ELY 381

Today I was digging holes for fence posts and my spade encountered this vehicle registration number plate. The fact that it has three letters and then three digits tells us that it was issued between 1932 and 1963. The "LY" part indicates that the car owner lived in Sidcup, a section at the SE edge of Greater London.

That was as much as three blippers (Ceridwen, Huw, & I) could divine from online inquiries after the old slab of aluminum was washed down and patted dry. It has been under six inches of earth since at least some time in the 1980s when the adjacent cottage was renovated. Old B&W photos of the farm from the previous family show a car and a pickup truck dating from the '40s & '50s, but without the plate numbers.

My sister suggests that there might be an unsolved crime in the mix. I rather think that this is a remnant of a family who decided the green hills and wind-swept cliffs of Pembrokeshire made a better place to raise their young. They loaded thier heirlooms and bedding into the truck, then Granny and the kids into the car and said good-bye to city life. The old pictures also show a cow, a pig, a pony, a dog, and a black cat. I'll wager they called the truck "Ely."

That's my blip for today. The fire logs are burning, the cats are purring, and all is well on Ceridwen's farm.