Saturday was the all-day Mayflower 400 International conference. The eagle-eyed mathematicians amongst you will note that it is in fact 401 years since the Mayflower sailed in 1620. The conference was originally scheduled for last year and was to be a live event. It was delayed by a year and finally converted to an online format. This meant that there were attendees from across the globe, many of them watching at hours when most self-respecting folk were asleep.

After a very interesting and relevant introduction from Charlie Courtenay, Earl of Devon, Master Christopher and Mistress Agnes chatted about their lives in Devon in the fifty years since the Mayflower sailed. For various logistical reasons we had pre-recorded this, amidst a certain amount of issues, such as very loud, large tractors driving past, or the phone ringing at inopportune moments. Cue take 3, or 4, or 10.

After us, Cor de Graaf gave the Leiden perspective. I am so in awe of people who can present in a second language. After some friendly lunchtime chat, that is characteristic of Devon Family History Society meetings, Phil Revell told the story of the More children from Shropshire, who were dispatched across the Atlantic on the Mayflower, having been taken from their mother.

This was followed by Debbie Kennett, explaining the uses of genetic genealogy. Then a thought-provoking session from UK based, American TV journalist, Jim Boulden. He was analysing why lineage societies, such as that for Mayflower descendants, are so popular in the US.

Jo Loosemore told us about the problems of curating the Mayflower Exhibition at The Box in Plymouth, during a pandemic. Hearing about the ethos behind the exhibition, which incorporated heavy involvement from the Wampanoag, was fascinating. Unfortunately, now the day was virtual and therefore extended into the evening, I didn’t get to stay for Nick Barrett’s closing session, a real shame as Nick is always an excellent speaker.

Two years ago, I purchased tickets for the Torrington Bonfire. If you are thinking, pile of sticks, add a match, you couldn’t be further from the truth. I have been to three previous bonfires and these are truly spectacular events. They are organised by Torrington Cavaliers who spend two or three years building elaborate constructions, which are then burned, raising thousands of pounds for charity. Previous models have included the Victory, a Medieval castle, Trumpton and London’s Pudding Lane. So convincing was this last construction that a local estate agent was approached by someone trying to purchase one of the new houses that were being built on the common. This time, in another delayed event, it was the Mayflower that was to be consigned to the flames. The first thing of note was that this was a full-scale model and it really brought home just how small the Mayflower was and how hazardous that transatlantic journey would have been.

I am now going to get a bit ranty, so you may want to stop reading here. First, some context. In the past week Devon and Cornwall have been declared an area requiring enhanced response measures, due to levels of COVID that are twice the national average. In my immediate area, nearly half of all recorded COVID cases have been in the past month. Our major hospitals are on red alert. Although nothing is mandatory, extra caution, including continued mask-wearing, reducing social contact and regular self-testing is being advised. I have been doing all this as a matter of course anyway.

We debated whether it was sensible to attend a large scale event (the actual attendance was 9000). This would be the first time in eighteen months that I had intentionally put myself in a situation where there would be more than half a dozen people together. We reasoned that it was outside and we could remain on the outskirts, or even come home if we wanted to. We also decided to miss much of the preliminary activity and go later than we otherwise might have. Stupidly, we also thought that the recently announced need for particular caution might mean that people would be more considerate. Naturally, we resolved to wear masks.

We did indeed station ourselves on the periphery, in a place where we could see many of the other 9000 or so attendees passing by. We were several metres from anyone else until the very end when a raucous, large family pushed in front of us, despite there being plenty of space elsewhere. I passed the time waiting for the fireworks people watching and then with incredulity, counting the mask wearers. You might expect older people at least to be more cautious (nope – not one person who appeared to be over fifty, apart from us, with a mask). The first aiders then, they’d need to wear masks, wouldn’t they? No again, one out of the four that I saw. Out of 9000 people, of whom I estimate I saw well over 2000, sixteen, just sixteen were wearing masks, most of them children. I know we were outside but closer to the centre of activity, people were crammed in. Then, in what I thought was the height of irresponsibility, one of the live bands encouraged the audience to sing along. Bear in mind that most of the non mask-wearing audience were shoulder to shoulder with strangers.

