December 10, 1908
Kelowna, B. C.
My dearest Kathleen,
I got a very long letter [Kathleen–November 25, 1908] from you yesterday, the one that wouldn’t go into any ordinary envelope. You are not personal enough in your descriptions of your hunting. Truth to tell, I am much more interested in what you yourself did, said, or thought, than in where the hounds went, though a little local colour will not be amiss. I am sure then that my accounts of your day’s hunting will be far more interesting than the ones your grandfather gets and will entail far less strain on your memory, especially as the local paper will not be able to contradict you. I wonder how the Stow Ball went off and if you got your party, or was the youthful Bart. too scared to risk it. I hope the knee is all right by now. The treatment sounds rather severe. You had better recommend it to Daphne, who has been laid up for some time with an exceedingly groggy knee injured out beagling. I never thought she was sufficiently strenuous to hunt herself that way. Perhaps your electric man could do something for it.
We have got winter at last. I had some lovely skating down at Mallams’ on Sunday and we played hockey wildly for about two hours. Now we’ve got the snow, not enough for sleighing, but doubtless that will come.
I suppose you have read the Further Experiences of an Irish RM. It has just got out here. It amused me immensely. I have joined a library this winter. You buy a book and then keep changing it at 1/- a time. I shall certainly be bankrupt by next spring as I am a most voracious reader and seldom get a book that lasts more than two evenings.
I am not getting on with my notebook and pencil at all. If I remember rightly I said you ought to be here with a pencil and notebook. I personally haven’t the least idea of what is wanted. Imagine yourself in a more or less plain room with the usual amount of doors and windows and a red brick fireplace and then go ahead with your note book. The walls are white plaster at present. They can be made to be any colour you like; likewise, the woodwork can be stained any colour and the floor too, so it is merely a question of what is wanted. I have hopes of sending you a plan drawn to scale by Gordon, the fellow who was working here this summer, of both the upstairs and downstairs floors, which will solve lots of problems for you.
You say you cannot see any way of getting into the kitchen out of the hall without going through either the dining room or drawing room. (We call it a sitting room out here!) You are quite correct, there isn’t one. It isn’t really necessary and you have your choice of either of the rooms to go through.
The sitting room has four doors, one into the hall by which the callers enter, one into the kitchen through which you go to get their tea, one into what I call my office (a cul-de-sac from which there is no escape, into which you will throw the work you were engaged on when they came if it’s too big to be stuffed under a sofa cushion), and the fourth out onto the lawn, by which I make my escape to the most distant part of the estate. It is really rather handy and if left open in summer the room is cool, and if well curtained in winter it is none the worse for having so many doors.
We shall make a good couple from a calling point of view, shan’t we? Place me in a formal drawing-room with about three strange women in it and a Trappist monk is positively garrulous in comparison.
There is not much doing here now to write about. I shall feel more like writing when I get your answer, for I think it will be all right.
Yours as always,
Robin