Ladydale Diary
Saints Pontian and Hyppolytus, 2021
As I write, on Friday afternoon, I’m in the second day of a six-day spell home alone with Leo. As many of my friends in the Inner Sanctum will know, Leo has special needs; specifically, he has Down syndrome and autism, which means that he requires much supervision and one-on-one attention. I say this as in explanation for the likely shorter than usual Diary entry this week.
Susannah and Evangeline left early yesterday morning, bound for southern California. They will be visiting Susannah’s mother, sister and niece in Seal Beach and will be staying in Long Beach.
Backtracking to the beginning of the week, I gave an online talk on Saturday morning on Solzhenitsyn and then enjoyed a much-needed relaxing weekend with the family after a period of seemingly relentless travel. The highlight was sitting down as a family to watch the video of the performance of the new musical, “Dear Miss Barrett”, which Susannah and Evangeline went to see in Nashville a month or so ago. It’s written by our good friend, Michael Kurek, and is delightful. Based on the love of the Victorian poets, Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning, with a parallel storyline about a modern American couple, it features Crystal Kurek, Michael’s wife, in the role of Elizabeth Barrett. As I said, truly delightful.
On the wildlife front, our birdfeeder is being mobbed by clownlike male cardinal fledglings. There are few things more comical than a young male cardinal, whose motley colouring belies the beauty and dignity of his fully-fledged adult plumage. We’re also enjoying watching several fawns gamboling in carefree abandon while the does look on watchfully.
The article I’ve written for the Imaginative Conservative this week is the first part of a two-part account of my meeting with Solzhenitsyn in 1998.
On Tuesday I phoned through the final corrections to the September/October issue of the St. Austin Review to Michelle, StAR’s graphic designer. It’s on the theme of Dante in commemoration of the 700th anniversary of his death. It’s a splendid-looking issue, even though I do say so myself!
On Tuesday night Susannah and I took a friend to dinner at a local Thai restaurant. A highly enjoyable evening in what has become one of my favourite local eateries.
On Wednesday, I taught the penultimate class of the online course on Tolkien for Memoria College. We’re delving deep into Tolkien’s philosophy of myth, going behind and beyond The Lord of the Rings, which is part of the reason that I’m currently doing a mini-series of podcasts here in the Inner Sanctum on Tolkien’s mythopoeic philosophy. Do join me.
Wednesday was also the day on which I recorded this week’s podcasts, as it would not have been possible to do so once Susannah and Evangeline left on their trip. I posted them this morning.
Yesterday and today, it’s been me and Leo enjoying some quality time together. Playing ball, spending time outside on the swing set, playing our favourite indoor board game, “Hop, Hop, Hooray”, watching videos and dancing to music. And, in between, I need to fix his meals, and my own, and make sure he gets to the bathroom. Somehow or other, I’m even managing to get a little work done!
Glancing up at the clock, I see that it’s 1:20 which means that it’s time I began preparing our lunch.
