At the start of the month I took another week off work so that I could take my car in for its annual service and MOT. It passed with no problems so the rest of the week was pretty uneventful and most of my time was spent in front of the computer – continuing the research into my family tree.

While the car was being serviced I visited the local library to gain free access to the Ancestry records. I actually ended up spending just over three and a half hours helping someone research their own tree.

As for my tree I have started to compile individual records for each family member in an attempt to follow them from cradle to grave. Not an easy thing to do but with census records I should be able to build up a picture of their lives. The next stage will be to publish this online and I have already started of a website for this.

On an unrelated matter over the weekend one of the dust caps were taken from my tyre valve, I don't suspect it was children I expect it was someone who was missing one and had the opportunity to steal one off me – I do wonder why as it was just the bog standard plastic one!

Now do I do the same thing and steal one off another car or do I have to go and buy a replacement – I have priced up four for £1.79?

A few years ago you would not hear much about St Dwynwen’s Day in Wales with the exception of a few cards on sale in a few specialist Welsh shops, the high street retailers preferring to focus on the more profitable Valentines cards. That was actually a good thing as you could buy flowers, chocolates and go out for meals on the 25th January and not have to pay “Valentine” prices.
I have posted the story of St Dwynwen before on the site but think it is appropriate to add it to this post.

Dwynwen lived during the 5th century and was, by all accounts, one of the prettiest of Brychan Brycheiniog's 24 daughters. (Obviously before the days of TV)

The story goes that Dwynwen fell in love with one Maelon Dafodrill, but unfortunately her father had already arranged that she should wed another. Maelon was so outraged that he raped Dwynwen and left her.

In her grief Dwynwen fled to the woods, where she begged God to make her forget Maelon. After falling asleep, Dwynwen was visited by an angel, who appeared carrying a sweet potion designed to erase all memory of Maelon and turn him into a block of ice.
God then gave three wishes to Dwynwen. First she wished that Maelon be thawed; second that God meet the hopes and dreams of true lovers; and third, that she should never marry.

All three were fulfilled, and as a mark of her thanks, Dwynwen devoted herself to God's service for the rest of her life.
Remains of Dwynwen's church can be seen today on the island of Llanddwyn, off the coast of Anglesey. (North Wales)

Also situated on the island is Dwynwen's well, wherein allegedly swims a sacred fish, whose movements predict the future fortunes and relationships of various couples. Visitors to the well believe that if the water boils while they are present, then love and good luck will surely follow.

I had gotten used to the clear blue skies throughout the day so it was a shock to have to contend with the bleak dark skies which came along with the rain!

Half way though January and still not got any clear plans as to what I want to get done this year, I'm not sure if that is a bad thing or not!

I spent most of yesterday sorting out my finances in preparation for 2010 and am hoping that this year I will be able to make some serious inroads with my debts and also continue to build up my savings. I mentioned yesterday that 2009 had seen some serious money needed to be spent on the car and since that happened I have been trying to become less reliant on credit cards and getting used to using cash, of course no one can predict the future but I am hoping that by the end of the year I would have been able to at least halve my month direct debit for my credit cards (at the moment about £80 a month is going for minimum repayments).

I will need to keep better control over my spending, looking back at last year, problems arise with my food spending and what I list as "misc" I have set up a new spreadsheet and will need to make sure that I actually budget more efficiently. I'm hoping that 2010 will also see me developing my family tree, I have done a fair amount of work on it over the past few years and am toying with the idea of buying a subscription to the 1911 census so that I can spend more time trying to trace other branches of the family, checking and the finances are there and I do have a few more days to decide.

My gym membership has ended and I am still wondering if I should renew it for this year as I have not used the gym for the last few months, might pop along there tomorrow to see how much they are charging for membership this year.

Anyway 2009 has not been that bad for me, in fact trying to remember the last twelve months and any significant events is hard enough – I suppose the last twelve months have been expensive where the car is concerned. I did manage to get away to Blackpool for a weekend and have been able to get out and see a little more of Wales – even going up to Cardiff! Was also happy to be asked to be godfather to a friends son.

Of course there are things that I wished I had done and that is what 2010 is for, my 101 list has slowly been worked on even if the deadline has passed by more than a year!

So this evening I will be watching as the bells ring in 2010…

Been a few weeks since my last entry (no surprise there), got loads of excuses but all have been used before. Well thought I would post an entry but discover that my version of WordPress is out of date so I set about updating it and only when I get to the last stage I discover that it will not work as I have the wrong version of MySQL – so checking with my hosting company I discover that I have to delete my old database and create a new one (I am typing this entry up while I wait) which has now been set up but I will have to update a few things so please if you see something not working leave me a message!

So Christmas was good, can’t really complain about the presents the photo to the left shows some of the things that I got (well the ones I was able to take a photo of) you can see I got the traditional deodorant and was expecting to get some sort of cook book. The big box is a memory foam topper and piled on top of it are a few new clothes that I also got.

I only had an issue with two presents that I got, the secret Santa present from work which was a "DEAD FRED" pen holder. Everyone else on the team seemed to have a gift that they actually wanted I got a pen holder – but I should not be ungrateful. The second present was from my father and as usual was clothing that was way to small for me. It would not be a problem except for the fact that I've had ill fitting clothes for the last few years and they take up space in my wardrobe. I was however able to take it back and swap it for something else.

The second photo shows the rest of the presents I got, you will see I had two DVD's to add to my collection and two new books, some chocolates/biscuits that I really should not eat but it would be a waste not too. I also got a new wallet to keep all that money I'm planning on saving!

I do however think that next year I will have to consider who I buy presents for, I was rather annoyed not to get something from a relative considering that I have always got her something in the past.

