1) I’ve been following the Royal Collection on Instagram. Ever since they posted this photo of Queen Caroline’s ewer, I’ve been mad to own a peridot, the apple-green stone on top. I first learned about them years ago reading Jewels by Victoria Finlay, a trip through the Mohs hardness scale.
1a) The Queen Caroline in question was Caroline of Ansbach, the wife of George II.
2) Superstorm Sandy in 2012 was the occasion my first toothache, an experience of such excruciating pain that I am never without a vial of oil of cloves. I think of that now as I fear another toothache might be in the works . . .
2a) Oil of cloves is an unsurpassed remedy for toothache, which I learned about from Agatha Christie’s novel Murder on the Orient Express.
3) Oddly it’s turned into a Stewart Granger Festival here this evening, as I just finished Scaramouche and have begun Blanche Fury, so little known and so fascinating.