Sunday Night: Today has been the hottest day of the year so far, it was dead still all day and still is, we reached 35C and stayed there all day, it is currently 26.5C at midnight. Beccie’s friends Donna and Chris came over today and we all had a nice day with lots of swimming in the pool and a BBQ to finish off the night…..

Yesterday was also very hot 34C, Antony and I went to town to get the shopping, so I had the inevitable crash in the afternoon, then I listened to the game, quite why I bother evades me…….. We are not working on miniatures at the moment, as everything you touch sticks to you, or you drip on it…. et in another two weeks and we’ll be moaning that’s it’s suddenly getting cold…. it’s so one extreme to the other here!

Friday Night: Another clear hot and sunny day, yesterday was 32C and today we got to 33C for most of the day, getting used to it now though, inside the house is 30C all the time, even the bedroom…. The cats come in a just spread themselves on the granite floor in the gold room, they sleep most of the day and go out in the evening, but it’s still hot outside and I am melting here…… Yet in a month the nights will get cool again, followed by the pool which is still at it’s maximum 28C…….

I said I wasn’t going to do Anscestory today…. yeah righ… it’s bloody adictive! I have been adding pictures where I can and lines sideways and this is the secret to finding out more information. The wider you go the better chance you have of someone knowing about the distant relli’s. I have follwed one such line to 1518 and Chrissie has got to 1500…

Wednesday Afternoon: Hot, 31C Clear and sunny. This also describes the last several days as well. It has been between 32C and 31C for days. I have been totally sucked into the Ancestory thing and have spent the last few days engrossed in the search for distant relli’s.

Yesterday afternoon, after using someone eles’s tree to complete a line, I researched someone who had been sent to Australia for life….. I was facinated this and spent the whole afternoon following that clue with great results. Trouble was later in the eveing I saw another record, the 1901 Census that had my “supposed” great gran at home with her parents on this line of family aged 22……. Whilst my real great gran 24 was at home, married and with my gran 2 years old…. So someone cocked up and missed a record and about five lines have gone blindly down the road chasing a dud lead! I have found her probable family now, again marriage certificate is the only way forward, and they are £22 each!

On another line, my Mum has an embroiery sampler by “Harriot Gifford” in 1829, but the trail to her had gone cold too. Some other “Tree’s” have called her Clifford and gone off on a wild goose chase, so you got to be so carefull and verify.

I rang my Mum again to confirm the name was Gifford, then I searched the parish records of her “birth” village, which were online fortunatly and bingo I found her there and here parents names too! Now that “mystery line” has gone back to 1790 something …..

But the main line Bell is a total Mystery. As to who “George” actually was is anyone’s guess, he could have used a number of combinations of George, William or Stanley and his military records show him as Fred, so he is impossible to verify so far. We will have to get his marriage certificate and hope he had to produce a birth certificate and didn’t conjure up parents….. I can’t find his brother Jack anywhere either.

Friday Night: hot and sticky, 30C. But it’s been a much cooler and bearable week with temperatures more like 25C, it was even cloudy all day Wednesday, but that was nice after the weekend incineration.

Frankly I did very little at first this week as the fiesta just wipes you out. We have had the exhibition set up too and I only took it all down last night, so we still had the odd visitor and the private visits last much longer.

Chrissie has been making our family tree’s online and this has answered life long questions about earlier generations, in fact we have had the most success with two of my lines I knew nothing about, all the way back to 1790 something….. It also led to me to trying to trace my Grandfathers war record of his DFC. But I had no luck, I have tired many times before with no luck which was so strange because it was one of the first DFM’s to be awarded. Even with the power of a top ancestery site I was drawing a blank. So then I decided to take another look at his log book entry.

I spent the greater part of yesterday morning looking for the pictures I had taken of the original log book and eventually found them on the original chip from the oldest camera! Anyway once I found this I looked closely at the log book and then saw that his entry describiing the medal winning mission had been countersigned by a Lt Spurling, I had never noticed that before, so I did a search and bingo!… Spuring is well documented, but they were calling my Grandfather Frank Bell. He had indeed changed his name, but from George to William, as well as add three years, but thta’s what he signed….

Anyway I sent copies of the log book to the main war records website as well as his picture and now it shows him and his correct name and William!. I also changed the Wikipeadiea entry and supplied a link from that page to a page with the log book and his picture, correct name and date of birth, (they need verification or the entry gets deleted) but now Wikipedia’s  original source of information has also this too, so I feel very pleased that after 90 something years the record is straight.

The other thing that rather chuffed me is that he is officially recognised as a WW1 Flying ACE…… Awesome!

Search George Stanley Bell DFM and follow the links to him…..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Bell_%28aviator%29

http://www.theaerodrome.com/aces/england/bell3.php

Saturday Morning: Clear and sunny, goinjg to be 32C, yesterday was also 32C as was Thursday. We spent Thursday moving everything from Chrissie’s work shop so we could set up the Victorian Street for this weekend exhibition here, then Friday morning I went to town to do the shopping ready for the Fiesta this weekend.

