Above London 15 October 1962
I was happily unfastening my safety belt and replacing the sick bag back into its rack when the pilot calmly said: “Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you all aboard, but I am afraid we are now going back to land again because the lever that retracts the undercarriage has got stuck, so will you fasten your seat belts again, please.” So I crawled back into my belt, grabbed another sick bag and prepared to land. Once landed, I got out of the aeroplane into the bus, then out of the bus and into the canteen, grabbed some free food, and accepted apologies from the Company for the delay.
So I sat down and started writing this, because there's three quarters of an hour delay because of this problem with the undercarriage. If I can find a phone box before we go, I will phone Gran and she'll let you know that I'm okay. I'm sorry I missed you at the airport, but they rushed me past the man that examined my passport and I shut me into a locked room with a lot of other people. I've made acquaintance with a French girl and a gentleman who were next to me in the plane. They were both very nice people, but they went and grabbed the window seats, so I couldn't see properly. Anyway I'm okay so far, but haven't been able to change my money yet. I was ever so disappointed not seeing you, and walked onto the plane backwards in the hope that you might appear on the horizon, but you didn't.
Later.
Now I'm back in the plane waiting for take off. As an old hand at the game, I have now discarded all sick bags and am facing the world with determination. I've lost my two companions and I'm on my own again. I didn't have time to phone Gran. I will continue later as the stewardess just said that we are in a different aeroplane and that we are going in a minute and the flight will last 45 minutes. I guess I'll be late and I hope the girl waits. Whoops, the propellers are turning and I'm excited because I can see out of the window this time.
Later.
I'm flying at an altitude of 15,000 feet and feel a bit dodgy, but I think it's comes from looking out of the window. We are up here in blazing sunshine and below are masses of clouds that look strong enough to withstand even [my sister] Julie’s almighty feet. In four minutes we will be going over Newhaven and over Dieppe at 10 am. The aeroplane left London at 9:35 a.m.. The pilot has just said we're flying at 13,000 feet and that it's nice and sunny in Paris. At the moment I can see through a break in the cloud loads of fields which look ever so tiny with the wisps of clouds fluttering over them. It's exciting, but the pilot seems to keep putting on the brakes and going up and down, generally twisting around, and Jill's head and tummy don't like it, but when it's smooth it's lovely. Someone just trotted up and asked in in French “Do you require some cigarettes, cigars for your papa? No?” He retired with a definite “No” ringing in his disappointed ears. Through the window the clouds go up and down like icing on a cake or the crumples in the bed when I make it, and with the sun shining on it, it all looks lovely, just like snow. It's changed again now and it's all like islands with blue sky around them, but I can't see through it.
I hope you don't get too bored or cross-eyed trying to read these hieroglyphics.
Later.
I've just looked out and seen France laid out beneath me and, guess what, it looks just like England. This plane isn't doing me much good, and I'll be glad to place my feet on terra firma, even if it is français.
Oh, we just went down low and another plane nearly not our tail off - all this room and he has to decide to come so close, oh well!
At Mouchard station.
We are waiting for the car to take me to the house but it won't be long, so I'll have to write to you tomorrow and tell you all the news. Mère Martine arrived at Paris and met me because Jacqueline couldn't come, but it was better really because Mère Martine returned with me so that I wasn't on my tod.
All day I've been talking French and I'm forgetting my anglais. Only one of the sisters at the convent speaks a little English apparently and Mère Martine speaks none. Oh well, I'll have to leave you now. All my love till tomorrow, from Jill.
Pictures drawn by Sœur Martine to explain France
Champagne-sur-Loue, Tuesday, 16 October 1962.
Yesterday Sœur Martine met me on my arrival at La Gare des Invalides and we reached Mouchard at 5:30pm having taken a taxi across Paris and run for the train. At Dijon we changed trains and I was made to feel rather uncomfortable by Sœur Martine saying a prayer at the table in the crowded station buffet before we sat down for a cup of tea while waiting an hour for our connection to Mouchard. The tea here is awful, no milk and no handles to the cups, it being drunk from bowls.
At Mouchard we were met by Mère Pierre with the Convent's Deux Chevaux and finally reached Champagne with me sitting in what to us should be the driver's seat.
