I cheated

Well I cheated there. For a while the entry about being made up with a personal fashion advisor was down for Friday November 2nd. This clearly will not do, Grit. That was November 1st. I've moved it, and this entry is down for November 2nd. So there.

When I started this blog Dig said, 'You will not post everyday'. That's enough of a challenge for Grit, so I'm determined to see it through for a year, despite what anyone says. And when I do, it'll be Yah boo sucks, Dig.

Anyway, it's not only Dig who set me off. It's actually all Michelle's fault. Her and William Tayler, footman, who started his annual diary on January 1st 1837:

As I am a wretched bad writer, many of my friends have advised me to practise more, to do which I have made many atempts but allways forgot or got tired so that it was never attended to. I am now about to write a sort of journal, to note down some of the chief things that come under my observation each day. This, I hope, will induce me to make use of my pen every day a little. My account of each subject will be very short - a sort of multo in parvo - as my book is very small and my time not very large.

And then on December 31st 1837:

I have at last finished the task which I have been heartily sick of long agoe and I think it will be a long time before I begin another of the kind. Now all the readers of this Book mite give an idea of what service is.

Well I haven't finished my year yet, so I'll just accurately record for today that mummy Grit helped the junior Grits choose some items of clothing that will not shame us when we crash into the lobby of the Hotel Tivoli tomorrow night in Lisbon.

That means I have to edit Shark's leggings because she always wears the ones that fall down about her knees. I have to prevent Tiger from taking her favourite dress which is torn along the sleeves and has a hole in the skirt. And I have to hide that dreadful shiny purple thing that Squirrel thinks makes her look like a top-class princess. It actually makes her look like a purple balloon heading off down the Bigg Market on a Saturday night (and apologies to Newcastle).

Burnet, J. (ed.) (1974) Diary of William Tayler, Footman, 1837. In Useful Toil: Autobiographies of working people from the 1820s to the 1920s. Harmondsworth: Penguin.