I know I am over cautious, I know people are desperate for things to be ‘normal’ but I was shocked at the total lack of awareness and concern. I also know that mask wearing isn’t pleasant. It was the first time I had worn mine outside for several hours and as the night grew colder, I was either viewing the spectacular fireworks through a fog or wiping my glasses every ten seconds. No it wasn’t pleasant, yes it was a pain but I did it and willingly. Not only because I want to reduce my risk of being seriously ill, requiring hospitalisation or dying but I also want to reduce risks for others. I too want to go back to ‘normal’. I want going out to be safer for those with vulnerable, as yet unvaccinated, children and my immune-compromised friends for whom vaccines are unlikely to be effective and for whom COVID would be extremely damaging or fatal. I guess others who feel like me chose to stay away from Saturday’s event and attending was certainly out of character with my behaviour over the past eighteen months. I am still not sure if I regret going. I felt that for the most part, we minimised risk but it shouldn’t just have been up to us. This is a community issue and everyone should be playing their part. Vaccination helps but is not immunity. Outside helps but is no guarantee that infection won’t spread. Take care of yourselves people, take care of each other. So, a great event; the fireworks were particularly impressive, shame about the audience. I am sure if each one of those people was asked what they would do to save the lives of their children, grandparents, loved-ones, they’d say ‘anything’. We are not being asked to donate our kidneys, to do ‘anything’, we are being asked to be careful, considerate, human. I am not ‘living in fear’ or being dictated to, I am making informed personal choices and taking reasonable precautions to keep myself safe, in the same way that I wear a seatbelt, or exercise and eat reasonably sensibly. I can’t understand the thinking behind the behaviour I witnessed on Saturday night. I can only assume they think the risk is minimal that the odds are ‘it won’t happen to me’. I hope for their sakes their gamble with those odds pays off.

Undaunted, well fairly undaunted, we drove to Kingswear to try to tackle the coastal footpath in the right order from that end. It would be a mere two miles from where we finished the previous day (and then another two miles back to the car). We would then decide if we wanted to repeat the bit we’d done in the wrong order to ‘do it properly’. Kingwear has a very attractive harbour, even though it is sad to see the fishing fleet of the past has been replaced with pleasure yachts. The first part of the walk from Kingswear in the Brixham direction is on pavements out of the town. The gradient is, shall we say, challenging, even if it is smooth underfoot. I just about managed this and then the route took us through a wooded section. I was very thankful for the shade as it was another very hot day.  After half an hour, there was an encouraging sign that told us it was only 1¼ miles to where we had abandoned the walk the previous day. Yay! 1¼ miles is but nothing. Except that it was.

We descended into the valley via a flight of steps and a rough path to Mill Bay Cove. I am used to reading Ordnance Survey maps. Perhaps I should have taken better note of quite how close together the contour lines were – that would be practically on top of each other. I started to climb the steps cut into the path as we left the cove. I stopped for a rest. I climbed some more. I rested some more. I climbed a little further. My body really wasn’t playing ball. Reluctantly, I decided that a walk was a walk and I ought to be proud of how far we have come since Minehead, rather than how much we didn’t complete. Even though my future walks will need to be on flatter terrain, I guess I should be grateful that I am still able to go for a walk, albeit a flattish one.

We returned to the safety of the car; its thermometer told us that the outside air temperature was thirty degrees. That seemed to escape the weather station statistics. An afternoon of rest, if not full recouperation, followed.

Taking it easyish seemed to be the best plan for the next few days. Day four was showery and cooler but humid. In search of places that wouldn’t be too peopley, we drove out beyond Buckfastleigh, on the edge of Dartmoor. Venturing down some byways that were, at least in theory, roads, we reached Hembury Woods. Lacking a map, we were keen not to get lost on our woodland wander. Our first attempt was unadventurous and based on keeping left but we ended up back at the car after about three hundred yards. We would need to be more daring and try to remember lefts and rights. One woodland path does look very much like another. We tried leaving field signs – once a Girl Guide …….. – although I was concerned that a passer by might move our carefully laid twig arrows. In the end, it seemed we were following a pre-laid trail, as small piles of sawdust were laid at intervals along our way. The woodland was strewn with a wildflower, later identified courtesy of the flowers book as Small Cow-wheat. Not heard of it? No, me neither.

