Radiators

Today is a truly lovely, classic autumn day, the kind where you look up into the cloudless, blue sky and find it difficult to believe the weather forecasts which speak gloomily of forthcoming rain, wind and plummeting temperatures. Paddy had been taken out for his walk and managed to behave like a sane and sensible dog around three westies and a border collie and the rest of the day...

well, the rest of the day could go well or badly, depending on Keith's diy skills.

For several weeks now, I have amused myself by saying, 

"Well, we'll be putting the heating on soon - oh no! We won't because the radiator by the window is still leaking!"

When the hilarity and helpless laughter has died down, I follow this up with,

"The bathroom towels will be lovely and warm when we have our showers this winter - oh no! They won't because the heated towel rail is still waiting to be fitted!"

(You think this is annoying? Yep! But such fun!)

So today, Keith has finally decided that life might be slightly more bearable if he put his mind to the two tasks awaiting him, hence an imminent visit to B&Q and then a degree of nail biting and finger crossing on my part, not due to a lack of faith in Keith's abilities but, well, you never know with diy...

And today's task is...

Actually, I wouldn't like to say how many hours I have already spent puzzling over this. The marriage certificate for Charles Ernest Perkins and his wife, Frances arrived. However, Sod's Law decreed that the one most important word on the whole document, ie Frances's maiden name, is pretty well undecipherable.

Frances, as you will see from the certificate, was a widow, although, as she was born in 1818, she was only 22 when she married Charles, so Tapscott was her previous married name and her maiden name is shown in the column for father's name. Unfortunately, it looks as though ink was in short supply that day, hence the poor quality of the print out. Either that or that's where I get my bad handwriting from. 

I can see the man was a 'yeoman' and that his first name was John and that his surname ended in 'eland' and I think the first letter is a 'G' as it corresponds pretty closely to the 'G' in 'Gardener' which is down as John's occupation at that time. 

I have trawled through endless lists of Devon names in an attempt to find something close to what is on this certificate, to no avail and I have not found any trace of Frances's first marriage, although, as it presumably took place before the coverage of the free BMD, it would be harder to trace anyway.

So, there we are, a brick wall. Not important in the grand scheme of things but a mystery I really wanted to solve in the hope that it would shed some light on the next step, which will perhaps be a subject for a future post...

Farewell, Jake

So Jake has departed, trotted off this morning with his little red spotted handkerchief over his shoulder, without a backward glance. If Paddy is missing their regular afternoon wrestling sessions, he is giving no sign of it and is mooching around very much as normal. I have to say, walking Jake was a much more peaceful experience than walking Paddy. He actually behaved like a normal, sane dog; no barking at other dogs across the field, no trying to lunge at cats, squirrels, rabbits... you get the idea?

On the plus side, no nasty little 'surprises' on the dining room floor first thing in the morning either!