(1620)Summer at Fairacre by Miss Read

Author:Miss Read [Read, Miss]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Country life, Fairacre (England : Imaginary Place), Country Life - England, Fairacre (England: Imaginary Place)
ISBN: 9780618127047
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 1984-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

11 Amy's Party

I WAS sad to see the last of May despite the problems it had brought me. Would June ever be as glorious, as fragrant, as tender with new blossoms everywhere? Fairacre delights me in all seasons, but May is the crown of the year for me, and when exceptionally early warmth is added to its blessings, then everything is perfect in this upland village.

However, the weather forecaster, on the last evening of May, promised us a continuation of the balmy conditions, and the weather map was nicely sprinkled with high pressure areas, and isobars widely apart foretelling very light winds.

And it looked as though he would be right.

I woke on the Saturday morning to a cloudless sky, and spent a few luxurious minutes relishing the fact that I need not get up at my usual early hour. A robin was singing in the plum tree, and there were occasional chirrupings from foraging blackbirds. But the rapturous dawn chorus of some weeks earlier was fading now that the young birds were hatching and fledglings needed feeding. A sudden furious chattering and scolding fetched me from my bed and, as I had guessed, Tibby was looking up at an irate blackbird a few feet above him in the lilac bush.

As I soaked in my bath a few minutes later, I thought how lucky I was to have a bathroom to myself, and hot water at the turn of a tap.

It was not always so. I recalled the effort of dragging the zinc bath from its nail on the side of the woodshed, the boiling of rainwater in the old copper and the sloshing of buckets into the bath. It had been hard work, but the water, brownish and silky, had left one's skin as smooth as satin, and the soap had lathered in half the time it took with the water from the mains.

Nevertheless, I told myself as I stepped out, I would not want to return to the primitive sanitary conditions of my early years at Fairacre, and I praised the Lord for mercies received.

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