Author of The Sparrow Sisters
The forsythia is blooming so it’s time to prune the roses and plant some new ones. Of course, the forsythia starting blooming just as a whole wad of snow fell so I’m not entirely confident I can use this old gardener’s rule this year. Never mind, I’m hauling out the compost, the loppers, the shovels and the bonemeal and hoping for the best!
Dahlias, darling
This begins the first of the lasts for us in London. We will leave London next Tuesday, our 25th wedding anniversary–and what a festive way to spend it, cramming the last bits and bobs into our suitcases, struggling through security where all the metal bolts and pulleys in my back will necessitate yet a another officer-escorted visit to the “cubby of revelation,” another display of much scar-age and X-rays. Why, I can’t think of a more fitting way to depart. Yes, I can but apparently the Concorde has been retired and Prince Charles has not yet recovered from our last meeting so he’ll skip the send off.
I went to Eton on June 2nd for The Fourth of June. I’ll explain that, later, but first a brief history. Eton College was founded in 1440 by Henry VI so it’s still working out the kinks. It’s probably best known for the uniforms: white, stiff collared shirt and tie, waistcoat, morning coat and pin-striped trousers. Well, famous for the uniform and its graduates (Old Etonians), past and present. Princes William and Harry (just named the coolest man in the world), the current Prime Minister and 18 others, the first Duke of Wellington (“The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton”), Hugh Laurie, Sebastian Flyte, Captain Hook.
I spent a bare 24 hours in deepest, darkest Wiltshire last week. It isn’t that deep, a couple of hours outside London and it isn’t that dark, the sun duked it out with the rain the whole time we were there. And let’s be honest, 24 hours is hardly a trip, it’s a ‘tripette’ as my friend Fiona would say. In fact, she did say it as we piled into the car with my husband.