A hot summer's day.

Friday 7^th  of January

This is very pleasant, sitting in the Barracks Library writing in my diary; it makes it seem so very special.  I also have a lantern on the table which provides better light than the candles on our kitchen table.  Colonel Fittock is in here again this evening reading the same book as last night.  He said “Good evening Miss Holmes,” when dad ushered me in.  I felt quite grown up, I blushed and dropped him a curtsey and responded “Good evening kind sir”.  

No-one has called me Miss Holmes before, it’s always been “Emily Holmes” or “Emily” and  sometimes I’m referred to as “Sgt Holmes’ daughter – the short one”, that really annoys me as I can’t help being short.  Mamma and dad sometimes just call me “Em” – for short.  Won’t Annie be jealous, even though she’s the eldest, people have only just started calling her Miss Holmes since her thirteenth birthday one month ago, when she started working at Charter’s Drapery Store, and she’s two years older than me!

Victoria Barracks Sydney 1871 -  State Library of NSW collection

I actually don’t have much to write about today, because well, today has been rather boring.  It’s been too hot to play outside and the western wind is blowing sand all over the Barracks.  Mamma kept us indoors, because if we tried to play outside we’d soon find our mouths and noses and eyes gritty from the sand; I know, I remember getting sand in my eyes last year and then I got an eye infection which was awful.  I’ve seen the soldiers suffer  something dreadful from the sand, as they don’t have mothers who tell them to stay indoors, instead they have Officers and NCOs who tell them to “form ranks” on the parade ground and drill them for hours, regardless of the weather.

image from Pinterest

‘As we were indoors, Mamma wanted Harriet and me to fold the bed sheets, but Harriet was still too small to manage the sheets, and I’m not much bigger, so we got into an awful muddle.  Mamma lost her temper with the two of us, and hit both of us with the wooden spoon.  We then had to help Mamma with the ironing, until it was just too hot to keep the fire going in the room anymore.  Then we were excused.

After that,  Harriet and I played with my paper dolls for a while and then I read some of Grimm’s Fairy Tales to Arthur and Alfie, before they had their afternoon sleep.  This afternoon Mamma asked me to prepare some vegetables for dinner.  We also watched the smoke from a bushfire on the north shore rise up into the sky and then be blown away towards the northern beaches and from there out to sea.  I wonder if it reaches New Zealand?

Sydney Harbour as seen from Paddington mid 1800s. State Library of NSW collection