Cracked it

It has been another day where the Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen could actually concentrate on their hobbies. The Silver Vixen has been buried under a mountain of patterns, fabrics, and sewing machines. The Gorse Fox has been flipping between the iMac (Condor) and the new Windows laptop (Merlin).

Work on the Empson book is making very good progress. The actual book compilation is done on Merlin, but the editing and manipulation of the media is done on Condor. The exercise, started yesterday, of categorising all of the media items has made all the difference. The Gorse Fox was able, at a stroke, to suppress items that added no value to the document (like pages of index entries from the General Register Office), and size items that required more space to read easily (such as Census entries). It took most of the day, but it is done. Most of the effort went into creating captions for the hundreds of media items included in the book.

While he was at it, he realised that, at some point, he had erased the notes that he had written regarding his own "story". This was rectified and he is now properly represented in the various documents.... though not the Empson Book (as he is the Gorse Fox, not an Empson). 

Books

 A day at the keyboard.

It started with the weekly call with the cousins. This is turning into a very pleasant interlude each week. This, in turn, switched the Gorse Fox's focus from the Book of Laws to the Book of Empsons. All of the rest of the day has been spent working through the latest draft of the book, and tidying up unnecessary images of boring indexes, and ensuring the more interesting census records and Parish Registers printed at a size that was legible.

On the way, the Gorse Fox rechecked the data for each individual and, needless to say, managed to find more details and in some cases more Empsons to add to the book. He is getting quite close to the current generation now, so should soon be finished on this pass. He suspects the next task will be to develop some form of graphic for the cover, and then send out the latest draft for review (knowing that some of the cousins have not, as yet, contributed their bits).

Handover

 Ellie was with us overnight, but slept through without a murmur. Indeed, the Gorse Fox had been up and about for quarter of an hour before she stirred, just as the Silver Vixen's alarm was about to go off. We sorted out breakfast and then walked her round to Dizzy Ducklings.

The bottom drawer of Ellie's wardrobe had got stuck. Intervention was required. The drawer above had to be removed and then it was clear to see that the back of the jammed drawer had split and broken. The Gorse Fox dismantled the runners and removed the drawer. The garage metamorphosed into a workshop and the back of the drawer (the failing piece) was removed. New, solid wood was selected. (The Gorse Fox is not impressed with a lot of flat-pack furniture built from compressed wood shavings).

The replacement back was measured up and marked. The router was retrieved from storage and a suitable bit selected. The groove for the drawer base was milled, then the back was cut to size. Finally, it was glued and screwed into place. The drawer was refitted in the wardrobe, and the drawer above was refitted. All done. What's more, it seems to fit better, and is certainly more robust.

The Gorse Fox managed to get an hour on the family tree. No great revelations, but a warning that if your surname is Law, then avoid the first name Nellie. A family in focus today had a first child Nellie, who died before her 1st birthday. They went on to have several further children, then ten years after Nellie, they had another and called her Nellie May. She died just after her 1st birthday. The turn of the 1800-1900s was a tragic time for infant mortality, and it was so clearly illustrated in this family.

Pistol Pete came along late in the afternoon. He was collecting Ellie for the weekend. She seemed genuinely pleased to see him, and went off without any problems.

Dispatches

 There is very little to put in today's dispatches. The Gorse Fox contacted Urban-Cub to check whether Ellie was well enough for DD, and as she was, he went round to walk with them to school.

Back home, we had the Ocado delivery and then we both went and raided Lidl and Sainsbury's. There wasn't much to get, so it didn't take too long. When we left we stopped at the car wash and joined long queue. What we hadn't expected was the speed at which the cars were taken through on the conveyor. So despite the queue, we didn't have to wait long.

The afternoon was spent on the family tree, but there were no real revelations.

We've just finished dinner, and Ellie is being dropped off for the night as Urban-Cub is on 5:30 am start tomorrow.

Until tomorrow...

Change

 There's been a change in the weather. At first it was a little grey and cloudy, but as the day has drawn one we have seen the odd, brief shower. The Gorse Fox noticed how much cooler it was in Worthing compared to back home.

Yes, he was in Worthing for the football. In general it was fun. We had two games today and both were drawn. There were the usual gripes from the usual suspects, and one chap with a typical "small man syndrome" started to throw his limited weight around. He had been allowed to get away with it for a while, but when he clattered into the Gorse Fox's back and then hacked at his shins, the Gorse Fox took umbrage. He cleared the ball back to the keeper, turned and remonstrated: "If you try that sort of move again... they will have to scrape you off the astroturf". As expected, he got all tough and threatening but the Gorse Fox stared him down until he slunk away. Oh well, at least the ref kept a very close eye on him for the rest of the game and played nicely. At the end of the game, several of the players came to speak to the Gorse Fox and thanked him.

Back home, the afternoon was spent back on the family tree. One of the strange anomalies of last week - the woman with a huge family was clarified. He found the 1911 census that clearly stated that she only had 7 children (not 20+). This made far more sense. All of the spares have now been erased!

Level crossing

 It was another lovely bright start to the day, and the day did not disappoint, remaining warm, sunny, and cloudless throughout. We got a message from Urban-Cub. Ellie was not well enough for Dizzy Ducklings. As Urban-Cub was on a lunchtime start, Ellie would stay with her throughout the morning and come to us for the rest of the day, when Urban-Cub had to go to work.

The Gorse Fox headed off to Worthing for his football. The roadworks that are currently plaguing the A259 between Wick and Goring have seen the Gorse Fox switch routes and travel via Westergate, Fontwell, Arundel, and Durrington. It's 4 miles longer, but usually saves considerable time (according to Google's estimates). Well Google wasn't on the ball this morning and clearly didn't know there was trouble at the level crossing in Westergate. In the end, it took 15 minutes for the Gorse Fox to get through - it's a good job he always allows plenty of time to accommodate such realities.

Football was fun. The teams were well balanced and the game was competitive without being rough. The Gorse Fox had a couple of rasping shots saved by their keeper, and intercepted several shots on our own goal. We were the eventual winners, 4-3. The Gorse Fox felt as if he had played well and left the pitch satisfied.

Back home he just had time to have his shower before Ellie arrived. We have had a quiet afternoon, keeping her inside, away from the pollen. Her skin still looks a little angry, and her eyes are still a bit puffy, but she seems comfortable. We seem to have got through a large number of jigsaws, number games, and play dough during the last few hours, but she is watching YouTube Kids on the tablet at the moment.

Hacker collective

 We were up and about early. Urban-Cub dropped Ellie off at 7:20. The poor mite was not looking her usual self. Her eyes were all puffed up and she was clearly under attack from hay fever. Once we had given her breakfast we gave her some anti-histamine and she began to perk up. Ellie and the Gorse Fox sat on the floor and did some jigsaws until it was time for pre-school. She was determined to go to Dizzy Ducklings, despite the attack.

Once back home we had a quiet morning. The Silver Vixen was working on a pattern for a blouse and the Gorse Fox was back in the boughs of the family tree. As far as he was concerned it was not the most successful of mornings. He found various records that corroborated what he already knew (and had other records for), but could find nothing that shed light on some of the other names in his tree, where has less information. Most frustrating.

We collected Ellie from DD and then had some time in the garden playing with various blocks and puzzles.

Urban-Cub had managed to schedule a face to face appointment with the doctor, for Ellie. She came and collected her and whisked her round to the surgery. By the time she got back, clutching the medication that had be prescribed, the Gorse Fox had Ellie's dinner ready. Urban-Cub went back to work for an hour and left Ellie to her dinner.

Whilst the Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen had their supper, Ellie disappeared upstairs. After a while, we realised that everything was ominously quiet. The Gorse Fox headed up, only to be greeted by Ellie, emerging from his study "Grandpa, how do I get to the numbers on your computer?" The Gorse Fox went in. The iMac, Condor, was sitting at the login screen and she had clearly tried to enter random letters to hack her way into the machine. The Gorse Fox was so proud. He entered the magic code, closed down everything else, and started a fullscreen notepad for her to type to her heart's content. 

All Hands

 Apparently, Cousteau-Cub read this blog every morning, when she first wakes up. So, "Good morning. Have a wonderful day".

We had a very pleasant and very lazy start to the day. There was nothing on the agenda other than early morning coffee and some breakfast. The digital news was consumed, and the toxic wasteland that is "Twitter" was examined to see what everyone was up in arms about today. The Gorse Fox has learnt over the years that whatever may be the current "cause celebre" it is almost certainly a vitriolic exaggeration of some minor rumour or leak.

The Gorse Fox returned to the family tree. He started by renewing his subscription to "Find My Roots". There is a huge overlap with the data in Ancestry, but their coverage of the records of the Diocese of Westminster is much more complete (even if it is in Latin). The Gorse Fox returned to the family "Collison". One Jessie ~Collison was causing consternation. The Gorse Fox had made notes about her, but couldn't find the supporting documents. Sure enough, they were on Find My Roots; in fact, it showed the Gorse Fox had actually accessed the record before - but obviously didn't take a copy. It turns out that though she was recorded as the daughter of Edward and Mary Ann Collison, she was in fact their God-daughter. Her baptismal record quite clearly identifies the mother as Emma Prentice, and Edward and Mary Ann as the Godparents. Mystery (partly) solved. Though the Gorse Fox knows her actual birth date, he cannot find the official reference in the General Register... that can wait.

