we've moved to a town of sin

I'm not joking.

It was recorded as such a couple of hundred years ago by the new town minister.  Fresh out of Vicar school he came to our little town and decided he'd never seen such debauchery.  He promptly set to sorting the place out, and calmed things down by making the raucous locals build him a new church and house.

I learnt this information from a book I borrowed from the library.  They have an impressive local history section.  I'm surprised just how many books have been written about such a small place, so I checked out half a dozen to read to myself, but found I couldn't keep the stories I was reading to confined to just me, and ended up sharing several to the rest of the family.  Some facts they shared my enthusiasm for (like the naughtiness of the townsfolk) others not so much (the one about how the new church is in fact the old church because the new church had a new building made when the church split just confused everyone - including me.)

Although I only read excerpts from the books to the children, I read two through to the end and was surprised to find out that the lady author is still very much alive and, as an extra bonus, hosts historical walk abouts if you ask her nicely.  I've already been in touch and we are scheduling in a home ed date for April.


We also had a wood burner installed which meant we all got to see the fireplace get knocked out and back to it's original state, as well as getting a bonus lesson from the installer about the histories of fireplaces (Grit, I thought of you.)  He got very enthused by the stones.  I'm still not sure why.


We took a stroll through the local cemetery too.  It's a very Victorian affair with giant monkey puzzle trees and a well ordered, slightly majestic feel to it.  The older stones have been well preserved and contain a huge amount of detail about the occupants life. 

I would say that throughout December we learnt a lot of local history without actually planning to.  We are well on our way to being able to identify weavers houses and appreciate a bit of grand Victorian design.  We are going to the local museum next week when it reopens, and we are going armed with a list of questions.

I've got into the habit of writing down all the strange and wonderful questions I am constantly asked, but cannot answer in a small reporters notebook, but it was their idea to take those questions and speak to the curator about them.  This proves that me admitting "I don't know" isn't the same as acknowledging failure, more that I am prompting them to make their own discoveries....or something like that.

In other, not related news:

:: Christmas came and went and it was good.  It was our least commercial Christmas in many ways,  but no one seemed to notice and everyone seemed pretty happy. 

: : New Years/ Hogmanay was fun, but it ended in a downer as I fell over on the way home from a party and smashed my knee up in fine style.

: : I am spending a lot of time over on Pinterest these days, which is probably why I'm neglecting this space.  I love Pinterest because it is easy to find the things I've pinned, and as I used the Ipad, I can take it around with me and I tend to do more of the ideas/ activities I've pinned, whereas with bookmarks, I just bookmarked and never went back over them!

: : I'm joining in with Mama Scouts water challenge.  Really, it is something I should be doing anyway, but this has given me the kick up the backside I needed.

: : And look, the universe obviously knew I was moving back, so it kindly decided to locate the new V&A within spitting (well, driving) distance of my new home.  Only two years to go, and we all know how quickly two years speeds by.  I'm very excited.  In the meantime, the McManus has a good deal to offer.  We were gifted two model ships at Christmas, so some of us are going along to this event.

I hope to be in this space on a much more regular basis.  I have a wealth of back dated posts to write up - most exist in drafts and are written in a stream of consciousness.  To be honest, most of my posts are like that anyway but these drafts read like gobbeldy gook to uninitiated.  Most are home ed based...which is what this is supposed to be a record of anyway.

Happy New Year.