reading etc
- I have been reading Victorian instruction manuals for household servants. The one for nursemaids has surprisingly sound advice on teaching kids good table manners, and also advice about feeding infants that makes me amazed that infant mortality wasn't higher. The one on being a good lady's maid is full of gems like 'it is a blessing to the heart and to the mind to have some one to love and serve' and lengthy digressions about lady's maids who started their careers of dishonesty by taking a pin from their mistress's workbox and ended by cooperating with jewel thieves and languished for the rest of their days in prison. Very Victorian, much moral, surprisingly good on the subject of keeping your temper when provoked and how to tell the difference between occasional annoyances and a complete personality clash. Also a brief mention of what to do if your mistress is subject to domestic violence, which is to say, pretend not to see too much and comfort her as you can. The one on being a laundry maid is utterly horrifying and makes me want to hug and kiss my washing machine. My dad's into family history and apparently many of my ancestors were washerwomen, god it must have been a shit life. There's no moral edification in the book for laundry maids, just a detailed description of the correct order for two women working together to wash about ten people's laundry in one day, with times for each task, instructions on when you pour out the dirty water and when you pour it into the next load of washing, and a note that at some point you have to stop and eat and rest but not for long. That one's peppered with advertorials for new Patent Machines for trying to make the process easier. I have to say, I have considered this and I would sacrifice my computer, tv, freezer, fridge, central heating boiler and oven before I sacrificed my washing machine.
- also just started reading the Hamilton biography, which is fantastic, and I never knew that Britain considered trying to swap the entire of Canada for Guadeloupe, but France considered that Guadeloupe was worth an awful lot more than Canada... Anyway, I've only read a bit of it so far, but I am deeply impressed with how Miranda turned it into a musical.
- still watching The Expanse and I love it, I adored Chrisjen's visit to Holden's mother and really everything she does is magic, surprisingly interested in Fred Johnson, still underwhelmed with Detective Hat but the rest of the cast is great and the plotting is wonderfully complicated
- after reccing The Flight of the Heron I suddenly had to reread it, and I still adore it. I'm now halfway through The Gleam in the North, which I haven't reread for ages because it's so painful and hence I've forgotten lots of it. I usually skip it and just read The Dark Mile which is a sweet romance and has a happy ending.
Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/169576.html. There are
comments there.
- also just started reading the Hamilton biography, which is fantastic, and I never knew that Britain considered trying to swap the entire of Canada for Guadeloupe, but France considered that Guadeloupe was worth an awful lot more than Canada... Anyway, I've only read a bit of it so far, but I am deeply impressed with how Miranda turned it into a musical.
- still watching The Expanse and I love it, I adored Chrisjen's visit to Holden's mother and really everything she does is magic, surprisingly interested in Fred Johnson, still underwhelmed with Detective Hat but the rest of the cast is great and the plotting is wonderfully complicated
- after reccing The Flight of the Heron I suddenly had to reread it, and I still adore it. I'm now halfway through The Gleam in the North, which I haven't reread for ages because it's so painful and hence I've forgotten lots of it. I usually skip it and just read The Dark Mile which is a sweet romance and has a happy ending.
Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/169576.html. There are
comments there.