He got a text from his nephew telling him that her husband has also fallen and that he too is in hospital. I am sorry. They were such a happy pair. Everything seemed in place, settled, peaceful. How will they manage? I know it concerns him and he’s alert to bad news whenever his phone rings.
I listened to Amanda Vickery’s podcasts about the Old Bailey archives from the eighteenth century. I’ve heard some before but they are fascinating. Not least for the language – such as dollops (the men who used to smuggle contraband tea in their clothes and carry it to London) and silkworms (women who’d shop – a new craze then – and get the shopkeepers and haberdashers to unravel rolls and rolls of material and not buy any of it). I love the rich layers of such human history. Though the violence is a shock.
A misly day. I think of you all. All of you. My loves.
