#school's done dmc 4 time anyway

[parrishes-writes]

dante/genevieve ship headcanons

I saw these and HAD to do them for Dante and Genevieve. @crybabyxprince​ you’ve created a monster and I hope you’re happy with yourself!!!

1. Who makes the first move and how? It’s kind of a mutual thing? They watch a movie one night, by themselves–Vergil is out running errands, Trish is… somewhere, Lady is on another job, and it just… happens. 

2. Who is the most insecure and what makes them feel better? I would say Dante is the most insecure–boy has a shitload of trauma that makes him bounce around feeling like he isn’t good enough for her because of his demonic heritage and the things he’s done over the course of his life, anger and a little resentment that Viv had a normal life and she didn’t appreciate it before things happened, frustration because of the aforementioned emotions,and  feeling like he isn’t good enough for her because she’s good at so much. Also, their age difference. It isn’t huge, but it isn’t insignificant either–they’re both adults when they get together, but it still can weigh on Dante’s mind when he’s having a rough moment. 

3. Who is the most romantic? Dante would try to be romantic, bless his dumb little heart, but Viv is usually embarrassed by most stereotypical displays of romance, like the roses and the hearts, etc. because she doesn’t like being the center of attention… until she does. It doesn’t mean she’s opposed to romantic gestures, just don’t make a huge scene or give her anything. She’s picky. 

4. Who can’t keep their hands to themselves? Dante primarily, but Viv is not opposed to walking up to him and just… sticking her tongue in his mouth and absolutely going for it.

5. Who says ‘I love you’ first? Probably Viv… at least when they’re both awake. Dante may have whispered something in the dark of night when Viv was asleep. 

6. Who would they ask if they ever had a threesome? Dante would ask. Viv actually has. (She was in a polyamorous relationship prior to her time at DMC)

7. What do they get up to on a night out? They rarely go out, actually, because they’re both homebodies, but when they do it’s with their friends, who like to turn up, so when in Rome… do a bunch of shots and wake up the next morning with a vague memory of stumbling home and a splitting headache. 

8. What do they like in bed? Mutuality. Neither of them like feeling that their partner is somewhere else during the moment, so it’s important for them to always be present with each other. 

9. What is the most embarrassing thing they have done in front of each other? Viv has been too drunk to walk in front of Dante, occasionally been stoned, puked her guts out for a variety of reasons, had wicked cramps, nearly crapped her pants, had migraines, been sick, been injured, you name it. Dante’s been impaled a more than a few times and is just generally embarrassing whenever he has to apply his brain to something even marginally complex, or make a good impression on someone. Trying to talk to authority figures with him around is an absolute nightmare. 

10. What two songs, two books and two luxury items do they take to a desert island? Bold of you to assume that Dante would bring a book, lol. Viv would bring a spellbook to try and portal them off of the island, and a bushcraft book to start covering the bases if they can’t. Dante would bring a guitar and a sword to hunt. Also, how would you bring a song? Like, one to sing? I don’t understand this part of the question :( 

11. What do they hide from one another? Dante hides his insecurity behind a mask of bravado and flippancy; Viv hides hers behind ruthless organization and prep and competency. Dante hides his anger behind jokes; Viv pushes all her negative emotions down and throws herself into work. 

12. What first changes when it starts getting serious? Dante gets extremely anxious about Viv participating in the business–she isn’t a combatant and never has been, but even her peripheral involvement in cases puts him on edge, because he doesn’t want anything to happen to her. Viv likewise gets anxious about Dante’s safety, but she trusts him to get back up if he gets knocked down. Mostly, though, they stop thinking about other people in romantic, or potentially romantic, frames of mind. 

13. When do they realise they should get together? Neither of them have a lightbulb moment, so to speak–they fall into it over time, so gently. It takes Viv longer, but it’s when they both realize that no other person is a possibility. You’re it. 

14. When one has a cold, what does the other do? Dante listens to Viv’s directions about what to do if she gets sick, because it’s not common for him to get sick. Viv will take care of Dante on the rare occasions he does get the flu, because she’s had a lot of practice. 

15. When they watch a film what do they choose and why? Who gets the final vote? For the most part they choose comedies or horror movies, because they both like those genres. Viv likes to watch dramas and thrillers and foreign films–Dante doesn’t care, which is fine by her because she actually enjoys cinema and film on an intellectual level, and prefers to watch the movies she’s interested in by herself anyway. She likes dumb screwball comedies and scary spooky movies, but she’s also a little bit of a snob, tbh. 

16. When the zombie apocalypse comes, how do they cope together? Dante handles the zombies–Viv handles the logistics and food, so… pretty much everything else. 

17. When they find a time machine, where do they go? Viv goes to ancient Egypt, the Salem Witch Trials, pre-Christian Europe, the Bering land bridge, Pangaea… she’d want to go everywhere. Dante would like to see ancient Egypt too, and also the raising and sealing of the Temen-ni-Gru. 

18. When they fight, how do they make up? They apologize, sincerely. Hugs are usually involved. Occasionally kisses, and often an act of service, like making Viv a cup of tea or getting Dante’s weapons ready.  

19. Where do they go on their first date? Hiking, because Viv likes to hike, and Dante tags along.

20. Where do they go on holiday? They don’t take many vacations, but Viv likes to go to isolated places with a lot of natural scenery and Dante likes to see her drool over it, so if they can get away they can go somewhere quiet. Dante doesn’t mind not being in a city, but he does need to have something to do–hiking, surfing, skiing, etc. He can’t just go into the middle of nature and meditate. Boy’s gotta have an activity. 

21. Where do they get nervous about going with one another? Viv feels like she sticks out like a sore thumb if she goes along to one of Dante’s shady haunts. On the other hand, Dante starts sweating bullets if he has to go anywhere even remotely normally respectable, like the school where Viv works with Kyrie, or dealing with law enforcement or some such. 

22. Where does their first kiss happen? On the couch, while they’re watching a movie. See no. 1. 

23. Where is their favourite place to be together? Viv likes Devil May Cry, don’t get her wrong, but it isn’t where she wants to live out her life. One set of grandparents were farmers, and they left her their house and most of their land. She loves that house, and it becomes a sort of haven for Dante–a place where he can leave his shit at the door, so to speak. 

24. Where do they first have sex? On the couch… watching a movie… after their first kiss… Viv climbs into his lap and the rest, as they say, is history. 

25. Why do they fight? Usually because Dante feels like Viv is putting herself in harm’s way, taking on more than she can handle, and just… doing too much overall. Viv can sometimes feel like Dante doesn’t trust her abilities–not that he babies her, per se, but that he doesn’t think she can take care of herself. Also, if Dante acts like a major fool–to the extent it actually causes a legit problem for the business. Viv does not play games with that shit. 

