The Mystery of the Severed Hand

We went away.  We saw sun and sunshine and watched some seriously fantastic martial arts practitioners (Chan's Martial Arts - a form of kung fu) and I got hay fever and the kids played at Spencer Park and we had dinner with friends in Christchurch and told them our sad Greymouth stories and then felt ashamed as we learnt of life for so many Christchurch people in post-earthquake limbo hell.  I spent a morning on genealogy with a wonderful and talented relative and it was great to be away from usual life, to find ourselves never talking about work.

Today was also wonderful.  I rearranged my work hours so I could be home today with the children as their school has a teacher only day.  We had two extra children for the day, two wonderful children from different families, both of whom will move to Auckland later this month.  I've known these two children since they were two and three years old.  The sound of children playing round the house, watching them run to the creek, to the bridge by the beach, hearing them make up new games and shout with abandon was fabulous.

Of course, I did much of this listening while I was writing my genealogical profile for the rumbunctious rascal JBB who was my great great great grandfather.  I'm still a bit obsessed, which is what I need if I'm going to get this project finished for Christmas.

In the process of today's writing, which sidetracked into more research, I found that JBB's second wife (I'm descended from his first wife) had links to this rather infamous case: The mystery of the severed hand.

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