Michaela

Annotations and comments

Michaela has posted 24 annotations/comments since 19 March 2021.

The most recent first…

Comments

About Thurday 16 August 1666

Michaela  •  Link

I can’t find any previous insinuation by Sam that Nan was admiral Penn’s mistress. He warned that Creed wouldn’t be interested in marrying her because she doesn’t have money, and he says that she’s pretty, but those seem to be his only comments. Have I missed it?

About Monday 31 July 1665

Michaela  •  Link

I also remember the Raising the Body ritual, I was also around 10 years old at a new school. The girls were friendly and invited me to take part as one of the lifters, I was amazed how easy it was to lift the “body”. It really seemed like magic. I had forgotten about it until now - it would have been in 1972, almost 300 years after Mr Brisband’s experience.

About Thursday 20 July 1665

Michaela  •  Link

It’s fascinating to read very logical opinions about how insouciant Sam’s behaviour was towards the plague danger - I would have agreed in 2008, but now, after our own plague, I feel we are seeing another proof that despite 357 years having passed, human behaviour has changed very little. Until we truly face the reality of imminent doom we have a sense of invincibility, that things like that only happen to other people.

About Thursday 6 November 1662

Michaela  •  Link

11 months earlier Sam mentioned a disturbing dream about his wife falling off a horse and breaking her leg.

About Tuesday 26 August 1662

Michaela  •  Link

Tales from the Green Valley! I absolutely loved this series and it’s hard to believe it is now 16 years old - I think still available on YouTube though. I suppose I realized even then that it was highly unlikely that the people involved really spent a whole year living in the 17th century, but it was such a fascinating insight into rural life not long before Sam was born.

About Monday 12 May 1662

Michaela  •  Link

Sam isn’t writing as a journalist, and he isn’t imagining eager readers from hundreds of years in the future frustrated by his lack of detail. Things that we long to hear about are just everyday background stuff to him. I suppose if we had a day trip to a local place of interest we would write a similar account in our own diary.
(I know I’m replying to a comment 16 years too late, this is beginning to remind me of Tom’s Midnight Garden”)

About Saturday 2 November 1661

Michaela  •  Link

I am also very grateful for annotations and links, it is only unexpected information presented without warning in the comments which affects the feeling that I am living alongside Sam. Like being yanked by the scruff of the neck back into the present. I also know that it’s impossible to eliminate spoilers already given, I was only requesting that no more be made by people still posting.

About Tuesday 3 December 1661

Michaela  •  Link

I think that maybe Sam interpreted the catty comment about unfashionably dressed wives as a jibe against his wife, and the unpleasant feeling (after all, we know he cares about her) remained in the back of his mind along with the discomfort of feeling that he might be leaving her unprotected against the scorn of women like Lady Wright. This could have triggered the dream of Liz falling and breaking her leg while at his side.
I don’t believe he saw her as a hindrance to his success, Sam doesn’t strike me as that kind of person.

About Saturday 2 November 1661

Michaela  •  Link

Please, please don’t post spoilers, I don’t want to know about Pepys’ future opinion until it happens. This really does spoil my enjoyment of the diary

About Wednesday 10 April 1661

Michaela  •  Link

which is now fitting for use, and the organ then a-tuning

I think Pepys today would say “which is now being fitted for use and the organ then being tuned”
At that time the passive form of the present continuous wasn’t used, I think even Jane Austen wrote “the piano is bringing” rather than “the piano is being brought” - but that might be a false memory of mine because I can’t find a reference to it in Google

About Thursday 24 January 1660/61

Michaela  •  Link

On UK TV about 15 years ago there was a wonderful series called The Supersizers go... where two well known presenters dressed and ate in the style of different periods of history. I have just rewatched the first 10 minutes of the Restoration episode on YouTube (the whole episode is there) and it’s as informative and funny as I remember - although they do say a clerk would have had a salary of 500l a years, which sounds like an absolute fortune!
It really brings to life the food and drink that we have read about Sam eating, and makes me thank the Lord that I didn’t actually live then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCfx98Ei5lM&list=…

About Monday 5 November 1660

Michaela  •  Link

Hello San Diego Sarah, I’m not exactly sure how to do it, so I’d be grateful if you could post it for me - thanks