26. Why do they need to have a serious chat? Dante acting like a minor fool, usually. Viv will get on his ass for being lackadaisical and flippant about business stuff, because he needs to do work and use his brain for once and generally be a functional adult. But it’s mostly about day-to-day stuff, minor things. 

27. Why do their friends get annoyed with them? Dante making innuendos at Viv. Viv being snarky with Dante. The two of them tag-teaming whoever runs their mouth at them. Sometimes them not taking their disagreements somewhere else. 

28. Why do they get jealous? Dante gets jealous because of Viv’s friendships (and, more broadly, her life) outside of Devil May Cry, as well as her past relationships with other people–she’s still in contact and friends with three of her long-term former partners. Viv can get a little jealous because Dante is a legit snack, and she knows there are more than a few people out there who wouldn’t hesitate to hop on it. 

29. Why do they fall a little bit more in love? Dante falls in love whenever Viv smiles, when she’s happy, when she laughs so hard her eyes scrunch up, so he does everything he can to make her happy and laughing and smiling. Viv falls a little bit more in love when Dante shows the kind, sensitive, secretly-sweet, actually-smart man that’s buried underneath all the outlandish coping mechanisms, and that makes her smile–Dante opens up more, Viv smiles when he does… It’s a beautiful feedback loop. 

30. Why does it work (or not work) between them? They genuinely love each other and want the best for each other, and they’re willing to do what it takes to keep their relationship working, because they want to be together. They’re willing to learn, they’re willing to change, they’re willing to adapt. They’re gonna stick together. They’re in love. 

#dmc #writing #dante x oc #dante/oc #parrishes: writing #oc: genevieve #relationship: genevieve x dante

[realboutfatalfury]

nero :)

#pia liveblogs #school's done dmc 4 time anyway #i love dante's little taunt when he wants nero to hit him with the sword he's like come on come here little guy hit me with the sword come #on pspspspps he's like that jnfklnljlsg

[sichore]

Ok ok I know this is super late but like the spoiler ban is off I’m pretty sure so, are there any dmc5 opinions/hot takes/ ideas you wanna get of your chest?

Haha yeah, the game was short enough that I feel it’s safe now for spoilers. I’ll still put my thoughts under a cut. ....Or I would if cuts still worked on this broken ass site.

(I hit enter too fast but now I got my thoughts out oop)

idk if they’re hot takes or not since while I have criticisms of the game it’s nothing scathing. Anyway, I talked about this vaguely but as much as I love DMC, I feel like this game was maybe only half of what it could have done. I don’t feel like it’s incomplete so much as there was a limited time to give DMC fans a somewhat satisfying game before Itsuno could move on to what he really wants to do (the next Dragon’s Dogma, probably). Which isn’t to say that the team regrets DMC5, but I feel they still wanted to make up for DMC2/4/the NT game and just give fans what they’ve wanted since DMC3.

I didn’t feel the game was as fulfilling the first time around as DMC1/3 were. There was limited interaction with the levels even though they had the beginning of great ideas (special missions, Nightmare breaking open new paths) and overall they just... really sucked. I would have loved to see more of Redgrave City considering how important it is and once you leave those areas the game just got... boring. Not DMC2 levels of boring but still fucking boring. Which DMC games shouldn’t be!!!

I also don’t quite understand Itsuno and team’s insistence that there won’t be anymore DLC unless they plan to make Vergil/Lady/Trish playable for free. Which I’d like, since I’ve never played Vergil much, but again.... the game just wasn’t that fun. I found it interesting how much of a desire there was for DLC from players which maybe spoke to how shallow the game/rewards felt.

I still maintain that gameplay wise, the game only felt engaging enough to appease streamers. Also the DLC costumes fucking sucked Except for Nero’s. However I loved everything about V’s playstyle.

Story wise? I mostly loved that bit. I feel the strongest element of DMC after the gameplay is the characters and that really started to bloom with DMC3. I also feel a lot of the strength of the characters comes from both the actors’ performances and how the transformative fandom has interpreted events, so I was genuinely surprised to see how DMC5 tackled so much of that directly. I wasn’t quite expecting it to be a game that was actually about Vergil, but considering he’s by far the most popular character it stands to reason, so that was a nice, if somewhat obvious, surprise.

But as much as I love Vergil, this should have been Nero’s game. That’s two for two where Nero doesn’t quite feel like the star of his own game and it’s only in the ending of this one that they were finally like “ok, seriously, from here on it’ll be about Nero.” And it probably won’t.

However, they really took a shitter on the women this game. Nico was fantastic (if fucking whitewashed to my ever disappointment) and I loved Lady’s design, but everything else just shit on the women. I really don’t know what was up with that and I really hated the “crazy bitches” line at the end. And we could have stood to actually learn the circumstances of Nero’s birth but again, this game really didn’t give a shit about women. I do love how Dan interpreted/delivered the “That was a long time ago.” line as he seemed to not care how blasé the script was about that key incident.

The ending was also anticlimatic and should have been a few levels to themselves. Like that one stage that was just like multiplayer Bloody Palace? Whack. There was no buildup to Nero’s realizing the twins were gonna be trapped in hell and really all of the hell politics were just abruptly scrapped. We never learned of Malphas’ plan and after all that shit happened for Vergil to eat the demon fruit, that seemed to amount to a lot of Nothing. Like isn’t he the king of hell now??? Did Mundus have NOTHING to say about all of this shit happening??

Oh oh and the music. I really wasn’t feeling the music for this game. I liked Devil Trigger and Crimson Cloud but it felt like there were too many styles that didn’t have any cohesion. Nothing like how everything in DMC3 flowed, or for that matter like in FFXV, where there was a variety of music but none of it felt out of place. IDK if Shibata was involved with this game and if he was, it felt minimal. Compare that for how I immediately recognized his work in the battle music for the Gladio DLC (and that experience was further enhanced by motherfuckin’ Okabe doing the main theme/Battle On the Big Bridge), which fuckin’ slapped and felt like old school Devil May Cry all over again.

I think that’s about it for my takes about the game itself. If you meant any hot takes re: fandom, it’s kind of the same shit. The incest shipping is fucking old. The whole V =/= Vergil denial is kinda whack but ultimately harmless. That’s it really??

For a super indulgent thought tho, I liked how well my whole idea of Nero’s mom/Alexis fits in with everything. The only thing that changed there was just being blasted with the fact that Vergil was genuinely fond of whomever she was so I should like............... not dunk on him as much lmao.

