Before we get back to England, I wanted everyone to know that I posted the new group of diaries, John’s grief diaries. I had to start a new blog and it’s listed under Sallysdiaries2. I need to figure out a way to tie the two together and make it easy to get to and will do that soon. Now back to Madeleine and England…..
“We engaged a trap and stored our luggage and set out through interesting lanes, at first, and after moorland lone and dreary but beautiful with its blue distances. Coming right upon and almost grazing the gables of houses so huddled together were the tiny thatched cottages. We drew up abruptly in Throwleigh, enquiring of the man whose house we almost drove into, he offered to go with us to the address we had, which however was not admirable or inviting. The landlady succeeded to regard us as intruders and drove us away with her forbidding manners. Our man mentioning an Inn, we told him to direct us there, where, coming upon a quaint old, tho it was called “New”Inn, we begged to be received and were soon made comfortable within its thick walls. We were evidently in “the season” for no other lodgers came to disturb our serenity. Good Mrs. Aggeth our hostess soon provided us a tea of cream and honey with bread and butter which hospitality quickly made us feel at home. Mounting a short steep flight of stairs, holding our heads under the landing half way up we found our rooms, showing two openings through latticed windows onto the moor and the Inn being on a hill we had a fine view of the surrounding country. After settling the terms with our landlady who declared her inability to know what to charge, never having been honored by the gentry before, we were directed to the village half a mile off to buy our provisions. The one shop whose stock was limited to sardines, salmon, crackers and codfish, we contented ourselves with merely a bottle of oil and made our first supper of chipped potatoes boiled in oil, much to the disgust of Miss Toy, the daughter who had waited on the “quality” before but had never seen the likes of this. With a diet of fish, rabbit, and meat from the weekly butcher, with good fresh eggs and cream, we fared very well until the chickens began to molt and the cows became dry. Our walks making us hungry we were forced to find a substitute in the good and ever delicious “Maggi” soup….”
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