these are the indenture papers of Spot's best friend's great great great grandfather, born in 1795, and apprenticed at the tender age of eight on 8 December 1803, two years before the battle of Trafalgar. Painter was, I think, a seaman trade in the merchant navy. By the strange path that these things follow, his grand-daughter met and married the son of a Naval boatswain, presumably because they moved in sea faring circles (lots of tacking?). Her husband went on to design the great battleships of the late Victorian era and the first world war. I showed this document to a friend today, who visits the web site occasionally. His grandfather was a Naval constructor and helped to build several ships, including HMS Indefatigable; his family tradition has it that most of them were sunk at the battle of Jutland. When I checked out HMS Indefatigable today, who should have designed it but my very own great grandfather. It is odd to think that our (g) grandfathers must have spent many hours working together and that a hundred years later, after a multitude of life events and moves all over the world, their (g) grandsons found themselves sitting around discussing life and philosophy, and examined a document that was to link them together in a most unexpected way.
Great GP also went on to write a English Italian dictionary of Naval Terms, the only available copy of which is in the Congress library; can a love of things Italian be genetic? And his son Stanley, my great uncle was a midshipman on a battleship in the battle of Jutland. The ship was beached on the Goodwin sands, and all escaped including the ship's cat. I do not know whether to attribute his escape to good design or sound construction. Great
grandpa made a fortune out of it anyway, which he dissipated on the French Riviera, and on an annuity, dying shortly after the purchase of which, thus setting the family on a new and entirely unjustified path of poverty, and proving the old saw of rags to rags in three generations.More interesting things another day (and see this link to
amongst the oaks which set me thinking).
Endsleigh House surrounded by its autumnal clothes (see link for a Spring view), taken from the peasant's side of the river.
this little midge is about an eighth of an inch long (3 or 4 mm), what struck me in the grand scheme of things is that he consists mostly of fluffy or plumed antennae. Detecting chemicals in the air must be extremely important, or maybe lady midges prefer lads with big plumes
the top two photos are of a bracket fungus or of Dryad's saddle (the little people and wood nymphs presumably use it for riding on unicorns), and the bottom photo from 2002 and just downstream is definitely a Dryad's. And we found a white feather on our walk.
meanwhile, back at the mill there has been some progress (again see earlier pictures by clicking on the label for Beals Mill). The foreman on the site told me that there is evidence of buildings even earlier than the twelfth century, so there may have been a mill on this site for more than a thousand years. I wonder how long it will be before it becomes a mill once more.