#devil may cry #Anonymous #dmc5 spoilers

[oldreddlyon]

The following series of articles written by Peter Hobbs of Old St. Alban’s Court in Easole, Nonington, record the progress of the  continuing archaeological  excavation of the site of the old Esol or Esole manor house, situated in pastureland known locally as “The Ruins”, from 2010 onwards. These articles were originally published in the Nonington Parish Magazine. Please remember that interpretations of discoveries both archaeological and documentary  may have  changed during the duration of the dig.

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June 2010. Those of you who have walked up there hopefully are impressed with the amount of earth that the Dover Archaeological Group have shifted although the building that is being revealed has been heavily robbed of stone over time and not just in the 1960’s. The basic shape is confirmed as that shown on nineteenth century maps but the finds are scanty. There is part of an expensively crafted window lintel in good ragstone which has been dated to the 14th C but the pottery finds have mostly been later. There is ample evidence of the consumption of large quantities of shellfish and we know that the building had a tiled roof and windows with glass in them.

A geophysical survey has been done of the whole field which has shown up a number of anomalies which will be investigated but since they represent , in effect, soil compression or rubble spread, we may simply have the sites where  the instructors stopped the tank trainee drivers during the war to make a cuppa! Or where brick earth was taken out in earlier centuries. Or indeed they may be long forgotten buildings. This is but one of the reasons that those of you who may have old pictures of the Baptist Church sausage sizzles up there should dig them out – there just may be something in the background which could help us now.

 We have almost completed a survey of Beauchamps Wood. This shows a complex series of mounds within it, probably of different periods, and we shall have to wait for completion before we can set it alongside our other evidence to try and work out what actually went on. Whatever it was, it was over many centuries.

 So we may have discovered what is probably an early manor house, previously unrecorded, but the site is much older so we are not really sure what else is there or indeed if this was the main house on the site at all! Basically, we still have all the questions to answer.

October 2010.  Work obviously did not start again in September and will not start again until the end of October at the earliest. This is because the significance of the discoveries at the Roman villa site at Folkestone (or to be more precise under the Roman site) are such that every potential working moment is being squeezed out of the budget for archaeology before the site has to be closed down and re filled. No more funding is available certainly for the moment and perhaps never so they are going for broke! What they have unearthed is a completely unknown but large and prosperous Iron Age pre Roman settlement with  extensive trading links including directly with Rome. Large quantities of Roman wine as well as tableware were coming through the port which suggests the country had a lot of sophisticated customers rather keen on Roman luxuries as well as the painted crazies who saw off  Julius Caesar. Or perhaps that was what Roman wine did for you.

Anyway, when the Dover Group do return, they have a little more excavation to do on that part of the site and, providing that does not lead to any unexpected developments, the site will be filled in and left protected for posterity. So, if you want to see a bit of Nonington history from the fourteenth century, then go and look soon because that will be your last chance. And similarly, if any children want to see the outcome of a real archaeological dig (as opposed to the somewhat glamourised ones from Time Team), then they should come and see this. We might try for an open day on the first Sunday the archaeologists are back but that date is still unknown and it can be pretty bleak on the hill when the wind blows.

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The photographs in the gallery were taken by Clive Webb in early May of 2011.

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2012 February. Early this year because we thought we were almost at the end of this phase of excavation and therefore about to cover over the diggings again, numbers of people came to see our site including several groups from the school at Beechgrove. Then we proceeded with the last of the tidying up and straightening trench edges before the final photos were taken and we started to fill in the site before opening the next tranche of digging.

But it did not quite work out that way. A stubborn flint on the North West side was not loose at all but turned out to be attached to a rather large lump of masonry. And there proved to be a lot more where that was situated – walls of greater thickness than anything else previously seen on site. As the excavation progressed, it gradually became clear that these large lumps of masonry were not in situ but had been slighted and then buried. The expert verdict was that the walls belonged to a large building, probably Tudor based on their construction, which gave us a span of about 1480 to 1600’ish.  However, all this was somewhat open to question because only a few inches above one of these great lumps, we came across a 1970s metal ring pull. Had it been dropped down a rabbit hole? Was it the remnant of one of the church barbecues? Were these walls not Tudor but war works by the army? Worse, as we excavated medieval bits of broken pottery, beneath them we came across empty Heineken cans! And they were at the bottom of this great hole which looked as though it had been machine dug. Yet we also could see that there were no machine marks on our slabs of masonry. A mystery indeed!  It increasingly looked as though we had two holes, one early in which our masonry had been buried and a second, relatively modern, in which a lot of modern rubbish had been buried right at the side of our big blocks.

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Some of the large pieces of flint masonry found buried at Beauchamps.

Some of the large pieces of flint masonry found buried at Beauchamps.

Fortunately, we still have witnesses around who were involved in the clearing and levelling of the site in the 1970s and also knew what was there before the War. There was indeed some earth moving around on that bit in the 1970s and possibly a bulldozer engaged in clearing, burying old barbecue waste, and levelling but, more importantly, no one had known of our buried walls. All the earlier maps we have show accurately the main shapes of the buildings we have already excavated but nothing else. So it looked as though the theories about a Tudor building stood. We were also encouraged by the discovery of a fragment of an elaborate and expensive wood burning stove which would have been imported from abroad in the period we are looking at.

But who would have invested money in a big building on top of our hill at that period of time? We know that the Hammonds at St Albans Court purchased the property in 1558 from Edward Browne at Worth. The Hammonds were using it as a tool store within a few years and someone living in Worth was hardly going to build themselves a new house in Nonington. So if someone did build on our site, it would probably be Edward Browne’s predecessor and we are not yet sure who that might be.

We – or to be more precise –  Clive Webb has traced the ownership of this piece of land from its AngloSaxon origins as far as 1484 when  ” the manors of Fredeuyl and Beauchamp and 2 messuages, 405 acres of land, 3 acres of wood and 76 shillings and 4 pence of rent and a rent of 8 cocks, 30 hens  and 1 pair of gloves in Nonyngton and Godneston ” was sold by a Thomas Quadring to John Nethersole, William Boys and others . In 1485, it looks as though William Boys might have got sole possession…..and at some point sold it on. Was it to Edward Browne or someone else? We keep searching.

But who knocked our big walls down and buried them? We may have a potential candidate for this.  In 1556, Edward Hammond had spent a fortune rebuilding his manor house at St Albans Court in brick , adding a fine bay to the front as well as a tower to the rear, and also adding a new courtyard enclosed in a new wall with a gatehouse to the front. He bought Beauchamps two years later and although he might have been content to have an ancient ruin in full sight of his newly refurbished gentleman’s residence, would he have been happy with the newish Tudor house at the side of it? Unlikely! And he could afford to flatten it. So perhaps he did just that. But we do not know and an equally valid guess could be that the building was unstable and had to be pulled down – or it was something else altogether!

