Thursday, April 23, 2020


I watched my sister’s webinar while winding that 150 gr skein and wearing my dressing gown, trusting that I wasn’t visible to anyone else. She was good. Things are different in the UsofA, I think.

Eileen and Stashdragon (comment yesterday) I am so pleased that you have heard of us Marshall Scholars. None of us have been elected president yet, or even won a Nobel prize, but just you wait. On that ship, in 1954, were the year’s Rhodes scholars, on their way to Oxford. They swanked about a bit. But when the ship put in at Cherbourg, before Southampton, a Marshall Commission man got on board to take care of us. And the last we saw of the Rhodes scholars, as we were whisked off to London the next day, they were all sitting sadly on their luggage, wondering, what next?

I’m a bit further forward with the Virus Scarf.

Alexander phoned. He seems to be having a lovely time, lockdowned on the shores of Loch Fyne. The garden, he says,  has never been in such good order. Food is being delivered. His sons’ school is not providing much in the way of remote education.

Helen came and walked me twice around the gardens. Unutterably beautiful, again.

Comments

VasanthMusicCoimbatore, I use Brad Leone’s kimchi recipe. Go to YouTube and ask for him. (He’s delightful, apart from the kimchi.) However, unlike Brad (and most Koreans) I cut the cabbage up at the beginning, before I salt it, instead of leaving it attached to the root and inserting the salt leaf by leaf. I also omit his oyster. I’ve got some kimchi in a very Korean-looking jar (although the small print says it came from Taiwan). I ordered it when I bought that gochugaru recently. I like my own better. It’s livelier.

Other non-knit

I recorded a program last night about the Queen during the war, and look forward to it. Many rich English sent their children to safety in the US or Canada during the war. The King and Queen did not, although they must have shared the additional twist of anxiety, as they feared invasion in the autumn of 1940, of all parents of teen-aged daughters.

There has been a novel recently imagining that the Princesses were sent to Ireland for safety. That’s preposterous. In the case of invasion – and there must be records in the archives – they would have gone to somewhere like Kirkmichael and stayed with the laird. I can imagine him mentioning in the village shop that if the Germans invaded, his English nieces were coming up to stay – “let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

4 comments:

  1. I have heard of the Marshall Scholarship, but only vaguely. I looked it up, of course and saw it was the most prestigious and also the first international scholarship to admit women, and one-third of the inaugural group was women. Go, Jean!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous12:26 PM

    I recall you mentioning the the Loch Fyne ducks a while ago. is there any update?
    Helen (anon)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous1:06 PM

    Jean I am nowhere near a Marshall or any kind of Scholar, but your reminiscence took me back. My first trip to England was also by ship and my first view of the country was also Southampton, the surrounding countryside looking impossibly green. Thanks for the memories. Chloe

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous6:23 PM

    "Impossibly green" - yes, that's my memory of my arrival when I moved there in 1971, landing at Heathrow from snowy Canada in January.

    ReplyDelete