Yawn Yawn Wakey Wakey 2025

Possibly a teeny weeny slice of cake @Ladybird4

 

I am going to wish you all a good night and I'll catch up with any further chats tomorrow.

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p.s. @Penny_Forthem - you go girl!

 

I gave the grass it's first trim of the year. It wasn't very long, but longer in patches, so less than a 1/4 of the box full.
After lunch went to plots, and I emptied one compost bin, and then transferred the contents of one ito the empty one. At least that kept me warm.

 

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Slàinte! May the luck of the Irish be with us all today. My Great Grandparents were Irish but had to leave the country very quickly as - so family rumours go - they were horse thieves and no, they had nothing to do with the disappearance of Shergar!

 

Good morning everyone. Bright and sunny and only just above freezing. I'm off to all day patch group today. I don't do saints but there's a florist at the SM I use most who has a board up advertising today's saint name and tomorrow's. Sometimes more than one. How is anyone supposed to keep track of all of them and "celebrate" all their saintliness?

One half of mine were irish too @Ladybird4, from Cork and just poor farmers whose land couldn't sustain them all. They certainly produced some characters in the next couple of generations tho.

Towns here and bigger villages also have empty premises but at least our nearest (pop 3500) still has 2 banks, 2 bakeries, a butcher, hairdressers, beauty parlour, florist and 2 estate agencies plus a small business park with vet, optician, car repairs so still quite lively. It's worse in the centre of La Roche (pop 45000) Part of the reason is retail parks taking footfall away. I don't know about business rates but suspect they feature too.

Have a lovely day everyone and look after your local businesses.

 

Happy St Patrick's Day to one and all. According to my DNA test results from Ancestry I am 25% Irish but, so far and despite tracing my family tree for the last 18 years, I have only found one very distant connection to the Emerald Isle. God only knows where the rest are ....

 

Morning @Obelix-Vendée. Interestingly there has just been an item on the news about the retail rates you have just mentioned and the increases are astronomical, so how small businesses will survive is debatable. In one case, a business owner's rates are going up 700% from last year. Scary amounts of money involved.

 

Perhaps America @Bluejayway?

 

That's always a possibility @Ladybird4. There's also a "missing" great great grandfather whose daughter was born in Bolton in the 1850s. Her mother (my gg grandmother) was from Upton, Cheshire (there are three Uptons in Cheshire and we don't know which one she was from) and as we can't find a marriage for her then maybe there was an Irish Navvy who just happened to be passing by ....

 

Morning all!

Bright and sunny here for St Paddy's Day (which the French have no idea about!!)

A bit of green to shout out to my maternal grandparents who came out (separately) from Dublin and Cork during the troubles. My grandmother was a seamstress and my grandfather a drunk. The days of the 6 o'clock swill. She kicked him out when my mother was 14 with 2 younger brothers. No social benefits in those days. Strong woman. No shite!

Rushing again after faffing around this morning. I wish you all a pleasant day.

 

Good morning all.

I had a lazy day yesterday, didn't do any painting or gardening. I did do the ironing though, in front of Gardeners' World.

I don't have any Irish. I am English with a tiny bit of Scottish and French from a Huguenot called Henriette who came from a chateau in Normandy.

 

I haven’t done a DNa test but my sister has and it showed as 96% English with a little bit of Finnish/russian borderlands. Am assuming I would be similar. The latter wasn’t described as that, can’t remember the term it encompasses the nomadic Nordic populations (such as Sami). It amused me as that’s where my OH’s maternal side is from

 

That is an incredible coincidence @Butterfly6.

 

Good morning all and Happy St. Patrick’s Day! My ex husband is Irish both his parents were from Dublin so my children are all half Irish and usually go to the parade in Birmingham. I believe I have some Irish blood along with the Jewish from my paternal grandfather and my paternal grandmother was a Romany gypsy who read the tea leaves, think Peaky Blinders and you get the idea, Irish is on moms side along with Scottish and Welsh I am a proper mongrel! Cold here and I am off to work in a bit.

 

Half Irish. Relatives who still lived there would send us parcels of St Patrick’s Day badges to wear, gold harps usually, with huge clumps of live shamrock pinned to them. I went to Catholic schools, and there were a lot of others with Irish parents, so plenty of shamrock in evidence. The nuns were mainly Irish too, and along with the usual sums and reading, we were taught Irish dancing.
Always used to know what saints day it was, the nuns would inform us!