I am so looking forward to the Easter break, even though the weather forecast is pretty grotty. Of course the country is going to grind to a halt tomorrow because the roads will be gridlocked, most of the railways are closed for engineering works and the airports won't be able to cope with the sheer numbers trying to get away, due to the increased security measures! So anyone with any sense will stay at home, put the TV on, their feet up and just chill. We won't even be able to get out into the garden it's going to be so cold and miserable. Typical British Easter Bank Holiday weather in fact :-) The fact that it's so early this year, the earliest since 1913 I think I heard someone say the other day, doesn't help either. The only cheery thing is that at least the spring flowers are nice and early as well.
We've got the Boy Wonder (aka my 16yr old stepson) coming to stay for Easter - oh joy! Actually he's no trouble because from the moment he arrives tomorrow to the moment he leaves on Monday he's going to have his head stuck in his laptop playing Warhammer, and he will only emerge for meals! The last time he came up he was here for a week and I think we only managed to get 6 words out of him the entire time. Communicative he's not - still I think thats fairly typical for a lad his age apparently. All my friends with kids that age have the same problem. Not that I'm complaining, it makes our life easy as we don't have to keep him entertained, but we are hoping that at the age of 18 he will emerge a whole and fully formed human being, like a majestic butterfly emerging from its chrysalis!
I had planned on going to the Black Country Museum this weekend, which would have been fun, but it's just going to be too cold and wet. I'll have to wait for better weather, but it's a real shame as there's going to be an Easter Bonnet competition and Easter egg hunts etc, but I think the whole weekend will be a washout.
We also have my stepdaughter coming down from Manchester on Sunday, she's expecting a baby on the 30th, so we're hoping it doesn't decide to put in an early appearance! They have already chosen a name for it, as we know it's going to be a boy, and for some reason want to call it Jonah! Of course that's brought out all the whale jokes, especially as she has got bigger :-). Hubby is looking forward to being a Grandad for the 1st time. The last time we saw them he took them into Mothercare and really seemed to enjoy himself choosing a new Moses basket for them. Going by how he is with my grandson, I think he'll be a terrific Grampy and he won't have to wait much longer :-).
I know I moan about the Boy Wonder spending all his time on his laptop, but I'm a fine one to complain. I tend to spend almost as much time on mine and that's just what I'll be doing over the holiday weekend. It will be split between my blog and associated activities and Ancestry.com as I have just been given some more info for a family history I have been doing for a friend at work. She's having it done for her father in law's 80th birthday as a surprise.
I have got one branch of the family back to 1700 and may be able to get beyond that with a bit more digging. Another branch is quite interesting in that they were artificial eye makers. I think they started out making them for stuffed birds and animals as the earliest ancestor I have traced was an engraver, but he had a bird stuffing business on the side, which is what they called taxidermy in the early 19th century. His sons carried on the business when he died and one of them moved up from Bristol to Birmingham and started a glass eye business up here and then gradually developed a process to produce hollow human glass eyes - which were of course much lighter than the traditional solid glass or wooden ones available at the time (Anyone who has seen Pirates of the Caribbbean will remember Ragetti chasing his around the deck!). So as you can imagine they became very popular. Anyway I will have fun filling in a few more gaps for this over the weekend.
I hope everyone enjoys their weekend and wish you all a Happy Easter (and dont eat too many Easter Eggs!:-)
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