Cooking for one (Mark Three)

Brambling

Defrosted the car -5 to go to breakfast with my sister, half price voucher for the garden centre 😋 and a couple of hours gossip. I was sitting having another cuppa at hers just after 12 when the emergency alarm company for an elderly friend called to say she had press her button twice but was not responding to them, her neighbours who are first and second points of contact were out, by the time I let myself there she was ok 🙂 she fell backwards off her door step, luckily turned and fell on her side in the grass rather than hitting her head on the path. She can't get up if she falls but after10 minutes one of her neighbours saw her and two of them got her up.

i had to defrost my car again at 6.30pm to go out but it had warmed up to 1c when I came out from watching a band at the local theatre so I didn't have to defrost again 😁 

no lunch required after breakfast.  Easy early dinner of nanas magic soup from the freezer and a slice of cheese on toast 

weenancyinAmerica

@caronc - I started working on my family tree in 1962 - and am still going. It really is addictive. 

Farway

Dull & gray again, but just about frost free, so that's a plus.

caronc said:

I've started doing some family tree mapping, nothing major more to fill gaps in names etc. So far it's confirmed some stuff,  answered a few questions and raised some more. I can see why folk can get engrossed in it. 

weenancyinAmerica said:

@caronc - I started working on my family tree in 1962 - and am still going. It really is addictive. 

Another FH nut here, but just in case you do not have Ancestry membership, it's on offer, half price, until tonight. 

The 1921 UK census has just arrived there, my mum is 5, dad is 7, both at school. Grandad is a Metropolitan police constable at Notting Dale, London

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/c/offers/newyears

Lunch, I have YS posh smoked salmon out defrosting. It was bought for Christmas but never used.

Dinner, rinse & repeat of grilled lamb steak, boiled baby spuds, YS carrots, and ex Christmas sprouts

Wednesday2000

A very hard frost again. It looks nice out there in my garden with the sunshine, almost like a sprinkling of light snow.

I had a smoothie and then toast, Flora and Marmite. I got a few falafel balls out of the freezer yesterday and did them in the air fryer and had them in a salad sandwich yesterday and I had forgotten how much I like falafel. I'm going to have the same for lunch when my Sainsbury's order arrives. I froze the leftover portion of soup that I made yesterday for another day.

The rest of the pasta bake I made will be for dinner along with some  roasted broccoli.

caronc

Good afternoon everyone, 
Thanks Farway and weenancy in America. Ancestry tends to be less good for Scotland unfortunately but my intention (just now anyway) is to find out what I can for free via scotlandspeople, take advantage of free trials and look at some of the paid stuff. My aim is to "go wide" rather than far back IFYSWIM and then see how I feel.
Milder but very gloomy here today and to get very windy for a spell bringing in rain. The gloom means it doesn't feel as warm as it should.
Lovely lunch of spanakoptia DS1 and DIL2B brought back from a renowned Athens pastry shop. Tonight it's a JO steak and noodles recipe from "Simple" though I'm using up some sirloin roast I froze before Christmas rather than freshly cooking steaks. 

Need2bthrifty

Another very frosty night here but thankfully we are seeing a bit of a thaw now.
 
I also got hooked on family history research and managed to get back as far as the 1700's, but like Caronc I've started going sideways tracing family in Canada and NZ and finding quite a few cousins twice removed.
 
Lunch was leftover salad and quiche.
 
A bit of a cheat tonight, I'm trying out a new to me shop bought sauce. I'll cook some prawns and pasta and toss them in a creamy tomato ndjua sauce.

justkeepswimmimg

Definitely milder here but not as sunny, felt damp and grey when I popped out to the swimming pool. Been an indoor play day other than that outing but got my exercise in doing lengths of the pool.

I’ve also changed my bedding, done a load of ironing and some bits of voluntary admin plus quite a lot catching up watching things.

Scrambled eggs and mushrooms on toasted bagel for lunch. Made tuna steak with harissa braised tomatoes and chickpeas tonight 😋

Brambling

One of my sisters is the family historian and she does get a little obsessed about it. I like the act of researching but I do get bored with just a long list of names. I did find our grandfathers WW1 records although for one it was very short having been made a POW September 1914 but I did trace the salt mines he was forced to work at.  I enjoy digging in the Dorset online archives seeing family names and information about them on the Kingston Lacey estate records, I found in the index a record of my dad in the early 1950s asking for a allotment on the estate ( nothing thrown away it seems) although i didn't ask to see a copy it did bring back memories of his bad handwriting and we wondered if it warranted a envelope as all school notes were written on a scrap of paper tucked into itself 🙂  We do have a Dorset witch, a Tolpuddle martyr and a ancestor who was part of the Captain Swing riots and a lot of farm labours. TBH that's where I lose interest in the ancestor and interested in the events 🤓

The frost seemed to clear earlier not that I sent out, I sent this afternoon finishing online training for one of my volunteer roles.

I AF some salmon quiche for lunch and finished the watercress and beetroot,  Sea bass pan fried with salsa verde and veg for dinner

weenancyinAmerica

@caronc - many of the indexes are on Ancestry.com, FindMyPast, and Family Search (and these are free) for Scotland. I used the indexes first and then go to Scotlandspeople to get the documents. Most of the existing parish registers are available free on FamilySearch so once you find where they are from, that is the place to go. Just go to Records, Catalog, and type in the name of the parish. Actual census records are available there too. 

My best friend has found out she is 84% Scottish (at age 78) after having researched her "German ancestors" for years. Turns out her mother lied about the identity of her father and it wasn't until two years ago she found out the truth on Ancestry. We have since been able to find out the identity of her actual father by matching up relationships. We have been to Scotland together before but didn't know where her ancestors came from at that time (thinking she was English and Swiss on her mother's side and German on her father's side). She actually has no German ancestry at all!

Farway

Sun is starting to come out, could turn into a fine day, and milder at last

weenancyinAmerica said:

@caronc - many of the indexes are on Ancestry.com, FindMyPast, and Family Search (and these are free) for Scotland. I used the indexes first and then go to Scotlandspeople to get the documents. Most of the existing parish registers are available free on FamilySearch so once you find where they are from, that is the place to go. Just go to Records, Catalog, and type in the name of the parish. Actual census records are available there too. 

My best friend has found out she is 84% Scottish (at age 78) after having researched her "German ancestors" for years. Turns out her mother lied about the identity of her father and it wasn't until two years ago she found out the truth on Ancestry. We have since been able to find out the identity of her actual father by matching up relationships. We have been to Scotland together before but didn't know where her ancestors came from at that time (thinking she was English and Swiss on her mother's side and German on her father's side). She actually has no German ancestry at all!

Had to smile at this, so often there are deceptions along the way, but our ancestors never knew just how easily records could be cross-matched & searched in the future. In the past, it was possible to just move to a new area and start over, or have two families like the travelling Salesman jokes.

Lunch, mushroom omelette

Dinner, tray bake root veggies & ???