"Ich habe lang genug mich selbst verleugnet, doch das ist jetzt vorbei! Ich war umgeben von Schatten doch jetzt bin ich frei! In das dunkle Haus kommt Licht - alles, alles ändert sich!"

What a beautiful day - after the storms of January and February and all of the associated destruction, it's almost a relief to finally see the sun once more. Two glorious blue days - not too hot but striking and enjoyable. A second relief has been getting shot of some more things I no longer have need of - this time some Ikea "Benno" CD towers that I simply had no more need of - collected promptly at 1030h by a nice chap who'd driven up all the way from St Austell - a good hours drive - to collect them and a TV unit he'd managed to also get on Gumtree at a bargain price. I wish I'd discovered Gumtree years ago - that and free-cycling, of course. As well as getting a few quid for them, which always comes in handy, it was nice to be shot of them for reasons of space as well as reasons of two of them having been given to me by someone I've no desire to be reminded of - I think I'm now rid of every trace - every gift, every photo - nothing remains and that can only be a good thing. I don't want to carry memories to the Haus Am Meer - I see very much the last few years as a time of retreat and hermitage really - I've only in the last 12 months really gotten back to where I was before I moved here - through the friendship of people like H, who've helped me explore Devon and so on.

My third cousin once removed, W, who I met through the internet and who knew my late Mother when they were children has spent the weekend in my hometown visiting churchyards and, upon my request, spent a good deal of time searching a cemetery for the grave shared by my Mother's Grandmother and my Mother's Aunt - both Bessie - both lead complicated lives - Bessie Sr was probably the one person on that side of the family that I'm most like and she was a Devon girl, it turns out - from Lapford and had lived in Devonport over 100 years ago before moving to Cardiff and then Bristol as a girl, where she eventually stayed. Bessie Jr is a bit of a mystery - no one is alive now who can remember her as she died in 1954 at the age of 29 from cirrhosis of the liver. No one knows what drove her to drink at such a young age or why she died where she did - hospitalised whilst staying with her older sister who ran a pub - not the kind of place you knowingly send an alcoholic, I guess. Still, we may not know much about her but we have found her grave - one of many in the family that needs my attention now as no one is around to look after them and, since Bessie Sr has many parallels with me, I want to do it.

If Bessie Jr was an enigma, her Father was even worse! We don't even know his real name or nationality but we know he looked like the sailor on the Senior Servivce Navy Cut packet - and was indeed a sailor - I love a good mystery though so I'm working on it - he "died at sea" but appears to have actually had a whole family in Canada!

Great Grandad? [Copyright © 2006 Aplinus67. CC-BY-SA 3.0]

Well, I've clinkers to riddle and pots to scythe so I must get on - that front step won't donkey-stone itself!