| Description | Charlotte spends a great deal of time reading at home. She rarely goes out in the winter months, but is visited most days by Cecil. Ethel and the grandchildren also call frequently. She has other visitors less often, and writes and receives few letters. She occasionally attends church, but otherwise says Evensong at home with Miss Parker, who does many errands for her. She notes on 25 September that it is '8 1/2 months since I have been to church!'. In the spring and summer months she goes for walks with Miss Parker, and sits in the garden or the summer house. She manages a trip 'down to the country lake to see the hyacinths' on 25 March.
She mentions several health problems, reporting on 27 January that her face is swollen with gout. Dr Bland visits on 31 January and diagnoses facial paralysis, which 'would with treatment pass off'. She also suffers from gout in her right hand, noted on 16 February, and suffers a 'sharp attack of pain which yielded to concentrated essence of ginger and brandy' a week later. She writes on 23 August: 'I began Dr Bland's bladder mixture'. Sidney remains at Barnsley Hall, where she writes to him on 1 September. Cecil reports to her on his improving health on 14 September.
She celebrates her 86th birthday on 22 April, receiving a book on 'The Moselle' from Cecil, along with some Devonshire eggs, and drawings from his children, as well as presents from friends and from Miss Parker. News about her grandchildren is recorded: Charlie begins at St George's Chapel choir school on 23 April and Milicent receives high school honours for drawing on 23 November.
Charlotte reports on national events such as the unveiling of King Edward's monument, and a party at Buckingham Palace on 21 July, and 'a terrible disaster to an air ship fr[om] Hull in the paper' on 25 August. She also mentions the departure of the Prince of Wales for India and Japan on 27 October.
Miss Parker leaves for a holiday on 17 June and Cecil calls in more often while she is away, and on 26 June, Charlotte notes that 'my dear ones are specially attentive when I am alone'.
Reading matter includes 'Creatures of the Night', 'book on Life in Spain', 'By the Ionian Sea', 'English Villages', 'Italy for the Italians', 'book on Windsor Park', 'book on Devonshire', 'Baring Gould on the Rhine', 'book on the Moselle', 'book on Wiltshire', 'book on Venice', 'book on Finland', 'book on Nottinghamshire', 'book on the last illness of the German Emperor', 'book on Oxfordshire', 'Highways & Byeways in London', 'book on California', 'book about St Paul's Cathedral', 'book on Northumberland', 'Old World Places', 'Picturesque Hertfordshire' and 'Home Life in France'. She records on 8 September that: 'Miss Parker read to me some of Nicholas Nickelby' 8 September.
The diary contains a loose item, inserted at 29 October, which is a handwritten poem 'to my Father and Mother on their Wedding day', presumably from one of Charlotte's children, possibly dating from some years before 1921. |