Great grandpa Joe

Blowy, grey, cold , I've been working inside today - partly on a bit of family history and partly on attempting to get the book started. Notes are being copied out and extra notes written all over the place. There may be something there. We've still two more legs of the Sheep's Head Way to do but weather and life are causing a delay! The family history was a bit of a breather but I've discovered a rather sad story. I've been looking at my great-grandfather Joe. Here he is on the left, aged 21, looking very dapper in a photograph taken for his mother. I know this for I have letters written by him. He sounds a lovely man - kind, full of good humour, someone who liked to draw little pictures in the margins of his letters and write in green ink. When he was 24 he married Sarah Maud. I think she was big trouble. He met her in Kent where he was travelling and brought her back to Stockport. He was a chemist and seems to have had to work long hours aand business was tough. In his last letter, written 10 days before his death, he writes to his sister mentioning how he was worried about Sarah Maud being bored and alone with their little boy, another Joe. He describes Little Joe with huge affection and delights in his antics. A letter written to his mother around the same time chides her for worrying about his health. He died of pneumonia aged 31 and that's him in the middle. He looks so old and careworn but the teddy is a nice touch. Sarah Maud couldn't cope with his death and seems to have just disappeared (10 years later I've tracked her down as being a housekeeper in Bath) and Little Joe on the far right was sent off to live with his grandmother Lavinia and various unmarried uncles and aunts.  He was 5 years old and took with him a small suitcase and a white mouse in a cage. He thrived though. .

And a tooth has just fallen out! I was eating an apple and felt something odd. This tooth has been dodgy for sometime so I'm not surprised but I fear I might have to go to the dentist. I am terrified of dentists, having had grim experiences in my youth which did involve having to be caught and pinned down first. I haven't been for years, they won't know where to start. I'll have to be knocked out!

Arthouse tonight - Renoir - twilight years, last love. We didn't go last week but went to see Captain Philips instead - excellent, Tom Hanks is superb. I'll report back.