Ditto

 Today was much like yesterday. Urban-Cub dropped Ellie off at 7:30 and headed off to work. Today she was working at the Chichester store, but more about that later. Ellie had already had breakfast and was eager to play. The Gorse Fox found himself, after his first coffee, on the stairs chasing a slinky down the steps then retrieving it and repeating the game. Eventually, it was time for Dizzy Ducklings. We got our coats on and, all of sudden, Ellie demanded we drive there. Given that the venue is only 600m from home and the weather was dry and mild, that was not going to happen (and the Gorse Fox certainly wasn't going to give her the car keys). She was not happy and we had tears for most of the way to pre-school. Indeed, they only dried up when we met up with one of the helpers en route.

Back home, being Tuesday, it was the online shopping list and a return to the family tree. The former was a simple formality, the latter was a chore today. The Gorse Fox had no real breakthroughs, and even those individuals he could work with, were not supported by sufficient corroborative information for the Gorse Fox to commit them to the tree.

As we wandered round to Dizzy Ducklings to collect Ellie, the Gorse Fox's phone rang. This is an immensely rare event, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. It was his cousin Maggie. She had found her notes about the family and was eager to pass them on. Well, the Gorse Fox couldn't take notes whilst on the move so he asked her to call back.

Maggie called back mid-afternoon. Gosh she can talk! It was about 75 minutes later that the Gorse Fox had to wind things up as he still had to prepare Ellie's dinner. The call was very interesting, however, and certainly added some flesh to many of the folk for who the Gorse Fox has records. Additionally, it added several new folk across several generations. It was a very interesting (if long) phone call. It doesn't help that the family had a propensity for calling people by nicknames: Auntie Rosa was Auntie Ron, Alice was Babs, Douglas was Dick, Percy was Arthur and so it continued. It will all take some sorting out in the morning.

Urban-Cub has just collected Ellie. She had had a really good at Chichester and met with the manager who is assigned as the regional trainer. She immediately saw the benefit of his mentorship and is arranging to transfer into this region (which is really where she was meant to be anyway). She's hoping that she'll move across permanently on 1st April.