Layout

Well, I decided to go for it and try to find out how to put an interesting background on the blog. So all I had to do was to go for a new layout. It worked but I'd like a different one. I suppose I will just have to keep trying until I find one I like.

I've been adding to my family history again. All those people who have gone. I would like to know more about them  but how can I? 

One person in my Barbados tree is a man called Thomas Best. He was born in Barbados but somehow managed to go to Ireland. Well I think that is where he met his wife Lady Emily Stratford. They were married in Ireland and then Lady Emily gave birth to a son and a daughter. Then she divorced Thomas. I don't know when this event occurred, I think it was before he had a duel with a pistol. The man he had the duel with was called Thomas Pitt, or Lord Camelford. It was Lord Camelford who called for the duel because some mutual woman friend had told him that Thomas had said malicious things about him. 

Camelford shot first and missed and then Thomas Best shot and did not miss. According to one account I read he shot Camelford through the lung and the bullet stuck in his spine. Of course he died and he was only 29. He did have an eventful life though, which has even been written about by Nicolai Tolstoy. 

The picture above shows Camelford attacking a naval officer who he thought had treated him badly when he was under his command. The officer was George Vancouver.

Camelford was a bit of a wild one, but he was brave too. He stayed on a ship that seemed to be sinking and the ship got to port. He did shoot one of his sailors at point blank range and of course the sailor died. 

I have posted a picture of Lord Camelford. 

I thought I'd put one of my poems onto my blog as it's Christmas. I had to look back through my poetry files to find it. It was in the one for 1998.  There's one about Christmas food but it goes on a bit and needs editing. This year I haven't sent any cards but I've received some and my Christmas letter from Australia.  I love getting that letter as it tells all the news of the family over the year and has photos of the three offspring too, not shiny photos now but printed from the computer. But the letter still comes by snail mail. 

So tomorrow I will be putting a chicken into the oven and doing roast potatoes and parsnips and pigs in blankets. Lovely. The pudding will be apple crumble, not my choice, but its fine. I have got a pudding for myself for other days. I think it will take a while to get through it. 

Christmas is coming

Like a train

Thundering on a track

On course

Steaming

Making for a destination.

It comes with lights

Slung out

And nights strung out

And parties

And greetings

And meetings

It comes with shopping

The brakes just stopping

To rein it in.

 

16.12.98

These pictures aren't going where I want them but I will just have to learn how to make my blog look pretty by experimenting.

Yesterday I discovered some wonderful photos so I wrote some comments and I got an email back from the photographer. Here is the link:-

http://www.emiliewood.com/

Connections

Well another day of looking at the family history. Trying to fill in the tree I'm working on. It's my Barbados tree and was sent to me by someone else who put in loads of people connected to me. So I've been doing more digging and filling in what I've discovered.

One of the people on my tree is Charles Kingsley, the author. His mother was Mary Lucas, who was born in Barbados. We are second cousins four times removed. Anyway I looked for his relatives and found that he had a sister called Charlotte. She married a John Mills Chanter and they had quite a large family. The interesting thing is the names that they gave two of their daughters; one was Mabilla and the other was Gratiana. Gratiana inherited the writing talent of the family and wrote a story called The Witch of Withyford. 

Another interesting member of this family is Mary Henrietta Kingsley, who became a traveller in Africa. She was Charles' niece. Part of her work appears in the Virago book of Women Travellers and makes me glad that she got the experience and not me.

My mother's side of the family has all the illustrious connections. Admiral Francis Beaufort features as a connection by marriage. He married the daughter of Bonne Wilson, nee Boileau.  He was famous for creating the Beaufort windscale and it is explained in the cafe of a fantastic museum in Bournemouth. Its called the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum.

  http://www.russell-cotes.bournemouth.gov.uk/

When I was browsing round I saw a huge painting of a place I recognised, Peninnis on St. Mary's, in the Isles of Scilly. I wanted it to be on a postcard but it wasn't. I didn't have a digital camera then so I will just have to scrape it out of my memory.

I'd love to know how to put photos onto this blog as I'd include a description of the Beaufort scale and a pic of Francis Beaufort.

Hooray I've got my pic but its not in the place I wanted it. Its a pic of Francis Beaufort.

That's enough for now.

Oh my goodness, I've actually got to write something. Well as this is the intro let me intro myself. I am a woman who has time on her hands for all of the things I wanted to do when I was busy with the life of work. It's taking a while to get a routine going, well that's not quite true as a routine has evolved where I get up late and stay up late. I go to bed and then stay up late reading until my eyes droop and I feel ready to sleep; doing sudoku until my brain can't cope.  I spend most of the day finding information to put into my family trees, the internet is amazing for this, you just have to keep putting different terms into Google to find something. I also use the internet to talk to friends and family on skype and msn, but that hasn't been good lately due to a router, but now the router has been changed and all is well.

I am still not dressed as the first thing I do is turn on the computer and look at my email and anything that catches my fancy on the MSN homepage. Sometimes they have the most wonderful photographs there of strange things that have happened in the world. I save the best ones. So I think I'd better do the outro now and go and shower and dress and continue my day.