February 2^nd 1949

Dearest Machi,

It was grand to get your letter of Jan. 24th yesterday. Amazing how much you can get on those airmails. Phil laughed at the way you had written on the part that showed, and wondered you weren't charged more. I did indeed get the one you wrote just after Christmas. I think you were very smart to make the post office refund the postage on the returned pen. I knew a woman last year who was sent celery (of all things) and other things - postage $101. When she went to the post office to get them, they said the things weren't allowable and would be returned to America - and the celery was thrown into a corner. Maybe it is just as well that you kept the pen. He was given a cute one here, and lost it right away. He is very bad about everything - toys, etc., and I won't dream of letting him wear my gold watch which is called his, though he begs daily, and many friends younger all wear them. Cheap watches are one of the things I wish very much I could get from home. I would love to give them to the cook and boy, but there isn't a hope of getting them through. Someone would certainly steal them. But I am going to take a chance, and have you send the top to the pressure cooker. Will do you do it as soon as you can. The boy is very disappointed not to have it.

We were so surprised to hear that Steve Crawfurd had been in America. Hadn't heard of it here. I am glad you have a radio for the kitchen. Mine seems to live in the shop - mostly on account of the gramophone. One of the new pick-ups was put in, but he says the other new one is very dim. They certainly are perishable. I had it in tin, adhesived. I was told not to bother to take that machine to H.K. ever, because it wouldn't last a week. We need a short wave radio very much - for Phil's job in this British Evacuation scheme, and Freddie was going to lend us his if he couldn't sell it. At a wedding last week, he was telling me he would bring it around that night as he hadn't been able to sell it, and by George, a man standing nearby bought it!

Your Christmas sounded very nice. I bet all your egg-nogs were better than mine which were made with Carnation milk. Fresh milk is about the most expensive thing here. We buy enough for Hugo to drink raw, then get Chinese milk, boiled, for our tea, etc.. What an awful lot of babies. I don't believe I knew about Ritchi's having one. I wonder what the Neales think about Spenny's marrying a French girl. Where does Jackie live? You certainly do sound busy, as usual. Who is E. Nalle Challis, and did you get the $18 that the flossy nightie cost? Your sewing does seem to bring in the money, but I don't know how you do it along with everything else. I must say we thought the kitchen sounded funny with taupe walls. Isn't that an ugly yellowish tan? Poor kitchen. You are having a bad spell with your animals. In a weak moment I offered to look after two more cats. I am glad to say I was landed with only one, but they act so silly and scared, these Chinese unsexed ones do. Phil wouldn't let me have our cute little black one done. The first thing this new cat did was to go up the chimney and just sit there and howl.

Our new house really is awfully nice. I suppose the nicest company house we have ever lived in. Nothing queer about it, but the kind of house you might build yourself - only bigger than you would want. Not unlike Dunbarton., leading off a central hall, so I don't have to run marathons. The study is as large as our sitting room in Rue Ratard, and the sitting room very big, with lots of windows and a window seat that would seat a dozen, I reckon. My sorrow is that the curtains are almost cerise, and don't go with anything I have. Cushions I will have to change, mine being red and chartreuse - and prices have gone so high over the new year that I'm afraid to go shopping. My boy tells me an egg is thirty dollars this morning, and the last time I heard, the U.S. dollar was four hundred. That's a quarter to a hundred dollars - about seven cents an egg. 84 cents a dozen. That isn't bad, is it. It seemed much more than that. But the curious thing now is that the U.S. dollar isn' t much wanted, and you can't get a very good price selling them. The Chinese think they won't be honoured by the communists, and they all seem to think the communists are bound to be here soon. The Chinese silver dollar is worth two and a half times the American paper one. Those are new dollars which were being sold by the banks until so many people were getting killed by the seething mobs trying to buy. I've never even seen one. We were last paid a thousand dollars for a pound - that was four days ago. But beef is five hundred dollars a pound. You can never quite catch up. You think you have been paid at a very generous rate, but before you can spend the money, prices have jumped.

