Today is the last day of my holiday ...Tomorrow it all starts again .. Work work work ....McD and I are to get back into the gym again as well so next week will be a shock to our systems ........

I've been continuing my family history work ..I'm trying to trace my real GGG-grand parents ...It's proving a little difficult ...... GG-Grand parents had the same surname when the married ! my name is not that common a name but there you go two separate families tied by blood some 300 + years previously I'm told ... So ... GGG-granparents are William and Ann D' and George and Ann D' ..no issue there really except that there are also in the same villiage another two families William and Ann D' and George and Ann D' of about the same age ...... All with kids and all married etc just before the censuses began .....

I think I have the right william as when GG-GF married they used a church that marked a parish that GGG-GF William attended ...... So the link I think is there and strong enough to use .... Would like more evidence though .....

But try and sort out the Georges !!! no chance ........................The two churches in question are about a roads width apart from each other and the 4 families lived in the same villiage ...Probably even drank in the same pubs together ......

I've not just stuck with my surname either I've worked along my maternal line and along the maternal lines of my grand parents .... All nicely packaged in a database but Oh Boy it's getting complicated and time consuming ...

My next plan is to host it all on a web site ... I've been scouring E'bay and the like buying up old pictures and postcards of the Norfolk area and portsmouth and Fettercairn in scotland .... one day I'll get time to do it ......

Pictures are from Mt Holdsworth again ....in the main .. The others of from a reserve created utilising the old railway tracks in the area ... It's a very peaceful place when not overly visited as can happen at times .....

My ankle is letting me know it's there... It's sore but only when I walk on it (kinda gives the hints to me not to be upright)... Although I did manage to turn it rather quickly when wandering about the house and causeda loud 'Pop" to come from the ankle ..... No damage though I think ....
Emerging frond of a tree fern

It's sooo Hot !!!! Another 30C 86F day in the making and the humidity is now up as well .... the north of the island have just experienced torrential rain and floods ... I hope it's wandered off to sea now .....

My McDinzie hard at work with her stylish new camera.....

And now the cicadas have started to emerge.. They won't be as plentyful as other years but there are enough to be noisy around the place..... One of the disadvantages of living beside the native forrest is that we get heaps of cicadas ...greens and browns, big and small... And the forrest creates a sound shell for them so the noise is amplified even more ..... Last year when watering I sprayed the trees around the front garden .. .For a few seconds only there was a pleasant silence... until they resettled and started their rapid clicking again ......

The upper reaches of the Hutt river.. Big trout reside but are hard to catch

Another pleasant surprise today when the man we hired to sort out the overgrown lawns arrived ... In less than an hour with the right tools and they are looking pretty damned good again .... Edges to the borders all trimmed properly, grass picked up ...Its looking good again ... Well by our standards anayway :O) AND he closed the gates after him as well .... He can come back :O)

A native Rata tree.. Covers itself in orange/red flowers once a year

Where does the time go in the day??? I've sat at the computer all morning (with my foot up and resting) doing some work work (I can dial in and acess everything from home.) And also doing some research on my ancestors in Scotland ... Some frustration as to getting certain census entries but otherwise have found a few things of interest especially around where they lived ... All my family on my Dads side were country folk ...Farm workers or Gameskeepers and the like ....

Swing bridge at kaitoki. From where you can see the trout....Sometimes

Now I have a heap of people I can take some interesting stats .. Like the oldest any of my family lived was 88 years Female and 87 years male. But the average age is 67 for both male and female .. Of course that would include infants who died within 1 or 2 years of birth...

The maximum number of marriages to any individual is 3 (my grandfather.. 2 wives died in child birth) but the average for the whole family is only 1. The average age being 22 for getting married the youngest being 16 (Female...)

Mature tree fern

I'd love to make the trip back home to see these places now ..I've been to Norfolk ages back but only managed a day in Scotland ...Would be good to see where they all lived...

Stream at Mt Bruce reserve full of eels