[Page 479]
6.
she is practically all right again now, & only has a slight touch of indigestion left. Michael Hughes took us for a drive last Saturday in his "Ford" to La Perouse, & she managed that all right, & she has been in town practically every day this week. We had accepted an invitation from the Kelso Kings to dinner, – the first invitation we had accepted for eighteen months – and I had to go alone, as Mother was not up to it when the night came. They have bought Sir Frederick Darley's house, Quambi, in Albert St beyond St Joseph's Church, & have spent a lot of money on it.
We dropped in on the Finns the other Sunday after we had walked all over the abomination of desolation into which the Government have converted most of the Cranbrook grounds. Practically the whole of the grounds, excepting those immediately adjoining the house, have been changed into a waste of yellow sand without a bush or a tree to break the monotony. It might be a stretch of sand dunes being converted into a uniform slope from the hill to the Rose Bay Road all round near Aunt Liz's old home. No doubt it will be grassed & replanted some day, & covered with new houses, but at present it looks most forlorn. The Finns are the same as ever, & send kindest remembrances to you, & are delighted to know how well you have done.
I have to send a short note to Maurice to let him know I have got Anderson Stuart to write to the War Office asking for his recall, as Maurice wished. I hope it will come off.
My last letter to you was dated 7th June. Mails are few & far between now.
Much love to you, dear, from us both.
Your loving father
Thomas Hughes.
P.S. on back of this sheet.