Henri, don't you ever buy a Deux Chevaux. Every third car you see here isn't one. The convent has a battered one, and in Champagne, a village of no pubs or shops, six farms and two cottages, a place where cars are frowned upon as innovations from the outside world, I have seen four Deux Chevaux which have reluctantly been accepted by the inhabitants. But no other kind of vehicle is to be tolerated by them. I loathe the horrid little things. It's a skill yet to be acquired to avoid being mown down by them. They tear along the roads at high speed on the wrong side, attempting to flatten me out in front of the them, crying "attention" as they disappear over the horizon in a cloud of dust and cow dung.
In my bedroom, a closet affair I share with four other girls, I have a bed, a cupboard, and a wash basin. The last two are luxuries denied my fellow room mates, and they wash down the corridor. Unfortunately the water is only hot in the mornings. At night I wash in it as cold as a mountain stream. Come to think of it that's exactly what it is! Last night I had an awful job to get a hot water bottle as I didn't know the word for it in French and there is one nun here who speaks even less English than I do French, and that's the limit! Not another word of English will I normally hear. Just for the moment though there's a very nice girl, Monique, staying here. She comes from Brittany and is a nurse. She studied English for several years when she was at school. Even so she doesn't speak much but anything's a help. We get on well and rarely misunderstand each other. Unfortunately she will be leaving on Saturday so I will be really alone. She took me to see the village this morning and this afternoon we're going to look at the mountains. I've not yet had the opportunity to be impressed by them and from the glance I've had they seem to be little more than distant hills.
Later
I have just been given the task of taking the thirteen year olds for their study period. My writing is bad because my hands are quite frozen. I've been told that I take the children for study each evening from 5:45 until 7:15pm and every morning from 7:20 until 8:00am. They work here! Two evenings a week I take them for English conversation, but that's really asking an impossibility as they speak no English at all. I've taught them to say "Good morning, afternoon, and evening" but I expect they will have forgotten it by now. They all have strange names that I've never heard before and it's very difficult to remember them.
Henri, please send me my records and any others that have English on them. The girls seem to think the sole reason for my coming is to sing English pop songs to them. It's not easy to explain to twenty-six eager French girls that you have no intention of singing "Sainte nuit" in English to them in the middle of October, half way up a mountainside in a howling gale and that you're tone deaf anyway. At this rate I'll soon be ruining my sacred English and am already beginning to develop a sort of pidgin French. Monique speaks English in such a funny way I'm starting to speak it like her.
I suspect that one of the nuns has ideas of me listening to her teaching the girls to sing songs tonight. However, if I can again accomplish the weird signs for my hot water bottle, I'd sooner get to bed. I think I can get hot water from the kitchen. There's a nice girl there, Françoise, who's eighteen and does the cooking for the school. She chats to me and I stand feeling silly. I suppose I will learn. Everyone says I'll be speaking French by the time I come home. What worries me is, will I still be able to speak English? Sœur Martine has given me a book to do French from and expects me to have finished it by Christmas. She's optimistic but I'll have a go. My head aches though. Everywhere I turn people seem to shout at me in French and I feel so stupid. A girl just came and said something to me and so as not to seem too silly I replied "mais oui certainement" and she promptly left the room. I wonder what she wanted. These children are so burdened with work that they're all quiet in their study periods. I can't see that happening with us in England. They are all daughters of the local farmers but as they live in the mountains it's too far for them to travel daily so they live here all week, usually returning to their homes for the weekends.
Where I buy stamps and writing materials has yet to be discovered. I needn't have worried about an absence of Woolworths and railways, I've not yet been able to discover the existence of a village shop! As there is no post office in Champagne I don't know how often I'll be able to send these letters but I'll post them when I go to Mouchard.
Champagne-sur-Loue, [Wednesday 17 October 1962]
I'm feeling rather lonely though everybody is so nice and I'm very happy. I haven't yet left the school but I don't suppose they can reasonably keep me completely cooped up here for eight months can they? No doubt I will visit Besançon or Dôle at some stage. I have at last found a shop in Champagne and have furnished myself with writing paper, envelopes and ink. I've also bought some stamps from the sisters as the shop didn't stock such modern things. It appears that in this part of France nobody writes letters and the sisters were amazed when I asked for six stamps. They'll no doubt be even more amazed when I ask for another six tomorrow! The nuns only go into Mouchard occasionally but will post my letters for me there.
This morning I discovered a bathroom and had a wonderful hot bath. Tonight Monique and I are going to discover how to get some hot water to wash our hair, and for my hot water bottle which I still can't get without a lot of sign language.
