At last.........

Due to my work committments, Ive not had a great deal of time to get online. And have also had a few "settling in" problems with Lorrie - ie. very upset tummy (her not me) and then discovered her and Murphy doing something they shouldnt be doing - ie. she had come into season (turns out - BIG SHOCK - she wasnt spayed as she was a show dog and the vet thinks that the upset of moving and everything else probably brought it on) and he hasn't been "done" so you can imagine the fun Ive had trying to stop them. He managed to "do the dirty deed" once (I was eating my dinner at the time and wondered what the pair of them were up to behind the sofa) at which point I shrieked and pulled him off - and then they were kept apart until she came out of season.

Now Im on the horns of a dilemma. They cant spay her until at least 4 weeks from the end of her season - and the vet has said that if she is carrying puppies then he would just "get rid of them" at the same time. And this one is keeping me awake at night as Im obviously looking at it that Murphy has scored a goal. Ive argued with myself, Im trying to be objective - but I don't know if I can do that to her.

Im a responsible dog owner and feel now that Ive been really irresponsible for not realising. My last bitch was spayed at 12 months old as I didnt want any unplanned puppies - there are enough dogs in the world that need homes. Murphy has never been castrated as (a) he has a bad reaction to anaesthetic and I was terrified he might die if I had him knocked out again (b) he has never been any trouble with straying or leg humping or fighting and has never been allowed to just run amok and be around unspayed bitched - plus he is actually very obedient and will come away if commanded (c) he's actually fathered planned litters before as he is well known in this area as a gun dog and his puppies are doing really well at field trials and working.

If Id realised what was going on (she showed no signs) Id have separated them right away. It was only the once - but once is enough as the saying goes.

So as you can imagine - Im in a real quandry.

Anyway - that aside - Lorrie is fantastic. The most placid collie Ive ever come across. And she follows me round like she has been here all her life. She loves the forest and the moors, and ignores the chickens at the farm (much to Murphys disgust). She is a real worker though, and the horses got a shock last night as it was the first time Ive introduced her to them and wasnt sure how she would react. She brought them in from the fields with me and was herding them into the stables (lucky for her they dont kick as she gave them both a bit of heel work when they went a bit too slowly for her liking hehe).



Lorrie






She is overweight (I suppose thats to be expected for a dog that has had virtually no exercise for a year) but Ive already noticed a distinct difference in her weight over the last week and a half as she is being walked 3 times a day and doing at least 10 miles of running - she is also on one meal a day (same as Murphy) and having no treats (apart from a huge leg bone that she can chew on).


Lorrie unconscious after her evening walk.

All in all I have found the perfect dog, and Murphy is totally in love with her. She is a bit of a bossy boots and pushes him around - but not in a nasty way - and more fool him, he lets her do it. And for the first time in almost 5 months, Im not worrying about my boy when I have to leave him, as yesterday I got home from work and the two of them were curled up together fast asleep...........on my bed (she knows how to open doors tee hee)

Some photos of where I live

Im not the best photographer in the world (as you will be able to tell from the photos) but I thought that I should upload all the pics from my phone to make room for all of the pics Im going to take of Lorrie tomorrow :-)

These were all taken yesterday and today (19 and 20 February 2010 after yet another snowfall).

This was across the road from my house at 7.30am when Murf and I were going for our morning walk.

This is where I keep my horses.

Crazy Mazie in the field wondering what the hell I was doing sitting on the wall.

This is from the field behind my house - you can just see Anglezarke Moor in the centre of the photo appearing above the trees.

Murf just watering some grass on our way to the forest.

Forest on our right, with the moor above and this watercourse is The Goit. This is our favourite evening walk.



This is Drakeshead Mere which is to the left of the previous photo.

These are my girls at sunrise (about 6.45am) and very inimpressed at having been taken out of their warm stables.



This is from the farm looking back towards Roddlesworth Moor at sunrise.

And this one is the view from the front door of my cottage up onto Anglezarke.

Being green

Well I cant really be employed by The Environment Agency and not actually try to live in a green and sustainable way, can I?

So although I dont want to bore anyone to death and come across like a loony lefty green tree hugging sandal wearing preacher of all things environmentally friendly - I thought that I would give people a few tips that I use, having spent more than a decade trying to change my lifestyle.

