Our new camera is in place - capturing any movement in the yard. Maybe we haven't it set up quite right as this is the only wildlife filmed so far.
And a word of advice - if the instructions on the camera say "supports SD card up to 4gb" - it won't work with an 8gb card.
Henry's mother always called them "bottling pears" - but as I have never bottled anything, I tried freezing them a few years ago, and they come out perfect to serve with ice cream etc. They don't keep unless preserved in some way. One year we picked tons and put away in a cool place in boxes and baskets. A few weeks later, they looked OK from the outside, but had gone rotten from the core outwards. Perhaps we'll try Perry one year if we can knock up some sort of crush. Years ago I made cider by putting chopped apples in a pillowcase and putting through an old mangle (Acme of course). All went well, until there was just too much in one end of the pillowcase and it burst. We still made the cider - a bit rough but very drinkable.
was turned into bags of these, and stored in the freezer for easy almost instant puddings.
The trick? Using this gadget
Many thanks to Tony, Tony, Henry, Arthur (clerk, waller and photographer), Oliver (young parishioner) and James (Mini Digger driver).
The strong gusts of wind that had been blowing all day struck down a tree and blocked the lane. A couple of cows managed to limbo underneath, but the rest had to be directed via the scenic route through the Teapot Field.
The lane's clear now and the good thing is we've got a bit of firewood for winter.
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As it shows the place of birth and given age (though some are inaccurate) of all the occupants, it's a good jumping off point to records of Births, Deaths and Marriages (required by law to be registered from 1837). Things get a bit more difficult for people born before 1837, or not in the UK.
For instance, from the census of 1861 I know that my Great Great Grandfather was a Chelsea Pensioner and Shoemaker and his wife Elizabeth was born in Ireland.
The Shoemaker didn't surprise me (there were a lot of shoemakers in Kendal in the 19th Century), but the Chelsea Pension bit intrigued me. Somehow I couldn't envisage one of my ancestors wearing a fancy scarlet coat and tricorne hat. But further research (good old Internet) revealed that originally all old soldiers with more than 20 years service received a pension, and were known as out-pensioners. Those living at the Chelsea Hospital were in-pensioners.
As Wikipedia puts it -
In- and out-pensioners
During the reign of King Charles II, the Royal Hospital was still under construction, so he introduced a system for distribution of army pensions in 1689. The pension was to be made available to all former soldiers who had been injured in service, or who had served for more than 20 years.
By the time the Hospital was completed, there were more pensioners than places available in the Hospital. Eligible ex-soldiers who could not be housed in the Hospital were termed out-pensioners, receiving their pension from the Royal Hospital but living outside it. In-pensioners, by contrast, surrender their army pension and live within the Royal Hospital.
In 1703, there were only 51 out-pensioners. By 1815 this figure had risen to 36,757.
The Royal Hospital remained responsible for distributing army pensions until 1955, following which the phrase "out-pensioner" became less common, and "Chelsea pensioner" was used largely to refer to "in-pensioners".
I subscribe to a website that makes a lot of useful documents available and get regular emails about updated records etc. About 12 months ago each email had a section saying "Chelsea Pensioner records added" (from the originals held in the National Archives) and I logged on and searched for my ancestor. But each time the search came back "no results". However about a week ago, when another batch of records was released, my search came back with the record I wanted - James Garnett, by trade a Shoemaker, born in Kendal about 1813. So for the past week there has been much pouring over transcriptions in various documents, trying to decipher the different handwriting.
I have tried to transcribe these documents and hope to be able to post images of the originals and my transcriptions in this Blog- but Blogger can be a bit quirky in how it positions images, so I'll start a new post.
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