Adding to my history file
Tried to pay for breakfast this morning with my debit card. The reader refused to accept my using the slot reader; the text window recommended using the magnetic stripe reader (which I did). Declined the card. Tried the slot reader again, and this time everything worked according to the standard operating procedure. So, what was that all about?
Doesn’t matter, as long as the payment went through.
Back home, fed and with a small pile of groceries (including a huge box of biscuits for the dog) I noted that this is a local history day. That means going over to the rec centre to join some local people with an interest in getting the facts recorded. In a book, no less. A good way to spend the afternoon. For me, the highlight was learning about the burning of my grandmother’s home, years ago. Oh, it was done long after she had moved on with her life; a shell of a house, actually. One that I have in a photograph taken before I was born.
I’m unclear of all the details, but the fire was set during a rainy afternoon that fell in the middle of the potato harvest. Too wet to dig, so setting fire to an abandoned house (by the new owner) made perfect sense. As near as I can tell, there was a lot more effort spent than expected. I’ve lost other “ancestral homes” to fire, so this story just added to that pile of details that form MY history. To be recorded in a (different) book, eventually.
