Howzat??!!

 

Quinn Siyamthanda Myeni, born last night, looking much like his brother Hamish at the same age. “Quinn” was a name they decided they liked (as do I). “Siyamthanda” means “we love him”, I am told, presumably in Zulu. In the olden days you needed a Christian name for baptism. I doubt if either of those qualifies. But I also suspect the rules have been relaxed. I hope the news has been properly relayed to the kittens.

 

Not much here. Daniela administered a bath and hair wash, and I am as a result cleaner than I have been since May. I was afraid I was now too feeble for the business of getting in and out of the bath, but it is not so, with Daniela’s firm help.

 

No knitting, which in the past has been a dismal symptom. I think today it is a symptom of no more than idleness.

 

I finished my Ruth Rendell and have moved on to a biography of the Duke of Wellington by Lady Longford. I thought there was a well-regarded biography of him by a woman, but Amazon’s Kindle list produced no such thing. Then I read something recently about Antonia Fraser, who has just turned 90. It mentioned that her mother was an historian and I thought ahah! And sure enough, although I have had to buy an actual physical book. It starts very well.

 

I love the Duke for many reasons but perhaps especially for the account of the day when he went to see D*vid W*lkie to commission a picture celebrating Waterloo. (The result was “The Chelsea Pensioners”, which still belongs to the Duke of Wellington.) When he left, he knew that the ladies of the house – W*lkie’s mother and sister and servants – would be watching at the windows. At the gate, he turned and made his bow to them. Napoleon is all very well, but I love him for that bow. Mrs W*like went to her son’s room and threaded a ribbon across the chair upon which the ducal bottom had rested so that it would never be profaned by further use.

 

Wordle: Ketki got it in three, Alexander and Thomas and I needed four, Mark was the class dunce with five. I fell into the Wordle swamp with an excellent guess for line three (I thought) – but the first letter was wrong. It was a much better word, too, than the eventual right answer. Alexander’s grid suggests that he made the same mistake. Mark had an answer, too, with four greens, but in his case the middle letter was missing. I still haven’t thought of what word that might have been.