So we went looking for more foundations and walls to the North West and indeed have found lots of them. None of them fit out big wall dimensions!  However,it looks as though there was a large barn perhaps with a chalk floor onto which the tiled roof at some stage collapsed. But at the moment we have more walls than buildings that we can tentatively identify so we are in the position that we know less than when we restarted the excavations this time round. The excavated site is now twice the size and the spoil heaps twice as big but we are still far from understanding what actually the site is all about. So we dig on – we had a team of 17 last weekend and we needed them all!

We are still looking for pre-1970s pictures of what it looked like on the hill. Surely there must be one somewhere? We have the evidence for a lot of parties up there: surely someone must have taken a photo or two? Please dig out your old albums and have a look!

2013 May. Initially, this year has been depressing. We had soldiered on through the mud but have since lost a number of digging days because of frost making the ground too hard, snow covering everything up and rain too heavy to attempt anything at all. However, we have been persevering with the essential but humdrum work of cleaning up the exposed walls  and stripping out chalk floors to see what was underneath. As a result, we now realise that we have a number of rebuildings on site. Chalk floors overlie older walls and we have layers of broken tile within these. Walls start and stop without much rhyme or reason that we can see and some are clearly of better quality than others which look as though they might have been thrown together on the most casual basis. Within this, we have several rectangular holes apparently containing nothing but in some cases dug through an existing wall. These holes are probably late because those that dug them did not realise what they were digging through but to what purpose is most unclear since they are empty of anything other than earth! We are also uncovering shallow tine marks in the clay which probably date to when machinery was used to clear the copious brambles which used to grow up there. All in all, it is a very complex story we are beginning to unfold.

All these walls and floors are being cleaned up so that they can be surveyed, drawn and photographed, a slow and laborious process but essential if we are to understand the site. However, we have encountered a problem in that walkers passing through have taken it upon themselves to remove artefacts, some even telling us that because no one was present at the time, this was an obvious license to liberate what they could find ! If you would like a 700 year old piece of brick or tile or some Tudor feasted mussel shells, we are happy to oblige but please do not remove items which may look as though they have been dumped but are often piled to be recorded. Or any other item please. None of it has a real intrinsic value but the record may have (or so we hope). And the dog walkers who are carefully collecting their animals’ deposits in plastic bags before dumping them in the field have clearly lost the plot as well as putting at hazard the animals which will be grazing there later in the year.

We have found an Inventory of 1616 which suggests that there was some equipment which could have been used for brewing and preparing hemp up there as well as a  “moulspere” for disposing of the moles whose presence in ample quantities is on display right now and was obviously an issue then. And Clive Webb and I have been across at the Kent Archaeological Society Library at Maidstone going through the recently archived papers of Dr Hardman. He had been Town Clerk at Deal but had a deep interest in the history of Nonington and collected and copied in the 1930s large quantities of documents which have now either disappeared or are too fragile to be handled at all.  A respected scholar, he had significant theories about the origins of our site which we will share with you once we understand them better ourselves. Of the other papers he had copied, there were Court Rolls dating back to the 1600s and even to the days when the Abbot of St Albans Abbey was the landlord which show some continuity of land names with the 1349 Rental Roll we already have. We may through these be able to work out where the pieces of land itemised in the 1349 Roll were, something we could not do before because once the Court went out of existence, the land came to be known by the name of its owners rather than by what it was called in the the centuries old  lists.  Clive is also beginning to distinguish the beginnings of Fredville and its separation from our site in the sixteenth century as well as the presence of several previously unknown mills around the village. We are also beginning to understand that every landholder in the area had numbers of widely scattered small strips of land which they farmed and how, from the earliest times, the richer land holders were striving to put together bigger blocks of land to allow them to gain the advantages of size for efficiency.

On the photo front, Mrs Theobald has come up with a picture which shows the shape of the land below the vast conifer by the site in the early 1950s.  This is very helpful indeed and there must be more around to give us a better feel for the lie of the land before the clearances in the 1970s when people had barbecues and fireworks up there. Please look.

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Harness decoration found at Beauchamps. The three unicorns and chevron was the coat of arms of Sir Hamo FitzRichard, who fought with King Edward II in his ill-fated Scottish Wars in the 1310’s-20’s alongside Sir Henry de Beaufuiz, who for some years in the 1310’s and 20’s had the wardship of the infant John Colkyn of Esole.

A metal buckle found at Beauchamps.

2013 December. I read through what was written in May and began to wonder what had changed. The painstaking work of gently scraping layer after layer of material away to the point that we reach the natural soil level has continued through rain and shine. Those that lived and worked up there must have been pretty tough since the North and North Easterly winds seem to blow straight through you and the sun can beat down on the exposed earth with a quite fierce intensity. Nevertheless, it is clear that no one in Nonington in the last 250 years at least had a clue as to the amount of walling existing just below the surface of the ground because it is indeed virtually undisturbed – except by the activities of at least the 350 years before that!   

How do we know about the timing of such activities? Because they have all taken place below the layers of tile, chalk and flint covering the site which have first to be painstakingly removed.  There is plenty of evidence of fires but even one big bonfire a year for one hundred years leaves a lot of burnt earth and clay; there is no evidence of metal working and precious little of bone. We continue to find numbers fragments of pottery and ultimately, when all these have been washed and cleaned, we ought to get some sense of the time scale over which this part of the site was occupied or at least used for some purpose.

We have had two major disturbances on site: one was that the young beef put in the field to graze started to take a keen interest in our activities of which the only productive result was that their impact on our chalk floors when wet meant that we had tangible evidence that our buildings were unlikely to have been used for stock. Farmer John Smith of Beaute Farm at Ash provided us with a fence although to our astonishment, we found that some animals were still getting in by stepping under the insulated bits of wire imitating where we ourselves secured access! So we had to put in a proper gate instead. The other setback, very disheartening, was that someone took apart an unrecorded Tudor wall and smashed up the bricks by hurling them at the large masonry walls we had uncovered, in turn knocking bits off them too. Sad.

We are reaching the end of what we can do with the spade and trowel until everything has been mapped, drawn and photographed. There may then be some further checking by removing more wall to ascertain what may be underneath but the next stage is some trial trenches in other parts of the area to see what else we may find.  For example, we suspect that we have yet to find the first home for our 13th and 14th Century bricks and most certainly we do not know where our big blocks of masonry come from (pictured). Not from the South, East or North we are pretty sure. So, go West young man.

