Coif, Carry-cot and Cakes!

Under my newer, 'fuller' retirement régime, my week falls into two clear parts.  There's the busy bit, from Tuesday morning until Friday lunchtime, and then there's the 'long weekend', which is the opportunity to fit in hobbies and favourite habits ... and general 'me'-time.  It includes regular things like the monthly coffee morning at church, Sunday worship, the Monday morning breakfast and evening bell-ringing practice and also occasional one-offs.

This weekend has seen a sequence of those singular events.  It started with the thrice-yearly family history meeting at which, instead of a routine talk from a visiting speaker, we were treated to a drama.  At the appointed time, our guest was ushered in; he hesitated at the door, wearing ragged green trousers, a cloth hat under which was a white linen covering for his hair that he kept on even after removing the hat.  He was carrying a large linen sack on his back and, together with long boots, he could have been a caricature of an out-of season father Christmas that had misfired in the costume department.

As I said, he hesitated at the door, giving us ample opportunity to take in his appearance.  Seeing us seated in rows facing a couple of tables at the front, he asked, "Is this a court, then? Is the parish constable here?"  Of course we had no reply ... as had we none to many of his questions, so he had to answer them himself, using quaint words and expressions that he had to explain with gestures as well as alternative phrases.  The event had simply been billed as 'Life as a Vagrant in Elizabethan England', but this character certainly brought his topic to life as no other speaker has of late.  He explained that his economy was based on theft, and unpacked his bag to show the sort of things that could be obtained by the cunning poor from the careless rich; and he explained some of the ploys and subterfuges that would be adopted to this end.

These thoughts set me up well for my Monday excursion to the record office in Bury St Edmunds.  Here I fulfilled (most of) my planned task to verify some of the dates passed to me over the years by distant cousins from their own researches.  Some had become subject of conflicting witness and, over time, one cousin in particular had grown a bad reputation with me for inaccuracies.  It was therefore refreshing in a way to find in at least two of these conflicts that it had been her date that was supported by the registers rather than the other.

Highlight of this visit was the arrival during the afternoon of a ten-day-old baby in the tender care of her mother, and under the gentle supervision of her grandmother.  The mother was a former member of staff at the office and her presence attracted the usual cluster of former colleagues and chorus of 'ooohs' and 'aaahs' before, eventually, they left and the normal silence of research was restored.

The evening was occupied by the Annual General Meeting of our bell-ringing guild.  This was a typical example of the genre, taking almost an hour to deal with matters most of which had, in essence, been decided already by e-mail or through casual chatter.  It would be wrong, however, to dismiss so curtly a cordial and much looked-forward-to gathering which, once the business was concluded, transmogrified into an occasion for eating, drinking and informal chatter about anything and everything ... sometimes even mentioning bells!

With such a colourful range of memories, I could then easily sink into the (still quite fresh) routine of the very 'fixed' part of the week, of volunteering and running my home and personal admin, with further excitement to look forward to on Sunday, as I re-arrange my attendance at worship in order to be one of about 160 or so who will be travelling down to Kent to watch a very important football match ... more news next week!