Having reached what I felt was a suitable half way point if we were to have a not too strenuous walk, I was keen to retrace our steps but my companion was confident we could make a circular route. I was less convinced but we soldiered on. Behold and lo! There was the car. In order to keep the step count up, we also returned to the country park next to the site and were rewarded by the site of a roosting buzzard. Small birds and squirrels were feeding heedlessly nearby but perhaps the buzzard had had its lunch.

A last minute change of plan meant that we were left with a few free days. I wonder what they are? The weather had finally decided that it was no longer winter, could we find the one caravan site in the country with vacancies? It turned out that we could, so we decided to head south to recommence our walk round the South West Coastal Path. We began this seventeen years ago when we were a lot younger and fitter. Even then, not for us the twenty-five mile a day stretches, complete with tents to our backs. No, this is supposed to be pleasure. Over the course of ten years, we completed the Somerset coast, north Devon, the whole of Cornwall and got as far as Dartmouth. It took us 73 walking sessions to cover 477½ (don’t forget the half) miles. Then the grandchildren arrived and we found better places to go when we have days to spare. We had also reached an off putting stretch where there is no public transport to get us back to the start. The options being, walk 10½ miles described as ‘strenuous’ and get an expensive taxi back. Or cover this in three sections walking about 3½ miles in both directions in order to get back to the car. It really is very dispiriting to have to walk twenty miles to end up only ten miles further on. If we were ever going to finish the remaining 153 miles however now was the time. 10½ ‘strenuous’ miles is probably just within our capabilities but given that I have spent a year barely walking further than the front gate, it didn’t seem sensible. So the bullet needed to be bitten, three lots of there and back it was to be.

Day 1 consisted of arriving at the caravan site and completing a warm up stroll round the beautiful neighbouring country park, when the wildlife actually played ball. There was also a lengthy conversation with the caravan site wifi help line. I wasn’t going to be caught in an internet black hole again. It turns out that it was a ‘no help at all’ line but I solved the problem by reregistering with another of my many email addresses. I just have to remember who they now think I am.

Two more days of shower dodging and ancestral parish visiting were planned. Firstly, I returned to the hotspot for the next deluge of emails. Ah the hotspot was no longer hot. I failed to connect to the internet. Fortunately, during the previous day’s foray online I thought I had better send the next  lesson to my online students whilst I could, even though it was a few days early. That would have worked well except I had inadvertently sent lesson five masquerading as lesson four. There was nothing for it but to try to do things on my fairly new to me phone, beyond making a phone call. This, dear reader, was a learning curve. I managed to use up my miniscule data allowance (miniscule because this is not how I normally use my phone) and work out how to access some of my emails. I even manage to send replies and an s.o.s to my boss who could send my poor students the correct lesson on my behalf. I tried again to book our National Trust tickets. Still no email confirmation but a booking number appears on the website so I was hopeful that that it was indicative of a booking.

The parish visiting took us through several picturesque villages on the Hampshire/Wiltshire borders and I discovered that, in the 1840s, the family lived on a farm that had been targeted by 300 Swing Rioters, ten years earlier. Driving from parish to parish, punctuated by shower-dodging photography, is not very conducive to accomplishing my three miles a day of walking, that I have managed to keep up all year so far. My solution at home is to jog up and down on the spot to make up the steps. My travelling companion doubts that the caravan floor will cope with this. Walking round the caravan site proved to be the only option. On day three the weather did not play fair and although I set off in the dry to complete an estimated ten circuits of the site, before I got to the end of circuit two, it began to rain. By circuit three it was torrential and as I was wearing wellies, I had developed blisters. Did I give up? Well it was very tempting, especially as I kept passing the warm and dry van but no, I soldiered on.

