The Distancing Diaries - 23rd & 24th April, 2021

 The sun streaming through the curtains woke me up early on Friday. I put the tea towels on a boil wash, filled the utility room sink with houseplants to give them a good drink and booked next week's National Trust adventure. After my Wii Fit workout, I put the upstairs houseplants in the bath, caught up with blog comments and wrapped my latest eBay sales before joining Jon in the kitchen for breakfast. Jon did the supermarket & post office run while I pegged out the washing on the line and sat in the sunshine embroidering a few more craftivism banners.

Jon returned and we sat outside enjoying an alfresco coffee. Our friend Erica and her daughter, Freya, were passing on their daily walk around the block and popped by for a chat. 

We first met Freya at the End of the Road in 2012 when she was a little girl and the epitome of festival chic. Now she's about to sit her GCSEs and study Animal Management at agricultural college. Where does the time go?

After our noodles, I walked into town for my long-awaited hairdressing appointment. I'd had a phone call earlier in the week to tell me that my regular stylist had left the company and that my booking had been switched to the style director, Reece, for no additional cost. I've seen him before and was more than happy.

In fact, the last time he cut my hair was a week before we visited the Taj Mahal back in January 2019. That's also the last time I dyed the length of my hair, I've only retouched the roots since then (and switched to chocolate brown as opposed to black.)

Thankfully I made it back home without any hassle from feral men, possibly as the time I walked home coincided with school chucking-out time and the only blokes out were collecting their offspring from school and therefore on their best behaviour!

I spent the rest of the afternoon reading my trashy - but gripping - thriller in the sunshine and marvelling at our stunning tulips that had finally graced us with their presence. 

Tea was a cheese salad with garlic bread accompanied by a beer. Later we drank rum, watched Waking The Dead and Gardener's World.

After a fitful night's sleep interrupted by the supernatural screams of randy foxes, Jon got up first, made tea and brought it back to bed where we read until 8.30am. I stripped & changed the bed, scrubbed tea stains from the bedside cabinets, loaded the washing machine & joined Jon in the kitchen for sausage sandwiches.

After breakfast, I pegged out the washing, got dressed and headed outside for a full-on day of gardening. Whilst my mission was to repot an aloe vera, move another fern and continue with the garden shredding, Jon's was to empty and demolish this rotten shed (by the way, that's the second of our compost bins, I'll move it next to the other one when we've used the contents). 

A visit from our friend Kev was a welcome distraction as was seeing Erica, Freya and the menfolk of the family again. After a break for noodles, we continued with our tasks and after 4 hours of shredding, I'd  reduced the garden waste pile by 75%.

Jon distributed the contents of the shed into another of our sheds and recycled the old shed into a store for our leaves. By the autumn we should have a good supply of leaf mould.

We rewarded ourselves with an hour in the sun accompanied by an ice-cold beer. Tea was pizza with jacket wedges.

I've discovered so many many more amazing ancestors in Lord Jon's family tree but let's start with his 13x saintly great-grandfather, Blessed Adrian's family, shall we?

He was married twice, first to Anne (1484 - 1518), the daughter of Sir William Stonor. She inherited Stonor Castle in Oxfordshire (above) upon his death. Adrian & Anne had two children, their firstborn being Margaret (1502 - 1551) who was Jon's 12 x great-grandmother. She married Sir Thomas Wentworth, the First Baron Wentworth who was Jane Seymour's cousin. His mother was the daughter of Sir James Tyrell, the supposed murderer of the Princes in the Tower. He and Margaret had eight sons and nine daughters. Sir Thomas was Lord Chamberlain to Edward VI and is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Lady Frances (1504 - 1529), Adrian's other daughter, married Thomas Fitzgerald, 10th Earl of Kildare. 

He was appointed deputy governor of Ireland. Hearing rumours that his father, the 9th Earl, had been imprisoned and executed in The Tower of London, 21-year-old Thomas feared the same fate and organised the Kildare Rebellion (1535- 1535) against his cousin, Henry VIII. Following the failure of the uprising Thomas surrendered to the King and was hanged at Tyburn.

After the death of his first wife, Blessed Adrian married Anne Rede/Reid, daughter of Sir William Rede/Reid of Boarstall, Buckinghamshire and widow of Sir Giles Greville. They went on to have three sons and two daughters. Sir Thomas Fortescue was the MP for Wallingford, Anthony Fortescue attempted to overthrow Elizabeth I and was imprisoned in the Tower of London and  Sir John Fortescue of Saldon (1531 - 1607) became the seventh Chancellor of the Exchequer serving from 1589 until 1603 (portrait below).

Adrian's daughter, Elizabeth married Sir Thomas Bromley, the Lord Chancellor, who presided over the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Daughter Mary's son was the explorer, Sir Thomas Cavendish (1560 - 1592), the first to emulate Sir Francis Drake, raid the Spanish towns and return by circumnavigating the globe. He became rich by captured Spanish gold, silk and treasure from the Pacific and the Philippines. He was knighted by Elizabeth I and died at sea at the age of 31. American novelist, Jan Westcott's Captain for Elizabeth, follows the events of his first circumnavigation.

Ann Rede survived Blessed Adrian and went on to marry Sir Thomas Parry, Comptroller of Queen Elizabeth's household. She was granted the manor of Great Washbourne in The Cotswolds in 1557.

I've now managed to trace Lord Jon's family back to 850AD - more to follow.

I'm off to drink rum and watch TV. Jon's promised me a trip to the charity shop & Wilko in the morning. We know how to live!