Urban-Cub dropped Ellie off for a couple of hours this afternoon. She had an "all hands" meeting at the store. Ellie was in a real strop at first, but gradually calmed down. Urban-Cub has just been in to collect her.

Delete

 Ellie was awake before 6:30, but stayed in bed chatting to her dolls. On the dot of 6:30 she came in to us to ask if she could watch YouTube Kids on the Gorse Fox's iPad. He fired it up and she trotted back to her room until well after 7:00.

It was another lovely day. Urban-Cub came round to collect Ellie and arrange to got shopping with the Silver Vixen. The Gorse Fox declined the offer. He did, however, have his customary Zoom call with the cousins.

Returning to the family tree the Gorse Fox noticed an inconsistency in the data regarding his 3rd great grandfather. He started to strip away at the data. In the end he concluded he had the wrong person. Thompson Collison had to be removed. The knock on effect of this, however, was that his wife had to go, and so did most of the siblings of his 2nd great-grandfather. He doesn't like errors in the tree and the one record that he could trust was the key to this purge. The Gorse Fox suspects he may have to return to this at a later date, and resubscribe to a different research site which has better Catholic records.

The other research that he did today was regarding his great grandfather. He had served in the British Army in the late 1870s and through the 1880s. Going back through his army records, the Gorse Fox was able to pick apart the various campaigns in which he played a part, and read up on the battle at Ahmed Khell and the action against the Marri in Baluchistan. He was subsequently transferred to South Africa at the start of Boer War, but it isn't clear if he arrived in time to participate in the two main battles in the Transvaal.

Bright, sunny, and fertile

 It has been another lovely bright, sunny day. Again there was a cool breeze, but though it meant a jacket was needed first thing, it was soon warm enough to wander about in shirtsleeves. As usual, the Gorse Fox popped round the corner to escort Ellie to school, with Urban-Cub. Ellie was, apparently, in a stroppy mood, but whilst not chirpy, she didn't seem too troublesome.

The Gorse Fox spent much of the morning working on the family tree. Again, he is working through the draft of the "Law" book he produced last week. This is fairly straightforward, if a little tedious. However you suddenly come to something that makes you sit up. 

One Mary Ann Law married a Mr Webb. They then proceeded to shell out at least 19 children (there may be more, but that is as far at the Gorse Fox has got). He was so bemused by this that he went back to official Government GRO Index. He search for any Webb child born in the relevant Registration District, whose mother's maiden name was Law. As he moved through the index in 5 year slots, the children just keep appearing. With numbers like this, the warning bells ring. Was there another Webb in the area? Well, yes. Was there a Webb who had married a Law living in the the area. No. He checked Marriage records. He checked census records. All of the sensible cross-checks came up negative. The Gorse Fox can only conclude that she was immensely fertile! (You may wonder whether the children survived the first few years - well, yes that did. Again he checked the GRO index. Every one of them survived into the 1900s).

Ellie is with us overnight tonight as Urban-Cub has to run the store through to close.

Filling

 It was another lovely day, but the clear blue sky and bright sunshine were deceptive. A chilly breeze was blowing and came as quite a surprise as we walked Ellie round to Dizzy Ducklings. (Urban-Cub had dropped her off with us at 7:30).

The Silver Vixen had an appointment this morning, so the Gorse Fox took care of the Ocado delivery and waited around for an Amazon delivery. Big Carl and his mate, Pete, came round to clean all the soffits and bargeboards and to clean the Orangery roof. By late morning the Silver Vixen was back, so the Gorse Fox left her in charge (as if she wasn't't, anyway) and headed off for the top-up shop. He was later than usual and his trip had obviously coincided with the local undertakers dropping off their zombies for their shopping. The idea of doing a quick shop soon evaporated as the Gorse Fox got trapped behind them as they shuffled up and down the aisles greeting each other time and time again, having forgotten they met in the previous aisle (and probably a previous life). The smell of formaldehyde was quite pervasive, and the in-store pharmacist threw up his hands and ran away to hide.

Back home, we again got a call to collect Ellie early. Her hay-fever was really troubling her. Fortunately, Urban-Cub had a good telephone consultation with the GP and had a prescription waiting. The Gorse Fox collected it ao that we could get her started. As these were eye-drops, it was not quite so easy. She was fine for the first drop in the first eye.... but that was that. She was not going to have the second eye done.

The Gorse Fox cooked some lovely thick pork chops for tea. They were delicious, but lethal. The Gorse Fox managed to lose a large filling (or half a tooth) as he relished the treat. Now he just has to hope it doesn't give any trouble before he can get it fixed.

Normal Service

 It's Wednesday. The weather is gorgeous, and it's bout 16C. That's not bad for April, particularly when you seen pictures from the US where they are still getting snow storms.

The Gorse Fox was up, washed, dressed, and making the coffee before Ellie woke. She had woken just after we went to bed, having fallen out of bed. The Gorse Fox suspects it shocked her a bit, but she went straight back down without a fuss. 

We walked Ellie to DD, then the Silver Vixen prepared for her Zoom Pilates, and the Gorse Fox headed off to Worthing for football. Again, we played 3 thirty minute games. With fitness levels as they are, this is  not yet easy, though the Gorse Fox can still manage to put on a spurt of speed when needed. Not really sure what the scores were today, but think we lost 2-1, 2-1 and the drew 1-1. Normal service had been resumed. The Gorse Fox played a lot better than yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

We got a call at lunchtime. Ellie wasn't well. We went round and collected her from Dizzy Ducklings. She has developed hay-fever, and was clearly suffering today. It didn't help that the Council had been out on the mowers trimming all the verges and cutting the field and play areas all around the area. We brought he home and she had a very quiet afternoon.

Win

 It was a gorgeous day. Not a cloud dared show itself to sully the deep blue of the sky.

The Gorse Fox wandered round to meet Urban-Cub and walk Ellie to Dizzy Ducklings. She was beside herself with excitement to be back and see her friends. 

As soon at the Gorse Fox got home he did a quick change and headed off to Worthing for football. The team choice was little lop-sided, but for once, it was in the Gorse Fox's favour. He was playing on a team with 4 recognised attackers and found that marshalling the back was a relatively easy job. The Gorse Fox didn't feel that he played particularly well, but we managed a 4-0 win in the first game and a 6-0 win in the second. In the second game, the Gorse Fox actually played in goal for half the match. On the pitch behind us a coterie of yummy mummies were having a yoga session. As the session wound down and it was time for them to relax, the music was changed to "New Age" sounds and the leader of the session led them through the relaxation and wind down. During a break in the football the Gorse Fox pointed out that she was lulling him to sleep.

Back home, we had a quiet lunch and then went to collect Ellie from Dizzy Ducklings. By now, we had seen the list of children from DD that would be going to Bartons in September. There were quite a few and fortunately that included most of Ellie's friends. 

As we wandered back, with Bonnie, and her mum and sister we made our way into the field and the girls played on the carved tractor while we stood and chatted.

The rest of the afternoon has been the usual mix of playing (this included a pretend picnic in the lounge), dinner, and then the wind down to bed. As the Gorse Fox writes this, Ellie is in bed watching 10 (timed) minutes of YouTube for kids, and then that'll be it.

Super League

 Today saw the announcement that 6 of the country's biggest football clubs were breaking away to form a European Super League with teams from Spain and Italy. This got the Gorse Fox thinking. He ran through the various options and decided that we should put it to the club: "Should Arun Amblers apply to join the European Super League?"

Response from the team has been somewhat muted. He suspect the players are pondering the threat that they can no longer be called up for the national team, nor play in the World Cup.

Beyond the Law

 It's been a lovely day. The sun has brightened an uninterrupted blue sky. The Silver Vixen had plans and went off to LA to join up with a friend for a stroll and some coffee. The Gorse Fox knows well enough, that this would mean she would not reappear until dinner time!

The Gorse Fox squirrelled himself away in the study. It didn't start very well. The new laptop, merlin, would not start. The Gorse Fox phoned Dell. When he got through to a technician, quoted the serial number, and explained the problem the laptop burst back into life. No intervention was required. That was a relief.

Back at the code face, he is concentrating on a book of Laws (his mother's maternal family). At the moment this stretches back to the mid 1600s and an early draft of the book runs to over 300 pages. Today he has been working through the defat, page by page. As he goes, he rechecks the data and gathers more if he can. He also adapts the database so that when next compiled, the book will self-heal. The first draft covered some 360 individuals, but today's research has probably added another 20. This could be a long exercise as, so far, he has only got to page 65.

Binary split

 It's been a lovely day. The weather has been dry and bright, and after a leisurely start we have managed to drifty off into our individual hobbies. The Silver Vixen popped round to se Urban-Cub regarding some makeup, then returned to her sewing. The Gorse Fox continued to climb the various branches of the family tree.

It was interesting that the Gorse Fox was talking, yesterday, to one (Empson) cousin about another cousin from a different (O'Hara) branch of the family. This morning she popped up on his Facebook timeline, we made contact, and we exchanged messages for the first time since 1996. This drove the Gorse Fox to a different branch of his research and a different "book". He generated the initial rough cut, based on his research so far. Then he started to work through the book to see where there were inconsistencies, anomalies, or unsupported facts. That was most of the rest of the day gone as he rechecked data, found additional data, and delved further into the records.

