Coincidences

I love stories like this that Andy posted on his blog yesterday.

So it was nice to have my own story happen today - my health visitor runs a short course of baby classes about things like weaning, first aid and baby massage which I have been to after the babies I’ve had at this house were born. Today was the first one of the newest course and we all had to say our name, our baby’s name and where we live. As it happened the lady next to me lives in the same village and of course we both asked which road the other one lived on. Later we were chatting and it turned out we both have daughters in the same year at the same school and then she asked which house we lived in. I described where it is (all the houses on our road have names, not numbers) and asked “do you know which one I mean?” You know what’s coming don’t you? Not only did she know which one I live in, she used to live here when she was a little girl!!!! She couldn’t remember much about it but enough to give me a small insight into what it was like.

When she was here it was a tied cottage to the farm her father worked on and was quite different to how it is now. What is our front door is a newer addition and takes you through what was their back door. The first room was the kitchen (our infamous dumping ground) and the old front door has since been bricked up. The breakfast room and the kitchen must be around 30-35 years old as it wasn’t like that when she was here.

She’s going to ask her parents if they have any photos of the house when they were here and also ask more about what it was like. I would love to have her and her parents round to tell me how it was when they lived here.

Not only was that a lovely coincidence, it also tied in with me lying in bed last night wishing I knew more about the house and the people who have lived here before. A friend lent me a book about tracing the history of your home which I managed to look at last night but a lot of info needs you to go out to record offices etc and I’m not sure my house would have any historic records anyway being just a farm cottage.

The internet has made me so lazy!! If I can’t look it up online I can’t be bothered! I have found the census returns for the house from several of the census years which is interesting - what is also interesting is the way the same surnames keep occurring not only in the returns but also in real life. I think one of the families that lived here is related to one of the ladies that worked at Jack’s playschool for example.

I did ask the lady today if she knew anyone in the forces who might have dropped the badges but she doesn’t. Maybe her parents would? It would be really nice to reunite them with their rightful owner.

Also today I went to my knitting group and watched an alpaca being sheared. It was really interesting but typically I didn’t have my camera so can’t post photos. I will try and remember to take it next week though. It was Ronaldo who had his hair cut today (it reminded me a bit of when I shave the males in this house hair, only with less spitting, lol)

I really must start carrying my camera around with me as I keep seeing things I want to take photos of to share on my blog - or at least to make it a bit more interesting.

And finally, as if two links aren’t enough for you here’s another one. Look at the photo!!