Tuesday January 18th 2022

I sent my bombshell news about family connections with 2 world-famous film-stars by bombshell email to my "new" cousin David yesterday. 

flashback to a couple of months ago: my sister Gill (right)

with our new cousin David and his wife Zanne

David was adopted as a baby and he didn't know anything about his real family till a recent DNA test - and he was, I'm sure, surprised and delighted to have found out that he is not only related to me, but also to a couple of film stars into the bargain. 

Well who wouldn't be delighted (about being related "to me", I mean haha) !!!

My distant relative, Elizabeth Rees-Williams, with her first

husband, actor and film-star Richard Harris

As you can see from the above roughly-drawn family tree segment, the film-star connections in the above pictures are all thanks to a long-forgotten wedding in the last quarter of the 19th century between Mary Ann David, and mine and David's great-great-uncle, John Howell. Both bride and groom were born in St Brides, Glamorgan, and they subsequently emigrated to the USA, where they died - although not till much later, luckily!

the quiet St Bridget's Church, St Brides, Glamorgan, where the happy couple

could have got married if they had chosen to. Let's hope they did !!!!

So this long-forgotten wedding is what links me personally, and my "new" cousin David, to Hollywood royalty in the form of Richard Harris and Rex Harrison. 

And David tells me that the woman that the 2 film-stars "shared" (not at the same time, as far as I know), Welsh socialite Elizabeth Rees-Willliams, is now married to the convicted, but reformed, perjurer Jonathan Aitken, once a Tory MP and minister, now a born-again Christian and Anglican priest.

As David says, Elizabeth has certainly led quite a life, to put it mildly. My god!!!

Elizabeth Rees-Williams with her current husband,

whom she married in 2003 - Jonathan Aitken

David said he has been doing his own research into his biological father's ancestry. He's found out that an ancestor on his birth-father's side was one of the founders of Hartford, Connecticut - a man called Matthew Beckwith (1610-1682). 

And there's a Society of the Descendants of the Founders of Hartford, David says, with more than 300 living members, but he's not sure that joining this would necessarily be to his advantage.

It's best to be cautious, I think haha!!!!

a 1766 map of the colony of Connecticut, with its counties

Litchfield, Fairfield, Newhaven, Hartford, Windham and New London

I did some research myself, and discovered that the ancestry and origin of Matthew Beckwith, and the date when he emigrated to the American colonies are all unknown, but it's known that he was in Hartford by 1 Aug 1639 when he "was censured & was fined for vnseasonable and imoderate drinking att the pinnance”, along with four others of Hartford’s founders. 

So, a boozy lot then! (NB the pinnace referred to was a small boat, probably used to go across the river from Hartford to holdings on the east side.) 

But what a crazy world they lived in in those far-off times!!!

11:00 Lois and I go out for a walk on the local football field, and we share a flapjack with our hot chocolates from the Whiskers Coffee Stand. It's misty over the hills and it feels really raw and cold today, and the only people around are dog-walkers. As we always say, if you've got a dog then you have to walk it whatever the weather. Cats are easier pets in our view, no doubt about that.

it's a raw morning, and misty over the hills

we share a flapjack with our hot chocolates - brrrrrr!!!!

12:00 When we get back home, we can get out of the cold. Yes, at least it's warm inside the house today, although it wasn't yesterday. Yesterday our central heating finally stopped working altogether, but Jeff, our heating engineer, called round at 7:30 pm last night to replace a valve.

Unfortunately, last night, to enable Jeff to get to the faulty valve, I had to clear all the books and ornaments off one of the bookcases in what used to be our daughter Sarah's old room (she's now 44 and living in Australia with husband and twin daughters).

So this morning a scene of chaos greeted us when we ventured into Sarah's old room, with books and ornaments all over the place. And we had to spend an hour or so putting everything back.

What madness !!!!!

19:30 Lois isn't up to taking part in her great-niece Molly's 7 pm online yoga class tonight but she disappears into the dining-room at 7:30 pm to take part in her sect's Tuesday Bible Class, also on zoom.

I settle down on the couch to watch the 2nd instalment in the fascinating reality-documentary following actor Stephen Toast's efforts, after his success in London's West End, to "break America".

I wonder why, when Toast tells every American he meets, that he's been awarded a major part in the latest Star Wars movie, they all look so inordinately unimpressed? I'd like to be told, and I'm sure Toast, who knows even less about popular culture than I do, would like to be told too!

Anyway, things are looking brighter for Toast's part in the romcom, a role which he's landed thanks to one of his London enemies, Ray Sober, dying unexpectedly. 

Here we see Toast hearing more details about his romcom role while riding in his US agent Brooke Hooberman's car, which she is apparently now using as her permanent office.

Tremendous fun !!!!!

21:00 Lois emerges from her zoom session and we watch the first programme in this year's "Winterwatch", a series which monitors seasonal wildlife in the UK with the help of a network of hidden cameras and a team of presenters.

Who's ever heard of a bird called the jack snipe? Not me, evidently! But it has a very long beak or bill, which is partly jointed, so the bird can fold the beak upwards at the end, which is handy when it's poking into mud or sand to look for food. And inside the beak is a very long tongue.

the jack snipe or common snipe - notice its extra-long, flexible

beak, with an incredibly long tongue inside it - my god!

here we see the bird probing mud and sand under water,

searching for prey

The consequence of their beak structure means that the birds can use their beaks to probe into sand or mud to find their prey, and then swallow it while continuing, without a break, to probe for their next bit of prey. 

presenters Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan demonstrate

the properties of the bird's bill using one of the Winterwatch

prop department's iconic models

And as presenter Michaela Strachan says, that's like if you're a person dipping your face into a bowl of spaghetti and getting some on the end of your nose and upper lip, and then being able to swallow that bit of spaghetti and suck it in, while still keeping your nose and mouth in the bowl of spaghetti getting your next bit out.

Memo to self: must make sure I discourage Michaela from ordering the spaghetti the next time I go out on a dinner date with her haha!

22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!