Delving into old records was where the Gorse Fox used his computing know how and employed a binary split. He was looking for a record from a a microfilm. The microfilm ran to over 1000 images. He started by looking at image 500. That was clearly much too early for the data he sought. He then moved to image 700 (ok, it should have been 750 - but who cares). That was almost a direct hit. He backed up by one page and there was the data he was seeking. How lucky can you get?

The Gorse Fox has had a beef joint resting overnight in a dry rub. At lunchtime it went into the oven at 120C for 2 hours, then up to 140C for 30 Minutes, and finally up to 180C for a final 30 minutes before being taken out to rest. It was gorgeously succulent and a great success. Considering the joint was only £2, it was wonderful vale for money and Urban-Cub and Ellie cam round for dinner to enjoy it with us.

Nada

Some days are really successful. Then, of course, that has to be balanced out.

The Gorse Fox had his weekly call with the cousins, which, as ever, was fun. Then that was followed by a long "Signal" chat with Chris, the eldest of the cousins. It turns out that he is an equal opportunity hater; disliking most of the major countries and their citizens. He told the Gorse Fox that his children accused him of being racist, but his defence was that he hated everyone equally. For someone that was born in the UK, lived in Malta, served in the Royal Navy, and has lived in Switzerland and Israel before retiring to Turkey - that seems strange.

The rest of the day was fairly frustrating. The Gorse Fox has been trying to track down information regarding is grandmother's sister's descendants. For most, it is not a problem.  But there is one nice Patricia Edith that is causing consternation. In the end the Gorse Fox has written to distant cousins in the UK and the US to see if they can shed light on the situation.

The Gorse Fox could get his usual Tadka Dahl from Ocado this week. As a result he has cooked his own. It turned out to be very tasty, but not as spicy as he would have liked. Fortunately, there was enough left for two more meals. He will have to remember to add some more chillies.

The other the Gorse Fox did, while preparing dinner, was to create a dry ru for the beef joint that we have planned for tomorrow. The joint is now suitable smeared in the dry run and nestles in the bottom of the fridge unit the Gorse Fox retrieves it for a long low and slow cook tomorrow.  

Well that was confusing

 You would thought that with a name like Sarah Ann Gould Bolt, it would be easy to find the various relevant genealogical information. Oh no. There were two Sarah Ann Gould Bolts and they lived in the same area. In fact they were cousins. It took the Gorse Fox most of the day to unpick the various records and work out which record belonged to which Sarah. Most confusing, but now the Gorse Fox is happy that he has it right.

Talking of genealogical research, he sent a message to clarify something. Within half and hour, he got a phone call from one of the Silver Vixen’s aunts. It was nice to talk with her and get just a few more morsels of info.

Light headed

 It has been a fairly ordinary day. No Hollywood stars came to visit, no politicians phoned for advice, and there was no call from Daniel Levy for the Gorse Fox to go a shore up the defence at Spurs. Instead, we had the delivery from Ocado, the bins were emptied, and life pottered on.

the Silver Vixen had arranged to go an help Urban-Cub sort out all of the boxes in her garage. The Gorse Fox, in the meantime, had to finish the weekly shopping at Lidl and Sainsbury's. The, on the way back, he stopped to see if there was much of a queue at the barbers' shop. There was. He went home dragging his locks with him. He put the shopping away and did the accounts, then set off on foot back to barbers'.

There was only one person waiting when he arrived, and one of the barbers was cleaning down and sanitising his work station. The Gorse Fox was called, the other guy was waiting for one of the other customers to finish, not a haircut. The Gorse Fox settled down. Slowly the operative hacked his way through the long, flowing locks. He trimmed the beard. He wrapped the Gorse Fox in hot towels and directed a flow of steam in his face. Finally he gave a facial massage. It was wonderful. The Gorse Fox is now feeling quite light-headed (and very cold around the neck).

Back home, the Gorse Fox had to wait for an Amazon delivery, but once that had arrived he wandered around to meet up with Silver Vixen and Urban-Cub. He was set the task of constructing Ellie's garden swing. He thought this would be fairly easy and fairly quick. Oh no, not on your nelly. It was a bit of a nightmare to put back together - not helped by Ellie asking if it was ready every 30 seconds, and her insistence on playing with the bits and pieces that the Gorse Fox needed. Never mind. In the end it was complete and secured to the ground with special pegs.

Hat trick

 It was a lovely morning for football. We had 3 thirty minute matches scheduled and shuffled the personnel between games. In the first two games the Gorse Fox was playing in yellow and we managed 1-1 drowse in both games. In the last game he was playing orange. We won this 4-3... despite the Gorse Fox who managed to get his foot to all three of the goals we conceded, claiming a hat trick of own goals! He did also score a cracking goal at the correct end, rifling the ball from just inside the halfway line. The problem was that the ref, tripping over his white stick, was disorientated and claimed the ball had followed a trajectory that took it above the height of the cross-bar, before dropping into the goal. The Gorse Fox and his team disputed this, pointing that was not possible as the ball was still rising as it clattered into the net. The goal did not count, The Gorse Fox was not amused.

We popped round to see Urban-Cub this afternoon. She had a couple of window troughs to mount, so the Gorse Fox decided it was safer and quicker for him to do it than allow her to try. 

That done, the Gorse Fox returned to Condor. He started by looking at the various systems and services that start when the machine boots. He would, by a process of elimination, try to determine which one was causing the problem. 

• Sophos was disabled - no effect. 
• Network drives were scanned for errors - no errors.
• Google Backup/Sync was disable - no effect
• GoodSync was disabled - no effect
• OneDrive was disabled - voila!!!! Things started to work again

Now the Gorse Fox isn't sure if everything is back to normal, but the few tests he has run so far seem to run successfully and lay the blame squarely on Microsoft OneDrive (a clear can of sabotage). The Gorse Fox will see how things progress over the next few days. He is hopeful.

Things that make you go hmmmmm

 It's Tuesday... that means, for the Gorse Fox, it's football and for the Silver Vixen its an appointment with the hairdresser. Much excitement all round.

The Gorse Fox set off for Worthing. As he arrived at the level crossing a message flashed on his watch. His delivery from Dell would be delivered at 10:45. That was a shame. Nobody would be home. The Silver Vixen would have left for her appointment by then. Now, the package was only a mouse, but he wasn't happy to have them leave it out. As soon as he got to Worthing he logged onto the DHL website and changed the instructions to "Leave with neighbour". Now he could relax.

Football was good fun. The Gorse Fox lost 2-1 and 2-1, then won 4-2 (with 2 assists). It was only in that last game that our forwards started to use the midfield to cycle the ball to people in better positions. It made all the difference as the Gorse Fox had moved upfield and taken on the midfield role. We had also ditched the 3 touch rule and were able to play some more flowing football,

Back home, he showered then went to collect his package from Tinkerbell before popping round to see Urban-Cub and his little sister who was visiting with TDP. He said his hellos, then left them to it while he headed off to catch up with TDP and Ellie who had gone to play in the park. It was so nice to see family again after so long.

After a bite to eat, and after his sister and TDP had left, the Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen returned to Urban-Cub's. The Gorse Fox was there to help get the security system set up - though, frankly, Urban-Cub had done it all herself. We did fail to get the doorbell camera working, but concluded we had ordered the wrong one. It wasn't compatible with the base station that controlled all the rest of the security system. Replacement is on order.

The Gorse Fox finally got back and was able to start on a rebuild of Condor. This took an hour or so and seemed be fairly painless. Well, painless until the Gorse Fox tried one of the processes that had been failing. It still failed. He rebooted the system in "Safe" mode. The problem went away. He rebooted the full system. The problem returned.

He is flummoxed. 

He suspects the next action will be to run diagnostics on each of the network disks and then detach them one-by-one to see if it is related to that setup. That, however, can wait until tomorrow.

Still sulking

 The Gorse Fox's iMac is still sulking. He has had to reboot it several times today, and there are various common tasks that fail every time, now. He fears that he may need to plan a complete rebuild in order to keep it going until he replaces it later this year. Fortunately, the MacBook is behaving impeccably and can be used as a an interim solution.

The Silver Vixen had her second jab today. The Gorse Fox went along with her, on the off-chance that he might be done also. No such luck. Though there were spare doses, the chap in charge said that because it was under 9 weeks since our first jab, he would be questioned as to why he gave me an unscheduled dose. The Gorse Fox will just have to wait for his call-up. (There was no problem for the Silver Vixen, as she had had a formal invitation).

No fresh family tree research today because the amount of time spent nursing Condor.

Sulking

 The Gorse Fox's iMac "Condor" is sulking because of the new laptop. As a result it seems to have become fairly unstable today and the Gorse Fox has had to intervene and reboot it several times. Top add insult to apparent injury he has been unable to restore a backup taken on "Merlin" to Family Tree Maker on "Condor". This should work, and certainly works in the opposite direction. In its own right, this has caused consternation and frustration. It has wasted most of the day with very little to show for it.

One thing the Gorse Fox was able to do was to create a book of the Silver Vixen's ancestors. This, hopefully, will trigger some more memories and provide some additional stories and and some corrections.

Now, back to the debugging.

And Smile

 The Gorse Fox received his new laptop at tea-time yesterday. Despite specifically asking for McAfee not to be installed, the Gorse Fox had to remove it as he went through the set up. Merlin, as it's now called, certainly seems eager to please. Today, it has generated the "the Empson book" in under 3 minutes and, trying another complete book stretching back over 90 families, it finished about 300 pages without a murmur in about 5 minutes. Osprey couldn't even generate the second book. Osprey had to break it into 5 volumes!

