Early Thursday am

I woke up 4am, fully dressed with all the lights on, I ought to get myself better organised.    

 

I haven't done a lot lately, but at this time of year there is not a lot going on.   In my reading matter I have moved from the Second World War in the East End to May 1911, the coronation year of George V and Queen Mary.

 

It is written by the grand daughter of Vita Sackville West, so she had access to many fascinating primary sources, but while the subject matter is fascinating it is terribly written.   As one reviewer accurately put it " it is little more than a reporter's notebook of jotted facts without transition”.     As the jotted facts themselves are so interesting I am ploughing through it, but am not sure how long I can keep going.

 

May 1911 is the subject and title of the entire book.   It also includes mention of the fact that the country was "suffering" under a heat wave of 86!!!!!    For crying out loud, the author doesn't know what a heat wave is.  86 degrees is a pleasant summer's day, that's what is was yesterday after the heavy rains,  Kevin came and cut my grass and we chatted about how nice it was.          A heat wave is 103!!!!!!!!!

Queen Mary died just before the Queen's Coronation in 1953, so I remember reading about her from time to time, and as I think most of my generation would agree, she always came across as very forbidding, but this portrayal is of a very shy, desperately lonely, individual.

 

She and George V seemed very happy though.  In the evenings he would be busy with his stamp collection, and she would knit.    Knit!!!!     Knit!!!!    I thought that was what poor people in the East End had to do.

 

As some of you might remember from your history lessons, she had been destined to marry his brother, the Prince of Wales, but she was saved from this fate worse than death when he died of influenza immediately prior to the wedding, and just as she was about to be put back on the shelf the powers-that-be arranged the marriage between her and George V.

 

It is a widely held belief that the Prince of Wales was Jack the Ripper.   Anyone else heard of that?

 

I'm beginning to yawn, I think it is time to go back to bed with another cup of tea.

Before I go however, I will just mention.   My surrogate brother Ken in Derby has blue tit boxes outside their kitchen window - so did my mother, so this is very interesting to me, and they have put cameras in them, how my mother would have LOVED that technology.   He sent me a picture when they laid eggs.

Sadly though, the male tit instead of looking after the female and feeding her, did a runner so she was unable to hatch them out.   My initial reaction was disparaging thoughts about the male species generally, but then I got to thinking that perhaps he was desperately trying to make  his way back to her and the nest, and was attacked by nasty predators.   So maybe we should give him the benefit of the doubt.