Letter from Ursula Valentine to her husband John Valentine

Letter from Ursula Valentine to her husband John Valentine

Describes her activities including incident with a large irate bee. Says she enjoyed his leave tremendously and wishes him luck with the M.O..

1941-10-08

Four page handwritten letter

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EValentineUMValentineJRM411008-01

Start of transcription
Lido
Wednesday 8.10.41
Johnnie my darling,
I deliberate contravention of your strict instructions I intend to post this without waiting for your first letter & address it to the Sergeants’ Mess.
I wasn’t a bit mopey last night. There wasn’t time. By the time I’d sorted out the elderberries in the oven, removing the completely carbonated ones, and stewed the remaining fresh ones, & the blackberries & apples, & then written a few urgent letters & cleaned things up a bit it was 9.30 & I retired to bed. I got one nasty fright when I was
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sorting out the baby’s washing. I had just blacked out, & the house was dark & silent as I took a small nightdress off the kitchen line when suddenly the night was electrified by a fierce buzzing proceeding from inside the nightdress. It made me jump several inches into the air, after which I approached the garment warily & gave it several nervous pokes & shakes from as safe a distance as possible. Eventually an extremely irate bee walked out of one of the arms and stormed round the kitchen buzzing fiercely
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for five or ten minutes while I cowered behind the door, making various ineffectual sorties to try to get the rest of the washing. In the end he retired growling & sulking to the scullery & I picked up the washing, dashed bravely past & fled upstairs. When I came down he was silent, & for all I know may still be hiding there waiting for revenge.
I enclose a letter from Norman which I opened – hope you dont [sic] mind. I’m
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glad he’s written at least, & hope you’ll reply.
It was [underlined] such [/underlined] a lovely leave, wasn’t it darling? I enjoyed every moment, better than ever before, and I’m longing already for our next meeting.
I’ll write more at length this evening but should like to get this into the noon post.
Goodluck with your visit to the M.O. & all your other activities. God bless you, dearest one, I love you more than somewhat!
Yours always
Ursula