Needless

For those of you who have been following the saga of the knitting needles, the new ones have arrived along with the size 3.25 needles which is a difficult size to find so I am very happy about that  but still no sign of the original needles which have somehow disappeared along with the cable which joined them together.  I had expected that the very act of ordering new replacement ones would have magicked the lost ones out of their hiding place but sadly … no.

Still on the subject of knitting  -  I have finished the cowl neckline of the pink possum sweater and it worked out even better than I had hoped.  I am now knitting the second sleeve and then it is just the sewing up and it should be ready before the cold weather ends.  The weather has not been nice and yesterday the rain bucketed down,  climaxing in a cloudburst as I got off the train at Victoria Park station on my way to my farewell coffee and cake at COTA.  I only had a short way to walk but ended up dripping wet.  Luckily I had grabbed a showerproof jacket and umbrella on my way out the door so I stayed dry underneath.

My farewell present was a lovely new computer keyboard with yellow keys and HUGE black letters on the keys and an invitation to go to the next Christmas bash.  I’m looking forward to it.

D3 is on holidays this week and had an appointment to be tested for some new spectacles and took me along to help choose new frames.  The first one which she tried on and eventually chose is exactly the same as my new frames so I couldn’t fault them and they suit her very well.

This week has been one of those times when I have something on both morning and afternoon and tomorrow will be the same so the apartment looks very neglected, the cats are quite certain that they have been neglected and I am badly in need of a day to get things sorted; maybe next week.  Tomorrow I am meeting up with a  couple of distant cousins for coffee and cake which I am looking forward to and hopefully I will be looking good since I have an appointment to have my hair trimmed in the late morning.  As long as it doesn’t rain on me again.

This Limerick was written by the late Monsignor Ronald Knox in answer to the hypothesis that things only exist when they have an observer

There once was a man who said: "God
Must think it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there's no one about in the Quad."

god

Must think it exceedingly odd

If he finds that this tree

Continues to be

When ther's no one about in the Quad."

Desperate measures

I have finally realised that it is going to take a hard push to find my missing knitting needles so I have decided to invoke Sod's Law and have ordered another set of needles.  So far it hasn't worked but I figure that it is a win/win sort of situation in that I will end up with either one or two pairs of 4.5mm needles and they will never come amiss as it is a size which is used a lot.  Hopefully they will arrive next week as they only have to come from Sydney.  Accepted that they will be put onto a camel train and sent via Oodnadatta and the Canning Stock-route, as does most of our mail from over east but one day . . .

One of my second cousins is compiling her mother's history for her immediate family and asked me if I would be interested in putting her findings onto my family tree.  It is all grist for my genealogy mill and she has sent it all to me typed out, as far as I can tell, in MS Word.  It has been something of a steep learning curve as there have been several divorces.  Sometime ago I purchased a book  -  "FTM 2017 Companion Guide to Family Tree Maker" and through that have found a 'relationship' button.  I am still trying to work out exactly how to get to it and will have to print out the tree or sync it to Ancestry.com to see if it works, but …

The granddaughter of one of my second cousins has a partner with whom she has two children and he had a prior relationship which resulted in a daughter.  Because he was not married to the mothers of either set of children I am having a problem working the daughter from his first relationship into the descendant tree as neither is a descendant.  FTM lists her as a stepdaughter but without a marriage it refuses to add her to the descendant tree.  He can be, and is, categorised as a partner so there must be a way:  I just haven't found it yet.

But thank goodness for the book; it would have taken me forever or not at all to have even got as far as I have with this tree.  Prior to the book I simply added this sort of information to the "notes" and this is probably what I will be doing with Claudia in order to get her name out there and in with the family.  She is, after all, a half sister to the second family who are descendants.

The Limerick . . .

To his bride said the lynx-eyed detective,
'Can it be that my eyesight's defective?
Has your east tit the least bit
The best of the west tit?
Or is it a trick of perspective?'

Hogfather

Anyone who has read the book "Hogfather" by Terry Pratchett knows that if there is too much belief floating around in the world, unchanneled, things will happen.  This is my state of affairs at the moment but instead of sock-eating creatures hiding behind washing machines, in my case it seems to be some sort of knitting needle eater.

I have lost three knitting needles  -  a pair of 4.5mm which I needed to knit the cowl collar on the pink possum sweater which I am trying to finish on account of the cold weather we are experiencing at the moment and one stray size 3mm steel needle which I used to pick up the stitches in order to knit the above-mentioned cowl.

There is, of course, a lot of unregulated belief at the moment just days after the USA/North Korea Summit and that probably explains my knitting needles but it is annoying.  I have searched diligently for the lost pair because they are part of a set of detachable circular needles and their absence has left a gap in their case.  No doubt they will eventually turn up but in the mean time I keep looking through all my unfinished projects in the hope of finding them hidden away somewhere, neglected and forgotten.

The 3mm needle can stay lost.  It is one of the ones which I rescued from my MIL's house when my SIL and I cleared it out, and I don't like using conventional knitting needles any more.  I still have the other half of the pair if I need to do some more difficult picking up of stitches.