Much of today (after the regular cousins' zoom call) has been spent re-acquainting the Gorse Fox with the incantations, frustrations,  and chants required to run Windows. Alongside this, he has been filling in more blanks in the family tree.

Talking of cousins, the Gorse Fox got a message from a cousin, Austin,  that he doesn't think he has seen since the early 1960s. He too is researching his side of the tree. The Gorse Fox has sent him the 300 page summary of his own research into that part of the family (what a good job he compiled it this morning as an experiment). Hopefully, he will find it useful, and may be able to fill in some of the more recent details.

Logic

 The Gorse Fox is looking at the records to find further details of his 10-time-Gt Grandmother. He has found very little and where others have found some data, they have not cited their sources. The Gorse Fox doesn't trust data without sources... particularly when they "claim" that she died in 1613 and the record, which they do reference< specifically refers to her as "The Window Margaret Gifford". The reason this is not to be trusted is that her husband is documented as dying in 1614. 

Time Travel

 The Gorse Fox decided to look into the order in more detail. He now understands that there are two components. The laptop (delivery by Dell) and the mouse (delivery by Syncreon).

The mystery doesn’t end there. He was astonished, if a little impressed by the Dell manufacturing...

1. Order received 8-Apr
2. Order confirmed 8-Apr
3. Order in Production 8-Apr
4. Order Shipped 7-Apr

He re-read the information twice. Indeed the laptop seems to have been shipped the day before he had ordered it. He wonders if this is a result of the 5G chip that was clearly implanted in his arm when he got the Covid-19 vaccine.

No Idea

 The Gorse Fox has no idea what is going on. 

• Yesterday, he received a message from Dell that his machine will be delivered by DHL
• Yesterday, DHL said they would deliver on Monday.
• This morning, he received a message that it had left the manufacturing facility and to track it he should look at the Syncreon website. 
• He looked at the Syncreon website and they said ETA was Tuesday.
• Ten minutes later he received an email from DHL saying they plan to deliver late afternoon today.

The Gorse Fox has no idea what’s going on... but looks forward to seeing what arrives, and when. (Tuesday, incidentally, would mean the Gorse Fox having to cancel football. He’s not amused by that prospect).

Radio Silence

 The Gorse Fox was twitchy. It seemed strange that, with a new laptop expected tomorrow, he had heard nothing. He kept checking the Dell website, but there was no sign of his order. (There was a warning that it could take 48 hours before it showed up on the account). He was twitchy. It was a case of complete radio silence from Dell.

An idea popped into his head. He would check his credit card. It said "Current Balance 0.00"; that's not what he expected. In the end the Gorse Fox phoned Dell. The chappie at the other end tried to find the order based on post code - nada; based on email address - nothing; based on name - nothing; based on mobile phone number - nothing. The only conclusion was that the order was never placed successfully. Frustrated, the Gorse Fox went back through the process and re-ordered. This time, he immediately got email confirmation, and the order appears on their system. The only outstanding problem is that it doesn't arrive until Monday.

The rest of the day has been fairly typical for Thursday... Ocado delivery, followed by top-up trip to the local supermarkets. Nothing too taxing or too exciting.

The Gorse Fox did pop round to Urban-Cub this afternoon. She had some pictures she wanted hung. They turned out to be a bit fiddly as they had no fixings and no obvious means of hanging. The Gorse Fox extemporised and we soon had everything sorted.

Clunk

 The Gorse Fox had planned to give his little Fiesta a run and take it to football today. He went out to the garage and tried to fire it up. Nothing but a clunk. Clearly the battery was dead - but then it’s been sitting there, unused, since before Christmas. The Gorse Fox should not be surprised. Time being short, he returned to the Silver Vixen’s Skoda and took that.

Arriving at the leisure centre the Gorse Fox went to the desk to query why his app wouldn’t allow him to book. It turned out that his membership expired last week. He renewed, there and then, but pointed out that a) there was no warning that his membership was due; and b) there was no way to renew it through the app. This is what is called a UX-fail (user experience failure).

Football was hard work today. It was bitterly cold, with a biting wind. The Gorse Fox played three games back-to-back. So after 90 minutes he managed to leave the pitch having failed to win a single game, and only managing one shot that brushed the post. Oh well, better luck next week. He was quite pleased with the way he played and the number of interceptions and tackles he completed, but the teams were just too lop-sided.

Back home, with a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich tucked away, the Gorse Fox went and plugged the battery charger into the car. An hour later it fired up without a problem. He took it out for a quick run round the load all area and up to Chichester and back. Hopefully, that will have given the alternator time enough to drop some charge into the battery.

Finally, the Gorse Fox has decided that the new laptop (due on Friday) will be known as “Merlin” on our network. A merlin is another bird of prey (as well as wizard)... and all of the systems in the house are named after birds of prey.

Oops

 Urban-Cub dropped Ellie off soon after 7:00. Her original palns for the week, which involved a friend and her daughter coming to stay, went awry when they both came down with colds. As a result, some last minute changes were needed.

the Silver Vixen and Gorse Fox have spent the day playing with Ellie, who has been very good. There has been a session with dolls, a session with old Fisher-Price characters, a session with Paw Patrol, a session with Play-Dough, and the continual backdrop of episodes of Paw Patrol from the TV.  We have just taken her home in time fro Urban-Cub to arrive back from Chichester.

In other news, the Gorse Fox couldn't pre-book next week's football session as it says his account isn't active. There is no way to get assistance. Phone calls to the support number are answered with "Sorry we're not here", the App has no useful links nor menu items, and places are getting booked up quickly. The Gorse Fox is most frustrated. Fortunately, he is due there tomorrow, so will hopefully be able to speak with someone.

On other matters, the Gorse Fox got a replay from CrossOver. They basically said, sorry, but no can do. It appears that they have been trying on and off for years to get Family Tree Maker to work under their regime, but they are getting no support from the authors. This was a shame. It has meant the the Gorse Fox has accidentally had to order another laptop. This time he has selected a Dell (as they have a sale on at present and it has saved hime a couple of hundred quid). Hopefully, it should arrive on Friday.

Squat

 We were up early. Urban-Cub dropped Ellie in to us, then went on to work. Today was her first day in the store at Chichester. This means that she is going into a period of more intensive training, but she is really looking forward to it.

Elli was with us for a couple of hours until her old child-minder, Andrea, and her daughter Lilly, came across to collect Ellie and spend the day with her. This left the Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen to their own devices for the rest of the day.

The Silver Vixen got on with one of her sewing projects, and the Gorse Fox returned to the Family Tree and his book production.

For the Gorse Fox, the first priority was sorting out a photo. This photo has been troubling him At first it wouldn't print, then, the it finally printed the aspect ratio was all wrong, making the people look short a fat. It took a bit of tracking down, but the Gorse Fox finally found an optional setting which needed to be disabled. Once done, the photo printed perfectly.

Talking of photos, he raided his library and found several more photos relevant to the book that is under production. These too, were added.

It then occurred to the Gorse Fox that some software called "CrossOver" may allow him to run the Windows version of Family Tree Maker and Family Book Creator on his iMac. He installed a trial version then started to install the FTM software. What was noticeable was how quick it was, compared with Windows. What was also noticeable was that the installation failed. The Gorse Fox packaged up the logs and sent them to the authors of Cross Over to see if there is any hope for a solution. He suspects not.

During the afternoon, while trying to resolve place names in the software, the Gorse Fox has been poring over maps from the 1870's trying to locate roads that no longer exist and then trying to estimate their GPS coordinates against today's maps. It's been great fun.

Left jab

 The Gorse Fox may have mentioned that the Silver Vixen was invited for her second vaccination, but though she has been trying every day this last week, there were no slots available. This morning a bunch of new slots opened up and she is now booked in for Monday-week. Now, we just have to wait to see when the Gorse Fox will be invited (and given that he is older than she is, he wonders why he hasn't heard anything).

Much of the morning was spent on the family tree, again. The Gorse Fox has received some new info and pictures from some of the cousins and this needed to be added to the database. Then a quick sample print, and voila... a problem. It seems that one of the photos will not print. A caption is created, but the photo isn't displayed. After a huge amount of fiddling about, the Gorse Fox has now managed to get the photo to print, but only as a rotated image... making it look as if Rolly and Helen are lying down as he holds up his Emmy. Not quite the required result. Further investigation is required.

The Silver Vixen has spent much of the day with Urban-Cub helping her sort out her garden. The Gorse Fox popped across to help by fixing her hose cassette to the wall. He's going back later for dinner.

Books and Leaves

 The Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen have had a very quiet and relaxing day.

For the Gorse Fox, the fist order of the day (after the obvious coffee) was a call with the cousins. One of the topics this week was an imaginary dinner party. The Gorse Fox had decided that of the 6 gusts he could invite, Sandi Toksvig, Gyles Brandreth, and Richard Feynman would be on the list. (Clearly, being an imaginary dinner party, it made no difference whether they were still actually alive). What surprised the Gorse Fox was that Sandi Toksvig only registered as a presenter on the kids' TV show "No 73", until he pointed out that she hosted QI. He also found an immediate push-back on Gyles Brandreth, until he pointed out that Gyles had an anecdote for everything and that there would never be a break in the conversation. Most worryingly, however, is that not one of the cousins had even heard of Richard Feynman. Do we really have the same DNA?

