to say too much on that front but things are looking positive. I am at least on the hunt for packing boxes and realising that I do seem to have an awful lot of stuff. In case anyone needs to know this, bedding is surprisingly ‘big’ and tricky to stuff into bags or boxes. I just discovered a box that I don’t believe had been opened since I moved in 17 years ago. Its contents can best be described as ‘eclectic’. A pile of family history notes, a set of scales dating from the 1940s, a pair of bookends, a pair of compasses (the sort that tell you which way is north), a pair of compasses (the sort you draw circles with) and some random ornaments, some of which will not make the cut to be moved on again.

Mostly life has been about giving and preparing various talks and leading back to back courses for Pharos Tutors. We are currently in the midst of Sickness and Death but will be moving on to look at Agricultural Labourers after Christmas. If you have ag labs on the family tree you’d be welcome to join in. Today is about the Really Useful Show, when I shall be listening to the presentations of colleagues and friends and chatting about Misfortunate Women. In between, I have a talk to host for Devon Family History Society. Coming up, amongst other things, I have a short presentation about websites for London research to record for Rootstech 2024. That will have to wait until my voice sounds less croaky. If you haven’t registered for the free online event that is Rootstech, you can do so now. I also have a workshop on researching the maternal line to give for The Society of Genealogists, which I hope will be fun. Another red letter day in the diary is the next collaborative research event with A Few Forgotten Women, this time we are investigating students who attended a Somerset school of housewifery. I’ve also been looking at the alleged trip that my great grandfather made to the far east, or did he? You can read about that over on Granny’s Tales under ‘Eastern Artefacts’

This month, two organisations that I have been involved in celebrate their tenth birthdays, our local history group and the Society for One-Place Studies. Where has that ten years gone? It is good to reflect on the fun we’ve had, what we’ve learned and what those organisations have achieved, as well as looking forward to future plans.

Having not been up to speed on where to visit in Ireland that might link with my grandchildren’s Irish ancestry, I am getting in ahead with their Scottish ancestors, as I plan next year’s trip to Scotland. I even managed to add a couple more generations to that tree and have discovered that my daughter and my son in law’s ancestors were both in the same tiny Scottish parish at the same time. In fact, if you believe 300 online trees, they share common ancestors but sadly 300 people can be badly wrong.

I leave you with an elephant, which fortunately I don’t have to pack, as I am no longer its custodian.

An elephant acquired during ancestral travels to the East

‘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.

Will be drip feeding these to you over the next few weeks – you can have a too much of a good thing!

Day 3

It turns out that the sat nav doesn’t recognise full Irish postcodes and we only had a general address for today’s destination, which is not on the map. Nevertheless, with the help of the site owner, we made the short journey to Wexford Wildlife Reserve with only one wrong turning. The reserve is small and free to enter. Unless you plan on spending a long time in the hides, you can exhaust its possibilities in about an hour but it was definitely an hour well spent. Most notable amongst the birdlife were the many swallows, readying themselves for journeying south. There was also a SBJ (small brown job) that by dint of taking many photos, I decided afterwards was a reed warbler, although not with 100% level of confidence. I am reasonably good at bird recognition, although hopeless at bird song. I do however struggle to tell my willow warbler from my chiff chaff.

Best of all, the reserve is a centre for the preservation of hares. Imagine our delight when we not only saw several but one stopped within a metre of my feet, despite me sporting my bargainous fluorescent orange coat, acquired at 75% off the recommended price in the end of season sale when in the Lake District last year.

When looking in vain for the wildlife reserve on the map, I spotted that Tintern Abbey was nearby. This was a surprise as I was pretty sure Tintern Abbey was on the Welsh borders. It turns out that THAT Tintern Abbey is indeed in Monmouthshire but this is a related Tintern Abbey. As we had plenty of time we went off plan and headed to Tintern Abbey, which had the added advantage of belonging to the Office of Public Works, which has a reciprocal arrangement with English Heritage, so entry was free.

