Ladydale Diary
Saint Otto, 2021
At the time of my last diary entry, we were preparing for Susannah and Evangeline to leave for their weekend in Nashville. The purpose of their excursion was a visit to our great friends, Michael and Crystal Kurek, to see Michael’s new musical show, Dear Miss Barrett, in which Crystal, a fine mezzosoprano, was playing the poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. The show focuses on two couples, the Victorian poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, and a modern couple, their lives intertwining and paralleling each other in such a way that the modern couple’s relationship can be said to have been haunted by the ghosts of the relationship of the poets. This, at least, is my understanding of the storyline of the show, having only heard a CD of a recording of the songs. I’ve not yet seen the show and look forward to receiving the DVD of it, which Michael is hoping to send me in the next week or so. Susannah and Evangeline had a great time, not merely with their visit with our friends but in their seeing of the show twice, on Friday and Saturday evening. Evangeline’s spent most of this week singing the songs!
I was home alone with Leo during their absence, which is demanding but also, at the same time, a great blessing. The highlight for the weekend for me and perhaps for him (alas, he cannot tell me) was a visit to Cedar Falls Park. There’s a circular path, a quarter mile long, on which I did four circuits very briskly, pushing Leo in the wheelchair, thereby spending time with him and getting my exercise for the day. He enjoyed it because we only use the wheelchair rarely. He doesn’t need it to walk but we use it when we need to get from A to B in a timely fashion. Leo ambles and takes his own time! After our four laps, I put the wheelchair back in the car and took out his scooter, jogging after him as his did two circuits, thereby getting his exercise for the day!
One of the photographs for this week’s diary, taken as usual by Susannah, is of the blackberries ripening on the bushes on the edge of our woods. It always surprises me how early blackberries ripen here. In England, blackberrying, i.e. the picking of wild blackberries, is done in the early autumn. At this time of year, over there, they are still green. I have to keep reminding myself that Ladydale is on the same latitude as north Africa. England, on the other hand, is further north than anywhere in the United States except for Atlanta. The temperature there is only as mild as it is, similar to that of the Pacific North-West, because of the gulf stream.
The other photograph taken by Susannah to illustrate this week’s diary is of a toad which has been living in a drainage pipe next to the swing set to the east of house, which Leo enjoys every day (weather permitting). It’s cute (I’m speaking of the toad but it’s even more applicable to Leo!) and relatively tame.
Susannah and Evangeline returned from Nashville on Sunday evening (it felt odd to only have Leo with me at Mass) and the remainder of the week has followed the usual pattern. I recorded the FORMED Book Club with Father Fessio and Vivian Dudro on Monday afternoon (we’re still discussing Chesterton’s essays) and I continued my online course on Chesterton for Memoria College on Wednesday evening (this week we focused on Chesterton’s great book, Orthodoxy). In between, on Tuesday evening, I gave a lecture on The Poetic Voice of Shakespeare for the Institute of Catholic Culture. (The whole of this lecture can now be viewed via the link published on the blog section of this site.) On the two evenings this week that I wasn’t teaching, we visited friends for a house blessing on Monday night, which was done by my great friend, Father Dwight Longenecker, and we had a movie night, watching Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, yesterday evening. Now, as I write, Susannah and Evangeline are preparing to visit our friends, the Putmans on Lake Greenwood, to enjoy the fireworks over the lake. I’ll stay home with Leo (it’s simply too difficult to take him for overnight stays in other people’s homes).
I’ve had a good week with respect to the gym, going four times. Apart from the weights, I’ve been on the exercise bike watching the European Championship (football) on the TV. We don’t have TV reception at home so this is a good way to stay in shape and watch football at the same time. Tomorrow afternoon, I’m going to watch England play the Ukraine in the same European Championship, watching the game with friends in a local craft brew “pub”.
Life is not only good but glorious and much better than I deserve. Domine non sum dignus and Deo gratias!