No family history for our last day. Instead a drive out past Stonehenge to Stourhead Gardens. These are beautifully landscaped grounds that were laid out in the eighteenth century, complete with numerous classical follies. It turns out that my initial booking had gone through, as had my attempt to book using the phone, so we could in theory have gone twice!

My only previous visit to Stourhead was forty years ago. We walked round the path that meanders round the lake, amongst mature trees and rhododenrons that were at their best. There were swans, coots, mallards and Canada geese on the lake. A double bonus. This was the best day weather-wise so we stayed dry and the designated, strictly one-way only, walk round the grounds was more than enough for my daily step-count, so no circulations of the campsite were required.

All in all this wasn’t quite the relaxing break we had planned but better luck next time. I am not looking forward to catching up with 600 or so emails on a borrowed computer. I am hoping that my own was curable and will be ready soon, although I am aware that I may have to bite the new machine bullet before too long.

Things started so well for our planned few days away. My second vaccination appointment was potentially due to coincide with the dates that we had chosen but fortuitously, the call came through for day 77 and not days 79-84. We even managed to finally get Chris’ second vaccination, which was nearly three weeks overdue, for the same day. Beyond that, matters began to go downhill a little. On the morning of departure, my laptop developed a probably terminal blue screen of death. Bother (or similar sentiment). I had things I needed to do both before leaving and while I was away. Frantic appeals went out for Chris to pack his, which uses different software making it less than ideal. I also looked out my ancient ‘on-its-last-legs’ net book, which has the right programmes but an irritatingly tiny typo-engendering keyboard. It also experiences periodic blue screen of deathness but fortunately it limps on.

Having left just a little later than planned in order to take the laptop to computer hospital we set off in torrential rain for the caravan site. On arrival, whilst enjoying a welcome cup of coffee, I struggled with the teeny tiny laptop and discovered, to my alarm, that I had booked a site that doesn’t have wifi. That’s not strictly true, wifi is advertised; it is just that to access it you have to stand on one leg under a tree in the rain by the car park. This means that all the map checking and itinerary planning I was intending to do on arrival had to be achieved by guesswork. We contented ourselves with a wander along a local footpath. The beech trees were sporting their new-minted leaves and there were bluebells, cowslips and wild strawberries in flower.

The next day dawned and the forecast rain was not in evidence. I investigated the hotspot from the safety of the car. This was not without its challenges. The worn out teeny tiny laptop has a battery life of several milliseconds, it also has a ‘battery-saving,’ almost unreadably dull, screen when not plugged in. Seventy odd emails, that had been sent in the preceding twenty four hours, came hurtling in. We attempted to book tickets to visit a National Trust property, which only became available today. Despite it appearing to be successful, no confirmatory email arrived.

Next, we set off to investigate some villages once inhabited by the Fews and associated families. A combination of pandemic restrictions and the ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ nature of the places on the itinerary, meant that the duration of our explorations had to be directly related to bladder capacity. We were in the chalk vales of Wiltshire, a land of ancient earthworks and army camps. There were some very picturesque and probably incredibly expensive, houses, with many more retaining their thatched roofs than you find further west. There were also several thatched cob walls.

We took a look at the fields in the area, where an ancestress was working at harvest-time when she was taken ill and died, then moved on to the small village of Wootton Rivers. Next up was the Savernake Forest, allegedly a nature reserve with potential for a walk. We spectacularly failed to find any car park or way in that was not accompanied by signs reading ‘private’. We decided that we might try again another day. We drove through Marlborough. By co-incidence, I was there virtually just two days previously. Then a quick look at Devizes, a much larger settlement, before heading back to the van via the spread out village of Woodborough. Just time to stop off at Woodhenge as we passed by. Although this was once a prehistoric site, with large wooden uprights arranged in concentric circles, it is now concrete henge as the wood, unsurprisingly, does not survive, so short concrete bollards indicate where the pillars once stood.

