The Year Dot 2026

New Rules: April 2026 As from the first of April this year new recycling rules have come into force across the UK.  All homes will have a food waste bin that will be collected weekly, a general waste bin that is collected every other week and a multi recycling waste bin for cardboard/paper, plastic/metal, and glass which is collected every other week alternating with the general waste. This has been implemented to get the UK rate of recycling up to 65% by the year 2035. At the moment Wales come out on top at 68.4%, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England are lower.  England I am ashamed to say is 44.6%.   Weekly food waste goes to specialised plants where it is turned into renewable energy and fertilizer. Cardboard is recycled into more cardboard, glass is recycled into more glass and what they are now doing with plastic is incredible, new clothing fibres etc. We in Cornwall have been doing this recycling for a while now, in fact according to Cornwall Council our rate...

  Every family has a story to tell and every family has the odd skeleton in the closet even if you haven’t found it yet, believe me it's there. I first got interested in genealogy when I started researching Emily Hobhouse.  As mentioned in previous blogs I am half South African and half English.   Due to the advance of the internet over the past 10-15 years researching your family history has never been so easy.  The UK censuses since 1841 are all on line and we are now up to 1921.  They will let you know all about your family, where they lived and what their job was.  The English side of my family, the Masons and Jones, have been quite straightforward.  Mostly agricultural workers, waterboat coalmen on the Worcester to Birmingham canals, there isn’t much to find, or so I thought!  I have uncovered some sad stories, one includes an older sister of my Grandfather John Mason, who at the age of 14 threw herself into the river Severn in Worcester afte...

 Recently I have been researching Lady Catherine (Kate) Courtney of Penwith for Liskeard museum to write a brief biography of her and her husband Leonard and their relationship with Emily Hobhouse. Here is wot I rote Leonard Henry  C ourtney  (1932-1918) ,  1st Baron Courtney of Penwith  and MP for Liskeard (1876 – 1900)   Leonard Courtney was born  on the  6 th  of  July  1832 in Penzance, Cornwall.   He was t he  eldest of nine  child ren  born to   John  and Sarah  Courtney . John was  a  b anker at Bolithos ’  Bank in Falmouth .  Sarah  came from St Mary’s in  The   Isles of  Scilly  but  had been sent  to Penzance at an early age to work.   At school ,  Leonard  had  been recognised  as a gifted student .   However,   at the age of twelve ,  he  left   school  to work  alongside h...

Happy Mother’s Day to all you wonderful women out there. So here we are again, it's Mothers Day . The day everyone, from babies to adults are encouraged to appreciate their Mothers by presenting expensive hastily written cards, flowers and chocolates that are bought because we are made to feel that we spend the rest of the year in un-appreciation  and need to make amends.   It's a day when all Mothers have to work extra hard the day before to make sure everything is prepared for them to relax and take the 'special' day off.   If very lucky,  mothers get a lovely handmade card along with breakfast in bed, a breakfast that could vary in degrees of perfection, depending if 'Dad' has helped or not.  Let’s give a nod to the brilliant acting of mother's reactions on these occasions for the tasting of cold tea and burnt toast. It's the day when all the local Sunday restaurants and carvery's get impossible to book because you or the Dads of young children fo...