OCTOBER 1935

October sees much planning and replanting of the garden. Gelat gives advice about removing olive trees. He and Graves also discuss details about the water rights dispute and Gelat's new café. Work on the new spring does not yield many results, but Gelat and Graves find a more promising spring higher up. The building of the new shed continues, and renovations to the Posada are almost complete. Graves spends many afternoons on the beach with Solomon1 before "two-blanket weather" sets in.
The cooler weather is accompanied by warm food and wine: Graves and Riding hire a new cook, and also spend an evening with Schwarz and Strenge: "candles, fire in grate, zinnias, German hors d'oeuvres, & then a young turkey, Rioja Alta wine, all the various accompaniments of turkey - also caraway-cheese a Hartz cheese I had never tasted before." Schwarz and Strenge give Riding "a beautiful emerald-matrix silver-gilt ring, in an old shagreen ring-box."
Amy Graves writes with the news that Sam will be attending Folkestone, a school for the deaf,2 and that Jenny is expecting her first dancing engagement. David writes as well, giving "sensible reasons for wanting to go to Cambridge: Oxford depressed him." Riding and Graves invite James Reeves to visit.
Graves continues reworking Almost Forgotten Times (Almost Forgotten Germany) and going over Old Soldier Sahib corrections (Harrison Smith sends an advance). The Epilogue proofs are finally completed and sent off - "a difficult job, finding original French quotations" - and Graves corresponds with Korda about Fool of Rome and with Kegan Paul about Lars Porsena. Graves also reworks his "Historical Particulars", "Moments in Never" (now called "Proof of Royalty") and "Address to Customers" ("Receipt for Moneys").
Riding continues to plod through A Trojan Ending, and Graves helps her with research on schools3 for the Subjects of Knowledge series. She is also working on her poem "Decline of Prophecy." Together she and Graves "answer W. B. Yeats' anthology request ... & his threat to come to Mallorca this year."

Editorial Notes

1Graves' bull-dog. eds.
2Sam has a hearing impairment. eds.
3 Schools eds.