My earth-shaking blog for history

I have just logged my blog for history. This is now apparently going to stored "in electronic form in the British Library's Web Archiving Section which is a part of the Modern British Collection."
Wow.

Today I read again some of the pages of my Great Great Great Uncle's daily log book. He was called Samuel Banbury and had a farm near Stratton in Cornwall. He meticulously recorded all the purchases he made and all the sales of oats, wheat etc that he made. He also makes notes about what he is doing with some of his fields.

Today I reflected on how different my day today is from Samuel Banbury's day in the early 1800s. He was dealing with horses, farm labourers, fields, straw, hay, scythes....that sort of thing. I suspect he was very keen to make sure his farm made money. His house was on his farm. He probably worked with about ten farm workers. He probably spent much of his day walking and riding around his farm. I suspect he ate his own produce from his farm.

In contrast I have driven for one hour to get to my place of work. There are about 2,000 people in my office. I sit at a computer all day. I go to the gym at lunch time and have a salad for lunch which has probably travelled 1,000s of miles to get to me.

But there are some similarities. I believe in God, like Samuel did. I work with numbers and money figures like he did. The affinity I share with Samuel is that he was obviously very dedicated to his work and kept meticulous records and notes. He was very methodical. I can relate to that. I am dedicated to my job and keep very orderly notes and figures.

I am not sure I would like to swop with Samuel though. But then again, that is because I am lazy - I would not have liked to have had his worry. But that said, I would have liked all the fresh air and fresh farm produce.