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Category: Frivolity

Fun posts

At this time of year many of us are engaged in a holiday ritual–what gifts to buy that special man in our lives. I’m here to help. Of course, you must first transport yourself to Regency England to discover what you might purchase for that special Earl in your life.

You could go to Floris at 89 Jermyn Street in Mayfair and ask them to create a special scent for your man?

The Floris Shop was founded in 1730 by Juan Famenias Floris. England from his native island of Menorca to seek fortune. Shortly after his arrival in England from his native Menorca he secured premises in Jermyn Street, where the shop still uses the mahogany counter that was purchased directly from the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park in 1851. Beau Brummel used to discuss scents with Floris. Mary Shelley sent an order to Floris to send her two brushes and a toothbrush during her time abroad when she wrote Frankenstein.

Perhaps your dear Earl is a studious sort of man. He might prefer a book from Hatchards, the oldest surviving bookshop in London. Hatchards, on Piccadilly since 1797, has served such famous historical figures as Wellington, Byron, Queen Charlotte.

What book would you buy him? Endymion: A Poetic Romance By John Keats, perhaps? Or something educational, like The History of England: From The Earliest Times To The Death of George II by Oliver Goldsmith.

Maybe you cannot give your dear Earl such a personal gift such as scent or a book of poetry. You can always fall back on the holiday standby. Food. He might delight in some tea or spices or preserves from Fortnum and Mason, right next door to Hatchards.

Fortnum and Mason have been selling quality foods since the 1700s, started by a footman to Queen Anne, who enterprisingly remelted and sold the candle stubs, supplementing his income.

I can hardly believe we have to start thinking of holiday gifts! I don’t know about you, but I wish I could be doing my Christmas shopping in London. I’d look in all three of these shops, which I never fail to do when in London, and then I’d visit the Buckingham Palace Gift Shop. Instead, I’ll probably settle for surfing Amazon.

Where in the world would you like to shop?

(a version of this blog originally appeared in 2010)

 

Recently Buffalo, NY (where my mother grew up) had a historic snow storm of 80 inches falling over four days, so much so the Buffalo Bills game had to be played in Detroit. No wonder my mother never wanted to move back to Buffalo! Here in the Washington, D.C. area we’re mostly lingering in the 50s F still. But as I looked for inspiration for my blog today, I came across an old Risky Regencies blog of mine from 2009 when we had our own record-breaking December snowstorm. We managed two feet of snow, but that was more than enough to shut down the whole DC/VA/MD area.

In the past three or four years (ever since I bought a snow blower) we’ve had very little snow. But we’re now in the Christmas season and, though I’m not ready for it to be cold now, it really would be nice to have a white christmas.

In that spirit, I’m adapting that 2009 blog for today.

One nice thing about snow is it covers all the dirt and darkness in a blanket of pure white, everything becomes quiet and life, of necessity, slows down. Here’s a photo of that 2009 snow, taken from my upstairs window.

One can almost imagine what it would be to live in the country in Regency England when it snowed, to take walks through the wood, perhaps even to go skating on the pond or zipping over to your neighbor’s house in a horse-drawn sleigh.

Of course, a Regency winter walk might be like this:

And zipping along in a vehicle, might be more like this:

In the newspaper you might read about stories like this one from the 1814 Annual Register:

Extraordinary Instance of the Sagacity of a Dog.—Mr. T. Rutherford, of Long Framlington, was, about a fortnight ago, overcome in a snow storm, near Alnwick, and fell. In this state he was exposed to all the horrors of the night, till seven o’clock in the morning. His faithful dog at this time observing a shepherd at a small distance, used every exertion to attract his attention, such as howling, going from and returning to the spot where his master lay. This induced the shepherd to follow the dog’s motions. Mr. Rutherford was found, (then covered by the snow,) carried to a neighbouring publichouse, and, after five hours’ exertion, life was restored, and he is now quite well.

On the other hand, one might have a lovely Regency Christmas, eating Christmas pudding, drinking wassail, playing Christmas music on the pianoforte, dancing or playing cards.

Tell me, do you also pine for a white Christmas?

I wish all my fellow Riskies and everyone else a very happy holiday season!

Marmion
by Sir Walter Scott

Heap on more wood! – the wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.

I have this book, Brooke’s Gazeteer. The longer title is The General Gazetteer, or Compendious Geographical Dictionary containing [blah blah blah] the Known World with the [blah de blah de blah] Illustrated by 8 maps. Originally written by R. Brookes, M.D. 13th edition. 1807.

The great thing is that all 8 maps are intact.

Here is the very first entry:

Aa: a river of Dutch Brabant, which waters Helmont, and joins the Dommell, near Bois le Duc

Interestingly enough, there are five more entries for Aa. All of them rivers in, respectively, the United Provinces, Wesphalia, France, Courland, and Switzerland. But here’s a picture of the one I think they mean:

You can see this picture plus read the Wikepedia entry about it. It’s a short entry. Bois le Duc is also in the Netherlands. There is a cathedral there. (St. John’s in case you were wondering). Google is unable to provide directions from Petaluma CA to St. John’s Cathedral in the Netherlands, but here’s a map to give you an idea (you have to click through or scroll a LOT to either side to get the full distance effect):


View Larger Map

It would be a long trip for us Left Coasters.