Sœur Martine has shown me the chapel in the Convent and also a room where I can play any records I like, or listen to the radio. She even says I'll be able to get BBC! I only work here in the mornings, evenings and at lunch times. The rest of the day I either chat to the sisters or girls or amuse myself as I like. The Superior of the Convent, Mère Pierre, says I am understanding everyone well and have improved a lot even since yesterday. She thinks that by Christmas I will be able to speak French quickly.
Today Monique and I played some classical music on the record player and sat on the steps outside her bedroom. She sleeps in a little flat over a barn in the grounds of the convent.
Thursday, [18 October]
I spent an hour in the kitchen last night talking with Françoise, the cook, who's eighteen and Danielle, the teacher of needlework, who's nineteen. Neither can speak a word of English but we got along fine with the aid of my dictionary. Françoise gave me lessons in skiing all over the kitchen with one of the sisters giving advice as well. Françoise lives in the mountains on the Swiss border where they've had snow at her home since the middle of September.
I'm sitting on the windowsill in the sunshine. Outside is a flock of sheep, each one with a bell round its neck. The sun is really quite warm though in the shade it's freezing. It gets so cold here that I really need sealskin boots, gloves and ear muffs. I went for a walk this morning and found the road littered with walnuts. They grow wild all around here and I cracked some by stamping on them and found them delicious. I might go and gather some this afternoon.
Yesterday I helped Sœur Martine prepare her lessons in biology which she teaches to the girls. They're learning things that I'm revising for my exam but theirs is at a simpler level. I showed Sœur Martine my books and she was really interested and we spent some time telling each other the names of the animals and bones in English and French. She danced around shrieking delightedly "a bird - tweet tweet. A dog. A cat. Un cranium. Un metatarsal." She was so delighted we got very behind with her work.
I've got to go and take a study period in a minute so will end here. I'm really hot sitting in the sun but my feet are freezing. I'd better not put them up on the windowsill though, as I don't suppose the nuns would approve.
Champagne-sur-Loue, Saturday 20 October 1962
I'm taking the girls for study at the moment, having just emerged from a lovely hot early morning bath. I'm off to civilization shortly and want to post this to you while I'm there. Monique is returning to Brittany today and I am going to see her off at the station. It's an opportunity to see the outside world that I'm seizing with enthusiasm.
Yesterday Sœur Martine took me for a ride in the Convent's Deux Chevaux, of which she is unduly proud. The paint's gone and it's falling to pieces. It's hopeless on hills and as this is a mountainous area it works out quicker to get out and walk, pulling the Deux Chevaux up behind on a piece of string. Sœur Martine caused great hilarity by making puffing noises, pretending to be a train to help the car up the hills, assuring me it was all because I was too heavy, and trying to push me out.
I've enclosed a picture of the Convent. The school is just beside it. We all sleep above the school which consists of two large classrooms. I'll buy you some postcards in the village shop though there are only three different views, one of the Loue, one of the shop and one of a typical cow of the area which, to my untrained eye, looks remarkably similar to a cow from any other part of Europe. I've not mentioned this to people as, not having been beyond the limits of this village, they wouldn't realise that cattle are not unique to the Jura.
By the way Henri, we have lovely French bread, all fresh and crusty. Not like that awful English "pap" that causes you such dreadful chest pains. We eat it with local Camembert and all sort of other delicious French and Swiss cheeses at every meal. However, as you're slimming this won't interest you will it? There are vineyards all around the school and apples, grapes and nuts from the locality appear on the table at mealtimes.
Monday 22nd October.
Yesterday, Sunday afternoon, I went for a walk and discovered the existence of another shop in a neighbouring village! I also found a fromagerie where they make local cheeses. I was quite delighted to find that the countryside was filled with young men of eligible age all with motorbikes! I hadn't realised such things were to be found in this corner of France. Life is looking up!
Danielle is due back this afternoon from her weekend in Besançon where her parents live so I'll have company when Monique leaves. As she can only say "Thank you very much" and "I love you darling" in English my dictionary is pretty tattered after even a short conversation with her.
Sœur Martine has just come in and borrowed all my biology books because she likes them so much. She teaches this subject to the girls and wants to use my books to prepare a lesson. They're learning about flies at the moment so she has borrowed all my books with information on flies in them. She can understand the text of the diagrams as it's in Latin so is equally incomprehensible in French or English. This evening I will be taking the older girls for English so will let you know about that when I next write.
