Tuesday 5 April 2016

A very special birthday present.

This is one of the pages from the wonderful gift one of my daughters made me for my 80th birthday last month.   I had no time to post much then as my husband came out of hospital the day after my birthday and I have been kept rather busy ever since.  I am the night nurse as well as the day nurse so you can imagine that not much housework is being done other than the occasional 'lick and promise'.

The book starts with my birth details, then my parents, grandparents and so on.  She also included pages giving details of their various occupations and trades, and the meanings of the various names.

Above is a map of where my ancestors came from.  As you see we are mostly from the south east and London area with one little dot in Somerset and another in Yorkshire.

This is the cover which I actually loaded first but for some reason has jumped down two places.  It is a revamped small binder and during construction one of the rivets broke.   My daughter's father-in-law is a real Mr.Fixit and supplied two replacement rivets which came from a Spitfire about the same vintage as me.  I am very proud of my rivets!

At the very end of the book is a page for me to continue, with spaces for the details of our children, and their husbands and children, and so on.

Perhaps in another 10 years she may have discovered more ancestors and we can add further pages to the book.

It has been such a beautiful day today.  I tried to do some weeding but the soil has a texture rather like an overcooked rice pudding.  I suppose it will get dry enough one day to do something useful out there.

6 comments:

The Weaver of Grass said...

How is Dick doing? The trouble is that progress tends to slow up as one gets older. The farmer is slowly returning to normal but is still so weak - and i am sure that Dick is the same.
That book looks such a lovely present and it looks as though your daughter has inherited your artistic streak.

Heather said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Bug said...

What a lovely gift!

Gina said...

What a wonderful gift to treasure.

Ro Bruhn said...

How fabulous Heather, such a treasure to look back on. Happy belated Birthday.

WendyK said...

What a fabulous gift, love the idea.