Tuesday
London
Darling,
Many thanks for your long newsy letter of home in which I was well and truly slated for being a bad lad. By now you will have had the explanation of my lapse and I hope I’m forgiven!
One thing I forgot to mention in yesterday’s letter was the £1 in the old oak chest. I was only saving it against emergencies and to make up the balance of my slops money, but if you will feel better by settling the debt with Mother, do so by all means. It will be a few weeks before we have to pay for slops and by then I may have got a few odd bob together and if I haven’t, perhaps you’ll be able to lend me it. It ought not to be more than five or six bob. A thought has just occurred to me – my birthday comes between now and slops time and I think it will be a poor do if I can’t make up 5/– or 6/– that week! Anyway, use the quid on the strength of it.
I’m glad Michael is getting more enthusiastic – or would it be more correct to say less hostile? – to the idea of school. As you say, the cap and blazer seem to have made a difference to his outlook.
Many thanks for all the horticultural news and I’m glad to think you’ve got your seeds and “dope” before the rain came. Natural watering is always worth gallons from the tap, I always think. The point about rabbit manure was interesting. I wonder how they discover these little things?
By the way, do you ever listen to the schools’ gardening talks? I heard one at about 11.40 yesterday, the subject being tomatoes and it was very interesting. One very strong point he made was that they should be well watered in the box or pot before being planted out. If the plants are in a box, the ends should be knocked out, the plants and soil slid out and each plant cut out in a cube of soil so that it is as near as possible to the idea of knocking a plant out of a pot with all the soil around its roots. He was very strong on this point.
I hope, by the way, you didn’t catch cold when you got wet in the garden. I’m sorry you found the blackouts difficult. Perhaps I made a mistake, but I thought I put all the cross pieces and the little frame for the latch on the back. Are they easy to put up, and are they properly “blacked out”? I never felt that curtain was a real success on its own, you know, and if these frames are a good blackout you will be able to have a decent light in the living room. Let me know how they are.
As you may have guessed, I’m writing this in the office for I am on that “loafing” number – the Creed machine – but, all in all, it has been a very busy 24 hours for us so far. I’m subject to constant interruption but I want to get this letter written before 1.30 because I am hoping to go to watch the lads play cricket as the weather has definitely improved after yesterday’s hours of solid rain.
I don’t think there is a great deal of news for it has been bed and work since I wrote you last. We just went out for supper, walked once around the park and so to bed where, despite the best intentions of the riveters, I fell soundly and beautifully asleep to dream pleasant – not oaty – dreams of you. I dreamt that we woke up one day to find the war was over and within an hour we were soberly homeward bound. You and I, together with the children, spent a couple of lazy days on the beach and then I went off to the ‘D.P.’ just as usual. And I hadn’t a single drink to celebrate! Still, we must have done some pleasant things in the sandhills because I woke up with quite a reasonable erection! And I’m only just back from leave. Doesn’t augur too well, does it, with nearly four months still to go. Still, I’m trying to tell you in my own way that I love you, sweet, and I’m missing you – which is one of the reasons I want to go to the cricket because there my mind will be more fully occupied.
It’s almost dinner time so must away. Bye, sweetheart. Take good care of yourself. My love to the children.
Ever your own
Arthur X