Tuesday 25 December 2007

Christmas Greetings

A Blessed Christmas to you all.

May God's gift fill your lives as we remember the birth of
Jesus our Saviour;
Not forgetting the reason He came to earth;
That we, through His death, might have Life.

Wednesday 19 December 2007

Christmas is Close

As Christmas draws near I feel more and more lonely for family. The norm, these days, is for a quiet Christmas with just Richard and myself, just the two of us. The children will not be home again this year. You would think after 15 years I would be used to it, but I'm not. Evette, Ian and Lynda have spent one Christmas with us in the past 15. I have not had a Christmas at home in England in 30 years. Used to the fact of not having close family around? No, I'm not used to that fact.

Before we moved to Nipigon we lived in MacNutt, Saskatchewan, in the area that Richard's Great Grandfather Wilhelm (William) Mensch homesteaded. Richard has many cousins of various degrees living there. The four Christmas' we spent in MacNutt was not quiet. We had many invites to extended family gatherings and friends, beginning Christmas Eve running right through to New Years Day. There was no reason to have a quiet Christmas. But I still missed our children, and my family in England, but we were busy.

This will be our fifth Christmas in Nipigon, Ontario, during that time we have had two invites during Christmas week, last year it was for Christmas dinner. Maybe we have just got old and tired, we have stopped making the big turkey dinner. No more crackers to pull and silly paper hats to wear. I write very few Christmas Cards and talk on the phone to less and less of my family. This year will be particularly sad as there will be no phone call to or from my big brother Steven. Hopefully the rest of my family in England will be home for my call to wish them a Blessed Christmas.

The one part of Christmas I always love is the Church Services. Christmas Eve is the traditional Carol Service, the final hymn is usually 'Silent Night' and the candles are lit, lights turned out and voices raised in one accord singing the old familier words;
'Silent Night, Holy Night,
All is Calm, all is bright,
Round yon virgin mother and Child,
Holy Infant , so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.'
as the last verse is sung I move to the back of the Church ready to leave before the candles are blown out. We do not have Christmas Morning Service here and I miss that opportunity to worship on the day we celabrate the birth of our Saviour.

Christmas for me is about families yet mine is so fractured.

Saturday 1 December 2007

September Trip to England

It has been some time since I last added anything here. I keep busy with work and my BOXALL One Name Study.

In September I went to England, primarily to attend my brother Steven's funeral, but I spent two wonderful weeks with my daughter and her intended, Smiley aka Richard. Although Evette did not have the full two weeks off work, we managed to fill our days with shopping, visiting and site seeing.
These three pictures were taken after Steven's funeral. The first one are his three children, Tammy, Robert, and Philip. The middle picture is me, Mum, Bill (brother-in-law), and Pat my sister. The third picture is Mum with two of her great grandchildren, Jonathan and Annie. It was a sad occasion that took me to England, but offered the chance to visit with my family that I so rarely see living here in Canada.
Evette also took me visiting with my Mum and my other siblings, Christopher and Keith, who were unable to attend Steven's funeral. If they had it would have meant that we were all together with our mother for the first time since Pat's marriage in 1964, albiet Steven was deceased, he was there in his coffin.
The first picture is of my brother Keith, the other is of Mum, Evette and Smiley and their dog Moose. I did not take a picture of my brother Christopher while visiting him as he was busy eating his supper. Visiting family was great and it gave Evette an opportunity to meet her uncles and basically break the ice so she would feel comfortable visiting with them again in the future.

My favourite piece of site seeing was visiting the church's that were used for baptisms in my BOXALL ancestors lives. We walked through the church yards amongst the headstones trying to disifer BOXALL family members no this was not successful. We managed to go inside the Singleton Church but not so lucky with the West Dean church.
These are pictures taken outside the church in West Dean, West Sussex and a headstone showing how weathered they are and very difficult to work out who is buried there.
This church is in Singleton, West Sussex, to actually go into this church, to see the font where my ancestors were Baptised, to see names of ancestors on the War plaque, to wonder the church grounds, was amazing. My family research started several years ago, and Evette gave me a very special gift, taking me to these two churchs.


This first picture is of the Devils Punch Bowl the picture really does not do it justice but it is a large depression in the landscape. We stopped at the tourist spot and had lunch and icecream. The next picture is of Ware Band, Evette plays cornet, they had an engagement to play so I went with Evette and took lots of pictures. The third picture in this series is of Emsworth Harbour, this is in the area I grew up and I had never seen the tide out this far. As children we always swam in the harbour, I saw signs up that said no swimming allowed so I gather no families are now found there swimming in the summer. I even stopped a couple to ask them if it was normal not to see the shore line, they told me it was these days but it was particullarly out a long way on the day we were tourists. It was great to share some of my childhood memories with my daughter.

These show me as the tourist. We tried to visit the Tower of London but got there five minutes after they closed the ticket office windows. So here we have the corner of the Tower and me posing with Tower Bridge in the background. The last is of Evette taking a few quiet moments on the train to read.
I had a great visit and thank my daughter Evette for making my visit possible. I love all the clothes I purchased on our shopping spree. More than that I loved spending the time with my Evette and Smiley.