Some of these things, well I suppose most people do (or try to do), but one or two things Ive picked up along the way you may NOT do so here you go.

These are some of the things I do
Use energy saving bulbs in all of your light fittings (even your table lamps).

Switch electrical appliances off at the wall - dont leave them on standby.

I joined the MPS (mail preference service) which is a free service that removes your details from UK mailing lists and therefore reduces the amount of junk mail you receive - check out their website for more information

http://www.mpsonline.org.uk/mpsr/

Only fill your kettle with enough water for what you need - dont fill it up to the top if you're only making one cup of coffee or tea - a quarter of all energy used in households goes on boiling kettles.

Get a Hippo for your cistern (or a brick) and drop it in. This will reduce the amount of water used with each flush. And I heard a very funny (and handy) phrase when I watched the film "Meet the Fockers".... Dustin Hoffman proudly announced his tip for saving water when you flush... "If it's yellow, let it mellow. But if it's brown - flush it down" hahaha

Dont leave the tap running when you brush your teeth.

If you have a bath leave the water in rather than letting it run away. This will help to heat your home (believe it or not) and then when the water is cold, use it to flush your loo by filling a bucket and pouring it down the toilet instead of using the flush (this is especially great if you are on a water meter - you really will notice the difference).

If you have the option of switching over to green energy then go for it - here is their website - please check it out.

http://www.greenelectricity.org/index.php

Buy locally produced fruit, veg and meat - check where it's come from and know what is in season locally. By refusing to purchase these items that have come from overseas, not only are you helping local farmers/the local economy, you are also reducing the "food miles" and helping the environment by reducing your carbon footprint. Better still, try growing your own where possible. I grew chilis, peppers and garlic on my window ledges, and am going to make a little herb garden this year in my tiny yard.

Staying on the gardening theme - get a wormery. My worms sadly died over the horrible winter, but I will start my wormery off again in the spring. Most food waste can be put into the wormery, the worms eat it, it comes out the other end of the worm (Im being polite here so use your imagination), and you are left with a fantastically rich home made fertiliser/plant food. Perfect for your home grown fruit and veg.

Do you really need to drive? Walk or cycle if you can. Use public transport if it's practical for you rather than taking your car into town.

Im currently being a guinnea pig for a work mate who is making his own bio diesel out of used cooking oil from his local chip shops. And so far it is working a treat. Ive just put 25 litres into my old landrover and although every time I put the heating on, I feel really hungry as it smells of fish and chips (always a down side haha) it works out at a cost of around 10p a litre - which is a HUGE difference from 112p a litre for diesel.

Think about having a green roof if you have a decent roof to utilise.

Use rain butts to catch rainwater (something we definately arent short of in the UK at this time of year). I use it for washing the car, washing the dog, watering plants, and have set up a drinking system at the stables for my horses so that I have a secondary water supply when the butts are full to reduce the usage from the main water pipes.

Do you have a real fire? And do you know anyone with sheep or horses? I used to make my own fire bricks by compressing and then drying out their poo in a paper press I bought for making fire bricks out of used paper. And it actually doesnt smell as you would think it should. Saves buying coal or logs and it gives out a great heat (and its FREE).

Shop at charity shops - no better way to recycle and as we all know, everything comes back in fashion sooner or later.

Addicted to using air fresheners? Buy an essentail oil (scent of your choice - but I love lavender), pour it on a cloth and wipe your radiators with it. The scent as they start to warm up is beautiful. Also another tip is to re-use the fabric conditioner cloths that you can put in with your laundry. Roll them up and put them down the back of the radiators too once you've used them - dont just throw them away. You'll be surprised how nice they smell.

Try to reduce what you send to landfill. Buy items with a reduced amount of packaging. Recycle wherever possible - most local councils now have green waste schemes and promote recycling of paper/plastics/glass/cardboard. I only fill one black bin bag (refuse sack) every 5 or 6 weeks with things that I cannot recycle. Not bad going considering my single neigbour easily fills two per week (Im slowly trying to convince her to try my methods).

I know that there are loads more things that I do, but I also dont want to make anyone yawn - if you want some more tips to not only help save the planet but help you to save money, just give me a shout.

