Book of Me - Falling Behind due to Lack of Inspiration - Deeds and Daft telly

Unfortunately the last two weeks Book of Me prompts have not inspired me to write.  Julie Goucher of the Angler's Rest Blog started us off nine weeks ago with a good few interesting and thought provoking prompts.  Week 1 was describe yourself in 20 different ways and we've done Childhood Homes and Grandparents since then, both of which I could have written reams about, but just recently I've been finding it far too easy just to let the weeks slip by without writing anything in a timely fashion.  Playing catch up somehow seems to defeat the object of a weekly project - and I did so want to do this properly - the purpose being to help us to write stuff about ourselves to leave for our families, as many of the participants being family historians, we often spend ages researching other people and writing it up, but rarely spend anytime on ourselves.

 

Last week, Week 8, was all about creating (or virtually creating) a Time Capsule.  I gave this some thought - I remember putting a coin in the studwork when my dad built a wardrobe at one of our houses.  I wonder if anyone has found that yet? I was thrilled when we moved into our new house to find, in the coal shed (this house is a doer upper that we can't afford to do up unless we sell the old one and two years later we are still waiting!) an incinerator bin full of old newspapers, postcards, ephemera to do with the previous owner's long dead husband and various other interesting bits and pieces.  My theory is, judging by the date on the newspapers that the widow was going to have a bonfire with the various papers, put it off (maybe it rained!) and somehow never got around to it - for 34 years!

 

And yet, despite this wonderful example, my mind remains stubbornly blank.  The best thing I could come up with was to make copies of the deeds of the two houses we have and leave them with the houses - our solicitor doesn't want them anymore and if I hadn't have taken them they would have been thrown away - I am now deeply sad that we didn't keep the deeds for the OH's first house which he sold when we bought our first house together ten years ago.  They are probably long gone by now and that house was over a hundred years old ... such a waste of history.

 

My parents always lived in new houses - their deeds don't amount to much at all, so I don't have much experience with this kind of old document.  After being given our first set when we paid the mortgage off I did scan them as best I could (hey, there's a thought - I could do a better job now with my FlipPal Scanner) and learnt useful information such as when actually the various extensions were built and what happened to the toilet and coal store at the bottom of the garden (the back road and a strip of our land was compulsorily purchased when the field behind was sold by the council to a Housing Association).  I was even inspired to try to get the Cudworth Group to start a project encouraging people to ask to see their deeds before their solicitors throw them away - we might even get some useful history out of them too!

 

I might write a blog about deeds one day - but of course I don't want to write one about ours - we still live here and there's a limit to how close to home I want my blog posts to be!

 

This week, Week 9, is about Halloween - very topical (as next Thursday will be the 31st October), but not a particularly important calendar event in England unless you have small children, to whom the American Trick or Treat thing seems to have unfortunately spread.  I say unfortunately because it necessitates buying a box or tin of sweets to keep handy by the door, just in case.  Even though we usually only get the OH's little nephews coming calling you never know, we have been here two years now - people might be getting used to us and feel that it's safe to knock on our door with their little children - or not!

 

Have you been to Halloween event?  Or dressed up?  asks Julie in her extra prompt questions.  Well, no.  For Children in Need, which is in a few weeks time, yes - but not ever that I recall for Halloween.  I remember getting my son dressed up for a school event once - I was particularly proud of his cape, such a lovely big pointy collar - all homemade.  And I'm sure my daughter, with all those student years of working in pubs and clubs has dressed up every year ... but it somehow doesn't seem to fit the CAMRA real ale socialising circles I have been part of for the past twenty years or so. 

 

I vaguely remember a party which had a Halloween theme, mainly because the hostess had a lovely little girl and I think we were playing along - and we watched lots of episodes of some children's cartoon or puppet thing - something about a Trapdoor?  Hang on, I'll Google that ....

 

Yep, that's the right programme! 

 

It was an odd way for half a dozen young grown-ups to spend an evening, but we had plenty of beer and food - and I suppose the young mum couldn't have come out to the pub with us as she had the little girl to look after.

 

Sorry, but that's all I can come up with at the moment.