Back at the van and footpath walk done, I returned on foot to the ‘hotspot’ to send the replies to the morning’s emails. Ironically, the sun put in a weak appearance at this point. Without the shelter of the car, the screen was completely illegible. My helpful companion suggested that I put my coat over my head and the computer. I will own that this did solve the problem but I looked like a total idiot in a public place. I was reassured that ‘there’s nobody about’ but the sound of footsteps belied this. I suppose at least hiding under my coat meant I was anonymous. For reasons that will become apparent, you will be reading this once I have returned to the comfort of my internet enabled home.

As many will know, I have been content to stay at home over the past months, only passing through the front gate four or five times since October. In April, I decided that if I didn’t leave home soon it would become increasingly difficult. The sun was shining, I was getting fed up with trying to walk three miles a day (something I have kept up all year) in a tiny house so, dear reader, I WENT OUT. We had a few lovely walks along the coastal footpath, enjoying the beautiful scenery and getting the required step count up in a painless way.

Obviously seeing the family after six/seven months was a priority. Finding a gap in my ridiculous talk schedule and more to the point a caravan site with vacancies, was a problem. Eventually we managed to book into a site fifty miles from where we wanted to be and not on the ideal weekend. The plan was to see each of my descendants’ families in turn, as there are too many of us to meet altogether. We did the ‘risk assessment’. It seemed low risk, even to my ridiculously risk adverse brain. Virus rates were very low in the area we were coming from and those we were going to. All three bubbles had been minimising social contact. Three of the six adults had had a first vaccine. The news was saying ‘this may be as good as it gets for the foreseeable future’. If I was ever going to see my family in person again now was a good time. We took lateral flow tests – negative. We were socially distantish. With the sort of bad luck that explains why I am so risk adverse, one family member tested positive the day after we saw him. Not, I hasten to add, because he had been rashly heading maskless into crowded places but because he works in a school; the only contact he has had outside his own family. Ironically, his call to be vaccinated came on the same day as his confirmation of his positive status.

Chris and I broke our bubble in order to self-isolate apart, in case one of us had been infected and not the other but our ten days are now up, we’ve both tested negative and we can re-bubble. I have spent the past days cooking for myself. I am genetically programmed to be a non-cook. In my defence I have only burnt two saucepans this week, that’s probably a win with my level of ‘skill’. Who enjoys watching a saucepan to see if there is still water in it? Yes, I do I have a timer on the oven. I might even have been able to dig out the instructions in order to see if I could make it work but saucepans don’t always reach the point of no return at the same rate. I can do the science and realise that it will depend on the temperature on the dial and the amount of water – kind of makes the timer thing a bit hit and miss – in my case usually miss. I must admit that I did resort to salad yesterday – no danger of burning that. So un-carbonised proper cooked food tonight – hurrah!

I decided yesterday that I would resume the near impossible task of seeing what I could find out about the family of my mum’s world war 2 fiancé, an American airman who was killed in action. I have seen and can picture, a photograph of this man, although said photo is no longer in the family album. I have had some wonderful helpers from across the globe but no real results so far. I have very little to go on. He was known as Jimmy Kirby but Jimmy was probably short for James, which could have been his first name, a middle name or Jimmy might have been a nickname. He was likely to have been stationed in south-east England, possibly Warminster. He had an identical twin brother Curtis, or Curt and Jimmy was killed in I think 1944. You have no idea how many potential James Kirby’s there are to choose from. To say nothing of the Kirbys with J as a middle initial. One promising looking Curtis was identified, who had a younger brother James but a photograph of James was enough for me to know that this was not the one I wanted. If there is anyone out there that thinks this rings a bell please get in touch, stranger things have happened.

Mistress Agnes is off to entertain merchants next week, she needs to mind her manners. Guests are welcome if you want to learn about her times.

The great loft clearance has been on hold because crawling around lofts when you live alone and no one is likely to find you for a week if things go horribly wrong is not a great idea (risk adverse see) but it has reached the old toys stage. There are toys from the 1930s, the 1960s and the 1990s to be enjoyed. I may be some time.