Tuesday, May 27th

SPRING is at its apogee now with the flowering cherries and apple out in the garden and tulips … glorious! And I’m happy that Helen Milbank came for lunch … she has not seen me here before. And I think she really did understand why I don’t miss Nelson. For me it was an enormous pleasure, and I realized after she left how starved I am for this kind of conversation, conversation rich in knowledge and wisdom, held in a large frame of reference, about things that really matter.

At last I have the name of a throat and nose man in Boston and an appointment for the day after tomorrow. I am sick and tired of never feeling well and of having to force myself to do the ordinary things … the extraordinary things, such as sowing the annuals, have required beating myself. It has been a joyless spring, I must say. Not helped by the fact that Raymond has too much on his hands and simply has not done the essential. When Helen Milbank was here, the lovely curving path down to the sea that gives the whole place a special charm had not even been cut. Now that the fruit trees are in flower, it is dismal to look out at the formal part of the lawn and see it covered with dandelions gone to seed, the grass five inches tall. The character of the place is its mixture of formal beauty and natural beauty, and I really minded when that special quality was not there. But yesterday Raymond did at last cut the lawn and oh, the pleasure it is to look out at it now, like a piece of music that had been garbled and is again singing clear!