The Monmouthshire Tintern Abbey was founded in 1137 and William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, set up the Cistercian Abbey of the same name in Wexford, with monks from the Monmouthshire foundation, in about 1200. After a perilous sea crossing to Ireland, the establishment of the monastery was Marshal’s way of giving thanks for his survival. Having been remodelled, the abbey was partly abandoned in the C15th.

Anthony Colclough (later to be knighted for services to the crown) was granted Tintern Abbey and more than 5000 acres of land by Henry VIII and was part of the attempt to secure parts of Ireland that were beyond the Pale (around Dublin) for England and the Protestant religion. He converted the abbey into a fortified manor house. As the need for fortification lessened, it became more of a country house.

Judicious marriages by Sir Thomas Colclough established both Protestant and Catholic branches of the family in Wexford. During the C17th Civil War, Tintern was a refuge for 200 Protestants but was temporarily taken over by the Catholic Colcloughs. After the New Model Army’s massacre of  thousands in Wexford, Cromwell restored ownership to Protestant Sir Caesar Colclough. The last Colclough to reside at Tintern was Lucy Marie Colclough, ‘Miss Marie’. She gifted the parts of Tintern that had not previously been sold off to the nation in 1963.

Having explored the Abbey, we took a short walk to the nearby walled gardens, formerly part of the Colclough estate, which were also worth a visit. The many apple trees produce a local cider.

Back to the van for some refreshment and we decided to do a circular walk to the nearby beach and bird sanctuary. We had been warned that the map was not to scale. This was not wrong and we did end up going rather further than intended and still not making it to the bird sanctuary. The beach at St. Margaret’s Bay is just my sort of beach, wide expanses of sand and very few people. We stopped to examine the local fishing boats and headed inland for rather a long way. Despite the odd shower earlier in the day, all while we were in the car, the late afternoon was glorious, with real strength in the sun. It was lovely to relax in the sunny van after our walk.

So what have you been up to? I am sure you are not asking. It has been a busy few weeks, with the usual round up talks in person and online. I’ve just begun the journey with the latest cohort of students on my Pharos online course that helps to uncover the stories of agricultural labouring ancestors and this week also sees the start of the course on One-Place Studies. I’ve been putting the finishing touches to the next Braund Society magazine that I have been editing for an unbelievable thirty years. Add to this preparing an index for a forthcoming book, working on updates for a new edition for another and starting to produce a third and there’s not been much time for anything else. The job I must not mention is drawing to a close for another season and has brought its usual delights and frustrations. There is already a buzz about Rootstech 2024. I am pleased to have been accepted on to their media team once again. Having made the decision that I would take a year off from speaking at Rootstech in 2023, I have applied to present again in 2024. Stand by for something a little different from me, if it gets accepted. The Call for Papers is still open, if you want to apply. Cornish lessons have finished for the year. The ‘progress’ doesn’t really warrant a post of its own but after thirty hours of lessons, I have a reasonable vocabulary but still zero ability to turn that into sentences.

Then there is the house not moving. There have been several weeks of, let’s be honest, zero progress and being told on all sides that the housing market is the slowest since, well since I last moved house. You want the housing market to slow down? Call on me, I’ll decide to move. Suddenly though, there is a slight chink in the armour and I have a viewing on my property, as do the people who are frantically trying to sell theirs in order to buy mine. Cue a manic cleaning/tidying/gardening spree. Fortunately, this coincides with the arrival of one portion of my descendants, so I can kill two cleaning/tidying birds with one duster. Unfortunately, it also coincides with the visitation of no fewer than three plagues of flying ants. What’s all this ‘they only swarm once a year’ lark? Please could someone inform my local flying ants of this ‘fact’. I still have to dispose of the bodies from round three.

