June 1st, Tuesday
June my beloved month is here again with its warmth and sunshine and perfection. Frank, Tilda and Dorothy Lowe all to stay. (Frank was Herbert’s brother, married to Tilda).
June 2nd
A perfect day, and such a lovely drive through the forest with Sir Francis and back there to tea. Tilda and Dorothy came too and we all enjoyed it. He showed them the old place afterwards and it is always a joy to me to see it again.
June 3rd
I took our guests up into the Park today from there too one’s view is wonderful right over the Severn Valley for miles and miles and upon the other side the quiet “happy valley” of the Abbey in which it is set, the very essence of peace. How perfectly lovely if such a thing belonged to one and to feel that one’s relatives had owned it for centuries. I can’t imagine anything more splendid.
June 4th, Friday
We spend our days in gardening and idling and strolling. After tea we strolled down to the river to see the extraordinary cliff of red yellow and grey marl. Its like the sea shore down there and they say shells and fossils are to be found but we saw none.
June 5th
Our wedding day 19 years ago. What centuries and I can’t think I have a son of 17! and yet how wonderfully quickly time does slip away. Had letters from Eve, Win and Yso’s child Doris, she is my godchild and this is her first letter to me. We get very unsettled news from India relating to the unrest out there and Ell has written that strain to Mother this week so I think she has decided to give up her trip out there. I am really very sorry, she was so looking forward to it, but passages too are frightfully hard to get and perhaps it is wisest not to risk.
June 6th, Sunday
To Kirk and stayed on for Second Service after which we strolled back by the Abbey, dear sweet old haunt. What a possession and what a sacred trust it would be to marry into one of these old English families, to feel that all your people really belonged to you, were part of the “family” so to speak. What a delight it would be to work for and with them all and yet there are thousands who year in year out dont seem to realize their responsibility at all and absent themselves for months.
June 8th
Frank and Tilda left this morning. We shall miss them, a very human couple and type of real good practical Christians. I only wish they could have stayed longer but they are continuing their endless house hunt.
June 9th
Beautiful weather and I rode in this afternoon to Newnham to do a lot of business and see Lady Paget. I found her sitting in the garden in a white sunbonnet looking perfectly sweet. We had a little talk and she asked me to stay to tea but having Mrs Macnamara to tea I could not, as it was I got home very late and found I had been entertaining her for a quarter of an hour! She stayed for 2 hours when we could bear it no longer and ushered her to the gate. She would make a very good Mute at a funeral!
June 10th
To Gloucester in the morning to meet Mother who is down with us for a week. Unfortunately the weather has broken and rain is coming , good for crops but bad for her.
June 11th
Rain on and off all day. Picked the first strawberry!