Well, well, well

At last, our central heating is back on after it slowly ground to a halt over a period of two weeks, and finally died a week ago. So this morning, the pleasant gas man was busy mending the darned boiler and servicing it for its new service contract, and I was in my office, signing parish money away with a few bills, when Brian, one of our money men tells me there are a Mr and Mrs Davies to see me. Who? I wonder. I make my way to the front door, to be greeted by a very respectable gent saying "Hello, cousin! I'm Herbie."

It was one of those genealogists moments....  I had encountered third cousin Herbie on one of the family tree websites, and we'd lobbed a few e-mails back 'n fore. And sudddenly, unannounced, there he was!  Well he timed it right, coz a lovely lady from the parish had just given me some homemade Welsh cakes for St David's Day. Herbie observed that they must be "perks of the job"... and tucked in.

We spent a pleasant hour swapping notes about our common Casey ancestors, who came from somewhere in Co Waterford to Cardiff at the time of the Famine. I took Herbie and wife onto the inner sanctum of my office to show them my family tree stuff on my computer - and to show him himself, number 1953 out of 2524 currently listed!

Before they went, they kindly invited me to visit them, and as they live near one of my favourite places, Wells in Somerset, I may just well do that... Well, well, well...