Of Course I Spot the Trains

I'm only just now getting around to reading Charlie Stross' Halting State, having somehow missed it when it first came out. I'm enjoying it, but I managed to derail (pun intentional) on, of all things, the trains in Glasgow.

( Further Train Neepery )

Minor point, of course, and I'm amused at myself for obsessive over train routes like this on the one piece of Scotland that I know well enough to navigate on my own.

More Mehama History

We have another old photo from almost exactly a century ago that I scanned and that we tried to match on Friday. Trying to figure out who was in the photo led us to some interesting pieces of information and allowed us to fill in some things Lisa didn't know about her family.

( Mehama 1911 and Today )

While trying to search who was in the photo, we learned more things about Lisa's mother's side of the family about which I will post later because there are too many photos in this post already.

He'd Give Me Nightmares, Too

While trying to search who was in the 1911 photograph, we were able to trace enough of Lisa's ancestry to the point of people whom she remembered, which allowed us to make a connection and thus put names to a couple of faces, including one that traumatized Lisa as a child.

( Creepy Old Guy, Isn't He? )

I'm not that surprised that during the periods when nobody was looking after the old house, neighborhood kids are thought to have dared each other to break in and go see the ghosts.

Update, 22:50: Minor correction of "photo" to "portrait" prompted (eventually) by calimac's comment below.

Last Chance This Summer

It was so hot yesterday that Lisa had to put off a trip to the roof until nearly 8 PM, giving her not more than about an hour to try and get something accomplished on this, the last full day that I was here. She obviously can't go up there by herself without a ground spotter; it's much too dangerous.

( Quick Fixes )

After doing what she could before twilight ended entirely, Lisa came down from the roof, handed the roller to me, and while I went and washed it out, she put away the tools, detached the safety line from the John Deere mower, and put the mower away. The safety line remains on the roof because she sort of hopes that a friend might be persuaded to come down and spend a couple of days as a ground spotter for her while she makes one more trip up there to do some additional clean up work. And if that doesn't happen, she can get the safety line down by herself without anyone's help, and she tells me she can even put the ground ladder away herself at need, by using the hand cart as a support for dragging it back to the shed in which is it stored.

This is the end of my house work adventures for this trip. In a few minutes, I'll be shutting down the computer, packing up the printer, and leaving to head south again. Current plans have me back up here the first three weeks of October. If we are lucky, we'll have some times with sufficiently good weather to get more work done here.