Badsey
July 3rd/12
My dear Kathleen,
I will answer your letter today, it would be hardly worth while writing next Sunday as you will be home on Friday.
It is very nice being a larger party again, & the present party all seem happy quite easy to entertain even in this weather. Yesterday & today have both been rather terrible, one simply can’t go any expedition or play tennis. Yesterday afternoon we girls simply stayed in & “clo’ed”, Dolly having one or two things to alter as well as Ethel & me. Cyril & Eric Thomas played tennis in the barn & seemed to enjoy it. Aunt Lottie & Mother both had a good long nap, & talked & played poker patience after tea. Aunt L. seems very bright & well this time, & Mother really enjoys having visitors, I think it is doing her good, she has certainly got on very well since she came home. She did not get out yesterday, it was too damp, but Dolly & I have just been a little stroll with her since tea & have left her calling at the Byrds. Aunt Lottie & Ethel have gone across the way to tea & bridge, while Mother was resting Dolly & I & the two boys walked over to see Wickhamford church, Dolly liked the three-decker very much.
On Friday we are invited to tennis at Mrs Martin’s. I hope tomorrow may be fine enough for a cycle ride. I think Dolly does Aunt Lottie good with her cheery ways.
Have you heard of the aunt’s nice little plan for us to go to Switzerland, as well as Paris? We are already immersed in Cook’s books, also the Polytechnic, some of the tours really are wonderfully cheap & sound quite nice. It is awfully good of Aunt Lottie to send us, she is going to give us £15 each & we are both prepared to find a little more if necessary.
When you come home we must arrange an expedition over to Birdlip or thereabouts to find suitable rooms for you & whoever joins you. I shouldn’t go for more than a very few days if at all with the Swiss tour in view, but I think it would do Ethel good to join you there, Aunt Lottie has not said anything about her going to Folkestone & I don’t know that she would care to suggest it herself. Possibly Betty might join you for a little time, & Ethel certainly must get away somewhere, & to a bracing place – but we must talk it all over when you come – 6.15.p.m.
Cyril wire has just come – saying he has a second, I think he had quite given up hopes of a first after Thursday & Friday, he seems to have had very bad luck over his practical those two days. He has not come in yet, but I am sure he won’t be surprised at all. It is rather disappointing of course, but I suppose no-one can ever be sure of a first.
Nearly post time so with love
your affect sister
May E Sladden
I think Dolly is to stay till after the Flower Show on 23rd.