The rest of the day has been spent working with the family tree and the the Family Book Creator. The essence has not been about finishing any particular book, but rather on experimenting with different techniques to see if better results could be achieved by playing with different options.

Snot

 Urban-Cub dropped Ellie off with us just after 7:00 (forgetting that, as it's Good Friday, the roads would be empty). Ellie had only just woken up, so was very quiet to start with. Her cold is in full swing, and if snot was a saleable commodity we would be quids in!

All of the day was spent with one or other, or sometimes both, of us keeping Ellie amused and keeping her nose visible beneath the ever flowing gunk.

There really is nothing else to report. Urban-Cub collected Ellie around 18:30 and took her across to Pistol Pete for the weekend.

On duty

 The Gorse Fox popped round to Urban-Cub as soon as he was up and dressed. Ellie had insisted that Grandpa should come and get her so that mummy could get off to work on time. That would probably have worked a lost better had Urban-Cub not missed her alarm!

We took Ellie to Dizzy Ducklings, the returned to the normal Thursday tasks of sorting the Ocado shopping delivery and then heading out for the top-up from Lidl and Sainsbury’s. Almost as soon as we were back we had to collect Ellie. It had been arranged that she would finish early today.

Ellie was absolutely full of cold and we had a very quiet afternoon as she just wanted to watch TV and sleep. 

We took Ellie home after dinner and waited for Urban-Cub to finish work. 

All in all, a very quiet day

Asking for it

 Despite her cold, Ellie slept well. She woke briefly at 6:15 then after some attention from the Silver Vixen, she went back off to sleep for another hour. The decision had already been made, that she wouldn't be going to Dizzy Ducklings, but it was clear that she wasn't really up to it. We got her up and about and before long Urban-Cub arrived to take charge. She had a rest day, so she would have Ellie with her for the day.

The door closed. The Silver Vixen finished preparing for Zoom Pilates, and the Gorse Fox drove across to Worthing for today's football. He felt fine, after yesterday, but realised as soon as he started to warm up, that the muscles (so abused after a long lay-off) were not going to cooperate without some degree of complaint. 

Warm-up complete, we had the first game. It was clear that we were under the cosh, at the back. The first game finished 2-1; but not in our favour. The Gorse Fox almost scored a carbon copy of yesterday's goal, but today's keeper just got a hand to it and pushed it round the post. At the end of the game we had a 30 minute break before our next match. This was played at a much slower pace. People were, clearly, tiring. The Gorse Fox thinks the final score was 1-0 to his team, but to be honest he can't remember.

This afternoon, the muscles are tightening up and it is clear that the Gorse Fox was asking for it, playing two days in a row after such long layoff.

It's all in the timing

Ellie had a wonderful party yesterday, but this morning she woke up full of cold. She is a veritable snot-machine. The Gorse Fox went round to meet them and walk with them to Dizzy Ducklings. Though clearly unwell, she insisted that she wanted to go.

Back home the Gorse Fox did a quick change and headed out to Worthing. Football restarted today. The Gorse Fox was one of the 14 players booked in for today's game. (He only booked for the first hour, the second hour - pure running football - will have to wait a few weeks). The teams were evenly balanced and the new chap in charge of the football was playing on the Gorse Fox's team. It was a good start to playing again. The Gorse Fox managed to score a good goal and hit the post twice. We played three games, drawing the first two, 2-2 and 1-1, and then losing 1-0 in the final game.

The Gorse Fox was delighted with how things had gone. He had played well and wasn't too tired at the end. Time will tell if he stiffens up overnight. There's another game scheduled for tomorrow morning.

We had a message, Ellie was fading fast and we go and collect her. We whizzed around to pre-school and collected her. Her cold was in full flood. 

We brought her home and spent a quiet afternoon with her. Fortunately, we had a few more Birthday presents for her to unwrap and that occupied her for a while. Then, with a new doll and cot to play with, she spent the afternoon mothering the new addition to her family.

Four!

 It's a big day, today. Today, Ellie reaches the grand old age of four. We're not expecting a telegram from Her Majesty, but with the timely releasing of some lockdown conditions today, there is a little party planned.

Urban-Cub has gone to town, so to speak. She has arranged for a company to set up a soft-play zone in her garden.

This to wait until after Dizzy Ducklings, though.

Urban-Cub and the Gorse Fox escorted the Birthday Girl (wearing her party dress) to pre-school. Then left them to it.

The Silver Vixen spent the morning with Urban-Cub making sure everything was set and ready for the mayhem that would ensue.

At lunchtime, the Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen went round to Dizzy Ducklings to collect a little band of children and escort them all back to the party. It was like herding cats. Some ran ahead, some dragged behind, one fell over and needed comforting. Somehow, we all made it back safely, and without mislaying any children.

As soon as they say the bouncy castle and soft play area, they were gone. Charging about, up the slide, down the slide, bouncing on the "stage", and wallowing in the ball pit. it was a huge success and all of the kids played nicely and enjoyed themselves. There were no tantrums, no tears, no shouting; just good cheerful, happy children.

Urban-Cub has set a precedent. How she will top this next year will be interesting to see.

Leap forward

 Well, the clocks went forward overnight. Despite this, we both had a very good night's sleep and a very gentle start to the day.

Urban-cub dropped by on her way to work. She had two lovely joints of beef for us. They had reached their expiry date and were being sold off at £2 each. Seemed too good of a bargain to pass up. They are nestling in the freezer for future use.

The Gorse Fox returned to his family tree. A few hundred more locations and addresses have been resolved and standardized. Unfortunately, these do not get carried up to Ancestry and back down to the laptop in such a way that it realizes that the locations have been resolved. This is another case where backup/restore is the way forward.

Meanwhile, the Gorse Fox has tried to generate the first cut of a book for his "Law" relatives. Because of the size of the family, he is now in the middle of generating Volume IV... which is the 10th generation. Only a few more to go now.

Addresses

 The day started with the regular weekly call with the Gorse Fox's cousins. As usual, it was a bit of a hoot, though some were experiencing connection problems. The draft of the book that the Gorse Fox had sent has gone down well. He now awaits feedback, photos, and more stories.

In the meantime, his task of rationalising addresses and places in Family Tree Maker continues. There are some 1600 items to check, so it is somewhat time consuming. Worse still, some of the places refer to locations or streets that no longer exist. This means bring to track them down on old maps and then entering the GPS coordinates. The Gorse Fox has been at it all day, but suggests that there are still many hundreds to go.

We had a nice long chat with Tinkerbell on the doorstep this afternoon. The Gorse Fox made his excuses and left the Silver Vixen to it when they got onto the subject of hairdressers and hair colouring.

Plodding On

 As usual, the Gorse Fox popped round to accompany Urban-Cub and Ellie on the walk to school. It was clear that Ellie was in a defiant mood.  This was not going down well with Urban-Cub. After a battle of wills, Ellie finally donned her coat and we were able to head off to Dizzy Ducklings.

Back home, there were accounts to be checked and some domestic chores to tick off before the Gorse Fox could head up to the study. There he returned to the rationalisation of place names in his genealogical database. This is proving to be a very lengthy (and somewhat frustrating) process. It was the focus of the rest of the day until we had to collect Ellie.

Ellie was only with us fo just over an hour before Pistol Pete arrived to collect her for the weekend. Well, he arrived for the first time. We handed over Ellie and her bags. We asked the question "Has she got bunny?" and were assured that bunny was in the suitcase. Pistol Pete and Ellie left.

The Silver Vixen and Gorse Fox went to tidy up. There, under a cushion, was Bunny. Even though we had noticed her remove it from the case, and replaced it in the case, we hadn't noticed that she had removed and hidden it again. We phoned Pistol Pete. By this point he was several miles away, but knew it was more than his sanity was worth to ignore the call. He turned round and came back for Bunny. We handed it over and Ellie sat in the back of the car with a big grin on her face. Somehow, one suspects there was a cunning plan, or sheer devilment. 

Too Cool for School

 A bit grey again today, but it remained dry until early afternoon. Then we had a few showers. 

The Gorse Fox wandered round to Urban-Cub's and met them for the walk to school. Ellie zoomed off on her scooter and, once she had met up with a little friend, Riley, we had real trouble keeping up with her. The Gorse Fox has commented before that on arrival, there is often a little welcoming party for Ellie. Today this had escalated. She is clearly the cool kid in the school because as she hove into view all the kids started chanting in unison "Ellie, Ellie, Ellie". It was almost as if she had scored a goal at Wembley. She went through the door and was immediately consumed by the throng.

It's Thursday, so the shopping was the main item on the morning's agenda. Ocado did their bit, then the Gorse Fox went round to Sainsbury's for the top-up. It was a little worrying that we couldn't get any of the food that Jasper eats. (The fish-based food was available, but he won't eat that). None of the meat-based pouches that he likes were there. Sainsbury's had sent an email to say they were likely to experience difficulties, but this is the first time it has affected us.

Back home, the Silver Vixen was making clothes for Ellie's dolls. With her birthday next week, the Silver Vixen is on a deadline.

The Gorse Fox returned to the "book". Some more text arrived overnight, along with a few photos. These were added into the database and the book was regenerated. There was more editing to do, and further rationalisation of the place names. Now, at the end of the day, the Gorse Fox has just started to generate the next draft.

