Michaela

Annotations and comments

Michaela has posted 30 annotations/comments since 19 March 2021.

The most recent first…

Comments

Third Reading

About Tuesday 26 May 1668

Michaela  •  Link

Interesting that it seems quite unexceptional in Sam’s time to persuade a stranger to read aloud from her book for your entertainment; I wonder what would happen if I asked someone to do that for me the next time I’m on a train?

About Saturday 4 April 1668

Michaela  •  Link

Thank you Mary for explaining about “an”. As a child I was puzzled by the rhyme because it was written in my book as “if ifs and ands…”

Second Reading

About Saturday 15 February 1667/68

Michaela  •  Link

Dawn suggested that Elizabeth might have endometriosis - I’ve just been listening to Hilary Mantel’s autobiography on Radio 4 “Giving up the ghost” and she suffered horribly with this. If it’s what Elizabeth had, I hate to imagine the agony she must have gone through in her times.

About Wednesday 23 October 1667

Michaela  •  Link

I wonder if Pepys has bought a new watch recently? Today he seems fairly precise in mentioning the time: “ there staid till two o’clock” and “ Here mighty merry (there being a good deal of good company) for a quarter of an hour”

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.