She took the opportunity to measure my height and compared it with the length of my bed and announced that for me I need "un grand lit" but for her only a small one as she is very tiny. Indeed she is tiny and, despite her middle age, a sprightly creature in her black robes, darting rapidly from place to pace like a little bird.
Champagne-sur-Loue. Tuesday 23 October 1962.
It's 7:30am and by a superhuman effort I'm up in time to take the girls for their morning study session. It's still dark and foggy outside and the girls are trickling in, rubbing the mists of sleep from their eyes. I keep dozing off, only to be roused by some equally sleepy pupil grunting "bonjour Mees Jill" into my right ear. They each did it and I've a sore throat from replying. Actually I really do have a bad throat but I think it's more likely to be the start of a cold than the result of saying "Bonjour" an infinite number of times a day.
Yesterday I took a walk on my own and found seven dogs accompanying me. Two Alsatians, one black and one tan, a tan mongrel, a sort of wire-haired terrier, Gitan, the convent dog, who's huge, black, lovely tempered and a mongrel, Mirza, the little fat old black dog of one of the teachers, and another one from a nearby garden. I was none too confident when those two huge Alsatians started barking at me. I thought it was the end and was preparing to die with my boots on, clutching my Union Jack, when they started to whine and wag their tails. I breathed again, took off my boots, laid down my flag and they all accompanied me for some distance on my walk. Gitan usually comes with me until he sees some cattle to annoy. This generally means he doesn't come far as there are rather a lot of "caws", as Sœur Martine call them, around here.
It's getting light outside and the fog's lifting so I'll be able to wash my underwear. You've probably gathered things are a little primitive here. They even dry their clothes by hanging them on fences! Rather to my surprise however, they do have electricity and water on tap, but alas, no tape recorder.
Later.
I washed my hair and Sœur Martine saw me with it before I'd set it. She thought it very funny and kept chuckling, saying how straight it was. Never look to her for sympathy. She's still not returned my biology book but I hope she does so soon as I'm part way through copying a diagram from it.
The other day I went for a walk on the Clos and I found two fossils. They were really clear and must have been extremely old because they are seashells and this is hundreds of miles from the sea. Sœur Martine was so delighted with them that I gave them to her for her geology lesson. She knows all about fossils and different types of soils and rocks and spent ages showing me her collection. She's also got a fossil found in this area but hers is in a different kind of stone. I think hers is in sandstone and mine in limestone. She also showed me one she's got of the footprint of a tiny animal with four toes. I never realised fossils were common before but they've been found all around here.
She also delights in catching insects and keeping them in test tubes to dissect in her zoology lessons. She's got huge spiders and moths and they can't breathe because of the lack of oxygen in the test tubes. The tubes steam up and the insects die. I tell her it's cruel and how sorry I feel for the insects but she says it's her I should feel sorry for having to dissect them. The other day I had a ladybird on my arm and before I was aware of what was happening Sœur Martine had swooped down like a hawk and captured it in one of her jars. The worst of it is that she delights in showing me her finds and I have to sit there, usually during soup, while she shows me her dissections of spiders and beetles. Ugh!
This morning the postman arrived with a sack of letters for the school, happily chatted to me for five minutes and then departed assuming he'd imparted an awareness of the great unknown exterior world to a soul in the wilderness. He was quite unaware that I'd understood little more than the odd phrase or two.
Later.
I'm now sitting in the study with Sœur Geneviève writing opposite me. I'm a little fed-up with this state of complete isolation. Perhaps I will ask Sœur Martine if I can go to the foreign language club in Besançon. At least I'd see some shops that way. She probably won't want me to go until I speak French better. Not that I'm worried. If I get lost, I'll just have to find myself again. Stuck out here as we are, they worry if I so much as put my nose outside the gate.
One of the nuns has just fallen up the steps outside this room clutching a coffee percolator and a pile of dishes. She's all right but the noise was pretty dreadful.
I've still not managed to get my washing done as the fog's only now lifted and I don't wish to tramp across a soggy field to hang my undies out on a fence where a cow is more likely than not to mistake then for a tasty morsel. Apart from that, the water has gone cold by now.