And the beat goes on

 It has been a pleasant, if slightly cool, day. Ellie was a bit defiant when it came to going to school. She demanded that we go by car. The Gorse Fox was having none of it. In the end she went in the buggy (but only if the Silver Vixen pushed her). Clearly, grandpa was not flavour of the month. The whinging continued until we were halfway there. Then we heard "Ellie!, Ellie!" called from an intersection. Fifty metres up the path was Bonnie. Bonnie is he friend. They ran to greet each other, hugged, and the World was, once again, in equilibrium.

The day was spent working through the "book". It's pretty much done, in terms of content, but there's a lot of tidying up that needs to happen. For example, there must have been a dozen variations of "Dover" that need to be rationalised. There was "Dover, Kent", "Dover Harbour", Dove St Mary the Virgin", "Dover Charlton" and many others. These needed to be standardised, and what was true of Dover was true of many of the places cited in the text. This isn't a feature of the Gorse Fox being inconsistent, he should add. It is caused by all of the different ways in which locations are identified in source documents.

The Gorse Fox did contact several of the cousins for a bit more information. Hopefully, that will turn up overnight. One cousin, it turns out, lived in Hoddesdon for a couple of years during the 1970s. He was there, in the next estate, to where the Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen lived. Even walking slowly, it would only have taken 15 minutes to get there - had we known!

We collected Ellie from school and she stayed with us for the afternoon. After we had given her dinner, and had our own, we cleared away and then walked Ellie round to their house. As Urban-Cub wasn't scheduled to finish until 19:00, it was easier to get Ellie settled in her own home, rather than have to uproot her once Urban-Cub got back from work.

Awake

 By 3:30 this morning the Gorse Fox was wide awake. He was determined to lie still and go back to sleep. Hi brain disagreed. His brain had started reflecting on the development of the book. When he tired of that it started to analyse the (ridiculous) Council Tax banding that Urban-Cub had just received. Then, when his brain started to switch off. his hip and his knee started to ache. Sleep was clearly going to evade him.

Once up and about he popped round to Urban-Cub's to meet them and walk with them to Ellie's school. It was a pleasant stroll in the cool (but dry) Spring morning.

Much of the morning was spent doing administrative chores, but once completed, the Gorse Fox returned to the nascent book. He listened to the oral history, recorded by Poopdeck Pappy. It was riveting, hearing how it was in the gun turret of a Naval cruiser during a battle. How he worked the cordite supply for the guns, clearing one charge every six seconds, and how they were temporarily disabled by shell from the Graf Spee. All of this filled in more details and enabled the Gorse Fox to construct more of a narrative for him. 

The afternoon saw more of a concentration on his children. Fortunately, one had a presentation available. This had been prepared for his local Rotary branch in Australia. This made it a little easier to construct his narrative. Now thug just has to get to grips with his 6 siblings. By now, the book has reached 140 pages, and the Gorse Fox hasn't started to edit it or elaborate further. He's hoping to have a draft for the weekend.

In other news, South Downs Leisure is restarting our football sessions next week. The Gorse Fox has managed to book an hour on Tuesday and ninety minutes on Wednesday. He suspects he will be as stiff as a board by Wednesday afternoon.

Oral History

 The day started well. By that, the Gorse Fox means that both he and the Silver Vixen were awake and about before Ellie stirred. We got her going and, quite clearly, the full night's sleep had done her good. She was in a lovely cheerful mood and everything went very smoothly.

Once back from taking her to Dizzy Ducklings, the Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen got on with their plans for the day.  The Gorse Fox returned o the Empson book and has now managed to get down to the generation equivalent to his own parents. Bit by bit he was able to add more flesh to the bones (so to speak) and get more of an idea of the history of the family. The last thing he managed to find (before having to break off to collect Ellie) was that one of the Empsons had left an oral history, of his time in the Navy, with the Imperial War Museum. The Gorse Fox hasn't yet had a chance to listen to more than the first minute or two of a thirty minute recording. It is clearly going to be an incredible source for his research.

Since Ellie came home, we have played in garden. The Gorse Fox has read her stories, we have played with flash cards and letters, and she has coiffed the hair of her doll. The Gorse Fox knows when he is out of his depth, and used that as an excuse to start on her dinner preparation. Urban-Cub collected Ellie later than planned after a bit of trouble at the store that needed her attention.

Things that make you wonder

The Gorse Fox and Silver Vixen have had another day quite similar to yesterday.

The Silver Vixen has been pottering in the garden and the Gorse Fox has been on-call to help with any moving or shifting required.

The Gorse Fox has been in the study, still working on the family tree and the Empson book. This has thrown up a strange problem. Backing up the master file and media from the iMac (Condor) and restoring is to Windows (Osprey) the Gorse Fox had been seeing these 800+ seemingly damaged files. Mackiev (the developer) suggested re-downloading the tree from Ancestry. Willing to try, the Gorse Fox cleared Osprey and download the tree. It completed without incident. What was worrying was that the media folder is now some 1.8GB, whereas the same folder on Condor is over 6GB.... He will have to keep both on the go for now, until he is happy that there are no problems. If that is the case, Condor may well get a clean download!

As an aside it is Cousteau-Cub and the Coventry Hobbit's 8th Wedding Anniversary today. They celebrated with a two hour walk along the canal with the dogs. They also discovered that Harley, the new dog, clearly likes to swim after ducks.

We are expecting Ellie later. She'll be staying with us overnight.

Talking of family trees and associated data for genealogy. This weekend was the time to complete the 2021 Census. The Gorse Fox only hopes that genealogists of the future are as excited to open up the 2021 data, as the Gorse Fox is to open the 1921 data, later this year.

DIY

 It's been a nice day, but did start to get a little chilly after lunch. 

The Gorse Fox had his, now regular, Saturday call with his Empson cousins. As usual, it was a bit of a hoot. Several new family snippets emerged and will add colour to the work on the family book. Like last week, the Gorse Fox asked them to forward any photos they would like included. Only time will tell if any arrive!

The Silver Vixen was intent on doing a spring clean of the garden. The Gorse Fox helped with shifting furniture and so forth, but then remained accessible for further requests or instructions. 

While waiting, the Gorse Fox went round to help Urban-Cub. Ostensibly it was to mount a pin board to the wall, but by the time he arrived there was also a small mounting rack for the iron, and a large glass picture. These were soon done (though the glass picture needs a little adjustment).

Back home, the creation of the family book continued for the Empson cousins. This is progressing moderately well, but is likely to take a few more days.

Accelerating

 Ellie slept through to 7:00am this morning. She rushed into our bedroom and requested the "iPad". We got up and got going. Urban-Cub turned up by 8:00am and helped Ellie get ready for school then the Gorse Fox walked with them to the school gates.

Back home, the Gorse Fox dived into the pile of leaves that surrounds the family tree. Family Book Creator had more to reveal. The rest of the morning was spent working on clearing up various facts in the master file so that they would display properly when published, and modifying data around the media so that they display in the correct sequence. It is immensely time-consuming, but the results are excellent. His final act today was to try and compile a book for the cousins that he speaks with on Saturday morning. The first attempt failed - it had run out of memory. The Gorse Fox shutdown the program and restarted it. He then fired up the book compiler again. This time it worked. A 108 page book about the Gorse Fox's Empson cousins nestled on his file system. He spent a while this afternoon browsing through it to determine what changes would be needed to the master file to ensure that next time it is compiled, it is in a state that can be shared. At the moment the media is shown in a somewhat haphazard form, there are some phantom spouses, and there are a few formatting items that need changing. For a family this size, it will take several days of work, but the experience will put him in good stead for future families.

We collected Ellie from Dizzy Ducklings. As it was such a lovely afternoon she just wanted to play outside. We stopped at the playground on the way home, and once home she raced back and forth on her scooter in the garden, and chased bubbles until they disappeared or she had popped them. Urban-Cub finished work a couple of hours earlier than expected so collected Ellie and then left us to our own devices.

Slow progress

 Being Thursday there were domestic chores on which to concentrate once the Gorse Fox had wandered round to meet Urban-Cub and Ellie and walk with them to school. We had the Ocado delivery, then went to Sainsbury's before finally heading to the local pharmacy to collect a prescription that they hadn't yet filled.

By the time we got home there was only about an hour before we had to collect Ellie. An hour wasn't really enough. The Gorse Fox experimented with a few ideas that he had picked up from YouTube. These look promising but there is still a large number of errors in the media files that were meant to be transferred to Osprey.

One thing that became clear is whilst Osprey, Condor, and Harrier all have Family Tree Maker and sync with Ancestry, that sync can loose some FTM specific data. Clearly, it will be necessary to sync sideways by means of Backup/Restore. In turn, the Gorse Fox will have to get to the bottom of the 800+ media items that didn't transfer as part of that backup/restore between the iMac and Windows systems (but works between the two Macs).

We have Ellie with us overnight as Urban-Cub doesn't finish until 10:30pm or 11:00pm.

Author

 Well that has been a good start.

The Gorse Fox fired up the only remaining Windows laptop (Osprey) and triggered the update process... after all, there's always a bunch of updates to apply to Windows. Then, when everything was underway, he downloaded a copy of Family Tree Maker (FTM), and Family Book Creator (FBC). Both installed seamlessly. The next task was to backup the FTM files from the Mac (Condor) and take a copy across to Osprey. The files were then restored to FTM. There were several errors reported, but the Gorse Fox ignored them for now. The important thing was to try FBC and see if he could get any output that would be useful and presentable.