However, in the event, the first new trench went across the southerly line of our rectangle, visible as a bank from the footpath through Beauchamps Wood ,and surveyed there, and continued in the field on Google Earth ( although not on the latest edition – a function of grass growth and the time of day ). What showed up was what looked like a negative lynchett , the bank thrown up as the plough turns at the end of a furrow.  We had anticipated a bank and silted up ditch reflecting an early enclosure which just goes to show how archaeology can inject a different reality. Amongst other things, this excavation suggests that the ages of the wood on either side of the bank may be different and poses hard questions about the real age of our enclosure. Clive Webb came up with the tenant of the Abbot of St Albans who rented that piece of ploughland, three acres in extent, in 1501: she was a lady, probably a widow, called Joan Gaylor. The rent paid was 12 pence and one farthing (1/4 of one penny pre decimalisation when 12d was one shilling – 10p today) which is now equivalent approximately to about £310. I am told that arable rents are currently between £90 and £ 140 per acre depending on the quality of the land and the piece we are talking about is far from prime arable, so rents have not changed very much over 500 years even if the face value of the £ in our pocket has ! We also trenched across the boundary mound in the wood. There, in addition to confirming the negative lynchett, we found a metre deep trench cut down to the chalk with a flat bottom. We have also found a similar ditch in the shallow depression that surrounds Beauchamps Wood on the Ruins Field side. Dating this may give us the date that Beauchamps Wood itself was planted – perhaps later than we thought although the amounts and position of the quantities of early medieval pottery we found have yet to be evaluated.

At one level, on the documentary side, as with Joan Gaylor, the coincidence of the historical record with the archaeology reinforces the thought that we were making great progress. It is like a giant puzzle with each piece representing a different piece of information. One section of it is painstakingly assembled showing an apparently cohesive story only for a new piece to emerge to prove that we must start again. For example, we now have assembled quite a lot of information on people like Sir Henry Beaufuiz  in the 14thC and the Quadring family in the 15thC who owned the site but tantalizingly not – yet anyway –  quite enough to see them firmly in place and what impact they had within local society. And the discovery of the ditch around the wood raises a series of questions about when the wood was established as suggested above.

We still hope for more old photos of the site or the surrounding area. Do check the attic please before it is too late. The death of John Theobold who played as a boy on our site, worked on it from time to time as part of his job and was most generous with his time and stories sadly deprives us of yet another prime source of information.

2015 February Only by looking back did I realize that the last progress report was in June 2014 and a lot of earth has been shifted since then. Some of it has gone into backfilling the existing trenches after time consuming and meticulous work in removing further layers of floor and closely examining the flints in the walling to secure a better understanding of the sequence of buildings on the North West side of the site. In addition to photographing every detail and putting it onto a plan, every wall has also been drawn.

 We still remain pretty unclear because the large amounts of broken pottery found at every level has yet to be washed and assessed and if you pause for a moment to consider how many new floor coverings there will have been over some hundreds of years, then you begin to sense the complexity of the task. It is not helped either when you think about the ordinary farm yard before the arrival of concrete floors and modern machinery where animals plodded through winter mud and any old rubble to hand was thrown into the worst holes. Our site ran down from the 1600s but we know from Will Inventories that cattle and sheep were around  even if there was precious little of value in the buildings themselves as the timbers  rotted and the roofs fell apart. Disintangling what happened when will require a detailed scrutiny of all the evidence including the written record and we are some way off from that point yet.

The archaeological work was interrupted by a mass exodus to dig the massive Anglo Saxon site at Lyminge as well as, later, the Convent Well at Woodnesborough. Lyminge, now thought to have been the base for South Kent royalty, may have a connection in that one philologist at least argues that there are links in language between Nonington and the inhabitants at Lyminge, and another prominent historian suggests that the owners of Oeswalum  ( broadly what were the combined estates of St Albans Court and Fredville ) in the 790s were linked by kinship to the South Kent Royal line.

Be that as it may, we carried on trenching about 20 yards out from the side of Beauchamps Wood revealing nothing until almost due West of our main site, we came across a well flinted road surface. A series of trenches were then dug back to our main site which traced it, badly eroded and patched ,to the main site. In so doing, we dug through the flat area where I was sure we would find the foundations of the expensive house I thought built in the 1400s from which the big masonry walls found in the big hole had come. Absolutely nothing – not even much old tile – so bang goes that theory which just leaves us still with the mystery of from where they did come.

The roadway itself almost loses itself before it gets to the main site so we are currently excavating a large area to see where it does go, not easy when the wind blows so cold and the rain has left a slippery mush. There are quite a lot of pottery finds– broadly interpreted as medieval and late medieval  – so waste has been cast on this surface for a long period. So we keep digging! 

2016 December. As promised in the last newsletter, the Dover Archaeological Group laid on site a day of display of archaeological finds and pictures together with people to act as guides and explain what we thought had gone on in the previous nine centuries there. It was advertised in advance on the village notice boards, at the garage and on the footpaths around the site. It would be fair to say that we were not overwhelmed with interest.

We then cleared that site which now has been mostly filled in thanks to Adrian Ovenden, not yet completely because winter rain had so softened the soil that even a JCB was in trouble in moving around. The contrast with the rock hard consistency in summer was extreme. The only other observation we could make was that some of our excavated dwarf walls had run over older holes in the ground without subsidence and therefore how elective in weight carrying were such walls with a beam on top of them to distribute the weight.

 We moved to what was going to be a brief excavation of a trial metre square hole which had been started in the South East corner of the field when an archaeologist had spotted fragments of brick in a molehill close to the path up to the other excavations. At that stage, we thought we had virtually completed on the top site – little were we to know then that the job was not half done! Anyway, we had found in the hole a number of bricks which looked very similar to those used on the 1666 extensive rebuilding of Old St Albans Court and further excavation unearthed large quantities of broken or badly burnt brick both whole and in fragments. We also excavated a nearby dip in the ground which proved to be rubbish and discarded elements of building work, not modern. Ian Sayer  provided the answers: when the greenhouses and other buildings belonging to the kitchen gardens of Old St Albans Court which lay behind the Malt House immediately below our site but on the other side of the road had been demolished to make way for the Seed Warehouse which preceded the existing Double Glazing factory, the rubbish had been brought by truck up to Ruins Field and used to fill in a number of the hollows and dips which were then a feature of the field. Earth was dumped on top to seal it in and allow it to revert to grazing again.

 On the North East side of our excavation and directly abutting our layer of discarded brick, we discovered an hole about a metre and a half deep from which we concluded the brick earth had been removed presumably to make bricks. There had been little endeavour to fill it in until probably the 20thC judging from with what it had been filled. We concluded that what we most probably had was the remnants of a clamp for making bricks dating from the latter half of the seventeenth century. The physical dating evidence was slight – one clay pipe bowl dating closely to that period – but the documentary evidence was strong. We had a 1663 Rental Agreement referring to “burning fields “close to the main house and reference to a newly built stable which we can identify on maps preceding our existing 1869 Devey stable block. We also know that in 1666, the manor house was massively enlarged and that would have required hundreds of thousands of bricks.

