All posts tagged garden

Tue Mar 7. 8.15. a.m. [1944]
# ‘CHRISTMAS CARD’ FROST
# HIGH AIRCRAFT LOSSES OVER GERMANY
# ASTHMA IMPEDES WASH-DAY ACTION
# GENTLE WEEDING

A white rime frost makes everywhere look like a Christmas picture but it is very dull, the sun not showing at all. Birds are singing. Hope day will get up as I want to do some washing tho’ it is not my “big wash” week.

Terrible raids and fighting over Ger. yesterday, 58 bombers and 11 fighters missing, but enemy losses number 120 to date and probably many more. Army on Anzio beach will probably take offensive shortly. Finns not very agreeable to Russian terms yet. Sometimes I wonder if the war will come to a sudden end and often I wonder if even this year will see the end of Gers. let alone Japs. Mary Parish not away Father says and her husband is on leave.

10.am. Percy brought 1 bag coke 3/6. It is dear but ekes out the coal and wood. Yesterday was so sunny that we did not have much fire until evening. Day is still trying to get up. Don’t know yet whether sun or cloud will win. Sun just peeped out once then went back for another snooze. I have boiled one bucket of clothes and was going to posh and rinse them, but have had to sit down. This asthma has got me weak again. The thought of spring-cleaning is a night-mare. I used to do it when asthma was worse but have lost my strength now. Yester-day I weeded a bit of front garden. The wiry sand grass (sown to bind sand-hills) encroaches so quickly. It was all amongst my violets. I got some out but the fibrous roots are so entwined with violet runners that I pulled several up. Hope it doesn’t spoil them for flowering. I threw a shovel-ful of soil and manure over them afterwards and hope for the best. Wonder when I get any more done.

Mary, née Parish was a daughter of Albert Parish (see 2 Jan 1941) and sister of Esther and Charlie. Her husband, had been based at ‘HMS Royal Arthur’ where she was a ‘Wren’.

‘Poshing’ involved using a ‘posher’, which looked like an inverted basin, with holes in, on the end of a pole-handle, to apply pressure on clothes in a wash-tub.

Have you read an introduction to May Hill & family (includes photographs) and explored ‘The Casualties Were Small’?

Thursday July 15 1943 4.50. P.M. [1943]
# ANOTHER DIARY BOOK OPENS WITH POEM
# POURING RAIN ON ST SWITHIN’S DAY
# FEARS OF CROP DAMAGE
# LETTERS FROM RON IN MALTA

St. Swithin’s Day and it’s pouring down
In a thunder-shower from the clouds
For forty days says the old wives tale
It will rain either more or less.

It is almost 5 o’clock and pouring with rain. I think it is a thunder shower tho’ I’ve heard no thunder. It has cooled the air, I believe. I feel a little relief already. The soft south-west wind completely overpowers me. I heard a few hailstones patter on the porch then. Hope it won’t rain in my bedroom window but I can’t go up. I wonder if the shed door is open, if it is it will rain right in. Expect Jean will shelter at Jessie’s. The rain will do good in the gardens if it doesn’t beat everything down. Hope it won’t “lay” the corn tho’ I should think it’s early enough to get up again yet. Rene and Tom called this morning and brought me some peas. I had to hurry then to get dinner and over-tired myself and have been done up ever since. Kitchen has not been swept or dusted.

Had a letter and a letter-card (airmail) today from Ron. Letter written Jul. 1st and card 6th. Ron in Malta when he wrote this. It’s nice to get them so quickly. The flies seem a terrible pest and he says it’s far too hot to go out unless necessary. At the bottom of his A.M. letter there is a tiny P.S. to say his parcel has arrived. [Aside: Parcel arrived on July 6 in Malta.] I can’t remember what date it was sent. He is in billets now in a village and says not to worry if he misses writing occasionally, it is not always possible to write every few days. I hope he gets his mail tho’. Said he had been reading in [Skegness] Standard about our Apr. Gale so that had been a long time on the way. It seems to have stopped raining so hope Jean won’t be long. I want her to go to Hall’s for me for Sw[eet] Nitre.

Have you read an introduction to May Hill & family (includes photographs) and explored ‘The Casualties Were Small’?