Re-discovering literature

I cant say that I was ever the worlds greatest fan of poetry. I found English Lit tedious when I was at school. Probably because the teacher was the most boring old fart in the world. He was just counting the days until he retired and used to plonk books in front of us, tell us to read whichever bit of Shakespeare he had picked out, and spent the entire lesson with his feet up on his desk smoking his pipe and giving us no feedback whatsoever. He sometimes even fell asleep - and we would then do what any responsible and well brought up young people would do............ start having spit ball fights and writing graffiti all over each others work books.

What a waste of 3 years of my life.

And then in my early 20's, I discovered a love of English poets that I never knew was lurking alongside the love I had (at the time) for dance music, partying, tequila and cigarettes. And although the only one of those young loves I still have is for music (it now extends beyond dance music you'll be glad to hear), my passion for poetry has just grown and grown.

I sat here musing about my favourites. What is the one poem that makes me sigh every time I read it? And I have to admit, after a long time thinking about it, I will step out onto the ledge and say it is "To Autumn" by John Keats.

For anyone who has never had the pleasure of sitting in a field in the English countryside, as summer slowly turns to Autumn, watching the farmers bailing the straw. If you have never spent time staring at the golden stalks they leave behind in the stubble fields, and havent watched the swallows diving and swooping before lining up on the telephone wires waiting to leave for the winter, the following is for you.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.


Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind,
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.


Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Im so excited - Lorrie comes on Sunday !!! yayyyy

No - Im not having a hot date with someone called Lorrie (nor am I having a rather large van delivered either).

On Sunday, I shall be going with Murphy to pick up the new addition to our little Moorland family............Im getting a new dog.

She is absolutely beautiful and her name is Lorrie.

Ive always had 2 dogs, until my ex partner decided to "steal" one of them and he has point blank refused to give her back - even though she was my baby for almost 12 years. I hoped that Murphy would settle for being an "only dog" but despite me leaving it for 4 months to see how he got along on his own, he is still desperately sad without canine company. So I made the decision to get another - and to be honest, I actually miss having two of them creating merry hell in my home.

As much as I love puppies, I know a young pup isnt practical for me, and there are enough dogs in the world that nobody wants, so I decided to rehome an older dog. Then struggled with myself over which breed.

And I kept coming back to Border Collie every single time. I swore after Minstral (my other dog) that I would never have another BC because she was such a handfull when she was younger. She came from a farm at 6 months old as she was refusing to run sheep and I fell in love with her when I saw her....until she started to eat the house. Every night I came home she had done something else - like eaten the floorboards (honestly), chewed a hole in the wall, or ripped up the carpet. But they have such intelligence and personalities that I couldnt resist getting another to replace her - and besides, they are the only breed of dog that has the stamina to keep up with "himself". And he loves Border Collies - Im sure he thinks whenever he sees one that it's Minstral coming back.

Anyway - Im digressing a little here.
So I started trawling the dogs homes (but after ending up in floods of tears outside the last one I visited as I couldnt pick just one dog and leave all those other dogs with their sad faces wondering "why didnt she pick me?") I decided to check out the private rescues and rehoming centres.

And lo and behold I was put in touch with one of the top Border Collie breeders in the country who had just had one of her dogs returned to her after 6 years. I still cannot fathom why someone would turn their beloved pet over for rehoming after that length of time - I would never part with Murf - not even if it meant I had to live on the streets. He's my baby. But I am not going to start going through the whys and wherefores of the whole thing. Because at the end of the day, other people making silly decisions has resulted in me finding Lorrie.

And wait until you see some photos of her which I will post hopefully on Sunday sometime. She is a stunner. And such a lovely placid and friendly girl. She is the same age as Murf so thats a bonus, and she was also a top show champion when she was owned by her breeder and even appeared at Crufts - although the people she was sold to at 3 years old didnt do very much with her after they bought her.

