Saturday 2 May 2009

My Year in the 18th Century

Well, it's been a while since I blogged, but browsing through the Guardian today I found a review of a book by Fiona J Houston that cried out for a mention. The Garden Cottage Diaries: My Year in the Eighteenth Century finds the author (a Scottish museum researcher) abandoning modern life to live as her ancestors would in a 1790s cottage at the bottom of her garden. This involved wearing home-made wool clothes, collecting wood and growing her own food. As if times aren't hard enough already!

Subscribe now!

9 comments:

Heather Carroll said...

Ooo good find!

Mrs Woffington said...

Apparently the book includes lots of great photos of her cottage and vegetable garden too.

Eliza Ward said...

Ah, such a thing in book form, for the non-lazy! What I mean in English is that reminds me of those reality TV shoes, like 1900 House and particularly like the one whose name has slipped my mind, where they were trying to recreate Plymouth Colony. I bet a journal would be much more detailed and less sensational!

Eliza Ward said...

Ha, I meant TV shows!

Mrs Woffington said...

Yes, we used to have one in the UK called Regency House Party that I loved. Not so much a serious analysis of history but a gameshow pairing off singletons - a kind of Big Brother crossed with a Jane Austen novel!

Heather Carroll said...

I LOVED those shows! Especially Estate House, where there were both servants and a family. I wish they would bring that series back!

Mrs Woffington said...

Me too! I see Regency House Party website is still up though: (http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/R/regencyhouse/) Turns out that one of them even worked for the same company as me; don't think she paired off with any of the handsome Regency bucks, however.

Heather Carroll said...

That looks amazing! I will be crossing my fingers that it will make it over stateside.

HMSAcasta.com said...

Oh fantastic, I shall have to investigate!