Sunday, 15th July (1917)

Rain commenced on St. Swithin’s Day and it is the local superstition that if it rains on that day the rain will continue for 40 days and 40 nights.

Out grazing horses.  I noticed innumerable baby frogs no bigger than a blow-fly in the wet grass – one was making frantic efforts to get out of the way of the horse’s mouth and I could imagine what the great blubbing lips of the horse looked like to him – goggly.  I can now appreciate Dad’s experience when he was a boy of seeing them actually falling with the rain, probably taken up by some waterspout.  His mates swallowed some of them out of bravado.  Went to a sort of variety-show given by Manchester girls.  Some of the songs would hardly have met with your approval, but men are made of sterner stuff.  The song which took best this evening, and I must confess I rather liked it myself, was “Come and Cuddle Me”, sung by a lanky jolly-faced girl with a very large mouth.  I am writing with this villainous needle-pointed pen – in fact, la putrid plume.  Here endeth the umpteenth Epistle to the Antipodeans.