Dear Friends,

I moved my blog (to Austen Reveries Two) on a superb Trollopian afternoon the Admiral, Yvette and I enjoyed April last year at Oatlands. I won't repeat all the details; suffice to say this was such another day, only somehow we were happier.  I don't know quite why. I could recite this:  We are now hopeful for a Schedule A job possibly for Yvette as a sort of library-website technician, she's busy with her Irish lit course, social club, writing her novels and ice-skating reports. I'm well occupied with my papers, reviews, reading, films, teaching. The Admiral seems to be at peace as house-husband and following his own bents: he's gotten us a score of tickets to operas, ballets in HD and keeps an eye out for half-price theater, concerts, and takes us to things like this point-to-point. And he does thrive in this Anglophilic or Anglo-derived landscape sport. 

Maybe it was the beautiful October weather.  We were far off from the Jockeys and the world of horses in the way we are near at Oatlands. It was more a family picnic kind of afternoon. A small animal farm (felt sorry for the animals) near by inside a sort of gate, pony riding in another, amusement park (way in back in a big barn), all the while the betting and place you usually see horses and jockeys empty most of the time. Great green meadow, we sat under large trees in shade. Tents on different levels according to how much you paid, many corporate bought. It was an American scene. Not as Trollopeian as Oatlands plantation where all is much rougher. Here they bring out the dogs and parade them before you at  a distance inviting you to take a photo.

Jim lost every bet and 2 of "his" horses threw off their riders.  We had a lovely picnic and Reisling to wash it down. I read John Synge's remarkable Playboy of the Western World ( a kind of Irish answer to the absurdities of Sophocles's Oedipus) and Yvette, The Heat of the Day too.  We had our binoculars to see and walked about a good deal.

Sylvia