Skip to main content

A Little Late Summer Toad Style. . .

A lovely illustration from the children's story The Wind in the Willows (1908) by Kenneth Grahame.

A pleasant little diversion this lovely, cool, and sunny mid-August morning from the ugliness of the world at home and abroad.  

Thanks to my writer and toy soldier friend in Dublin, Ireland, Conrad Kinch, for the illustration.  My sister and I enjoyed The Wind in the Willows as children during the 1970s and were given, at different times, copies of the book from Great Aunt Marnie and Great Aunt Lillian (my maternal grandfather's sisters), as well as Great, Great Aunt Polly (my maternal grandfather's aunt).  All three ladies always remembered us at Christmastime and when birthdays rolled around each year until their deaths in the 1980s and '90s.  

Weather cool enough for waistcoats and tweeds is still at least two months off, unless we have a chilly spell in September, but Mr. Badger above has got me thinking about it already.  Until then, I've got seersucker, linen, and a new moss green cotton suit by Belvest (plus a recently acquired Panama hat) that need pressing before the start of the autumn semester in two weeks.  Chino shorts, madras shorts, and dock-siders are nice during the summer, and I certainly get a lot of mileage with them, but I'm looking forward to getting dressed again in the mornings before school.

 -- Heinz-Ulrich

Comments

  1. Old SchoolAugust 17, 2017 at 10:41 AM

    "...looking forward to getting dressed again in the mornings before school" and exposing students to a dose of civilization.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

All opinions are welcome here. Even those that differ from mine. But let's keep it clean and civil, please.

-- Heinz-Ulrich

Popular Posts

Up North Style. . .

Bad Dad makes a friend. YMP and Bad Dad on the shores of Lake Michigan.  Or was that Crystal Lake? The Grand Duchess takes a selfie in her kayak. How NOT to impress the girls sunning themselves along the river. YMP and Bad Dad kayaking on the Platte River headed toward Loon Lake.   J ust back from a week in Northern Michigan in a charming and spacious house on the banks of the Betsie River outside of Thompsonville.  A largely pleasant seven days despite some challenging episodes with the Young Master, who has picked up some very questionable habits and language from his friends in the 8th Grade during the school year just ended.  But otherwise, we enjoyed ourselves and contemplated remaining for a few days longer since the house was available.   In the end, we decided to return home as planned originally since neither my wife, nor I wanted to spend the remaining days chained to our computers in Zoom meetings from our vacation destination.  I actually managed to leave the laptop and ip
2 comments
Read more

Mid-June Thursday Style. . .

    A nother pretty typical variation on the theme for late spring, summer, and very early fall.  I'm a huge fan of Madras and have several such shirts in the seasonal rotation.  Lightweight, exceedingly comfortable, and even dressy when pressed and tucked in, which is the usual way of things here at Totleigh in the Wold.   Now, if I had my druthers, I'd still rather be skiing the trails in the upper half of "The Mitten" (of Michigan), in the Upper Peninsula, or Ontario.  But summers ain't so bad either, and I'd look pretty funny walking around in cross-country ski attire during June. -- Heinz-Ulrich
Post a Comment
Read more

A Lazy Saturday at the End of June. . .

  A sleepy first half of the weekend here at Totleigh.  Warmer and quite humid ahead of an approaching cool front here in Mid-Michigan.  Perfect for yet another pair of chino shorts an a seersucker shirt -- tucked in of course -- with the usual leather deck shoes and ribbon belt.  Otherwise, not much accomplished beyond a page or so of writing and monkeying around with audio settings for an upcoming podcast episode.   However, I was not completely useless yesterday!  I made a huge fruit salad for dinner, which the Grand Duchess and I enjoyed a short while later at the table on the back porch.  The Young Master, as is his wont on Saturday evenings,  took his dinner on a tray in the TV room upstairs where he whiled away a couple of hours on Flight Simulator, flying some sort of commercial airliner to some destination across the Atlantic or Pacific.  I would have loved that sort of technology at about nine or 10 way back during the late 1970s, aka The Stone Age.  As it is, my sister and
1 comment
Read more