My nutso kitten and Link to the ghastly Mr Brocklehurst and Jane Eyre

 

Pippy loves a challenge. She sits and watches what is going on, and PLOTS!  She likes to have a puzzle - getting packets of tissues out of a larger pack has kept her amused this last couple of days.  As you can see, like her sister Lulu (who carries her "ballie" about), Pippi also does retrieving!!

She is gathering a little collection.  when really bored, she opens the packets and takes out the individual hankies in the night and I come down to find them scattered around the floor!

Proven Guilty . . .

She is also a Houdini.  I have blocked the cat flap on a couple of occasions with a tub of birdseed and then on top of that the big box of rose feed. When I check later, Pippi has somehow wormed her way through a tiny gap and is outside looking in!!

Seeds planted this week.  Nasturtiums doing well already, and one pot of Cosmos has germinated too.

Family history this week - I was doing work on my grandfather's sister, Mary Elizabeth/Elizabeth Mary- the two names seemed interchangable in documents, as were her mother's (same) names.  She was the one who gives me my Bronte link, as in 1901 she was the Cook for the Carus-Wilson family at Hampstead.  The head of the house was Ernest J, Travelling Secretary of the Young Mans' Christian Association. However, go back to his grandfather, William Carus-Wilson, and here you have the figure that the odious Mr Brocklehurst in Jane Eyre:

" Mr Brocklehurst is the supervisor of Lowood School. He is mean, vindictive and enjoys making the girls quiver in his presence. He enjoys the power he has and enjoys doling out punishments. Brocklehurst wants the pupils of Lowood School to be modest and pious and he cruelly restricts their food rations. This is hypocritical, as his family enjoys very fine things and is not deprived of anything.

Personality traits:

• vicious
• mean
• powerful
• hypocritical"

(Taken from BBC bite size revision.)

"At one point Brocklehurst picks on a girl, Julia Severn, who has curly red hair, simply because he assumes that she must have curled it out of vanity. When he is told that her curls are natural he then insists that they be cut off because the children should not conform to nature. The next moment his own daughters appear, dressed in fine clothes and wearing their hair according to the latest fashion. This certainly indicates that his religious principles are a mockery of Christianity and that he is a hypocrite who cannot act consistently, but it also suggests that anyone who deviates from the hypocritical standards he sets will be cut out like a canker."  (Taken from York notes)

He was instrumental in setting up  Cowan Bridge School, which was for the daughters of impoverished Clergy. Here he is visiting Lowood School (which is what Cowan Bridge was called in Jane Eyre): After a meal - porridge I think - had been completely burnt and rendered inedible and the girls given bread an cheese as a lunch instead: 

"Madam, allow me an instant.  You are aware that my plan in bringing up these girls is, not to accustom them to habits of luxury and indulgence, but to render them hardy, patient, self-denying.  Should any little accidental disappointment of the appetite occur, such as the spoiling of a meal, the under or the over dressing of a dish, the incident ought not to be neutralised by replacing with something more delicate the comfort lost, thus pampering the body and obviating the aim of this institution it ought to be improved to the spiritual edification of the pupils, by encouraging them to evince fortitude under temporary privation."  Taken from Chapter 7 of Jane Eyre on the Victorian Web.  DO read it - the walk to church and the suffering of those poor children.   Two of the Bronte daughters died from attending this school - TB which followed a Typhoid outbreak there, against which their half-starved bodies had no chance.

His faith was that of hell-fire and brimstone and he wrote morality stories for children - I bet "Dead Boy" was eagerly read!!  The lad in question - rather than go to church on a Sunday - went ice skating on the frozen pond instead, reached a weak spot and fell through and drowned.  Of course - divine punishment. In another story a little girl has a screaming tantrum and is struck down dead (by God of course).  

He was a nasty piece of work, as my mum would have said.

Sorry - gone off on one, but the Brontes are one of my major literary interests and Jane Eyre such an excellent novel.

Tam is here this weekend.  We saw the Solicitors in Brecon, who recommended by middle daughter Gabby yesterday.  WHAT a difference to the local ones - organized, helpful, gave us the advice we needed for our new Wills and this will be followed up  by an email setting it all out. 

Today is walk around the top lake, with the fabulous 360 degree panoramic views of the Black Mountains and the Eppynts.  Then this afternoon the Derby is being run.  Can't miss that.

Keith's neck is very stiff this week, which affects his mobility, so I have been putting Voltorol on this morning.  I hope it helps.  

Enjoy your weekend.