Overcast, sunny intervals, some rain.
Took up tulips & planted out to finish their growth, also narcissi. Began putting up new hen-house (a shop-solid one, price 17/6 which arrived uncreosoted & without roofing felt. Would accomodate° 10-12 full-grown hens.) Old H.[1] planted out more lettuces. Began earthing up early potatoes for the second time. One gap in the 4 rows. Let out the broody hens, hoping that some at least will have gone off by this time. Had to throw away 1 duck egg (now only 8 ) as the hen had turned it out.
A jackdaw has twice been hanging around the chicken coops, obviously with designs on the chickens.
11 eggs.
[1] Old Hatchett, a neighbour. Peter Davison
Orwell Diaries 1938-1942 
I knew it!! The following from Politics and the English Language (1946) – a brilliant metaphor which I always suspected was taken from life.
” As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse.”
Who would have guessed that Mr. Orwell was using emoticons in 1939? Truly he was ahead of his time.
Is it just me that gets a random graphical smiley in the duck eggs paragraph: (now only =HERE= as the hen had turned it out
If that’s right, this must be the earliest recorded use of a smiley…
Stephen~~
Thank you! Yes!
:shock:
Do I remember where he was as he was writing these echoing headlines? Through this blog, I was there (along with an excellent conglomeration of fellow quasi-anonymous explorers from throughout the Universe) and, as I was certain it must be, it was all prelude; I had to be allowed into Orwell’s head a bit at a time. Way too cool.
Now, I think I will listen to and/or watch Pink Floyd The Wall on an endless loop for the rest of the day.
Orwell used an emoticon when discussing eggs?
My landscaping style is Rustic Primitive.
Blog software seems to have converted 8) to a smiley face. I’m sure Orwell didn’t intend that :-)
The original text is “8” followed by “)”.
Hurrah. Another website trapped by the automated nonsense that turns the number 8 followed by close parenthesis ) into a cool smiley.
8)
I had doubted all the talk of Orwell and grave-rolling…until I saw that smiley.
Sorry about that smiley, everyone – Orwell was ahead of his time, but still…