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Francesca dear,
… My mind is so filled with last night and next Tuesday that I don't find I concentrate very well on the present. Not that today has been exactly the sort of day that insists on being noticed; the morning was pleasant enough but since then it has come down in buckets. I am rather lucky because I love weather – all sorts of weather. I think there is a lot to be said for being born, as I was, in India. To me, rain was of course the great event, the monsoon, and I can even now, though I
left India when I was eight, recapture the thrill of the smell of parched land rain-soaked – something of an effort these last two months …
Saturday morning. I felt so tired that I dropped off to sleep thinking I would wake half an hour later and write some more. Instead, though it was only 10.30 when I went to sleep, I found when I awoke it was ten this morning. This always happens when holiday breaks come. I don't remember that I must be tired, because I don't usually feel tired, discover I can do no work, and then have a deep sleep and feel better. I am now trying to write this, alone in the house with Parthenope, to a continuous stream of interruptions from P. who wants to know everything from, What shall I do now? to, How do you spell oranges? I think one should learn to develop a split mind for doing two things at once and talking about another one, all at the same time.
I have just seen a notice in the paper about The Consul1 from Alan Dent in which he is most urgent that everyone should see it. It has only a week to go and I wondered if it was so good that you would care to see it again and would have the time to come with me if I could get seats. I could ring up for seats on Tuesday, I expect, because I doubt whether Alan Dent's notice will have the effect of filling it up.
It looks a pretty gusty sort of day for the boat race. I shall watch it on television (or rather I shall have my eyes firmly fixed on the launches in the vague but unlikely hope that I shall se