I did go out earlier to gather some autumn leaves and berries which look lovely on the cupboard by my bed. I got drenched collecting them, the fog swirling around and the water was dripping from the trees, so that I returned to the school soaked through.
This school isn't like other French schools. They work six days a week here without Thursdays off as is normal in France. Trust me to pick a school like that! They work from 7:30am until 9:45pm. I get so cold and bored of an evening I usually go to bed around 8:30 and am generally asleep long before the poor overworked human wrecks arrive upstairs. I don't know if there's a library in Mouchard or Besançon but must investigate and see if they have any English books for loan. After all we have French material in English lending libraries.
Morning school has just finished so it will be lunch soon. Then I can have the pleasure of playing a ball game with the kids. The main idea of the game as far as I can gather, is either to send the ball into the wettest, prickliest hedge for miles around and then send Jill in after it, or else to hurl the ball so violently that it completely winds Jill as it hits her in the stomach.
Sœur Martine has just been through the study and stopped to chat to me about gravity and modelling clay. She says she bought Gitan for Mère Pierre as a gift when he was a puppy. She left promising to find me a large envelope to send this huge letter in. I bet she forgets! She's just pulled all the backcombing, curl and lacquer out of my hair examining how long it was before I set it and how long it is now, muttering exclamations to herself that I'm not able to understand.
It's very beautiful here by the way. It's all smooth and cold-looking with mountains all around shrouded in mist and looking very impressive.
Later.
I'm now in my bedroom with the record player which I've just pinched from the Convent when nobody was looking. I've found a copy of "Peter and the Wolf" in French. It's easy enough to follow as I know it in English and there's not much dialogue anyway. I enjoy the music from it. I've also found several records of Père Aimé Duval and an E.P. of Sydney Bechet which is quite swinging. I'm sitting here wrapped in your dressing-gown, Mum, which is proving more than useful with the temperatures we seem to get around here. They'll be serving the French bread and cheese for the kids' goûter soon so I'll have to be going. Getting up early just doesn't agree with me. I feel really sleepy already and it's only 4:30pm. Mum, if you can, will you please send me some black or brown thick tights? My feet get absolutely freezing here and the nuns won't mind a bit as all the girls here wear them. They're so much warmer than ordinary stockings.
5.45 p. m.
I'm taking the evening study now. Here I am, nearly falling asleep with tiredness, just settling down to an hour and half of study. Not a very appealing prospect. At least I'm no longer cold as I had goûter in the kitchen with Danielle and Françoise and it's lovely and warm in there. Danielle says there's a Walt Disney film on in Dôle for the next couple of evenings and hopes to go and see it. I've been dropping hints but to no avail. Oh well, I don't see how I could really go anyway with these study periods to take every evening.
Sœur Martine presented me with a wad of rather mouldy looking plasticine today and said it was for me to play with! How old does she think I am? Actually she gave it to me because I found some of hers the other day and as she'd been learning the names of animals in English I shaped it into a rabbit and a dog and left them for her with a note saying what they were. It amused her to find them so she's given me more plasticine to make her more models. Oh well, yet another task I have to face, I suppose. She was reading a newspaper at lunchtime, in between showing me her insects, when suddenly she jumped up and shrieked "Oh shocking!" (some English I taught her). There was a picture of a girl in a brief bikini and she rapidly cut a dress out of paper and stuck it onto the girl, coloured it in and stood back with a sigh of satisfaction to admire her work.
She then rushed off to show all the other sisters what she had done, stopping every so often to re-admire her effort and to stand in a similar pose herself as if modelling the latest trend in nuns attire. "Hey, get with it, Sister, join our Crazy convent at the Maison Rurale, latest fashions, all sizes catered for."
I really feel so very tired here. Perhaps it's because I've got a cold and the weather has turned even more bitter. I've not really been out for much fresh air today except to play that horrid ball game, when I got wetter and more prickled and winded than ever. One of the nuns suggested that I'd be very welcome to attend Mass in the convent at 7am if I liked and somebody else would do my study period for me. I'd really love someone else to take my study period for me but I'd rather spend the time in bed than in an icy cold chapel. Besides, I'd have to get up at 6:30am! Still I suppose I'd better make the effort one morning to make it look good.