Ive got her spot set out for her bed, and have bought her a new feed bowl and a lead. Murf and I bought her some Markies (a firm favourite with all dogs) but he decided that he wanted to try them to make sure they werent poisoned - and so we need to now buy another packet for Lorrie :-)

The whole village know she is coming on Sunday, and so I expect we will have a reception party waiting to meet us when we come home with her. And I really hope that she will settle here with us. Because one thing I know how to do well is love my dogs. And I think she will like us, because for the last year with her previous owners, she was locked in a house for 14 hours at a time with very little exercise.

She's going to get such a shock when she sees the farm and the woods and the open moors. And I know that Murphy is going to have her tearing round like a maniac with him chasing the chickens and the cows and hunting for rabbit in the brambles, and running after the deer up on Anglezarke Moor.

I cant stand to think that a lovely dog has been neglected in any way, so I regret to say that I will probably be spoiling her rotten with cuddles and squeaky toys and lots of loves on the sofa with me and Murf. I also have a sneaky suspiscion that he will have a quiet word with her and say "if you sneak up on the bed in the night, and give her the puppy dog eyes when she tells you to get off, she'll let you stay up there" "Oh and if you jump up and grab your lead every time she gets up out of her chair, we get an extra walk - especially if you start whining"..... I can see me being taken for a complete and utter mug.

Dogs eh? Dontcha just love 'em? :-)

"EX"nic Cleansing

To all the losers who left me, the lovers who lost me, and all you lucky buggers yet to meet me.........Happy Valentines Day !!

As it is Valentines Day, and I woke up amazed to see, once again, a mountain of cards behind the letterbox (yeah right!!!), it got me thinking about the people I WOULD have got cards from if things hadn't gone disasterously, and spectacularly, wrong.

Last night I was invited over for dinner by one of my oldest and dearest friends. Her fiance has just gone out to Afghanistan for a 4 month tour of duty, and they are due to get married in June after he gets back.

As girls do, we chatted about everything from our dogs, to fashion, to our horses, to funny memories, and then began to wade through the monumental cock-ups regarding men that we have made in our respective love lives.

Now none of this was done in a bitter or sad way, as we were both crying with laughter at one point, especially when we reminded each other of certain people from our past, and each of us, in our turn, would shriek and roll about crying "Oh my God, what the hell did I ever see in HIM...arrrhhhhhhgggg" interupted by peels of laughter.

And then I had a very sobering thought - what if THEY are doing the same thing about us at this very moment?????

She (in her usual witty way) said "Oh Jaks, they wont be, because we are both perfect hahahaha". And although I'd like to think/pretend or even lie to myself that I am, I know only too well that I am far from it and have my own mountain of weaknesses and faults, just as everyone else has (no matter how much you may try to deny it to yourself).


All of us (unless you are the most incredibly lucky person on the planet) have suffered heartbreak in love at some point. And at the time it's all happening, when everything is falling apart around you, you really can't imagine that a few years down the line, you will be sitting drinking tea with a friend and laughing until the tears are rolling down your cheeks about the very person who made tears roll down your cheeks for very different reasons all those years ago.

Selective memory is a funny thing. When you go through a break up, and you are so bloody miserable and heartbroken, all you can remember and think about are the wonderful and happy times you had together - which make you even more miserable.

Once you've got over the whole thing, all you seem to remember are the bad things, and why you are SO much better off not being with whichever piece of "pond slime" just used your heart as a punch bag (even though at the time, if ever your friends had called the object of your affection "pond slime" you would have never spoken to them again).

And then years down the line, you are finally able to remember the good AND bad things, and laugh about everything with your friends.

2 years ago, if anyone had said that in a couple of years, I would be sitting talking about Dale without crying, I would have said something very rude to them and gone off in a self pitying sulk to think about my "ideal" relationship and what I must have done wrong to have ended up as one half of the perfect couple.

I tend to always blame myself - you know how it is.....did I say something? Did I do something? Am I too fat? Am I too thin? Am I too ugly? Am I not witty enough?

And dear old Marshy said last night "You know what mate? You always seem to pick the emotional retards. What is it with you? You have nice men who want to take you out but you dont want them, and yet you ALWAYS say yes to the handsome tossers that everyone else can see coming a mile away"

This then started a whole other avenue of discussion. Her conclusion is that I am far too laid back and easy going with people. I forgive people too easily (although I always thought that was supposed to be a good thing to do), and I try to avoid conflict by just accepting things that happen, rather than kicking and screaming and laying some ground rules down like "normal" (her words) women do.

