I find it disconcerting to find/read obituaries of people my age! The latest is Glenda Jackson, born 1936. The same year I was born. Oh dear, am I that old?

Friends at Kilternan Market – probably now deceased

I am enjoying rereading some of the family correspondence I am finding as I work through the process of selling my house. What follows is a letter written by my sister Ruth in May 1950. She (with my sister Nan) had just arrived in London.

The letter is quite long and is written on thin airmail paper. Above are just the opening bits.

I feel so nostalgic rereading this letter. I think this letter was written when their trip was nearing its end.

What an adventure.

___________________________________________________

London!. May 23rd

Dear Janet, Mother, & Bob, (our brother)

Here we are in London and just loving it! We arrived at 6:45 pm last Saturday May 20th. The trip from Paris took almost all day. We took a train to Dieppe from Paris then crossed the channel to New Haven. The crossing was smooth and just as Englands shoreline came into view it began to rain so the white cliffs of Dover were typically viewed as I had imagined them. The custom officials were most charming & didn’t even look at our luggage. To think that we’ve come all this way from N.Y. 7 it hasn’t been inspected yet!

We were lucky to get a room at the Regent Palace Hotel which is at Piccadilly Circus, a beautiful room with a radio & telephone even! It’s costing us 13 Shillings, 3 pence each for bed & breakfast. That’s about $1.86 so we can hardly complain.

Our 1st morning,, we were seated with a nice young couple from Scotland for breakfast. It was Sunday and raining so we were a little discouraged about sightseeing & picture taking. They really came to our rescue and suggested our going along with them to Hyde Park and hearing the SundayAM orators. They perch themselves on boxes & make speeches on religion, politics, & xxxxxxpsychlo psychology. It was interesting to wander from one to the other, they really put Althea had into their speeches. Some of the listeners would argue with them

We saw an excellent English film that night called “The Happiest days of our lives”. It was very funny the plot being a mix up between a boys school and a girls school.

to be continued

This past week of following the tennis at Wimbledon has been wonderful (once I manage to find where it’s being broadcast).

Camden Maine

From my photograph collection

East African Plains

I try to write a blog entry every day, but lately I’ve been a bit lax. The definition of lax is not related to Los Angeles Airport as google might lead you to believe. Nor would I say I had not been sufficiently careful. Simply stated, I have just plain been busy – in the last throes of getting my house ready for the next stage of SELLING.

This has meant making agonizing decisions over what to keep, what to throw away, what to give away to the lucky recipient, etc.

But it is wonderful fun to go through old correspondence and find postcards for my collection – here a postcard from UC Berkeley sent to us in Dublin by one of our sons and his wife 23 years ago.

From Berkeley California

Image

1. Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel
2. Withering Heights by Emily Bronte
3. The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson
4. The Long Call by Ann Cleeves
5. Trust by Herman Diaz