In spite of it though, and the rumours of communists, I have five new iron pictures and a brown and white jar with a top, and two turquoise blue jars to make into lamps -we didn't like to have the sitting room completely bare, and we couldn't use our red framed prints. They are very nice in the study, which is yellow chair covers, and gold brown curtains. The iron pictures aren't the nice one like you had. I never see those, except a set in Canton eighteen months ago. I've always been sorry I didn't get them. My new ones aren't just the cut out tin which most people have now, at least, but they are frightfully rusted, and not heavy iron, and the frames are rough hewn wood painted black sketchily. However they are effective, and very pretty flowers. I also got large iron candle sticks, and an iron vase - you know the kind that are skinny and almost straight up and get quite big on top. I got so much iron because I don't want to go in for the colours that would do in that room. But I shall get cushions the same colour as the curtains, and use a lot of that turquoise-coloured china like I had before the war, and ignore the dark greens in the chair covers.

We have had a grand two weeks in this house, and have been out hardly at all. Poor Phil was quite sick with 'flu, but got over it very quickly. Missed three days at the office, and the first two days of the Chinese New Year we stayed in, but we golfed the third day. He is all right now, but I have my same infection in my head. It didn't quite leave my ears, but went again in my throat and I had no voice for several days. I keep going to doctors. The second one told me to throw away the penicillin spray which had probably lost its potency and use some kind of drops - but that hasn't had much more effect. Three months now I've had this. It's not an obvious cold, but stops up my ears - gives me sinus head aches - or no voice - and I think my. sense of taste has been permanently affected.

My letters much sound a tale of woe, because we always seem to be sick but it doesn't feel that way, and it is probably because I don't write very often. Hugo is in bed again for the second day. Not a cold this time, but upset stomach. He has been thoroughly gone over for everything possible, and the only thing wrong is the inevitable anaemia. I suppose that accounts for his many colds, and he will go on ferrous sulphate, and multiple vitamins. We all shall. Since being in this house, and riding to school on the bicycle, and going to Ratard in the afternoons and riding steadily around and around I really think he has worn himself out. I have tried harder to have children for the day, and it can't be a good thing as he has wet his bed both days. I shall keep him in more, and in bed earlier. Hugo is very big. It's hard to keep him in clothes. And he is also getting to be a toughy, and tears his clothes to shreds, and is always one large bruise. He takes a great interest in the Bible, and is often reading it. I have a nice edition with the verse written as such but he doesn't like that because the chapters are in Roman numerals. But he loves a lot of the psalms. He sang in the cathedral choir last Sunday, and didn't seem a bit shy walking up and down the aisle, although they don't sing while they do it. He was so thrilled he has been waiting for Sunday ever since. They practice three times a week, so it is quite time consuming. It is a curious thing, but this child doesn't like ball games either, and I have to force him to return to school on the afternoons that they play football. He seems to be hopeless at it too. He tells me he can run, so that he is sometimes chosen by other boys. I gather that he isn't very popular. I had rather thought he would be, and be good at games too, as he is such a gregarious type.

Since taking on this new job. Phil works very late, and much of the evening. He came in at ten past six tonight, and it is always well after five, though the men who don't do much work get home at 4:30. At least Phil adores doing it. I forgot one of the wonderful things about the house. So far it has been as warm as toast. I can't even wear the new padded clothes. Our weather too has been something very strange, with the temperatures above 32 for two or three weeks. So it may not be as comfortable in the cold, but the heating system works, and the pressure goes up to 180 in no time. As in the case of the other house, you have to let it cool down, then put it on again - which is silly. Maddening too is the fact that the water is heated separately and very poorly, consuming gallons of oil. My house is full of large magnolia branches, and cut poinsettias, in big jars. The latter were in the green house. I have quite a large green house, and two gardeners. I wish I had that nice gardening book (leaflet affair) with the gay bright pictures. It would be a grand way to show the gardener what I wanted. I don't know what I did with the one I had at the Buhrers. Vegetables, it was. I think I must have a really true gardening book at Dunbarton I think I bought it since the fire and not before. If there was more time I would write you for seed. But more than two and a half months ago I sent a cheque to Vogue, and haven't heard a word from them. Do miss the pattern books. I cut out a simple cardigan suit on New Year's day and practically sat up the night of the 31st so as to finish it within the month. I seem to get slower.

Lots of love Mollie