Anybody else up yet?

Annobel I could teach "Macbeth", "Henry V", "Romeo and Juliet", to name but a few, without the book! Bet you could too.

My nice thing is that my DD qualified late as an English reacher as I retired, and I get the odd early e-mail asking me to recommend something, or "Is this a metaphor exactly or something more obscure?" or "Any ideas on..." It'slovely just to have to odd input and use my knowledge without actually having to DO it!

I once wrote a really bad sonnet for her early one morning, to use as comparison.

The good thing about teaching adults on Access Courses was that I could, to some extent, devise my own courses rather than have to stick to exam board set books. I could ignore Romeo and Juliet and use Anthony and Cleopatra which I much prefer. But when I was tutoring a girl for GCSE, what was on the syllabus? R&J of course!

nanachrissy just doing the same with my Mum's bungalow. It's taking ages. You need to get ruthless and whatever you do, don't start looking through the photos or you'll be there forever.

When we cleared my elderly relatives' bungalow (why did they have so many duvets?), I swore I wouldn't accumulate clutter for my DSs to clear. Oh dear! Eight years later.....

My family cleared my grandparents place and I am sure we lost many family photos, which have become very important now...so do think twice before throwing them out!

I know I've told this story before, but when my mother (who is now dead) moved house from the one she and I were born in, I think she saw it as a fresh start or something. She proudly told me that she had sat in front of the kitchen fire, with the photo box, carefully cut out the faces from all the old photos, then burned them all separately. Still don't understand why. But it means there are hardly any photos of my family, including her parents and their relatives. DH's family, on the other hand, left masses of photos....

They were a very private generation Ariadne, my father never told anyone about his family, and their lives and his secrets died with him. My mother, who led a very unconventional life for her generation, would reveal very little and only what she wanted you to know. Since she died four years ago , we have found some surprising and touching letters to her from her Mother, a woman who she said she loathed and who wasn't interested in her. We will never know the truth.

Apparently my great aunt (born around 1890) burned a pile of photos of her parents, aunts and uncles in WW2 because, and I quote "I thought Hitler was coming".
Why he might have been interested in that long lost studio shot of my great great aunt rachel, playing the mandolin (!) i have no idea [hmmm]

After my aunt died in 2003, I found a very old album of photos and am not sure who all the people in them are, although in some cases it's possible to guess from family resemblances and the approximate date of the fashions worn. Frustrating.

I have been scanning all the old photographs I can get hold of from my own family and from DHs (many more of his as they were a slightly better-off family and had more studio photos taken) I mean to give a copy to each of the children, plus anyone else who is interested. Still quite a lot to scan, as it is an occupation which gets tedious quite soon.

I have labelled them and filed them in date order and have them on a USB plug-in memory (plus a copy on a memory card). Naming people I have never met has sometimes been tricky, but working with known likenesses and dates has helped with most. In fact I seem better at identifying DHs family than he is.

I have just downloaded Picasa, a free photo organising and editing application, which has webspace for you to store web albums and also - this sounds fantastic but I have only played a little with it so far - facial recognition. As you view a picture, you can tell it to select faces. It puts a green rectangle round each face and you label it with a name. If the next photo has the same face in it, it labels it on its own.

So far it has only made a couple of mistakes - one baby clearly looks very much like another to it. Same here!

We have loads of old photos and my dd has been compiling a family tree for quite some time,albeit in fits and starts.
My dad (bless him) was very meticulous and wrote down lots of information for her.

In lots of notebooks...........along with hundreds of books.........Aaarggghh!

Picasa's facial recognition is amazing. My profile pics were taken from group ones. I think Apple has a similar application.

Although my husband is one of 4 boys, he and I did most of the work in clearing his parent's house after they had both died despite many promises of help from his brothers. Eventually, we managed to shame one of his them into helping and he, very begrudgingly, came for a couple of hours one Sunday. He was trying to make his escape when my husband got quite irate with him and told him to go to the dump on his way home to get rid of a few specific black bags. Instead of the ones full of rubbish, he took the one full of photos! My husband was very !

Sorry parents'

I am very excited this morning, all my children and six grandchildren will be together for a few days. I haven't seen my two grandsons who live in Qld since last March at D2's wedding, so it is going to be doubly exciting. Plus all of my grandchildren get on extremely well, they will be so excited knowing that today they will see each other. Life does have the highs with the lows, for me today is a high!

Fabulous Faye. Have a wonderful time

That's AWESOME!! Have a fantastic time with them all, and I'm looking forward to hearing all about it.

That's brilliant Faye have a wonderful time with them all.

How lovely!

Enjoy your high, faye. Family highs are glorious.

Have a wonderful time Faye. Nothing like a family get-together - I am

Have a super day, Faye

Have a brilliant time Faye!

Have a wonderful day Faye and then enjoy a rest when they have all gone!

faye enjoy your time with the family.