Turn Again

I have been inspired to return to this blog after months of absence. My son Tim was the inspiration.



It occured to me that the 'We are Kiwis Now' blog is only on hold. One day we will be Kiwis again and the blog will restart. However, 'The Oaks' is our principle home and so I consider it appropriate to alternate as we travel to and fro.



We is wife/mother/grandmother/Irene and I am me.



For some reason today my thoughts were going back to the 50's (perhaps I will remember why as this post unfolds.) I was thinking about a set of three books that I had as a child. They were large format books with pages of colourful drawings. In amongst the colour was the real information printed in black and white with line drawings. (A fore-runner of today's Dorling-Kingesley) Ther was a general knowledge book (torquoise in colour), a science book (dark blue) and a history book (red). I particularly liked the last two and I terasured them all for many years. Now I remember why I am writing this. It is to explain, to satisfaction, the name 'Norwood'. On a double page spread was a picture of a Medieval village. The village was at a cross roads. There was the church, the priest's house, the water mill, the Lord of the manor's house the homes of the serfs, the field system and the woods in the distance. Everone was happily going about their respective businesses. I dreamed of making a model of this scene. This is how I surmised my name was created. We were a family living in the North wood. My father's name was James and so was the millers. To make it easier to give directions we were known as the family from the North wood. My father become known as James of the North Wood. This gradually became James NorthWood. And following laziness reduced it to James Norwood.



My father was infact named James Arthur Norwood, but he didn't work in the woods - he worked in a water mill. It is perhaps from the middle ages that there was a mill on the site of the one where he worked. The mill, known as King's Mill, was at the time water turbine powered, but the turbines produced electrical power to drive the noisy heavy machines.

My history teacher (Mr Owlett) told us a tale that the name 'King's Mill' came about because - One day the king was hunting in Sherwood forest. He fell off his horse and he became separated from his retinue. He then stumbled through the forest, becoming quite bedragled, when in the evening he came upon the cottage of a miller. The miller took him in for the night and fed him venison which he boasted he had poached from the king's forest. In the morning there was the noise of horsemen outside the cottage. They had tracked down the king. The miller was terrified, but the king was so grateful to the miller that the mill became known as 'King's Mill'

Sadly, the mill is no more. It was burned down in a fire while rebuilding work was going on. (Workmen smiked on site in those days and the HSE did not exist.) I was told that the 'King's Mill' brand name was to be sold, but could not be used for a number of years. Does it now live on in the name of a loaf of bread?

So to today. This was the first day of freedom after a long run of marking GCSE papers. This I celebrated by a session at the allotment; helping with redigging two failed seed beds, filling water butts and doing the watering. Next I was to open the New Stapleford Community Centre for use by the blood service. They were there from 11:45 am until 9:00 pm. Joni and I took 40 mins to clean up after them. There was no blood.

During the day I completed my advert to be published in the Grapevine Magazine in July. I also emailed the ebay sellar of a camera body to find out why I had received the wrong one and where my purchase was.

We watched 'Mr. Deeds' before going to bed.