The Gorse Fox picked an ancestor at random and told FBC to create a book of the individual and his descendants. It blinked, then started to wade through the data. Ten minutes later, the Gorse Fox had a very presentable booklet. He tried again, on another ancestor, 30 minutes later he had a 108 page book. The Gorse Fox is very impressed. Now, that's not say that the output is perfect. There is clearly some tweaking to perform on the images, and some of the text. This will take some time, but is best done back in the FTM database so that, once correct, it will always be correct in any future publication.

Tomorrow the Gorse Fox will start to review some of the YouTube videos so that he can try to pick up all of the best practices.

In the afternoon we collected Ellie from school. She spent the afternoon playing schools with the Silver Vixen. Once we had all had our dinner and cleared away, we took Ellie home so that she could settle in before Urban-Cub got home just after 7pm. This worked quite well and we will probably do this again when she has a shift ending after 6:30pm.

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.

Leafing about

 It was an early start. Ellie woke at 5:15 and, though she was fairly quiet, didn't really settle back to sleep. By 6:15 the Gorse Fox had taken the Android tablet in to her so that she could watch YouTube Kids. He went back to bed. For 90 seconds. The tablet was not doing what was expected and Ellie was demanding technical support. The problem was soon sorted and the Gorse Fox managed to go back to bed until 7:00.

After dropping Ellie at Dizzy Ducklings we went home for breakfast and then settled into the projects for today. The Silver Vixen was making some dolls dresses (and realising that the original patterns needed further embellishment to ensure longevity of the dress).

The Gorse Fox was back rifling through the leaves of the family tree. Whilst he hasn't driven it back any further, he has fleshed out some of the more recent branches. It's been quite successful really.

Urban-Cub has just collected Ellie, who will be sleeping at home for the next couple of nights. We'll see her early in the morning, though, so we can take her to school.

A Quiet Mother's Day

 We had a relaxed start to the day, though Cousteau-Cub messaged the Gorse Fox to find out if we were up and about; she wanted to drop off a Mother's Day card. So it was that we had our first visitor before nine o'clock this morning. She was dropping off a card and some decorative plants for the Silver Vixen. It was nice to see her as it has been a few weeks since her last visit. 

When she left us, she and the Coventry Hobbit were off to collect a new rescue dog as company for Bruno. This new dog is called Harley.

The Gorse Fox spent much of the day up in the branches of the family tree. He made contact with another researcher who, in turn, put him in touch with another one of the clan he he has been researching. In turn the Gorse Fox has passed on the information to his cousins so that they can choose to invite him to weekly Zoom call, if they should so wish. His research has also managed to push their part of the family tree back by another couple of generations.

Urban-Cub has just dropped off her Mother's Day cards and gifts, along with Ellie. Ellie will be staying with us overnight as Urban-Cub is on an early shift tomorrow.

Multiples

 It's been an immensely quiet and relaxing day. The weather has been mixed. Bright sunshine, high winds, heavy rain, have all taken their turns and it is fairly chilly out.

The Gorse Fox's focus has, again, been the family tree. This was stimulated by another Zoom call with his cousins this morning. He must say that he wishes he had got to know them all when he was much younger. They really are a very nice bunch of people and a result of the call he has burrowed further into their section of the tree. This has taken much of the day and revealed that his twin cousins were not an anomaly as, tracing back through their ancestors, we find that that their 2nd great grandmother had triplets and two sets of twins (among her brood of 14 children).

One of the nice features of the cousins' Zoom calls is that they usually have a theme.Each weelk they set a theme to be discussed the following week. Recent themes have included a music playlist for the family, a movie playlist, and coming up we have a dinner party guest list. They are expected to suggest 6 guests to attend a dinner party. As one cousin said about another's "special needs" she will have to treat her Bee Gees obsession as one single tricephalous guest. Another wanted to extend that idea to all of the Orcs from Lord of the Rings (which, needless to say, made the family movie list).

The Gorse Fox got a message from Urban-Cub. She needed to know the size of her garden. This is not the sort of information the Gorse Fox has at his finger tips (yet). He wandered round the corner with his laser device. Twenty minutes later we had all the relevant measurements to the nearest millimetre. The Gorse Fox knew it would come in useful!

As a rul, on Saturday, the Gorse Fox has a Tadka Dahl. This is usually a pre-prepared dish from M&S. This week we failed to order one. The Gorse Fox raided his spice mixes and created his own. It was delicious and was loosely based on an East African mix used heavily in Ethiopia. He modified it by adding extra vegetables (carrots, green peppers, celery, and spinach), but was delighted that there was sufficient left to freeze and use next week.

Assembly

 Ellie slept through last night. She disturbed briefly at 6:20 to shout "Dummy", then we didn't hear another sound until 6:50 when she got into bed with us and requested access to the Gorse Fox's iPad (it's not an iPad - the device he keeps by the bed is an Android tablet).

Urban-Cub arrived in time to take Ellie to school (though, for once we went by car rather than walked). Then it was time for another coffee, some domestic chores, and a quick review of the accounts. The Silver Vixen had a phone call scheduled with Betty Rubble. This took the rest of the morning, so the Gorse Fox buried himself in the study.

He's still working on the family tree website. He's still struggling with the plug-in that displays PDF files. Why? Well, though it does a wonderful job of displaying the underlying PDF (created by Family Tree Maker), it is very slow to render the the first image. In fact, it is often quicker to click on the button to "Show Full Screen", then revert to the original image and refresh the frame. This is driving the Gorse Fox to distraction because if it worked quickly, then he would have a really neat way of developing each of the web pages that he wants to display. As it is, he is floundering somewhat. He really doesn't want to have to try and develop these pages in raw html.

After lunch the Gorse Fox popped around to see Urban-Cub and help her by assembling a small chest of drawers that she has purchased to fit inside her wardrobe. Like one of the last projects, the Gorse Fox was delighted to find the various parts properly numbered and a set of instructions that made sense. The finished article looks good and is very robust.

Wind

 The winds didn't seem quite as bad as forecast. Having said that, the Gorse Fox was surprised to see that one of our heavy garden chairs had migrated the whole width of the garden overnight. He went round to meet up with Urban-Cub and take Ellie to Dizzy Ducklings. Once back home the normal Thursday schedule clicked in. Ocado delivered, then we headed off to Lidl and Sainsbury's - nothing special, but it did consume the whole morning.

The Gorse Fox managed to get little reading and family tree research done this afternoon while Ellie insisted on play the "school game" with the Silver Vixen. This seemed to involve the two of them pretending to be teachers to a room full of invisible students.

Not so calm

When the Gorse Fox got up this morning, it was still dry outside. By the time he had is coffee on the go, the first few drops of rain were hitting the pavements. Urban-Cub dropped off Ellie and we sorted out her breakfast and got her ready for pre-school. The rain still hadn't started in anger by the time we had to go to Dizzy Ducklings so we walked as usual. (The Gorse Fox thinks we were the only family that walked - it appears that the threat of rain is enough to drive everyone into their cars).

The Silver Vixen headed home. The Gorse Fox, however, had to go and house-sit at Urban-Cub's. She is having trouble with here lock barrel on the front door and it was scheduled for replacement. We were told it was scheduled for soon after 9 o'clock. By 11 there was still no sign. The Gorse Fox headed home. The rain was now quite heavy. He took off his jacket and headed for the study. (The Silver Vixen was doing Zoom Pilates). No sooner had he sat down than Urban-Cub called to say the locksmith was outside the house. The Gorse Fox donned his rainwear and headed back. It must have taken the chap no longer than 90 seconds to replace the barrel, then a further 10 minutes to do a complete survey on the door and how it had been hung. With a tick in all the boxes, he left, and the Gorse Fox headed back home.

The Gorse Fox has been doing some more fiddling about with the Family Tree. As usual, this has caused several distractions and the inspections of several proverbial rabbit holes.

This afternoon the Gorse Fox broke into a pack of spice mixes that he had received as a birthday present. He reviewed the various mixes and the accompanying recipes. In the end, he decided on a Malabar curry. Well, all he can say is "what a success". It was absolutely delightful and even the Silver Vixen enjoyed it (and she has very few curries that she likes).

Urban-Cub has just collect Ellie (who looks ready for bed). Hopefully they will both get a good night.

The wind has been picking up. It is forecast to be troublesome overnight and throughout tomorrow. It's nice to be inside and not have to venture out.

Calm before the Storm

 It was a lovely, bright, sunny day today. No cloud dared to sully the blue skies as the Gorse Fox left to meet with Urban-Cub and walk Ellie round to Dizzy Ducklings. It was chilly, but it was gorgeous.

Once home, the Gorse Fox returned to the Family Tree. The changed, suggested yesterday by the author of the plug-in, had to be rolled out and the Gorse Fox needed to review some of the other charts and diagrams that were available from Family Tree Maker and could be displayed using the plug-in. With a few selected to start the process the Gorse Fox rebut a couple of the web pages. The files displayed beautifully. The only problem could be how responsive they are. That is something that will have to be monitored.

As Urban-Cub had a day off today, her pain was to take Ellie down to the seafront after Dizzy Ducklings. We were invited along so the Gorse Fox decided it was a good opportunity for a walk. He set off to walk to the beach and meet up with the others there. It was a lovely day for a walk, warm enough to be pleasant, and cool enough to be refreshing.

The Gorse Fox arrived just as the girls were walking towards the playground.

Ellie, as usual, was like a whirling dervish as she raced from one item of apparatus to another. In the end, she settled on the swings - for all of about 3 minutes. Then she charged off again to the slide and the climbing frame.

