10/9 Jane Austen begins

 I slept the sleep of the dead after yesterday.  We had a leisurely morning with coffee, small cinnamon buns (brought from Cleveland) and trail mix.

Our first activity was the Country Dance lesson.  We took this last year also to prepare us for the ball.  This year was a review and also worked off a few calories from last night’s dinner.

The dances are done in a line which divides into groups of 4 and then after each set of steps you move up towards the top of the line.  We had the same instructor as last year.

We bought hard boiled eggs to supplement our crackers and cheese for lunch in our room.  We both think that this is the best way.  It gives us a little quiet downtime and we don’t eat as much.  (It’s also cheaper.)

Our afternoon class was the Georgian Portrait Bracelet workshop.  This was not very successful.  I don’t think the teacher had ever tried to teach it before.  She can make one in 1/2 hour, but in 1 1/2 hours no one even came close to finishing. She asked how she could make the next class better - so I told her, with the people around me saying “YES, that would have been better.  This is one the teacher made:

We went back to the room to rest and decide tonight’s restaurant.  Phillips is well known and was a close walk.  We started with cocktails.  I had a blueberry pomegranate margarita and Janet had a strawberry colada.  Then we both had the fried trio - crab cake, haddock and shrimp with fries and coleslaw.

I think huge portions are a Baltimore thing.  I don’t know how many potatoes gave up their lives for the mountain on my plate, but I had enough leftover to feed a family of five.

We waddled back because we were signed up for the first breakout session: Head to Toe.  The first speaker talked about what headdresses Miss Lamb in Sanditon would have worn.  She showed many paintings of women of color of different classes and how they styled turbans, tignons and hats. Jane Austen Footware in Fact and Fiction was the second topic.  This speaker specifically talked about boots.  Emma breaks a lace so they will have to stop at Mr. Elton's to fix it.  It was interesting to see what that kind of boot and lace would have looked like. Very different than I had pictured them.

Then we went to a session on the smells of the time.  Since London had 1 million people and no sewers, thousands of horses and other animals roaming the streets, it was pungent to say the least.  Slaughterhouses and tanneries, and markets without refrigeration, and wood or coal burning added to the stench.  It was fun and informative.

Bedtime.