The gardening is another matter. Having been bitten by an unidentified flying insect, I stepped in a deposit ‘kindly’ provided by a neighbouring cat. Said cat and I are already not friends, as it has been catching birds in my garden. I know, I know, it is what cats do but it isn’t pleasant to see it make off with a bird in its mouth. I don’t know what this cat had been eating but boy did it smell. I can still image that smell a day later. Then there was the tree felling. A couple of tree branches were getting dangerously near to the overhead electric cable. Dilemma. Do I risk a serious electrical incident, or do I send an aging fisherman of my acquaintance ten foot up an extremely wobbly ladder because, said fisherman insists, I do not need to get a tree fella in to be a tree feller? We went for the latter option and I just shut my eyes and hopped about in the garden minus my poo-laden shoe. All is well and I would like to put on record for the benefit of the F-O-M-A’s nearest and dearest that I did tell him it wasn’t a good idea. It did take rather a lot of time and energy that I was hoping to spend on other garden tidying but hey ho. Today is the time for duster, mop and bucket and a request for all the positive vibes you can muster, so that I can move on to the next chapter.

A photo because (sorry cat lovers) birds are better than cats.

So still no progress on the moving house front. While I wait for a chain to complete underneath my potential buyer, I am trying to simultaneously put it all to the back of my mind and do something, so that I don’t feel totally impotent in the whole process. This means that I am working round the house triaging my possessions, in the hope of being less crowded in a new property and saving the removal men from having to lug a load of stuff, at my expense, that I really don’t need. The progress so far is: garden sheds tick, bathroom (not much of a challenge) tick, conservatory (apart from the children’s books which are awaiting said children) tick, my bedroom tick. This week it was time to start on the difficult stuff, the two bedrooms that contain between them eleven full height book cases (well, actually ten and two half width ones). That is an alarming sixty six shelves worth. Two of these bookcases are built in and I’d like to lose the two narrow ones, or relegate them to the garage. That means I need to find eighteen shelves of books that I can live without.

First stop the history books, six shelves of these. I tried to take a critical look. Most were acquired in the late 1970s and early 1980s they have accompanied me on three or four house moves. The vast majority of them haven’t been opened for at least forty years and if I am honest, some of them weren’t read even then. Why am I giving them house room? That’s one and a half shelves gone. Next half bookcase, local history of places other than Devon. This was harder but some more joined the ‘to be disposed of’ pile. Two book cases didn’t make much of an impact as one narrow one is seventeenth century social history and I need those. The other is family history research files rather than books, so that all stays. That left two book cases in that room still to do.

Two shelves of social history first, reduced to one and a half. Now it was getting really tricky. Next were family history books and the Devon local history books. I decided that I really didn’t want forty six years of back numbers of a family history society journal. I don’t think I have looked at back numbers more than once. Fortunately someone else was pleased to take these off my hands. Another, shorter, run from a different society also hit the ‘to be humanely disposed of’ pile. A bit of rearranging and one of the narrow bookcases was now empty, the equivalent of three shelves. I am trying not to think of the other fifteen that I need to free up.

Many of the family history books are 1990s vintage. Although the sources don’t change, the techniques do. More of these have been referred to in the past few years but some, like other items consuming shelf space, have not been opened since they were unpacked from my previous house move seventeen years ago. Out they go. I am on a roll. Still to do, the two shelves of Devon local history, I suspect I will be keeping most of those. Then it will be on to the six bookcases in the spare bedroom. These were culled during lockdown but I have hopes of significant weeding when I get to the three and a half book cases of fiction. I know some date from the sixties and early seventies, when there was a fashion for very tiny print that I can no longer read. If I started now I doubt I have enough life left to read all these again. I will be seriously asking myself how likely I am to read each one and hopefully there will be a pile to move on to charity shops.

There are of course also two banana boxes of children’s books under the spare bed. I haven’t even thought about what I do with those. Many are paperbacks that have lost their glue so the pages are loose and my grandchildren have very different reading tastes. I know that these really should go too but I may not be in the right frame of mind for that just yet. I will report on my progress – just wait until I get to the extremely full loft!

Image Peggy Marco Pixabay