 Where did these come from? Railways were two hundred years away and roads were not of high quality to facilitate the transport of a large volume of heavy material. The brick earth around Nonington is present both in quality and quantity so, as with the brick for the 1556 rebuilding of Old St Albans Court, we presume they were made locally. The most likely  mode was that having been made and dried, the bricks would have been fired in a clamp, a relatively simple if labour intensive process which was in use in Kent up to the 1930s and is still in use in many poorer parts of the world. The whole process was and is arduous. Tons of brick earth have to be dug up and overwintered before being puddled in the spring, a process of breaking and treading it into some consistency. Flints would have been removed and possibly sand added although that technical refinement tended to be a century later. Then , using wooden moulds, the mixture is turned into brick shapes which are transported to sheds to dry out, again a process which required double handling as the shapes dried to the point that they could be stacked a finger apart on a hard surface together with a combustible material – hedge cuts, tree branches, bracken, straw – and then set alight.

Depending on the size of the pile and weather conditions, the clamp could take ten days or more to burn through, pungent and unpleasant by all accounts, before it was allowed to cool and taken apart and the bricks sorted. Quality and colour would be variable and the wastage rate as high as 40% but everything usable would have to be stored under cover before being taken for site use. Every stage of the process required labour and a lot of the work would have been done by women and children, and there would have been a lot of buildings required, even if only for a short period.

Our brick clamp does not seem overly large and it seems that the remnants as well as the excavations for brick earth then lay undisturbed other than being overgrown by grass possibly for a couple of hundred years until William Oxenden Hammond planted the field with sweet chestnut in the 1870s. Possibly it did supply the bricks for the newly built stable in 1663 because this was not a large building. However, the late Aubrey Sutton reported evidence of brick manufacture being unearthed when the present Nonington Court was being built by the College in the 1960s and this is confirmed by Ian Sayer. The 1666 extension of Old St Albans Court would have required many thousands of bricks, a big manufacturing task but there is no evidence to suggest that this particular site had that capacity. Some skill would have been needed to fill the moulds swiftly and the burning would also have required some expertise both in laying the materials to be burnt as well as in observing temperatures and adjusting draught probably by adding or subtracting quantities of mud externally. Clive Webb identified a bricklayer in the village in 1600 and brick layer was then an ambiguous title which could mean brick maker. The 19thC censuses for Nonington show considerable employment associated with bricks and they were manufacture in Easole until the beginning of the 20thC. In between, the amount of brick building in the village is relatively small and would not have supported a continuous industry. Clive on his website identifies some other sites around the village but they were also making bricks in situ we think and not for wider use,

Again, having completed we thought our brick explorations, the site threw up another question. Beneath our brick clamp, there is evidence of ditches. We have to dig further to see what they are –land boundaries or ploughing boundaries perhaps? All that we do know is that they are pre 1629because we have an estate map which shows the land boundary along the present fence line to the South.

So what changed and why?

Wait and see!

2018 June. I had not appreciated that it was a year since I last added to the record. I wrote then about the 17thC brick clamp we had excavated. We also located another to the South which we also excavated. Checking for evidence in the copious mole hills, we think there is nothing more to the South, South East or West of the excavated site but almost certainly more to the North and East. We assume  that the whole area must have been extensively used in the 17th C to produce the large numbers of bricks for the New Buildings in 1666 at Old St Albans Court, a stable block which replaced a Tudor construction, and also for the Malt House on Sandwich Road. For all works that came after that, for example the walled kitchen gardens on the site of the Double Glazing factory  and College Cottage, we assume on the basis of the nature of the bricks themselves that they were either imported or made at the local brick works in Easole Street.

One other curiosity was that we discovered a ditch underneath the clamp site which was possibly a land boundary running approximately SW/NE but not one that appeared on our earliest map, a land survey of 1629. We were unable to date this.

We then moved on to a long trench running SW/NE, the preliminary excavation for which had kindly been done by Adrian Ovenden. We dug deeper. There was a general spread of flint flakes from the tools which early man had worked but the surprise was a find of pottery sherds dating from the late Bronze Age or possibly early Iron Age. Crude in construction, nevertheless it was an indication of potential settlement nearby. Further along, we dug through a low bank which can be seen when the grass is down and also shows up on Google Earth but found absolutely nothing to indicate its origin or purpose.

Attention was then transferred to another trench also started for us by Adrian which ran NW/SE across a large dip immediately to the North East of our first major excavation by the large conifer called the Punch Tree in Ruins Field. It ran through a large bowl in the sward and up the sides at each end. We have yet to find any source of water on the whole site which carried substantial human occupation from the 1200s to the 1500s at least and certainly cattle thereafter because we have the record. Was this a collapsed well or some sort of pond? We dug over several weekends ……. and then some weekends more ……. and found nothing archaeological at all. What eventually became clear was that we had a geological phenomenon, a naturally occurring form of sinkhole called a solution doline where, over many years, the underlying chalk dissolves leaving a sunken saucer. Nothing as dramatic as the sinkholes which appear in limestone areas but just a gentle subsidence which can be a kilometre in diameter or much smaller as in this case. As the grass died back in the Autumn and we knew what we were looking for, we could then distinguish at least three others, smaller and more shallow, in the area. We then excavated further to the NW to see if we had any form of track across the end heading from the main site to the N along the edge of the ridge but there was no evidence to suggest this. So nothing archaeological at all but we consoled ourselves with the thought that at least we had definitive evidence that no discernible human activity had taken place across that area and that in itself was concrete information about land use in the context of the development of the main site.

Adrian then filled in the trenches for us, an onerous piece of work for which we were indeed grateful to have been relieved. The late Ian Williams, an inveterate enthusiast for many causes and always an eager adventurer when his curiosity was aroused, also came on site to assist in our quest for a water source because he was aware that he had divining skills in that respect.  His divining rods reacted firmly in a number of spots each of which was marked and then excavated. In each case, there was, sometimes at a depth of as much as 12 inches, brick, tile or pottery. These were remnants scattered from the main site and the common characteristic was that the material was a form of burnt clay. Ian secured no reaction from mortared flint walls and located no water. Throughout he was uncomfortable with his ability to exercise a power that he did not understand and could not control although the information we gleaned was that there had been no building development further to the NW of the main site.