My new spectacles have arrived and are very elegant.  My optometrist is now organising some bifocal computer/copy-typing glasses for transcribing family Wills and archived newspaper articles.  I have sadly neglected my Slush Fund lately and although it is strictly for family there is still a great deal to get through and convert to HTML  -  although HTML is a @#%$ to do using Win10 and I have started using my Win7 laptop as it is much easier to edit.

Today I planned to get my ironing done so I went shopping for bath towels.  The sales are on downstairs at the moment and the towels had been reduced to 50% so I have re-stocked in a colour to match my duvet cover and curtains.  the old ones, due to having to be put through the clothes dryer to prevent them from turning into sandpaper, are starting to feel thin.  They will be recycled as cleaning and polishing cloths, something which I sorely need.

So tomorrow  -  (sigh) the ironing.

Today's Limerick (WARNING  -  Adult language used).  "The leader of the rebellion against the fad of the pure Limerick would seen to have been the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837 - 1909). " This one is set in Oxford.

There was a young student of Johns
Who wanted to bugger the swans.
But the loyal hall porter
Said, "Sir, take my daughter.
Them birds are reserved for the dons."  

All my Little Chickens . . .

. . .are coming home to roost.

D1 and D2 have both been overseas for the last few weeks and are arriving back today which is nice.  I have missed them but did get a postcard from D1 which, to my amazement, arrived back before she did. 

Winter has truly set in and the temperatures have been low with lots of rain and some gales on and off.  I am close to finishing my Pink Possum Sweater  -  one sleeve and the cowl neck to go.  I have been knitting while I listen to the Rachel Maddow Show so I am usefully occupied while I catch up on the latest from America where things are interesting but from a non-American's view are a bit dismaying.

When I announced at my knitting group that I had bought a stick vacuum cleaner I was asked just how many vacuum cleaners I had and I realised that I actually have four of them and they all serve a purpose.  I feel that my floors are finally under control and am about to start on my cupboards.  The problem is that there is nowhere to throw away things which I no longer need or use.  

The council has two roadside collections per year but we do not have any roadside so it is a matter of loading up a shopping trolley and wheeling it over to one of the residential streets or sneaking it into one of the many rubbish bins scattered around the shopping complex.  I have found that just about anything goes if one chooses a bin with a red lid.

I've finally officially resigned from COTA; I handed in my notice when I was diagnosed with cataracts in my eyes but it was all left a bit up in the air. However knowing that I am to be left with failing vision until such time as the ophthalmologist considers the risk of losing my sight altogether from the surgery is no worse than not removing the cataracts I have decided that now is the time to stop struggling with the COTA computers and concentrate on struggling with the many dire changes which Microsoft is making to Win10 on my own computers.

A limerick written by Arnold Bennett:

There was a young man of Montrose
Who had pockets in none of his clothes.
When asked by his lass
Where he carried his brass,
He said "Darling, I pay through the nose."

There was a young man of Pulldown . . .

The title could be the first line of a limerick but it is actually a reflection of my almost fruitless search for my 4 x great grandfather.

I say "almost because I have found quite a bit of evidence here in Australia where he married twice, once in Sydney, New South Wales and to my 4 x great grandmother in South Australia.

A little bit of history here:  Australia didn't become a Federation until 1901 and until then was a collection of independent States.  South Australia was the only state which was never a penal colony and was colonised by unfranchised people from many places, mainly English and German but there were Afghan camel drivers who carried goods up into the centre of Australia (the train which runs from Adelaide in the south to Darwin in the north is named The Ghan in their honour).

My 4 x times G/grandfather arrived in Sydney in 1842 on a ship called "Champion" as an assisted passenger and there is a record of all the passengers  who arrived.  That is easy to find as are his two marriages but what I found a couple of sleepless nights ago was what must have been some sort of passport which named his parents as well as the place in Ireland where he had lived.  He named it "Pulldown"  which I was totally unable to locate but his referees who had to sign for his character lived in Puladown  -  and that did exist. There are about four different versions of the name on the document but I refuse to be drawn into 200 year old arguments about the spelling

The Irish archives burned down in 1922 and are slowly being reconstructed from church and civic records but County Armagh seems to be the last on the list because there is nothing there yet.  Maybe one day my granddaughter will be able to access the BMD and find out more about the family.

I had a horrible day yesterday.  The weather was awful and I had an appointment just a quick train ride away at 11.00am and another at 3.30.  the prospect of battling the weather to and from the train station decided me to stay where I was so in the morning I had my eyes tested and in the afternoon I had a cracked filling in one of my back teeth repaired, spending the intervening time reading my E-book in the shopping centre.  I arrived home at about 5.00, exhausted from doing nothing all day.

Now I have nothing planned for the near future so I can get back to doing the things I enjoy  -  or probably more family research as it is a bit like a treasure hunt and it is addictive.

And now today's limerick.  For any American readers who find themselves here, this one was written by President Woodrow Wilson.

I sat next to the Duchess at tea;
It was just as I feared it would be:
Her rumblings abdominal
Were truly phenomenal
And everyone thought it was me!