That woke me up a bit as I have only ever had three rules I ask people to abide by, and now I think about it, these shouldn't even be rules - they are my moral code and I just expect other people to have the same ideals:

(1) No cheating - if you do, then jog on!
(2) No lying - if you lie about little things then you'll lie about big ones and I want to be able to trust you
(3) If you want out, just have the balls to say it rather than letting something drag on as it's unfair

Anyway, after all of our soul searching and laughter, and memories, Marshy said "Well, Dave (her ex husband) did me a favour because if Id never found out about his affair, Id have still been with him, and would have never met Colin, and he is the true love of my life."

And Im so happy for her because out of all my friends, she really does deserve it the most.

She asked me what I thought was my biggest mistake. After pondering this for a while I have to admit that I think it was Tony. We were too different, our backgrounds were as far apart as the sun and the moon regarding upbringing and morals and standards. But I never judge people and when I met him he made me laugh. And I really do think that he was trying to change so that we could be together - but some things you just can't alter in yourself. He came from a very rough area in Manchester, and had a very dodgy youth. I tried to mix with his friends but I used to feel like a fish out of water. People were always calling me "Brain box" or "HRH" and if you knew me, those would be the last things you'd call me.

Ive never been a snob as I have no right to be. I am no better than anyone else. But the cultural and educational differences between me and them was like the Grand Canyon. Their lives revolved around drinking, taking drugs, buying "knock off" in the local pub and claiming benefits. Nobody wanted to better themselves. And every single day was like the one before and the one that would follow. Tony hated coming to mine because he hated the countryside. He is a city boy and always will be. And I hated the inner city.

And so it ended. Which was sad. And I do miss him being around sometimes. But what we ended up rolling about on the floor over last night, laughing until our sides hurt, was because I said that one good thing about being with him, was that I actually got to know what it would feel like to live out an episode of "Shameless"

:-)

So who exactly are we? part 5

Please remember this was done for a bit of fun, to try and break down the silly thing we have about being "English", "Scottish", "Irish" or "Welsh"

Im going to give you some little clues if you want to try and work out who really is in your blood.

Now, I suppose that you could "guess" to give you the desired outcome, and argue in every single direction until you reach the conclusion of your choice - I personally would be horrifed if I suddenly found out I was decended from a Welsh/French/Roman horse eating raider.

Blood Types

In the UK (and Eire) the predominant blood types are O+ and A+

O+
This blood group carries the genetic imprint of the very first humans, the Cro-Magnon hunter-gatherers. So the very first people who came into this country, well, everyone would have very probably been type O. And this can be picked up by countries such as Ireland, with a very dense "Celtic" population. Roughly half of the current population carry this blood type


In Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Germany (basically all the countries where our other invaders came from, so that means "Anglo-Saxons" "Vikings" and "Normans") - the predominant bloody type is A+.

A+
This is the second oldest blood group and dates back roughly 25,000 years.

So we will say (for the sake of arguement as Im not a geneticist) that Celts and Picts were highly likely to have had O+ blood types. And the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Vikings and Normans would have been predominantly A+

Im going to leave the Romans out of this one, as the current figures are misleading. So Im going to make a very sweeping statement and say "They probably wouldnt have mixed with the locals anyway as they would have thought we were far too inferior" (thats my way of saying - ermmmm)

So, if you know for a fact that you have got no other "foreign" blood in your family in recent history, do you fit into either of those blood types?

Thats your first clue.

Secondly - look to where your family came from. Im not talking about your mum and dad - because in the last 40 years, people have moved about more and more, entering new communities. Whereas in the times of our great-grandparents, this was comparitively rare. People were born, raised and died in the same local area. If they moved at all, it was generally within a 20 mile radius.

One slight variation to all of this is those who had relations who came from Ireland in the mid to late 1800's. Although, those people tended to marry within the same communities once they had settled in this country, so there wasnt a great deal of "marrying out", at least not for the first 50 years or so.