At this stage, we felt that we had pretty much bottomed what Ruins Field was likely to yield archaeologically by digging and, before we started work again in the confines of Beauchamps Wood, it was time to assemble, clean and begin the analysis of the material we had collected from the site over quite a number of years. It is all very well exposing walls and floors and ditches but unless their contents are scrutinized, catalogued and categorized and the information published, then the accumulated knowledge is lost not only to the local community but also to the wider academic community which will interpret it and place it in a wider background of knowledge and understanding. It took a number of van journeys to bring back the accumulated material to Old St Albans Court and nearly three months to wash every item and mark it to identify exactly from whence it had come on site. The materials were then grouped into categories such as brick, tile, flint, shell, bone, pottery, metal etc and the material within each category again grouped under individual find numbers. Tile and brick where possible were measured. The catalogued materials await more expert analysis of which probably the most important will be the pottery because it is the most dateable.

However, we now already are pretty certain that the large quantities of peg tile we have came from Tyler Hill in Canterbury where Christchurch manufactured profitably on a grand scale from the 1100s onwards, and the most substantial quantities of our brick dates back to the 1300s and is imported from Flanders. We also have a little later Tudor brick, probably from the brick clamps we excavated in the adjoining land.

We were then able to scrutinize the detailed and accurate maps of our excavations for the first time. This has led to a series of other questions not apparent when we were on the open site as the result of which we are back up the hill reopening trenches so that they can be extended into unexcavated territory to check for further building and roadways. So far, we have trenched under what was the site of the original main spoil heap and confirmed the existence of the ditch edging the South side of the site. As yet there appears to be no evidence of earlier building there but we still have quite a bit of new trenching to do on what we had thought was a worked out site.

Meanwhile, Clive Webb has been slowly and meticulously collecting and piecing together the land occupancy which is complicated to say the least. The over-lordship of this manor is of course entirely separate from what became St Albans Court and in possession of the Abbey of St Albans from1096 ( although the Abbot seems to have got his sticky fingers on part of it as a tenant later on ). From the 1100s , the over-lordship is in the hands of the De Say family who had responsibility for part of the defences of Dover castle. It is doubtful that any of them ever set foot on the site but let it out to a series of tenants who in turn sublet. Some of this information is already posted on the Nonington Village Web Site but it is still in a process of refinement because new bits of information often cause a reinterpretation of an aspect we thought clear. We also have issues in that the documentary evidence appears to be contradicted by the archaeological evidence and vice versa. But we press on !

Esole Manor House:-a diary of the archaeological excavation of “The Ruins” at Beauchamps in Nonington-revised 3.8.19. The following series of articles written by Peter Hobbs of Old St. Alban’s Court in Easole, Nonington, record the progress of the  continuing archaeological  excavation of the site of…

[thesecretlifeofmerribethc]

5.11.19 - 5.16.19 feat. NEW JOB + BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5.11.19

Saturday! Cleaned manong’s car out while the sibs cleaned the house. I drove to Target and we also walked to 5 Below and Marshalls. At Marshalls manang bought an espresso maker!!! It’s so cute, and it was only $8. At Target I bought mom a small eye shadow palette for mother’s day lol (that’s all I could afford). Got some Mcdonalds and went home to play Overcooked 2. Mom was home from hanging out with tita Delai and tita Emy. Also. I found out my wisdom tooth in the back of my right side of my molar is finally popping out of my gum!!!! Bout time but man :P

5.12.19

Happy Mother’s day!!! Woke up and gave mom her gifts. Oh yeah, at Marshalls, manang bought marv lindor chocolate to give to mom lol. At church it was so busy! Decorated (again) the dining hall but at least it was simple. Food was great!!!!! Mark and kuya Sanjay both brought chicken curry! Mark actually brought a lot of food!! SO NICE of him. He brought curry, rice with beans, and plaintains. It was so good!! Dad had work so at home the sibs and mom took pics.

5.13.19

Prepped for interview questions and my clothes for my interview with Delfin at DMC - DRH! So nervous.

5.14.19

Phewwwww ok`so I got up pretty early (ok not really, but like 10 a.m. lol) to review some interview questions and answers. Got ready and then mom, dad and I made our way to Detroit. It was a sunny, beautiful day! Got to DRH and checked in with the front desk. Dad and I waited for about 20 minutes before we got the go to go upstairs. During that time of wait, dad was approached by like 4 co-workers, 1 was Marko who worked on the 5th floor but days, and he gave me some encouragement. Then it was dad’s own coworker, the PCA. And she was like “Ha? She’s having an interview with _______?!” And then before we went to the 5th floor, we stopped by dad’s office and his coworker was there too and she seemed iffy about where/who I was interviewing with and it kinda worried me. Anyway, went upstairs and met with the manager, however I went into the room and sat with the coordinator who interviewed me. She was SO nice. I really like her. I don’t think I nailed the interview, but thankfully the questions she asked were pretty easy, and she was very positive. After my interview with the coordinator, I was then facing the manager who came in the room to ask if I had any questions. After about 20 minutes of talking he then asks me, “I’m going to ask you a hypothetical question. If I were to offer you the job right now, what would you say?” and I said yes. And then he said, “I’m offering you the job.” So HOME GIRL GOT A JOB!!!! After that I took a tour with the coordinator and checked the 3 units within the 5th floor. I DID IT. Friends congratulated me on the Groupme. Was so funny cuz Jod was like “Bebet went from being the poorest in the group to the richest” and all my friends were like “WOW WE KNOW A DOCTOR” “WOW DOCTOR” Got picked up and celebrated at Mcdonalds on Mack. It was so busy. After that, mom, dad and I just went to the downstairs parking so dad could nap before work (yes, dad sacrificed napping to support me for my interview <3333 he walked into the hospital with me and walked me up to the 5th floor too!). Dropped dad off and then mom and I went to get manang. Manong picked up Marv. Before we picked up manang mom and I went to burlington to look at shoes but didn’t get anything. Got manang and once we got home we changed and got ready since Jod was gonna pick us up for taco Tuesday at Maiz!! Si parked at our house and so the 4 of us rode together. Got to Maiz and waited for like 15 minutes for a table, and then Jovel and Nai came. After we were done eating Sam came but we ordered his food so that it was ready when he came. I was pretty disappointed with my food. The shell was SO SOGGY and old tasting. It broke apart :P And the meat was cold! Sigh. Like the shell was even doubled up because it was breaking apart. Anywho after that we went to Cultivate(?) where we played exploding cats. Then manang and I rode with Sam and Si home!

