Dearest love,
Mrs. Ware says that she’s looking forward to you eating properly when you get back here after I meet you so we can take the Transiberian Express as the Estate’s gift to you for your trip for the Library in particular and the Estate in general. That you found Russian apprenticeships for three of Mackenzie’s Several Annies will make him very, very happy.
Indeed, the deal you cut for Turkish food stuffs has Iain dancing a merry jig as getting single origin black teas from there is very difficult.
Béla’s also grinning from ear to ear after being told that you got permission to import Hungarian Lecsókolbász, a spicy sausage made specifically for serving as part of the dish lecsó which he says is a vegetable stew with peppers and tomatoes.
So Mrs. Ware is planning an elaborate elevenses the morning after we get back, figuring we won’t be up too early — oatmeal with whole milk and maple syrup, plump peppered pork sausages sizzling with fat, thick slices of crisped bacon, smoked Scottish salmon, scrambled free range eggs, molasses bread thick with butter and gooseberry jam, blackberry scones, a Quebec traditional pork pie, lobscouse, lapsang sousong tea and Turkish coffee…
Oh, and lots of fruit — apples, blood oranges, grapefruit, mangoes and papayas, slices of breadfruit, strawberries from the Border all white on the outside and red in the center, cherries, kiwi, melons of all sorts, and grapes blessed by Bacchus Himself. The Steward grumbled she’s blowing her whole budget for a month at once but she tossed a blood orange from the Conservatory at him and he retreated . .&nbp;.
And she’s got the Neverending Session practicing Northumbrian and Russian wedding tunes which I’m taking as a less than subtle hint that she thinks it’s time we got married. So I suppose we could announce at the breakfast that we’ve decided on a Summer handfasting with Mackenzie officiating out by The Standing Stones.
I’ll see you in little over a week in Venice.
With love, your fox
