Blogs I Like To Visit December 28, 2009

We moved house about 6 weeks ago.  When we were reconnected to broadband in our new house, I eventually realised  that my favourite blogs were not being updated in the list of RSS Feeds that I subscribe to.  I can still use the Feeds List to look up my favourites but I no longer know when they have been updated, which rather defeats the idea of having the list.  Instead, I only get the blog entry that was made on the date I subscribed to that particular feed.  And this becomes rather tedious as I have to scroll through the blog to find the blog’s home page and then I see if there is a more current entry.  I tried to make a list of these blogs in my side bar but I couldn’t get that to work either.

So to make a long story short, I’m going to just make a list of the blogs I like to read and then refer back to this post when I want to look up that particular blog – that is if I can’t just pull the name of the blog out of my head.  (Sometimes when I do that with telephone numbers I get the wrong friend.)  The list is in somewhat alphabetical order.  Here’s a start.

Seattle Now and Then    seattle now and then

Emily Carr mystery name    the other emily blog post

Norwegian knitter     norway

Victoria Daily photo

Audrey     Eclectic Art

Annie    Knits O Facto

Lillehammer     Toriortot mittens

Art of the Landscape     art

Annie   aspinnerweave

Astronomy picture of the day    NASA

Entomologist who likes to knit     knitting in wales

no name    shipspotting

Beth    geology and family

Bettina   woolly bits – everything textile

Birgitta    Birgitta’s blog

Boston      photos of Boston

Carol    carol’s blog

Cat Down Under      in Australia

Catherine    Dispatches from the Deise

Cathy      sketching in South Africa

Charlotte     atelier 70N

Cindy   the best hearts are crunchy

Cliffe      Vintage Seattle

Dave      Old Paper Art

Dorothy    Lockerbie Scotland

Dot    Yarnmaker

Elin      Northern Norway

Evelyn    Textiles and Stamp Collecting and Drawing

FiberQat      FiberQat

Fleegle        Fleegle’s blog

Franklin    The Panopticon

Freyalynn    Freyalynn’s Thoughts

Freyalynn    Freyalynn’s Dyepot

Gabrieli     Urban Sketchers

Gale     She Shoots Sheep Shots

Harry     Harry in Athens

Helen     chronic knitting syndrome

Holly     The Literary Assassin

Ingrid      Ingrid’s blog

Jack    hartford daily photo

James    Crucibulum

James   fibrealive

Jared   brooklyn tweed

Janna    Knitting Relaxes Me

Jean     Jean’s knitting

Jean    Jean From Cornwall

Jeanne    A Bluestocking Knits

Jenny Dean   wild colour

Jo       North Africa

Joanna    Joannamauselina

Joe    Queer Joe

Julie    samurai knitter

Karen    the frugal girl

Kate      needled

Kerstin   from Sweden

Kerstin    Getting Stitched on the Farm

Kim      Historic Seattle

 

Kristie  in BC    North of 49

Leigh    Leigh’s Fiber Journal

Leigh    5 acres and a dream

Lene     Danceswithwool

Lesley    Devon Fine Fibres

Linda      Bookwords

Liz      Northern Lace

Swedish Liz in Ireland    swedish and english

 

Lynne     Sockladyspins

Ma Ingalls    What would Ma Ingalls Do

Mariann    in Holland

Martin     An Englishman in Eugene

Marina     Art and things

Mary Jo   Travel and knitting

Mary Lou    Yarnerinas

Matt    Just Wondering

Mel   vet in Maine

Meg    unravelling

Midori     in the labyrinth

Nyondo   Road Blog Ahead

P. J. Taylor     Dublin Daily Photo

Roger and Helen     connecticut

Rosemary     Rosemary’s blog

Renee    Art=Life

Ruth     Knitting on Impulse

SaRi      SaRi’s Mindful Knitting

Seattle P-I     archive photo blog

Savita      an awfully big blog adventure

Seattle bike blog    biking

Shandy     Cheviots

Sharon    Sage Creek  Nevada

Strath     Pacific Standard

Sue     Life Looms Large

Sue     travel fibre

Susan    thrums

Susan      SusanF Handmade

Susan      Emperor Penguin

a     Fed by Birds

Suzanne     herborium

Tracey    Dublin Sketchers

trapunto    trapunto

Ward Cunningham    state license plates

a     spinningfishwife

b       knitting linguist

c      quilt tales from Finland

d    tangletale

e     aland finland 365

e     historic fibres

f   from Kerstins Extras to Rag Rug Day in Sweden

g    vintage art illustrators

Unlike the Tree Stumps this list will keep growing.

Erin Go Bragh

Erin go Bragh

There was a fascinating article in the Irish Times today by Donal McMahon in An Irishman’s Diary.

The photograph in the article shows a little girl sitting on her young soldier father’s knee.  Her father was killed not long afterward when that little girl was just over 15 months old.  It took over 80 years for that little girl, Ina,  to find out the truth about his death.   At the age of 10 that little girl Ina lost her mother and she grew up with cousins and was sent to boarding school.  When she asked about her father, all she could find out was that he had been shot during the Troubles.  She eventually married and had a family who, in turn, grew up ignorant about their grandfather.  Ina knew her father had served with the British Army during the First World War but after that there was a blank.  In actuality, after her death her son Donal found out that his grandfather had served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

Now with the resources of the Irish Times archives, Donal has found that his grandfather, Sergeant Thomas Enright, RIC, had been shot dead on December 14th, 1921.  This took place at a turning point in Irish history.  The Anglo-Irish Treaty had been signed eight days previously and was to be ratified by overwhelming majorities in both houses of the English parliament two days later on December 16th.   

Sergeant Thomas Enright, of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and a Constable friend were attending a coursing meeting at which Thomas had entered two dogs.  They wore plain clothes.  They visited the hotel where the draw was made for the following day’s coursing.  They left the hotel (the establishment) shortly after 11 p.m., and as soon as they appeared on the street a volley of revolver shots was fired at them by a group of men who were standing near the post office.  Thomas was age 31.

Donal shared his findings with his mother.  He speculates that it is quite possible that reading the account of her father’s death brought some sort of closure to Ina.  She passed away scarcely 2 weeks later.

Donal goes on to write that happily we now have an Ireland where it is possible at last to break the silence surrounding those who served in the police and army of pre-independence times.  The men who shot Thomas, and the reporters of the time, were not to know that Thomas carried a tattoo on his right arm:  “Erin go Bragh”

Reflections – 74 years ago today,  December 28, 1935, was my parents’ wedding day.   My father-to-be had 3 children, age 11, 9, and 8.  My sisters-to-be were flower girls, and the ceremony was held in Winchester Massachusetts in the parental home of my mother-to-be.  I suspect that her sisters, my aunts, were her bridesmaids.   I must ask my sisters, now 83 and 82, and my 96 year old aunt for more of the details.  Or maybe I can search the archives of the Boston newspapers.

I blogged a few days ago about The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher.       Many questions were unanswered in the investigation of this case – many family secrets still remained.   After reading it I thought about the probability that most families have secrets, some quite innocent but will never be uncovered, others that will be revealed in the course of time if we know the right questions to ask.