Domestic Development Aids Altruism ... and More Besides!

Yesterday, I was invited to "Consider the most important thing you have done this week" along with the suggestion that I should examine my motives for doing it.  Now, I confess, I probably don't reflect on my motives as much as I should.  But there was something about this challenge that alerted me ... stimulated my moral compass, if you like.  Not only did I consider my motives, but also what I had learned from the experience.

Probably the most important thing I did this week - until writing this blog, of course - was on Monday morning, when I drove to the suburbs of a nearby city to collect something that had been offered free on line.  I had taken a quick look at the map before leaving and decided that my destination was on a modern estate, having many residential avenues strung between principal roads that stem from a central roundabout.  Perhaps, in the overall scheme of things, this analysis was not far from reality.  However, my definition of modern differs somewhat from what I found, which was narrow roads between hedged gardens at the front of post-war houses such as the one in which I had grown up sixty-odd years ago.

So, the first thing I learned was not to be swayed by my interpretation of the map.  The next quickly followed when the volte-face of my opinion was tempered by what I found beyond the hedge of no. 25.  It was a well-established family home with a garden just on the wilder side of neat, and the story that I was told as the householder helped me load a dismantled desk into my car gave me the impression that children of teenage or a little bit more were on the brink of leaving the nest: 'It isn't used any more and my daughters just dump stuff on it.'

My reflective thoughts turned from the where to the what and the why.  In my new home is a second bedroom which - since I only need one for the conventional purpose - has so far not found a name, owing to a lack of definition of its purpose, beyond that of 'more space'.  In the last few months it has been a store room, a partial library, an office annexe, and a workshop, besides being a suitable place to do the ironing.  One thing it had thus far been lacking was the very thing that was described to me, viz. 'something to dump stuff on'.

There is a cabinet in the corner but, being in the corner it's a bit dark, and being a cabinet, it's awkward to sit at.  During the room's brief workshop phase, I used the ironing board, for want of something better, as a surface on which to cut wood.  Many years ago I acquired possession of a collection of microfiche copies of parish registers, followed quickly by a fiche reader; after negotiations with the family history society, last weekend saw the publication of my offer to do look-ups in them.  

While these enquiries may indeed be few, with many resources now being available on line, I need somewhere accessible to fulfil them comfortably.  Monday afternoon, therefore, was spent happily converting a car-load of 'jig-saw pieces' into a useful and mobile surface upon which not only microfiche research, but a whole variety of other 'incidental happenings' can take place.  

At the end of the exercise, I was able to send this picture to the former owner with the comment, 'no pieces missing, and no pieces left over'.  She was pleased to respond that it was good to see it had 'found a new home'.

So far my offer has enjoyed four take-ups: two successful and two not.  If anyone reading this would like to make enquiries about which 56 parishes this collection covers out of the hundreds there are in Suffolk, and whether or not their ancestor is referred to there, then please be my guest.  Requests can be made by comment below.