August 3rd Wednesday. The Wall coating chaps have finished and gone, leaving everything nice and the house looking splendid.
Sorry regular followers of this site and the diary entries in particular…trying to get up to speed again! I will over time post some missed entries. I may switch to posting just the more interesting entries, because of other demands upon my time and attention.
I was very happy this past weekend to find that two of my granddaughters, too young yet to be reading independently, are such good listeners they can recite their favourite books by heart. I particularly enjoyed joining in with Audrey’s rendition of Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy, although I don’t know that she approved of my doing it with a Kelvinside accent. Two year olds often prefer a vanilla delivery.
Listening is a dying art, especially for children growing up in homes with several TV sets. Watching is an entirely different skill. It’s hard to imagine them rushing to tune in to the radio as my generation did in the Fifties, eager for the next episode of Rosemary Sutcliff’s The Eagle of the Ninth. There was no spin-off DVD. You had to imagine the scene for yourself.
August 2nd Tuesday. Tiny blue butterfly on the dining-room flower bed.
July 2nd Saturday. A gorgeous afternoon after the rain, and got Ray to take us all down to Mill Hamlet. Really lovely down there, the tide full in, big puffy clouds in a clear blue sky feathered with ‘Mares tails’, we could see the waves breaking white in the harbour mouth a couple of miles away. Think Ray enjoyed it quite as much as we did. Letter from Jeremy H .
July 10th Sunday. Nice peaceful day, the first for ages.
ROSEMARY SUTCLIFF (1920-92) 