She got bored. She wanted to go down onto the sand. We hoicked the buggy and ourselves over the pebbles and down onto the beach. 

It took a couple of minutes for her to prepare her bucket, but then we were off down to the shoreline where she scooped sand and seawater into the bucket and deposited it a few feet away.

 When she had had enough and wanted an ice cream, we all traipsed back up to the Esplanade, hauling ourselves up the huge bank of pebbles. 

Ellie, Urban-Cub, and the Silver Vixen stopped by the ice cream stand, the Gorse Fox wasn't too fussed (it takes great self-control to maintain a physique such as his !!!). He took this as an opportunity to start his walk back home.

It had been a lovely little interlude in a gorgeous day. Given that we have severe weather warnings for the next couple of days, it was a case of taking the opportunity while it was there.

Fixed

 It was an early start. Urban-Cub was planning to drop Ellie off at 6:45 - and for once she was on time. Urban-Cub had to rush off to work while we sorted out Ellie’s ablutions and breakfast prior to taking her to Dizzy Ducklings. The Gorse Fox even had time to do a jigsaw and read a couple of stories to her before we left. 

Back home the Silver Vixen got on with cleaning her sewing machines then getting ready for her next project in the sewing room. The Gorse Fox returned to the study and continued working on the family tree website. By lunchtime he had the article, that he had been working on for the last couple of days, completed.

Mid-afternoon he received and email from the author of the plug-in that had been giving him trouble. He suggested that the Gorse Fox flip a single flag from Yes to No, et voila! It worked. This really is very significant. It means that many of the files he extracts from Family Tree Maker can be displayed without any refactoring or modification. He can wait to get a run at it tomorrow.

We collected Ellie and she’s munching on her tea at the moment. The Gorse Fox has some meatballs planned for tonight, and have invited to Urban-Cub to stay for dinner when she collects Ellie.

Stroll

 It has been another day very similar to yesterday. After a very leisurely breakfast the Gorse Fox went back to the study to catch up on the accounts and then do some more work on the Family Tree. This has taken much of the day. (More than it should, given that a load of uploads the Gorse Fox had triggered were wrong... they were uploading files from yesterday, not the new ones from today! Stupid.) Progress has been slow, but it has been steady. For the family he is working on at present, he should have a finished article tomorrow or the day after.

The Silver Vixen had been in her sewing room, pottering around and reviewing her library of patterns. It will be interesting to see what she starts on next. She did pop round to see Urban-Cub for a while to help her decide on a cloth-covered cork board for Ellie's pictures. She was back by lunch-time.

Immediately after lunch, the Gorse Fox set off on one of his favourite walks (the Shripney loop). The glorious sunshine made it an absolute pleasure to wander through the countryside... but it will be nice to be able to stray further from home when the lockdown lifts. While walking he was listening to one of the Peter Crouch podcasts, which kept him chuckling to himself as he wandered along.

Talking of podcasts, the Gorse Fox also records from the TV. One of his "go to" recording is "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives" which reviews restaurants in the USA. The Gorse Fox realised today, as he fired up the TV while cooking dinner, that he now has over 400 episodes stashed away to review! He may be gone some time.

Zoom

 Like last Saturday, today began with a Zoom call with the Gorse Fox's second cousins. In fact this call included two additional second cousins from, yet another, branch of the family. It was hardly, what you might call, riveting but it was nice to all touch base.

Once the calls was over, the Gorse Fox fired up the Family Tree and carried on working on the website. He did manage, by the end of the morning, to complete the updates for one huge section of the family. He has now shared the link with all those on the call.

The issue that he was having yesterday with the display of PDF files, is ongoing. He has now raised a support query with the author of the plug-in to see if he can offer any suggestions. No reply so far.

The Silver Vixen has been in her sewing room for most of the day. Every now and again the Gorse Fox can hear the rustle of patterns, or the click as scissors are dropped onto the desk.

The weather has been lovely and sunny today, if a little cool. The Gorse Fox made the most of it and went out for a nice walk in the early Spring sunshine. He bumped into his next-door neighbours during the walk and stopped for a quick chat and catch-up. They are such a nice couple, and it's good to know they have been keeping fit and well.

Frustration

 It has been a day of frustration. It all started when the Gorse Fox woke up during the night and, when trying to drift back off to sleep, he had an idea for the website. This kept him awake.

After breakfast he had the chance to start exploring the idea. In essence, it was sound. The information was easily extracted and stored on the website. The problem lay in how to display it. It seems that a "plug-in" is available which will display a pdf file within the web page. This should be ideal. YouTube was consulted and examples of its use demonstrated. The Gorse Fox thought he was on to something.

The "plug-in" was downloaded and activated. It was configured according to the instructions. A test page was developed and displayed. Nothing. Nada. Rien. The rest of the morning was spent trying to find out what the Gorse Fox had done wrong (the assumption that he is wrong it is always his starting point). The problem was still outstanding when it was time to collect Ellie. It will have to stay as "unresolved" until the weekend.

Arboreal pursuits

 There's not really a lot to discuss today. It was fairly usual for a Thursday... walking Ellie to pre-school, taking in the Ocado shopping, then going to do the top-up shop. Hardly world shattering news!

Most of the rest of the day was spent working on the family tree website again. The Gorse Fox has made some more significant steps forward and now he just needs to concentrate on updating or adding content, rather than the structure and navigation. The Gorse Fox tends to document how he has approached some of the aspects of managing the website. One was so obscure (a feature of Joomla, no the Gorse Fox's design) that he decided he couldn't write it up sensibly. He decided the only way to document it for the future was to do a screen recording of the process, and file it with his other documentation.

Drop and run

 Urban-Cub had to do a "drop and run". Ellie had been at home with her overnight, but timings were such that she needed to allow G-Force to take Ellie to Dizzy Ducklings while she headed in to work. There was no real drama. Ellie wandered in, had some breakfast, and then went to get washed and dressed. We dropped her off on time and, as usual, headed home for breakfast.

The Silver Vixen had her Zoom Pilates during the morning so the Gorse Fox retired to the computer and worked through a series of YouTube videos on managing a Joomla site. Finally, with some semblance of confidence the Gorse Fox started to make a whole series of changes to the site. It soon became clear that the code he had written yesterday was really speeding things up. This encouraged him to see if there were any further items he could add to the code.

By lunchtime we had to call it a day (both for Zoom and Joomla). It was time to collect Ellie, and the afternoon would be spent keeping her amused.

Menus

 It was 7 o'clock before Ellie woke. She wandered in to our room and leapt on the bed,,,, no "Good morning" just "Can I have you iPad?" and so the day began. It was a little misty and quite chilly, but it looked as if it would be a nice sunny day once the fog had lifted. We got Ellie ready for pre-school and walked her round to start her day.

After breakfast we cleared a few domestic chores, the the Silver Vixen went to her sewing room and the Gorse Fox to his study. At the moment the Silver Vixen is trying to adjust her dressmaker's dummy in preparation or her next project.

The Gorse Fox has returned to his Joomla project. Creating and updating the various articles is simple enough. The real problem lies with the Gorse Fox's lack of understanding of the intricacies of the menu system and how to get the best from it. He's make slow progress but this is another occasion when "Google and YouTube are your friends". He suspects it will be several more days until he has this nailed, and then he needs to transfer all of the old information across to this new format. Oh well, it keeps the little grey cells spinning.

Old King Code

 It's been a lovely day again. We were up as soon as the alarm went off this morning. Though Ellie hadn't been here overnight, Urban-Cub was dropping her off as she passed, on her way to Southampton for some training and an exam. Ellie wandered in, still in her PJs and a dressing gown. She wanted some breakfast then asked to go and get washed and dressed. The Gorse Fox went along to provide support - but she managed to wash her face and clean her teeth without any intervention. The Gorse Fox was only required when it was time to brush her hair.

We walked her round to DD and then came home for our own breakfast. This was followed by some domestic chores before the Gorse Fox returned to the study to do the accounts. While there he received an email on one of his mailing lists. Did anyone have some code that would take a bunch of photos and reset the file dates to match those in the embedded EXIF data. Well, as it happens, the Gorse Fox does. He wrote some code to file batches of photos, based on their internal date information, and it resets the file dates to match. Code was duly packaged up and sent.

Urban-Cub was delayed at the training facility. She had planned to collect Ellie, but it was clear she would escape until long after the end of day for Dizzy Ducklings. The Silver Vixen and Gorse Fox went on round to collect Ellie and bring her home.and look after her until Urban-Cub got back. In the end this was a couple of hours later than she had planned. She's taken Ellie home for tea, but she'll be back later so that Ellie can spend the night here tonight as Urban-Cub has to open up the store tomorrow morning.

Code

 Well that's another day of decent weather that the Gorse Fox has squandered by getting engrossed in some code for the family tree website. It started off simply enough with a small tweak to yesterday's program. Then it occurred to the Gorse Fox that the same program, with an extension to the logic, could serve two purposes. So it was that much of the rest of the day was spent at the keyboard. The Gorse Fox is very pleased with the outcome and, in his plan to subsume many old pages to Joomla, this will make a huge difference.

The Silver Vixen has finished the project she had been working on. The book rack now has some custom-designed pockets that are actually deep enough to hold the books.

It has been so nice this afternoon that we have spent some time sitting out in the garden, in our shirtsleeves, enjoying the sunshine. That's not something you expect to do in February.