I've just spent a lovely long weekend in Bath and the surrounding area and have been very busy taking photos which I hope you will all enjoy. I've got to sort out some technicalities, but I'll be posting soon on what I saw in Bath and Lacock in particular. In the meantime, here's that naughty Lydia with another diary entry.
Lydia Bennet's Online Diary.
At this time of the year I always read Pride and Prejudice and I thought it would be fun to see what Lydia is thinking about all the goings on at Longbourn. Lydia's online diary starts just before Mr Bingley arrives and finishes where my novel, Lydia Bennet's Story, begins.
Friday, March 5th, 1802
I am torn between feeling cross at the news that my sister Elizabeth has been invited on a jaunt to Hunsford and elated at the prospect of meeting Isabella’s sister Harriet, who is engaged to Colonel Forster. She is to arrive a week today, according to a letter received from Isabella this morning, and she is eager to make my acquaintance. I have heard so much about her from Isabella that I feel we are bosom intimates already; but as to her description I know very little. Isabella is quite a pretty girl, though perhaps she is not so fortunate as to be blessed with the beauty that we Bennet girls possess. Oh, I know it is immodest to say so, but it is the truth and the looking glass cannot lie! Her figure is good, but perhaps not as comely as it could be and despite my advice about taking a little cream with one's porridge, her poor legs might still be described as lucky. Lucky? Lucky they don't snap - I assure you, it's an expression I would never use, but 'Kitty Couldn't Give a Care' (as I call her) says it constantly! Well, I expect dear Harriet will be very lovely and I cannot wait to see how Colonel Forster behaves as a beau in love!!!
As for Lizzy going off in pursuit of pleasure - to tell the truth I do not care so very much for her dreary trip-she will be spending all her time with Charlotte and Mr Collins. Her evenings will no doubt be spent in dull discourse with them and his patroness Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who will more than likely keep them all in their place by having Collins read to them from Fordyce’s sermons each night. No, I think I am most fortunate to be staying where I am for the present, with the prospect of some congenial female company and some sport at the officer’s expense.
Lydia Bennet
Photo of Luckington Court, location for Longbourn 1995