I have also had confirmation that my subscription to "Your Family Tree" will be starting and my first magazine should arrive in about two weeks – this is going to save me £64.87 as the subscription did not cost me anything as I used my Tesco vouchers. I am still undecided if I will go to the trouble of making Christmas cards this year as I really don't know if I will have the time – will check my crafting supplies and maybe just mass produce one or two designs!

The great clean out '09 is coming along slowly but I expected that and have not even began to look at getting rid of any old clothes yet. Last Sunday I cleared out one of my CD holders and just spent some time making sure the CD's were in the correct boxes etc and threw away a lot of old computer CD's. I have however come across spare jewel cases and am still debating throwing these away. A load of 3.5in disks are due to be thrown along with the case they are all stored in – I don't think I will have a need to have them when I don't have any means to read them!

My digital photo archive¹ is coming along well with only a few more old family photos to scan before I have to go on the search for more old photos that I can obtain for the scanning process. I have added one old photo online at a few forums to see if I can obtain any information regarding it – limited success at the moment.

It's not really sunk in yet that it's the 1st November yet and means only one more pay day before Christmas, I have already started thinking about Christmas but I really will have to get started soon with the whole buying and wrapping of gifts.

1. I decided to scan as many old family photos as possible to protect them from the ravages of time [back]

It was pretty easy to see where the cuts needed to be made as I keep everything on a spreadsheet and after all the direct debits the only thing that I had any control over was my food budget and it has been going really well but last night when I was doing my weekly shop with £11 in my pocket I noticed that prices in the supermarket had increased by a stupid amount within a week for no apparent reason.

A few weeks ago I discovered that Tesco were selling Curry sauce at a bargain price so bought a tin and made chicken curry – it tasted good so last week I bought a few more tins of Tesco curry sauce as they only cost £0.04 and with some chicken and a few other things added can make a good and more importantly cheap meal. However last night the price had doubled to £0.08 a tin, now they were not on special offer last week and I should not be complaining as £0.08 is still good value but why the sudden price increase. I then get to the frozen foods section and see that the stir fry chicken which only cost me £2.49 last week would now cost me £2.99. I do wonder how many people would just do the shopping and not realise that the prices had increased – I don't expect them to put a sign up telling people that the prices have increased but I will certainly be paying more attention to the prices I am paying.

Of course I can't complain as this site is open to everyone who has access to the internet but it is the amount of time which is spent "checking" to see if I have made any updates. I would have thought that this person would have more important things to do and would be more concerned about sick or dying relatives that what little old me has to say?

Anyway as I've already mentioned been kept pretty busy the last few weeks, spent a week cooking various things during September, the Turkish delight did not quite turn out as I had hoped!

The last few weeks I have been pro-active in trying to sort out my room and as regular visitors might be aware this is something that I have spoken about on numerous occasions in the past with little or limited success. A new shelf has been put up and I have actually thrown things out – surprisingly not as much as I would have thought given the space I have gained.
Saying all of that I still have a lot more to do and am hoping to look at my clothes next and get rid of those that I no longer wear or no longer fit.

I loaded up my list with the 100 AFI and 100 BFI films and sat back awaiting my disks.
Saturday 1st August – Two dvd's arrive (Sunday, Bloody Sunday and Life is Sweet) I also get a spare return envelope.
Sunday 2nd August – Post two dvd's back.
Tuesday 4th August – Shows that both dvd's have arrived back two new ones to be dispatched.
Wednesday 5th August – Two dvd's arrive (Eden Lake, All The Boys Love Mandy Lane)

I know I like my films but watching two in one night and getting them posted back the next day and awaiting the next disks to arrive was a little annoying so I decided to get out of this cycle by using the spare envelope to send one film back at a time.

Thursday 6th August – Posted All The Boys Love Mandy Lane (requested additional envelope²)
Friday 7th August – Posted Eden Lake, shows that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button ready to be dispatched
Saturday 8th August – Received The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Sunday 9th August – posted The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Tuesday 11th August – To Kill A Mockingbird arrives, also showing The Seventh Seal is ready to be dispatched.
Wednesday 12th August – Posted back To Kill A Mockingbird (poor quality dvd) The Seventh Seal has been dispatched but not arrived.
Thursday 13th August – Seventh Seal arrives, showing that Elizabeth has been dispatched.
Friday 14th August – Elizabeth arrives, post back Seventh Seal
Monday 17th August – posted Elizabeth back, shows that Lesbian Vampire Killers have been sent
Wednesday 19th August – Lesbian Vampire Killers arrive, shows that West Side Story has been dispatched
Thursday 20th August – West Side Story arrives, shows that The Knowing has been dispatched
Friday 21st August – Posted back West Side Story.
Saturday 22nd August – Knowing arrives, showing that Local Hero has been dispatched.
Monday 24th August – Posted back Knowing
Tuesday 25th August – Local Hero Arrives
Thursday 27th August – posted Local Hero back, Shows A Taste Of Honey dispatched
Sunday 31st August – Showing that A Taste of Honey dispatched 25th August, and The Dam busters dispatched 29th August. However these have not arrived before the end of the trial period and rather disappointed that as it has gotten closer to the end of my trial the speed at which the disks have been arriving has slowed down.

So over my 30 day trial I have had had twelve³ dvd's and have watched the following online free as part of the package –

Black Narcissus, Evil Aliens, A Matter Of Life And Death, This Sporting Life and Henry V.

I will be keeping my current package at least for the moment, they do an unlimited 1 package for £9.78 and for this to be worth while you need to watch more than four films in a month.

1. You are only limited by the amount of time it takes for the post to deliver your disks and the time it takes Lovefilm to dispatch the next film on your list [back]
2. Still waiting for them to send a spare envelope [back]
3. This is the number of films that I have received and returned within the 30 day free trial period [back]