Transcription:
2 before I left you, but I repeat it as I have done to Mr. McLennon of course as he is so near I hope to see him soon. In
all probability I may go to the States next summer but I doubt if I can go so far as California for my absence must be short.
I expect my son and his bride from India and I must be here. Then I will have to go to the Continent with my daughter and
youngest son. If I go to America it will be on business, to settle up an estate I did not finish last year. This winter in
England is very severe for the duration of frosts. We do not have such cold weather as I have experienced in the States but
it is more penetrating. Now we have such piercing east winds that cut you through. The ice is not one inch thick, but with
all that I feel it more than I did in America with 3 ten degrees below 0. Today I have been shut up in the house with
severe neuralgia in my face, especially my jaws. You cannot imagine how trying it is to me, who keeps busy every minute. Lately
I have been making a new road through my place and have been working like a navvy, so much so that my children and my gardener
remonstrated saying I should not work so hard. But I did enjoy it. I am transplanting many trees and bushes (when the weather
permits) and planting many rhododendrons, which do so well here. By the way I noticed a variety of lupin in California which
we do not have. I saw plenty in the Yosemite valley. The flower is pink and white or purple white. Mine are all white or all
blue and have some all yellow, but none of two colours together.