Windy. Sacked the potatoes, evidently about 300 lb. Gave the sprouting broccoli some wood ash. Arranged to dispose of the goats. Picked about 2 lb. blackberries.
6 eggs.
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“dispose” of the goats. It sounds so final.
Today’s Kobayashi Issa haiku seems apropos:
here and there
eggplants dangle too…
withered fields
Goodbye, M., I’ll miss you. [sob]
When will WWII begin for him?
Dominic~~
Two weeks ago:
https://orwelldiaries.wordpress.com/2009/09/03/3939-greenwich/
Were there any goats in Animal Farm ?
david walsh~~
Muriel, the white goat, who “could read somewhat better than the dogs, and sometimes used to read to the others in the evenings from scraps of newspaper which she found on the rubbish heap.”
I’d say the war really started for GO/EB when he had to arrange for the ‘disposal’ of Muriel. And I’m starting to think that this isn’t a routine end-of-summer return to the city, but really is driven by whatever domestic changes are being caused by the sitzkreig and by E’s job in London. Else why would he have been expanding his goat herd and keeping notes for future garden plans?
Steve~~
Yes. I went literal (superficial, perhaps?) and didn’t get the real question. Thanks for your insight.
He never forgot Muriel. Epic.
Next he’ll be putting a jackal skull up on a stick in the garden …
Yes, the Skull of the Jackal; one of the several ephemeral threads with which this tapestry weaves itself.
~~~~~
In those final moments before he turned his back on them forever, Eric Blair genuflected, wrapped his arms tightly around Muriel’s neck, pressed his tearful face next to hers and whispered, “I’ll never forget you,” between sobs.
E. stood by with her arms folded, tapping her foot, rolling her eyes and sighing.
Four days of silence. I suspect they have been very busy days. Emotional.
Perhaps Inside the Whale is roiling in Orwell’s brain. Perhaps not. He may have written it spontaneously in one afternoon, for all I know.
Meanwhile, I am assuming that Blair is being career-conscious and is doing some networking with acquaintances at the newspapers and the radio and various publishers [and maybe the Home Guard or Scotland Yard or MI-6].
Not the Home Guard – they weren’t formed until 1940
Eric then takes a break from blogging.
A recently discovered photograph had this as its caption:
“Gave the sprouting broccoli some wood ash.
~~September 1939~~”
By my count, it has been a week since he has last written (to us). Something is building up or getting down on paper elsewhere.
George Orwell has been incommunicado (perhaps incognito, as well) for over nine days.
Unverified reports report that, about 0010hrs of the 18th, an American submarine surfaced just off the coast—a high-speed rubber dingy was seen speeding toward it. Seconds later the sub was gone, destination unknown, leaving only a gentle whirlpool of reflections, reflections of an oppressive skyline against an oppressive sky and an ominous horizon.
An American sub of the coast of Britain in later 1939? A likely story! It was probably a whale and Orwell is probably inside it writing a book.
Clearly this move is more traumatic (or at least more time-consuming) than we thought…
Max~~
Excellent!