5.15.19

Mom cooked me some spaghetti for tomorrow! :))) Mom had a date with tita rose and others so it was just Marv and I at home. I cleaned before marv got home. Cooked egg for the sibs and I and then watched som one punch. Then I went to the garage to get started on the trash. Once manong and manang came home the four of us in good moods worked together to get the wooden pallets, couch, stove and trash out to the curb. After that we played Overcooked 2. BUT OMG. So like, at 2 am today before I hit the hay, I went on FB and saw a flyer that St Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor was having a nurse job fair!!! I signed up and told Danielle. She’ll most likely ride with me!! Sigh.... Kinda wished I didn’t say yes immediately. And I kinda wished I was ready for an interview with Beaumont. Sigh. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be tho.

5.16.19

Happy birthday to me!!!!!! Thank you Lord!!!! Literally woke up and cried. God is so good. All the time. So thankful for another year. Woke up and went downstairs and found a bouquet of beautiful carnations and a card from dad (I was still up last night and he didn’t get home until 5 just to get these for me! :’D). Had breakfast with mom and dad and then just chilled for the day! Then it was time for prayer meeting. Picked up Marv then went to 7-11. Got some donuts and iced coffee. Then we got manang and then went to burlington near church. Got to church early and just walked around the parking lot. It was such a beautiful day!! After prayer meeting we went to Meijer in Woodhaven to get rice. At home I ate spaghetti! And then manang gave me her gift which was a cute milk carton purse!! Oh and $10 cash!!! I was sooooo surprised when I saw the purse. It was SO cute!! <3 Also going to Ann Arbor tomorrow! Picking up Danielle thanks to manong :)

5.17.19

Woke up so early today! Woke up at 8:30 and got ready. Manong and I left at like 9:30ish or so to get Danielle. On the way to Danielle’s there was a pretty crazy driver on King road right before the brownstown police station. Anyway, got to Danielle’s, picked her up, then got breakfast at Mcdonalds (thanks manong! <3). Then we made our way to Ann Arbor. Found a parking space and practice some questions and such then walked in. It was busy but man everyone was SO NICE. Danielle and I met with the manager of the Medsurg (gen surgery) floor and the neuro floor. They were really nice. Then we talked with the manager for the ER. After that we took a tour with Dan and HE WAS THE ABSOLUTE BEST. He was so inspiring to me. Like, he had no hospital experience, working as a full time mail man during school. He became a nurse and then after a year he went to grad school and became a CNS! He’s been at SJMH for 10 years already!!! He was really super nice. He even says, “I hope you get a job here! I teach in the orientation as well” and I’m like THAT WOULD BE A DREAM. The hospital was absolutely beautiful. Probably the best hospital I’ve ever been to. They even have a nail/hair spa!!!!!! And it smelled SO CLEAN. It would be amazing if I could get a job there after DRH! Anywho, the only sad part was that the medsurg floor wasn’t doing on the spot job offers or interviews :( When I heard that I felt that God validated me going to DRH. I prayed that Lord, my siblings plan to move to Washtenaw. If I get this job I would be so close to them. If it is your will I be at SJMH, Lord please provide me a job on the spot. If not, then I’ll stay at DRH. So there you go! There’s God’s answer. Although the manager said that if I were to hear anything, it would be on the following Friday, however I didn’t get any call back. Anywho, after we got back to the main area from the tour, Danielle went ahead to talk to the CCU presentation. I sat in the food area and had a cup of coffee. Talked to 2 ladies that were waiting in the medsurg line and they were so nice. Then I went outside and called PJ and just talked about my whole dealio. After danielle was done, manong came and picked us up. He was just waiting next door at WCC. Got lunch at KFC and ate inside. I was starting to get cramps sadly! After dropping off danielle, manong and I went to Advance Auto Parts in brownstown, then home. At home I just rested in my room having taken 3 ibuprofens for my cramps (I really need to take something else now). Then I got ready for dinner cuz the whole fam was going out for my bday! Picked up Ne on the way. Thought we were going to Leo’s but I looked up and we were at OLIVE GARDEN!!!!!! I was so surprised. Had a great dinner. Ordered my fave chicken alfredo. After OG we went to Target then Ne’s place! Drank some tea and chilled then went home.

5.18.19

Busy day today! Cleaned the house and got it ready for when the friends came over! Manang and mom went to Kroger to get food so Marv and I finished up. Manang washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen while I vacuumed and cleaned bathrooms and made sure the house smelled good. Oh and Marv put the plants frmo the loft outside on the porch (about time those plants were gone!). First friend to come was Jod, then Josh and Joseph, then Bubby and then jovel, PJ and then daen. Played overcooked (jod loves it!) and then took pics with my star donut cake lol. Then Hannah and cam came!!!!!. We were laughing so hard the whole day!!! Hannah talked about her crazy experience with cult customers at timmy hoes and that was the ongoing joke of the night. Played Wario Ware and then Jackbox! It was so funny. Check out my album on Google photos to see some of the jokes lol. Dad was so funny too when we told him about the cult.When he came out of his room he was like “I took my naked picture to give to the cult” xD LOL my friends were laughing so hard. Cooked shin ramyun and boiled eggs and ate that. Had a lot of food today (qdoba chips and dip from jod, pizza from pj, egg tart and vanilla ice cream from josh, orange creamsicles from jovel, donuts from hannah, candy from daen). Overall it was a really fun and funny night. Also hannah gave me a gift of $45!!! I was so surprised. So thoughtful and nice of her!!!! :’)

5.19.19

Church!! T’was a busy day. Took pics with my cake and oh my goodness, tita Mildred and my class made a banner for me! Church members were so generous in terms of birthday gifts. I made about $235 total! God has been so good to me. Wow. He has blessed me with so much. Some of the gifts I’ve gotten:

-Card, flowers, and olive garden dinner from mom and dad

-milk carton purse and $10 cash from manang

-pink selfie stick cell phone case from manong (didn’t get this till later)

-dunder mifflin hat from Marv (didn’t get this till later, but I’m listing it now lol)

-Versus versace watch from PJ

-$45 from hannah

-Money from tita Mildred, merrilee, and tita cheng, as well as a black and white striped shirt from tita Gina.

-Leche Flan from ne!

After church, the sibs and I went to Ne’s. Ne made me leche flan with cream cheese! Ugh so good. Chilled at Ne’s until midnight ish!

5.20.19

Today was a pretty chill day. Later in the day I went to the gym with manong. PJ came too. Manong and I worked out from 9:40 to 1 a.m.! GSW also played and won. Worked out so long. I drove to the gym and home. After the gym I drove to Meijer and manong bought me lunchables cuz I was so hungry lol.

5.21.19

Officially signed and sent my acceptance for the DRH job position!!! It’s official!! After that dad and I did yard work in the back. After that we had dinner with the fam and then I worked on making thank you cards for my manager and coordinator at DRH. Watched some bball!

5.22.19