Three days

That is how long it has taken me to find my pompom maker. There was a scrap of yarn left over and I thought it would make a nice pompom - for no good reason, I have to add. This moving house business has a lot to answer for. I knew I had seen the thing - I clearly remember thinking 'Ah, that's where it is, I must remember that'. I have, at least, found some other treasures along the way.

There was a programme about the Darjeeling railway at the weekend: the one that runs up the hills and took the folk from Calcutta up to rest and recuperate away from the heat. It was fascinating - such a wonderful line - two foot gauge, and they still run the steam engines a lot of the time - for the tourists. One of the things they showed was the renovating of an engine, which was 112 years old. It was shown in the workshop, and then out it came shiny and smart, ready to go back to work.

Does that sound like a non sequitur? It isn't. One of the treasures I dug out in the course of my hunting over the last three days was a photograph. A group of children and some highly corsetted ladies. The little board at the front of the group says 1900. My Mother labelled it "Father at school in Darjeeling" His parents lived in Calcutta. His Father was a box-wallah - that is to say, he was chief engineer in a jute factory. Since he would have travelled up to Darjeeling on that railway, it is entirely possible he would have travelled behind that very same engine.

I should add that I never knew him - he died before I was born. But I still felt a wee bit emotional, seeing some of my own history up there on the screen.