For my birthday from my brother I received this beautiful quill, its such a rich royal purple but the colour has not come out quite so nicely in the photo. This morning I sat down to write some letters, there are a few I had been meaning to respond to and one I had yet to begin. I love handwriting, though I fear mine is not the neatest, the art has very much fallen in to disuse these days.

I am working on making some personalised stationary with my monogram on it, I am having difficulty getting the printer to line it up centrally and I need to buy some higher quality paper on which to print it. I love the idea of personalised stationary and envelopes and I should like to make some calling cards too!

This afternoon I have been relaxing with Miss Charlotte and watching the old BBC version of Pride and Prejudice, I am reminded of how much I prefer this adaption over the recent one. The BBC productions are usually of higher quality than hollywood adaptions when it comes to Jane Austen, though I don’t mind Gwenyth Paltrow’s Emma.

The theme of my birthday party is to be “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and so as a gift, last night my mother took me to see the Opera. It was a very interesting adaption, quite traditional in most ways but with a little twist here and there, I though the choice of a counter tenor as Oberon particularly appealing. They also had children performing the parts of the faerie court and they were just perfect! The way they moved, and their light lilting voices really gave the parts an innocent charm, I think children know best how fairies should dance.

The greatest vocal talents I think were the roles of Titania and Helena, in particular the latter seemed to soar off her high notes where others simply sung. Puck was a little dissapointing in both his manner and voice, but this did not spoil the performance. The costumes were delightful! They had chosen colours for each set, blue and purple for the Faerie court, Red and gold for the lovers and Browns for the actors. I have been given some fresh ideas for the Prince and my costumes too.

It was a truly enjoyable evening, we had japanese for dinner before we left and I wore my Victorian Maiden black velvet jsk with my hair up in semi-regency style with pearls in it. I haven’t been to the Opera in some time and I think now I must make an effort to go more often.