I must get Danielle to find out about that foreign language club in Besançon as I'm getting quite depressed with this isolation. Don't get me wrong. I like it here, it's lovely and everyone is very kind, but when you come to think that you've got eight more months of it without seeing a single shop or vehicle, other than those awful Deux Chevaux, and that you won't see an English person for months, then it's apt to get you down. I expect I'll see things in a more rosy light tomorrow when I'm less tired. I'd best get on with my biology now. Bye-bye. (That's the latest word I've taught Danielle and which she keeps using).
Champagne-sur-Loue, Tuesday 30 October 1962.
Last night Sœur Martine persuaded me to draw some birds for her to use in her zoology lessons. I thought she meant a few but it turns out that I have to draw the heads of about twenty six different birds and the feet of about the same number. Trust me to get caught for a thing like that! She was so delighted with the plasticine models I made that she thinks I'm an artist and keeps finding me arty jobs to do! I think I'll have to grow a beard. I've done twelve heads so far and they're not too bad (for me) and she doesn't need them for a fortnight. She's still not returned that biology book; I wish she'd hurry up. There's no mention of the fifteen shillings pocket money I was promised. I can hardly ask if there's a bureau de change in Besançon because my parents are having to send me money to keep me going, can I? They might think I was hinting. I'm okay for the moment however and as I've nowhere to spend money anyway I'm nearly as well off as when I came.
Mère Pierre, the head of the Convent, regards me as if I'm some priceless jewel to be kept safe at all costs. I'm her child prodigy. After all, it can't be every Convent's boast that, stuck as they are, way up in the mountains, miles from civilization, they have a real live English idiot at large with an almost zero knowledge of French. Whenever we have anyone to visit the school she introduces me as the English mademoiselle who is learning French very quickly. She informs them that I understand very well and will soon be speaking nineteen to the dozen. Last night the visiting priest believed her, and talked to me non-stop for fifteen minutes at tremendous speed while Mère Pierre looked on with a benevolent smile as if to say, "You see, I said she understood". All went well until I nodded in the wrong place!
Last night one of the girls produced an EP twist record and, isolated as they are out here, only a couple of them knew how to twist. It ended up with me twisting right through the record while they all watched. Did I feel silly! Before I'd finished however several of them were trying it and it now looks set to become a craze here. Then Danielle arrived and she can twist well, so we did it together while the kids stood around cheering. They'd never seen a teacher dancing before, let alone two teachers. They've still not got over it and keep saying "bravo Mees". It's even helped counteract their annoyance that I'm not overfond of their horrible ball game.
This morning I went to Mass in the convent at 8:00am. They had a later Mass today with the visiting priest from last night, who, like me, doesn't like getting up and starting his work really early. The chapel is so small that it seems crowded with more than a couple of people in there.
I'm at present taking an exam. Or to be more accurate, I'm sitting in the exam room to make sure that the kids don't cheat or talk. Tonight I'll be taking them for English again.
Later.
I'm now tucked up in my little bed, and I do mean little! The mattress drapes over the sides just like you do over the waistband of your skirt Mum. I'd just sealed up the latest letters to you, in two separate envelopes, bulging and bursting at the seams, when Sœur Martine came bouncing in. She stood patiently by, watching me stick the stamps on and then presented me with "une grande enveloppe". I tried to look as if the one thing I really wanted at that particular moment and at no other was a large sized envelope and she happily bounced off leaving me to transfer the letters and stamps to "la grande enveloppe". The only thought that cheered me was that it would be too big to go through the letter box and the postman would have to rouse you at some early hour to collect it.
I've nearly finished drawing Sœur Martine's heads -her birds heads I mean - but I've still got her feet to do. I sound like a chiropodist! The nuns keep popping up all over the place to see how I'm getting on and one was so delighted she's asked me to draw her an Egyptian from the Ancient World from a book. I assured her I'd absolutely love to draw an Egyptian from the Ancient World from a book for her, that I drew them for all my friends back in England, that their bedroom walls were completely covered in pictures of Egyptians from the Ancient World that I'd drawn from books for them. I said I spent all my spare time drawing pictures of Egyptians and that it was an addiction that I'd inherited from my mother's side of the family. To cut short my ravings, here I am with nineteen birds heads drawn and labelled, and another seven to go. I've also got to draw thirty odd feet. (No pairs, therefore odd.) To this I must now add a book full of Egyptians as well! What a life! Send me an easel and smock when you next write will you?
I'll continue this during my dawn sojourn in the schoolroom tomorrow, but for now I must unglue my eyes from this page and turn to sleep.
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