April 14th Thursday. The Wickses in to tea, a very cheerful and gossipy couple of hours.
Category: General
Trawling the internet, researching libraries and databases, and occasionally from material sent to me, I discover things I did not know much about, or indeed at all! There can be more than one Discovery of the Day.
Readers of Rosemary Sutcliff blog from 51 countries in last seven days
Rosemary Sutcliff’s notebook | 1992
Dates mattered to Rosemary Sutcliff; they matter in history; and in excellent historical fiction like hers. (See post yesterday, building on an article in The Guardian). From year to year she carried foreword notes about addresses, key contacts and the dates of her books, usually in a blue Challenge notebook. This page records the little story books for children that she published with Hamish Hamilton. The notebook is here propped on her writing chair – a Captain’s chair.
My cherry trees are just breaking … and Lady’s smock in the hedge (Diary, 8/4/88)
April 8th Friday. Had a lovely run with Ray, on Dunton & along under the Downs via my cherry trees, which are just breaking, and home via Midhurst, the countryside suddenly veiled in green chifloss (?) , primroses & celandine & Lady’s smock in the hedges. But at Dean, the storm wreckage as heartbreaking as ever.
© Anthony Lawton 2012
‘Had a lovely run’ refers to a drive out in the car – Rosemary did this most days, driven by whoever was being her driver-handyman-gardner at the time. That is why The Tifffy could not remain (earlier entries); she could not have a drunk driver. I am not sure of the transcription ‘chifloss’: not in the dictionary, what else might it be?
Why 29 Visitors from Afghanistan to the Rosemary Sutcliff blog yesterday?
Why were there 29 visits to this blog about Rosemary Sutcliff from Afghanistan yesterday? Film The Eagle showing to the forces? Broadcast of recent BBC version of Brother Dusty Feet or The Eagle of the Ninth? Assignment at the American School (is there one?) or an ‘English’ one? If any of ‘you’ vist here again I am intrigued to know!
ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF (1920-92) 