Tomorrow I take a ride to Framingham, MA where I get a bus to Logan Airport, where I get a plane to Montreal, where I get a plane to Charlottetown, PEI, where I get a car to drive 60 miles to our house in eastern PEI. It’s like the knights of yore who had to climb mountains, kill six-headed monsters, swim the Northumberland strait and win the maiden.

No maiden I. So You’ll hear from me in a week or so after I get my computer. Don’t cry. It won’t be long.

Elinor

If anyone ever tells you that your eyelashes are weak, stay calm, all is solved now. You buy Estee Lauder’s “Lash Primer Plus.” Why the Plus? Because, you fool, it’s beyond a primer. It’s a primer plus. And it strenghthens your lashes.

A mascara and the primer were in a box: “A Gift for you–Votre Prime.” Now we’re getting it, aren’t we? It is you, you in your prime.

I don’t know about you, but if anyone ever said to me that I was in my prime, I’d smile and preen. Then later I’d think: isn’t it all downhill after my prime?

Also in the box is a blue bottle with eyewash. OK. Not eyewash, “Gentle Eye Makeup Remover,” or “Demaquillant pour les yeux.”  Doesn’t that sound better” “hey guys, gotta go use my “demaquillant pour les yeux.”

The world of Estee is a grand one. But I’m going to present most of this to my daughter. My face is weary of carrying the burden of being numero uno. It’s her turn.

“…her sparse hair was groomed and dressed to a neatness which suggested each separate strand knew its duty…and was determined to make up for its scarcity of companions.”
Margery Allingham’s “Death of a Ghost” p. 325, Crime and Mr. Campion,1959.

What is this? Every which way I comb my hair, ther’s a spot, a spot of skin, of scalp showing. My hairdresser is out this week and I “did” my hair.
I didn’t “do” enough to it. Or it’s been done to.
Poor hair. Those of you reading this letter either sympathize–you may be crying; don’t: stress is bad for your hair–or scoffing.
I know you scoffers: you’ve got thick hair that may even have to be thinned. (I’m controlling myself here. I’ll not say anything nasty.)
Perhaps it’s hard to cut? Or never does what you want? Or is the kind of hair that suits one hair style and only one?
I clamp my back teeth down and smile: even those nasty thoughts don’t help. Instead I wish I had thick hair that did only one thing.
Anything!

I’ve got Wonder Woman hearing aids. Tiny little bits of invisible plastic tubing with the battery concealed behind my ear.
Alert–I’m always alert now. I can hear people creeping up on me. I can hear the clash of pans in the kitchen and the conversations of people at the other end of the dining room when we dine in the dining room of The Big House.*
I can hear sounds I like, too: birds singing, wind rustling, my granddaughter talking.
But mainly I like them because nobody can see them. They’re my secret. Not that I keep them secret. I tell people. In particular, I tell–and tell–my husband.
He has two hearing aids but they aren’t completely successful. And he takes them out when he comes home. So he needs Superman hearing aids, like mine.
I’ll keep at him.
*At Creamery brook Retirement Village

Read this if you need some help to get you started in my romance novel.

Esther Beryll is a widow and lives in a small house in London with her friend, Alma Nelson, who is a sort-of widow. They are visiting the home of the Dunphy’s, John and Kay while John is away on a hunting trip with friends. He and his friends return to the Dunphy’s manor because they could find no good hunting where they were.

His friends are Viscount Ailesorth, the Earl Of Drummond, Viscount de Sable and the Earl of Colebrook. All are single and Ailesworth and Drummond are close friends of John Dunphy even though Dunphy spends no time in London. He and Kay prefer living in the country.

Kay Dunphy and Esther are childhood friends and Esther comes for visit usually when John is on a hunting trip. Before this visit, Esther had never met Ailesworth, Drummond or de Sable.

The novel opens with Ailesworth climbing into Esther’s bedroom with the help of some strong ivy vines.

Someone called me “spry” the other day: “You’re pretty spry yourself,” she said.
Bah! What a shock–does that mean I’m growing old? Can’t be.
We were talking of trusts and Medicare and home care and Medicaid so no doubt that’s what triggered it.
I don’t know why I’m upset. I pride myself on being brisk in my walking, bounding up a flight of stairs. Well, a half-flight of stairs, and not all the time. If that isn’t spry, I don’t know what is. Only I’ve never heard a twenty-year-old called spry. The dictionary says active and nimble, of Scandinavian origin, meaning it came over with the Vikings raiders to England.
Wikidictionary says, having great power of leaping or running. Yes! Me and the Viking kings leaping and running over the short, squrunty* denizens of old England, the Picts and such. Give me my sword!

* means short and thick. Not to be found in any dictionary.