One of my wife’s hobbies is genealogy. So far she has traced her direct ancestors all the way back to the early eighteenth century, when one of them was born in Edinburgh. He is described in the records as being the son of a member of the Edinburgh City Guard (an armed quasi-police force) who was an in-dweller of the Castle. He later joined the British Army, and after serving as a infantry soldier in a number of regiments raised by successive Dukes of Argyll, he ended his service as an Invalid and Master Gunner at Landguard Fort near Harwich. When he was ‘too old and decrepit for further service‘ at the age of ninety(!) he moved to the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, where he remained until he died.

During his service he spent some years in Gibraltar, and whilst he was there he fathered several children, one of whom joined the Royal Regiment of Artillery as a twelve year-old fifer. It was this son who was the first of my wife’s family to come to Woolwich, and the family are still here nearly two hundred and fifty years later. (The boy later became Fife-Major to the Company of Gentlemen Cadets, one of the senior NCOs in the Regiment.)

One of the things that my wife had done as part of her research was a Hereditary DNA test. This looks for markers in an individual’s DNA and gives an indication of the origins of one’s forebears. Because the Y-Chromosome (Y-DNA) passes down from father to son with very little variation, it can be used to trace the origins of your paternal line. In my wife’s case the Y-DNA indicated that her father’s family came from the Argyll area of Scotland.

My wife prevailed upon me to also have the test … and it produced an interesting result. My surname is Norman French in origin, and I expected that the results of the Y-DNA would show the necessary genetic markers to support the contention that my paternal line came from Northern France.

It did not. In fact what it did show was that I belonged to a particular haplogroup whose geographical origins can be found in the area known as Frisia or Friesland. This part of the North Sea coast of Europe stretches from the northern part of the Netherlands to the southern part of the Jutland peninsular.

So it would appear that I am not a full-blood Norman after all … but it is highly likely that I am a Saxon!

I am up early this morning waiting for the plumber to arrive.

Yesterday my wife noticed that there was a small pool of water in the cupboard under the sink. There was no indication where it had come from so we mopped it up and carried on as normal. Last night I went to turn the dishwasher on and the indicator light indicated that the rinse aid dispenser needed to be refilled. The rinse aid is kept under the sink … and when I got it out there was a large pool of water there.

A cursory inspection revealed that the complicated system of pipes that connect the sink and dishwasher to the outflow pipe seems to have failed (one of the pipes almost came off in my hand!) and that it will need to be replaced.

Luckily I took out plumbing insurance some years ago. It guarantees a 24-hour service, so at midnight last night I was on the phone to the emergency phone line to book a plumber to come and fix the problem. They will be arriving sometime between 8.00am and 6.00pm, and they will phone 30 minutes before they will arrive.

So today I am going to spend a lot of time waiting … and waiting … and waiting.

PS. For anyone who is wondering why I just didn’t phone the local plumber to come and fix the problem, I would just like to point out that I live in London. Plumbers in London (and I suspect in other parts of the UK) are not very thick on the ground and those that are ‘available’ are not always as reliable as one would hope and expect them to be. They will often arrive late – or even on a different day – and quite a few will either charge you a ‘call-out’ charge of up to £100.00 on top of their normal charges or charge you an astronomic amount for the work that they do … and any emergency work can be even more costly than normal installation or repair work.

The insurance may not be cheap, but at least the plumber – who is approved or employed by the insurance company – will arrive when he is supposed to arrive and the work will be guaranteed by the insurance company.