Mrs Finnegan’s Almanac: Nasty Machines and the Husbands who Own Them

I am not SAYING that present times are perfect, but I do not join with the MASSES who look back at the past with eyes dimmed by nostalgia and a selective memory. What I found while tidying a neglected cupboard this morning stiffens my conviction and I must share it with you.

(Of course, I never neglect cupboards. There is nothing lurking at the back of MINE, thank you, but I acquired additional storage when I moved into Master Peregrine’s rooms after we married and I have yet to be fully acquainted with them as it’s only been….)
WHAT!

We’ve been married over a year? How is that possible?
408 days.
Our first anniversary was on Christmas day and we missed it. Worse, Master Peregrine failed to remember. The brute! The happiest day of his life slipped his mind, like butter sliding off a warm spoon onto a clean floor.

I must decide what to do. It needs quiet reflection and a considered, measured response. O! It needs a saucepan aimed at his head.

Dear readers, I won’t bother you with that now. Instead I shall soldier on and return to the guilty secret I discovered in Master Peregrine’s cupboard. Of all awful things it is….a rusty, mangled hobby horse.

Are you old enough to remember these DANGEROUS machines? The fancy didn’t last long but while it did everyone was in jeopardy. The PAST was not a safe place.

One morning I had a nasty encounter with a yellow-faced Viscount on a speeding hobby horse. I was so shaken I was as sick as a cushion and had to be taken HOME and put to bed. Think on it, Regency bucks actually went to riding schools to learn how to upset young ladies going about their business. They got up to speeds of to 8 or 10 miles an hour just by pushing themselves along .

The Duke of Marlborough had one; the Prince Regent owned four.

Many were the injuries they causes and a few deaths too and that was just the poor pedestrians. Doctors warned riders of ruptures and hernias if they continued in their folly, but I suppose what ended the madness was the LAWS passed in London and other cities around the world (Milan, New York and Calcutta!) banning the speed machines from pavements. Cobbled streets and muddy lanes were not an attractive alternative. The craze faded away as crazes do, and all that left is a few rusty wrecks in barns and neglected cupboards up and down the country.

Saint of the Week

St Dorothy Feast Day February 6th

Another martyr I’m afraid, I do so prefer Saints that die in their beds after LEADING long, interesting lives, but on the bright side Dorothy is patron of gardeners, brewers, florists, midwives and newlyweds.

Back to St Dorothy, she died during the last persecution of Christians under the Roman Empire. It was a question of being in the wrong place (Caesarea in Turkey) at the wrong time (just before the Empire became Christian) I suppose. ON her way to being executed Theophilus, a sarcastic young lawyer, shouted at her: “Send me some flowers from your garden in Heaven. Ha, Ha.”

You have doubtless witnessed similar scenes yourself: stable boys are notorious for it. One called me Blowsabella the other day! The lack of respect was painful. Admittedly, the wind had blown my bonnet under a horse, ripped the hair pins from my head and sent my lace fichu dancing across the sea, but others fared just as badly and not a word SHOUTED at them.

Back to Dorothy. There are two versions of what happened next.
She EITHER sent young Theo her headdress just before being beheaded and he, believing he could smell roses on the material, converted and was promptly executed. OR the flowers were real and delivered by angels after Dorothy’s passionate prayer as she put her delicate neck upon the block. He promptly converted et cetera.

On the grounds of economy I hope the former is true. It seems a waste of a miracle otherwise.

Improve your Vocabulary One Word at a Time

I have TWO for you this week, both a mirror of my mind.
Cacotechny: a hurtful invention. I have never heard the word in speech but read it in John Ashe’s New Dictionary. (The 1775 edition is in the Master’s library.) I imagine it is pronounced in a very LOUD voice.
Subtrist: a little sad which fits my mood with precision. I preach MODERATION and I practise it. I will not make a crisis out of a drama or hurl insults at my husband. Not yet.

A Joke from Master Peregrine

Mentioning in passing that I was writing about the Roman Empire, he BEGGED me to include the following. As a long-suffering wife I serve it up to you exactly as it was delivered to me.

I can’t remember how to write 1,1000, 51, 6 or 500 in Roman numerals. IM LIVID

It might amuse the dozen who have a complete understanding of Roman Numerals and the hundreds who pretend they do. I will leave it there. Poor Master P doesn’t realise that I am not speaking to him at the moment.

The NEXT edition is all about husbands.
How to Acquire One (in time for Leap Year’s day!)
How to Lose One
What to Do with an Errant One

Tell all your lady friends to sign up to my ENTIRELY free subscription service HERE It will be an EDUCATION they will mot want to miss.
It will probably be delivered by a comely young maid from The Regency Town House