Amelia Murray – my father is the 5^th Viscount of Stormont and here is my diary entry looking out onto my lawn

 

I want a good marriage for my daughter her father has so much to offer and wants her to do well but she does not fit into society as I wish and I fear she will marry for love I fi Had married for love I would not have the property I look out onto now. I would not see the young men’s company I engage with now.

 

It was the same for my mother and I followed here advice. Marjory married beyond her dreams and that is what I see staring out at the lawn today.

 

The returnees of the grand tour pile up at the station full of chests filled with wonder from Europe their servants have a suntan and the air of mystery lies in the air th clothes they wear make them ahrd to recognise from their plain suits they left in. there are embroidered scarves new silk sashes and jackets full of rough but beautiful fabrics I have never seen. I want to be part of their arrival but I do not know these chaps on their return they are full of the future. They are loudly, through the arrivals hall, talking of plants I have not heard of and one has the nearly black seeds of Indigo in his hands telling us this will change the world if we let it. He shows us the blue of the garment he wears from its dying.

 

He wants to change the world and that is the different of these men. They are full of hope. Travel has brought them back to a whole new country. I wonder what their travel will bring though to this ailing country? The monasteries lie is bad disrepair with the hospitals attached to them either failing or becoming so big they move. The grey friars lies in ruins.