'Quirkily he was 'Francis Joseph' throughout rather than 'Franz Josef', but I guess that might be the best, most neutral, name for the ruler of a multilingual empire. It gave me a greater appreciation of the dutiful but limited emperor, and provokes the thought of how long the empire would have stayed together without him - would it have disintegrated after 1848 and reshaped Europe completely before the golden period for the Habsburgs? What would this have meant for Italian and German unification? It was my birthday two days ago and I ran to Mum and Dads and back (well not quite back, I got as far as The Kingfisher in Chertsey and then Dad gave me a lift home). Gave me time to think and get out which was needed, and was nice to see Harmondsworth again. I stopped at Gable Stores for a Yorkie and a Tizer too. Mum's dementia is not improving and she doesn't know what is going on most of the time and is completely reliant on Dad, but she seems happy at least pottering about. she enjoys sweeping and making patterns with stones and flowers. Freddie is off in Dorset on his Silver DoE Expedition at the moment, and I miss him very much. The weather hasn't been good, but hopefully he is ok. He'll be back tomorrow
No comments:
Post a Comment