Mrs Finnegan’s Almanac – Get a Thistle and Find A Husband

Mrs Finnegan, housekeeper at The Regency Town House, author, almanac-ist, bookkeeper and wife, is today preoccupied with thistles, but first…

AS THE MONTH DRAWS TO A CLOSE, I want to share George Cruikshank’s depiction of August in Brighton. The imminent artist obviously knows the town (and English summers) very well.

My husband Peregrine Hilderbrace showed me an article which appeared in The Brighton Patriot last week. He is minded to become a subscriber to the cricket fund and wanted to KNOW if I minded.

Of course I mind.

Cricket is the tedious game played at the edge of town where a man GOES out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the NEXT man in goes out and goes in. And so forth for HOURS until all the men have been in, including those who are not out, and that is the end of the game. As a spectator, the HARDEST part is feigning interest.

However I am also mindful that this is the FIRST major expense my husband has discussed since I brought his financial affairs into order.

We have only been married eight months and the TEMPO of our union and the timbre of our days might be affected by my reply. I don’t want our life symphony to go OUT OF TUNE. (I attended a sublime 1/6d violin recital recently and am still under the influence. Can you tell?)

I have a newspaper cutting of my own, taken from the Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette of February 1823 (when I was but a slip of a girl). I kept it all these years thinking it might come in useful and today I believe it has.

Other ‘Managing Matrons’ take note: in the spirit of compromise (see below) and with a BENIGN smile I shall allow my husband his ugly, dust-collecting toby jug collection, his fondness for bad puns and his love of cricket as long as I keep hold of the account books. Plus no sniffing when a new bonnet comes into the house.

I may even accompany him to Ireland’s Royal Gardens at the north end of The Level on the very edge of Brighton as I rather like the tea room, although their doilies are not up to my standards. The gardens also have the potential to be very pleasant but are in want of staff. Last time I was there I saw a goat nibbling thistles among the hollyhocks.

Which Reminds Me….

Thistles have their uses. Some recommend wearing a thistle flower to drive off feelings of melancholy WHILE keeping a vase of thistles in a room boosts the vitality of everyone present. It is not a FASHIONABLE look, but you might make it work for you. I won’t be suggesting it to the Mistress though. She has more than enough vitality already.

DREAMING of thistles means you will soon get good news and if you have several suitors you can discover which one loves you BEST by putting an equivalent number of thistles under your pillow (prickles removed).

I suppose you also need to tie a name tag around each plant because in the morning the one that has sprouted new leaves is the one you should marry. (In my experience they all shrivel and die but you might have BETTER luck.)

Saint of the Week

St Cuthburga and St Queburga Joint feast Day 31st August

The end of August seems to be a dry period for saints. They EXIST. Don’t go away with the idea there is a SUDDEN shortage, but most follow the usual pattern: born, become a bishop or hermit, then die.

I was getting quite despondent about finding anyone interesting until I came across this pair of sisters. They lived in the 8th century so the MISTS of time swirl around their story. I’m not sure if they were princesses, but their father was a sub-king of Wessex (whatever that is) and their brother was a PROPER king.

It seems that Queburga became a nun while her sister Cuthburga (above) married Aldfrith, King of Northumberland who by all accounts was a fine FELLOW: peace-loving (unusual for a King) and well educated (very unusual for a King). They had children (one of whom might have become a saint) and then the EXTRAORDINARY happened.

They separate.

I suppose that’s not so extraordinary for Kings and Queens, but they do it on GOOD terms, say all the books. Because he wanted it, say some: because she did, says others.

He stayed being King, while Cuthburga joined her sister in a nunnery which might look like a not-very-fair kind of banishment EXCEPT she was very good at being a nun and showed all the signs of WANTING to be one.

The two sisters went home to Wessex and set up a very strict kind of nunnery which became famous and where NO man was allowed to enter, no, not even a bishop.

I like stories where women make the best of what is handed to them. Of course, being a Queen helps. And having money. And a King for a brother. Still…

Improve your Vocabulary One Word at a Time

I give you Agathism, a newly made word only a few years old. It is the belief that all things eventually get better, though the means by which they do is not always easy. The life of St Cuthburga could be an example of that, as could my own.

A joke

Being in a jovial mood, I suggested to my husband that this time we should include in the ALMANAC the very first joke I ever heard him utter. To tease me he pretended he couldn’t recall.

To nudge his memory, I said it made me blush. He said he never told jokes like that and certainly not in front of ladies. He was bristling with agitation and I had no recourse but to repeat the quip I remember so fondly.

What’s the difference between a mouse and Mrs Finnegan?
One wishes to harm the cheese, the other to charm the he’s.

Never heard it before, never said it, and with that he retreated behind a copy of The Brighton Patriot.

He might be a trifle put out because I said he could not subscribe more than 2/6d a quarter to the cricket fund.

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