The VERY LAST entry is:

Zytomierz: a town and fortress of Poland, in Volhinia, seated on the Circireif, 120 miles E of Lucko. Lon. 29 22 E, Lat 50 35 N.

There is a You Tube Feed for Zytomierz, which is . . . odd.

It appears that in the Regency, Zytomierz was, in fact, in Poland. Today, however, it appears to belong to the Ukraine. See this set of coordinates which is actually kind of handy and slightly amusing if you read the very very small print at the bottom.  Just who are you, Pierre Gorrison?

Well guess what? We go from the River Aa in the Nederlands to Zytomierz, the Ukraine (formerly Poland) and right back to the Nederlands.

Why, you ask? Because Mr. Gorrison is Dutch. He is also on Twitter. @PeterMcAllister AND he lists eBooks in his twitter profile bio. (We are writers and readers here at the Riskies, @PeterMcAllister. We DO eBooks in a big way.)

The only thing more 6-Degrees of Separation would be to find out that Gorrison is related to Dr. R. Brooks, 18th/19th Century Geography geek. OK, maybe it would be even weirder if he was related to the John Deane who neatly wrote his name and the year 1807 in the back of my Brooks’s Gazeteer. Or if one of you knows him. THAT would be weird.

I suspect this blog post will blow his mind (assuming he has Google Alerts). The things people Google and blog about.

I was going to blog about Regency geography, but I got distracted. Sorry. How about that Napoleon?

 

Photo by Bradford Timeline

It’s POP QUIZ day at the Riskies!

1. What’s your favorite historical romance ever in the whole world?

2. Which historical romance hero do you love the best?

3. Favorite historical heroine?

4. If you were a jelly bean what flavor would you be?

5. What are some of your favorite romance plots/tropes?

6. Clinch or No-Clinch?

7. [What question do YOU want to have answered? Ask and the Riskies shall answer.]

My Answers

1. A Summer to Remember by Mary Balogh. No, wait, I mean yes, but also The Wild Baron by Catherine Coulter. No, wait, I also love Ravished by Amanda Quick. Also Unlocked by Courtney Milan. I loved that, hard.

2. Kit in a Summer to Remember.

3. Harriet in Ravished by Amanda Quick.

4. Licorice because right now I am wearing black.

5. Marriage of Convenience.  We Got Caught, oops.

6. No clinch outside. Total nekkid clinch inside step-back.

Your thoughts on these questions in the comments!

Last week, I fell into some kind of odd time warp and did not grasp that the day I thought was Wednesday was, in fact, Thursday. It’s actually worse than that. On Wednesday, I thought it was Tuesday and dutifully wrote and scheduled my Wednesday Riskies post.

Now, I work from home Thursdays and Fridays. So there I am, all day the next day, working away at the day job thinking it’s Wednesday. Even though I am home.

Then later when I was done with the day job portion of my day, I checked the Riskies post for what I was sure would be MASSES of great comments on my awesome post. And what do I see? That witch Janet Mullany posted over me! On my Wednesday! Nobody wants to read Thursday material on a Wednesday. I mean come on.

Just when I was about to add a flashing neon green background to Janet’s post, I said to myself, wait a second. Is is possible that I have somehow made a mistake?

I looked at my watch which helpfully displays the time, date and DAY, and holy cow, it’s Thursday.

Oops. Sorry I missed my day last Wednesday. In my timeline it was Tuesday.

Monday for us here in the US of A was a holiday and that means that the Tuesday on which many Americans went back to work functioned a lot like Monday. But I remembered in time that it’s not Monday, it’s Tuesday, and here I am my fellow Risky-Readers!

Since the holiday was Memorial Day, I want to mention that my son’s middle name comes from my mother’s eldest brother. He was a WWII veteran who saw hand-to-hand combat against the Japanese in Papua New Guinea. He passed away several years ago, at far too young an age. He spoke exactly once about the war, all though one night to my mother and the woman he eventually married, and then never again. It was only when he died and his coffin was draped in an American flag that his children and grandchilden learned he was a veteran. I knew, because my mother had told me. His own children did not.

My uncle was a wonderful man and I wish he’d lived long enough to meet my son. I wish my son could know the man he’s named after. I think my uncle is one of the only reasons my mother survived what happened to her in her childhood and if he’d lived he would have continued to make the world a better, safer place.

Soldiers and veterans put their lives on the line for the rest of us and, as we are slowly coming to understand, there is always a price beyond the physical when we ask someone to be willing to kill on our behalves. And this is as true in 1800 as it is today.

Lastly, May 30th is my sister’s birthday, if you’re on twitter please send her a happy birthday tweet. @majrite

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