A post-script on diaries

Reading Wendy's diaries is vicariously exhausting: just reading her catalogue of a day's activities tires me out. Then I came to Friday 16 April, 1976 (Good Friday). She wrote: "A beautiful day. Up at 8 am, ate breakfast, read paper till 9 am. Washed (i.e., did the washing). Just seemed to mess about all day. What a lot of time I waste!" Earlier that year she flew from Ottawa to Los Angeles, then on to Auckland, Christchurch, Timaru, then Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Colombo, where I met her flight - I was working for WHO. We had several fascinating weeks in Sri Lanka, flew on to Madras, Agra where we stayed, saw the Taj Mahal by full moon from our hotel room and at length with a guide all to ourselves next day, Delhi with more sightseeing, then flew to London, rented a car, toured the Cotswolds, visited my classmate Lou Opit, then a consultant surgeon living in Warwick about to become professor of surgery at Monash University in Melbourne; then flew home to shovel snow, ferry kids to and fro, paint window screens, prepare and deliver meals to a sick friend, take part in PTA meetings, consult school teachers about problems with our two sons. All these travels, all the people we met and the sights we saw are catalogued in her diary (1975 and early 1976 are particularly interesting and fun to read). I'll take that entry for Good Friday 1976 with a very large grain of salt. I promise myself and readers of this blog that I'll post more excerpts from her diaries soon.