The Playground

Today is a day out of a novel, an English novel just before Romanticism set in. It's cold enough for coats, hats, and scarves. The autumn wind is relieving the stubbon trees of all their colored leaves. I'm wearing a soft warm sweater and enjoying the warmth of indoors - if only I had a working fire place!

I love all the classic British novelists - The Bronte sisters, Mary Shelley, Henry Fielding, Fanny Burney, Sir Walter Scott (he's Scottish), Charles Dickens, but oh most especially Jane Austen. No one compares, in my opinion.

After kindergarten pick-up, I decided I wanted a steaming mug of tea. I was also hungry, but nothing I had available sounded appetizing. Then I remembered that a few days ago I had anticipated my British tendencies and purchased a jar of clotted cream, so I made scones according to Karen's description. (Americans would call scones biscuits. Scones are not those twisty fancy fruited things that Starbucks sells.)

The scones are delicious with the clotted cream and a teensy drop of jam. It all gets washed down with hot Irish breakfast tea. It's a yummy afternoon abroad for me.

Here I am, having tea and scones, and writing, just like Jane Austen. How quaint and nostalgic.

The only problem is that Jane Austen didn't portray day-dreaming too kindly in her novels. She was too practical and satirical to be wistful and sentimental. I would likely be caricatured as some dim-witted girl who never reads and who faints after a brief walk in the garden.

No, I have to believe that she and I would have been friends. Either way I'm enjoying my English afternoon.