"About 4 or perhaps 6 should make a pair of bedroom slippers."
George Orwell's diary, 12 August 1946
12.8.46
Not so fine as yesterday. A few showers, & looks as though it would be wet tonight. Applied sodium chlorate to some of the rushes. On one patch applied at the same rate as for the nettles, ie. 1 lb to a gallon & about 1 gallon to 10 sq. yards, & on another tried the experiment of scattering the sodium chlorate dry, trusting to the rain to wash it in.
Wind in west.
Yesterday saw another fawn-coloured rabbit (baby one.) Put away half dozen of the cured rabbit skins in a drawer, considering that they had dried sufficiently. Shall put moth balls with them, & see what they look like next year. One would, I think, only get on average an oblong of 8” by 4” or 4” inches out of each pelt, so that one would need about 100 to make a good bed rug. On the other hand about 4 or perhaps 6 should make a pair of bedroom slippers.
An extract from the “domestic” diary George Orwell kept while staying at Barnhill on the Isle of Jura, Argyllshire (at other times, he also kept a diary in which he reported on current affairs). Orwell wrote about Victorian diaries in a 1944 review, which we also shared recently.
All rights reserved. This extract remains under copyright and may not be distributed or reused in any way without permission from the Orwell Estate.
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I love hearing about Orwell at the impossibly remote Barnhill. It had no electricity, no telephone, and no one had attempted to live there for more than ten years! I can’t help but think he was taken there by some instinct towards self-punishment.