Last night was the first night of the Fiesta, but first there was a meeting about the new road. we had heard earlier in the day the all the houses in the village were going to be charged for this new road, so for most of the day I wasn’t looking forward to the Fiesta….. As it turned out the charge was 40 euro’s a house, not the “hundreds” we had heard it was going to be…. That certainly lifted the mood and the night was really good. It’s our fifth fiesta here and each year we see the same families. When you only see people once a year, you really notice changes, especially how quickly the little ones grow up.

It was quite late when Maria from the restaurant arrived, so in case they were unable to get here again during the weekend, we invited them to see the Exhibition. I was expecting 3-4 people to follow me up, but then a dozen or more arrived….. It’s the first time our nieghbours have seen our work and they were all really impressed, so I expect on Sunday by the time the word has got round, there will be quite a few more visitors…..

The Maypole on the common….. We have heard from the Dolls House World that our “feature” is in the next UK Magazine….

The Villa and Jacksons in “1913″

Wednesday Night: Today was hot, clear and sunny, 32C. We had to go all the way down to Calpe to the fabric shop to get the green material for the front of the street exhibition which we will be setting up here tomorrow…

After Calpe we went to pick Beccie up from her work, which today was at a hotel up in the mountains, about 45 miniutes drive. From there it’s possible to carry on up and over the mountain as the road goes all the way round to our village. By the time we arrived back we had already decided to have lunch at Maria’s…. which of course takes the rest of the afternoon.

Monday and Tuesday were both cooler and cloudy, which was actually perfect for doing the bricks on the side of Jacksons….

I did one side each day, whilst Chrissie made this picnic scene with cutouts, fabric and some of the fimo food, she is going to put it on the common for the exhibition.

Lucy is not impressed…….We are no longer at the end of the track, there is now a road around the village…. trouble is they built the road on the bancale that the cats always sit on….. so unfortunatly now they sit and play in the middle of a road!

Sunday Night: Today was 26C and partly cloudy, it clouded over completly in the afternoon.

Here is the Balloon landing again on youtube enabling full screen playback…..

Friday Night: Today was mostly cleqar and sunny, it was about 27C most of the day with a nice cooling breeze. I had to take Amber to the vet again for her on going skin problem, with the inevitable consiquencies that now she won’t come inside again….. She really “blames me” ….

Talking about about “Cats” as in cattiness, seem the kufuffle in the club is far more about “history” and it seems I have inadvertantly ruffled a few feathers, or should I say fur! Anyway I still don’t know exactly what I have done wrong, but it seems the president was the just the messenger, although the delivery of the message is unfortunatly what has caused ruptions here….. Apparently there have been other meetings and discussions to which I am not privvy, I even had a “secret” phone call earlier from someone in the club informing me about this and that the president was acting on instructions, so someone is being totally two face  … FFS!!!! we don’t need this … Basicaly some one got “jealous” because of the “attention.” but that only happened because they read my face book page and thought it was a club dairy of sorts…. So that’s it?   because I wrote about what I was doing on facebook……….. ? Well I don’t think we will be attending the next meeting, let them sort it out.
.
Anyway in the mean time we decided that we weren’t going to be told what to do regarding holding our exhibit here for the fiesta, so we decided to do one of our own without the club, It’s called 1913…. I can use my cars and all of the other houses are circa 1913, so it’s everything, cars the lot. The I spoke individually to most of the members telling them it was our exhibition and could we borrow their box and we have 95% of the street. We may have to fill 2 spaces, I have one more person to ask yet though…. the bloody president can sit back and enjoy my facebook coverage with a new “photographers shop” (Itwas my camera in there anyway)  in the black and yellow unit called Dack &Ko

I have been working on the Spanish street over the last three days, I have been making the window and door surrounds which are deeply recessed, then I have to make the doors and windows to go in them. It seems to be taking a long time, but I suppose it’s effectivly three dolls houses all at once!

NEWSFLASH Just had an email from the president saying we can do the exhibition, she didn’t realise I had everyones support on this……… it reads like an appology, things have improved, best of all we got all the shops!

Thursday morning: Cloudy, cool. 23C. I have recieved an email from the president of the club that has so disturbed me I have ceased all work on miniatures. For me what amounts to a “formal warning” is tradtionally and usually followed by two fingers!

Without predjudice I feel I have been completely mis-represented and toally resent any implication that I have “taken over” the stupid club…… When I was setting up the exhibiton and dealing with the Spanish Press and UK mags, no one else on the club committe were even here in Spain to do so.

This is all over a comment I made on facebook the other night where I merely said that I had an idea how we could display the street here during the fiesta next weekend. But I have been told in no uncertain terms that I cannot . I am told the club is “democratic” and if just one member refuses to agree to an exhibition, then it cannot take place…. That’s not democratic it’s a dictatorship! As well I am being torn off a strip for not including other members pictures and names on my facebook page….. Errr it’s MY PAGE – WHICH IS ABOUT WHAT I DO!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOT THE CLUBS and anyway I did, you just didn’t look very well.

Ok, So I guess this is where the fingers come in because Who’s poxy street is it anyway? No one  has the right to say we can’t set up OUR STREET in our own home – yet this has so upset me,  seems we are not even going to do that now…… So Thanks.

Wednesday Night: Today began clear and sunny but then quickly clouded over. It remained dark and cool for most of the day with flurries of drizzle which interupted the work on the Spanish street scene……..