You know them, you love them, it’s time to put the countdown all in one place:
#6 was Greylag Geese. Not only does a handsome example of the breed appear in the book, I found out during research that the Greylag was a common goose in Britain (still is), and really looks like all the illustrations of geese in my childhood fairy tale books. I always wondered why they looked so different from the Canada geese I see every day… Check out the funky spiral neck feathers!
#5 was that I used famous Witley Court as a vague sort of model for Faircombe Hall, or at least (as I explain in the historical notes) what the previous Marquess wanted Faircombe to grow up to be.
#4 was that the sapphire ring featured in the story is real. I hated to give Geoffrey, my hero, the ring of an evil emperor, but sometimes these things happen down through history!
#3 was that yes, I read a lot of James Herriot as a kid. I still love vet shows on TV, too, and I loved the idea of Geoffrey turning to something he was good at when he’s turned out of the house: caring for the animals of the estate. And it really mattered back then too that a veterinarian be large!
#2 Calcium really does cure milk fever in sheep. I’m sorry, I got super-into sheep care for the research of this book! Portland stone is real, famously used for many gorgeous buildings of Britain, and it is a limestone. It leaches calcium into the ground. In fact to this very day ground limestone is added to sheep feed to cure milk fever. Geoffrey has a quiet little clever moment over his discovery (or is it his sheeps’?)
And #1:
The draisine is, of course, also real. As readers of the book will learn, Miss Zelda Rawle needs to exercise to make it around the world despite her chronic pain (rheumatoid arthritis, though it wasn’t called that then) and Geoffrey has a unique solution. I’m scared of that rudder bar in front but I want to ride one!
Any historical little tidbits you want me to discuss? Or were you just happy to see Letty and Michael back again?