SNGF: 10 Signs you have summer holiday GOCD

For tonight's SNGF challenge, Randy Seaver has invited us to add to Michael John Neill's list of 10 Signs You Have Genealogy OCD.

As we are in the middle of the summer holidays, I decided to base my list on that theme:

 

 

1. You book your holiday accommodation in a former ancestral hometown - if possible, in a former ancestral home.
   
   
2. You pack your laptop, notebook and pencils but forget your swimsuit and sunblock.
   
   
3. You take three days to get there because of all the genealogy related stops along the way.
   
   
4. You spend your days in the archives / cemetery whilst your family go to the beach.
   
   
5. You spend one evening at the local genealogy society meeting.
   
   
6. You spend your other evenings researching online whilst your family watch TV.
   
   
7. You send reproductions of old postcards to your friends and family back home.
   
   
8. You buy local maps and histories as souvenirs.
   
   
9. You are Facebook friends with all the local genealogists by the time you leave.
   
   
10. All your holiday snaps are of gravestones.

SNGF: Where I'm From

This week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge from Randy Seaver is to write a poem about "Where I'm From" using the template found at the website http://www.swva.net/fred1st/wif.htm.

Here is my entry:

Where I'm From

I am from toast and dripping, Hovis and honey, full cream milk and eggy soldiers.

I am from a pebble-dashed semi - coal bunker, Mabel Lucy Attwell print, ginger kitten climbing the curtains - next door to the district nurse.

I am from the rose trellis and vegetable plot, compost heap and cherry tree. Opposite the oak wood dell, pirate haven and Red Indian camp, where my brother fell from a tree.

I am from grammar school education and eccentricity, Scottish pride and London poverty. I am from upstairs and downstairs - Alban and Georgina and Viv and Alice.

I am from wanderlust and laughter, a passion for history and the gift of the gab. From "I can see a way round this" to "you get yours, mate".

I am from mixed-marriage, second-class, never quite good enough Catholics. I am from Bible believing Baptists, upwardly mobile Methodists, bells and smells Anglicans, down the pub atheists.

I am from the Surrey hills, channelling Dorset, Yorkshire, London. I am from the Braes of Atholl and from the Blarney Stone. I am from puddings - Christmas and Yorkshire - spaghetti bolognese and the Chinese chippy.

I am from the snake in Dad's tent and the flood over the library. I am from Passchendaele and Poona. From the Rector of Brympton and McCarthy of the Yard.

I am from a biscuit tin of photos, tea-time stories, Grandma's memories. I am from a crocheted cot blanket, an ivory hairbrush and a tortoiseshell mirror.

I am from strong roots in good soil.