Did your family originate from somewhere inside "The Danelaw" in England? Were they from an area of Scotland that was occupied by the Norsemen? Did they come from somewhere like Dublin that was a massive Viking settlement? Or did they come from a very remote area, inland (such as central southern Ireland or the Scottish Highlands), that would have been harder to get to 1000 years ago? Well, as far as this last example goes - if you have a type O blood, and your family were living in that community for generations, then you could brag and say that you're likely to be decended from the original inhabitants of that local area. You might have something else thrown in, but you are predominantly British.
Well done!!!

Now skin and hair colouring is a whole other ball game.

We all have the image of Vikings and Saxons as being tall with blond flowing hair. And when we think of Celts we either think of the Irish or Scots, and we put a nice mop of ginger hair on their heads.

So if you have Scandinavian ancestors you will have blonde hair? And if you are Celtic you will have red hair???

NOT strictly true.

I'll use myself as a little example of this.
My mum was blonde and her family history would say to us all "Irish/Scottish" as although we know that they came from Ireland, they have a Scottish surname, which would probably indicate crossing between northern Ireland and South West Scotland one or more times in the distant past. Which is ok in itself, as both peoples would have probably had the O+ blood group, and had very strong Celtic links to each other.

My dad is sandy and his family originate from the far north of Scotland and Norway.

My younger sister is blonde and taller than I am with fair skin.

I am short (at 5ft 2) with a slightly more olive look to my skin.

Both of my mums sisters and her brother are dark haired and fair skinned.

So either my mum brought the wrong baby home from the hospital, or Im just a bit of a throwback. I also have a different blood type to my sister - who is O+.
Im actually A+ and have since found out I have the same type as my dad.

So to break that down, I cant use my skin or hair colouring to determine my origins. If I go off my blood type, it would maybe give me the excuse to say Ive got Scandinavian ancestors if I wasn't already aware of this. Which would stand to reason as my dads family were from a coastal region in NW Scotland - and one that was occupied by the Vikings.
So my sister got the colouring and I just got the blood type :-)

One other little pointer (although this is on a much more sinister, and sadder, note), is the predisposition of certain races to particular illnesses, conditions or diseases. Below are details of two of them.

Dupuytren's Contracture
Dupuytren’s disease is an ancient affliction of unknown origin. It is a shortening, thickening, and fibrosis of the palmar fascia which can cause your hand to have a clawed look, and making it impossible for you to straighten your fingers. Tradition has it that the disease originated with the Vikings, who spread it throughout Northern Europe and beyond as they traveled and intermarried. Two very famous sufferers of this disease were Ronald Regan and Maggie Thatcher. Dupuytren’s contracture is virtually confined to people of European descent. Its highest incidence is recorded in Iceland. As expected, the incidence is also high in Scandinavia.

The next disease I know very well, through bitter personal experience, as my mum was a sufferer, so maybe the Viking blood had crept into what I suspected was a pure Celtic family after all..........

Multiple Sclerosis
This was from an article in The Independant in 1998, where genetic studies had shown that Scotland had twice as many people suffering from MS as England and Wales. A Scottish newspaper also ran the story that if you have a Scottish surname, you can double that risk again.

"Scotland – the mainland around Aberdeen, the Orkney and Shetland Islands – has the highest risk (of MS]. The best explanation is that this reflects the genetic background because those are areas where there is a very high influence of Nordic genes, probably delivered by the Vikings. As I understand it they were in the habit of leaving behind their genetic material in the most generous way" Alastair Compston, professor of neurology and head of the department of clinical neurosciences at Cambridge University.

According to the Viking Hypothesis the global distribution of certain northern-European genes which appear to be present in cases of MS, may be attributed to a time of Viking expansion around 800AD when the population of Scandinavia increased rapidly. Thousands left their homeland to search for new land to feed their families, bringing their language, traditions and genetic material along with them.

So maybe my mums blonde locks were an indicator after all?

Anyway - I am not going to finish on a sad note. I hope that those of you who thought "Us Brits" were a nation of elitist pure bred snobs, can now take great satisfaction from knowing we're as confused about our ancestry as everybody else.

And I also hope my potted version of the invasions of our lands have cast some light onto an area which Im passionate about, (you probably already gathered that), and that it might have sparked an interest in at least one other person to want to learn more about their own history.

Thank you so much for reading all of this.
J x