Here I am back in my own world again, the Tour completed. I found everyone all right and no casualties nor mishaps, so St. Anthony looked after things for me. Good. I also found three letters from you and one each from Gwen, Mother, Auntie Edie, Auntame, Michael Fitzpatrick, D Saddy, the headmaster at school, Major Thomson and I don’t know who else. Best was your little pile, very welcome letters to greet me. The family had gone to the Croft and Richard was singing himself to sleep, and you went and bought a nice sounding frock, and later some shoes, and you went to the W.I. and Dickie met you, and walked with his hands behind his back and waltzed around in circles, all of which is wondrous to read and difficult to imagine. And good reading Indeed. And you had got the little picture about him and liked it, and the silk, too. I am so glad the picture is goodly, it was fun to do and Lanave loved it. It will be a good thing to have. Mrs. Richard shall have it in very dueful course. He’ll be a bit snifty about it maybe. You say that Lanave has included something of me in it; I was not aware of that, but it is a nice thought. You must have some idea, but cannot conceive all, of the hunger I feel to see this small child. I think I have paternal Instincts, anyhow I am constantly being moved by the grace and delicacy of children, and I am exceedingly eager to see this genuine living person, who can walk down our village on a Spring evening “with his hands behind his back”. Children are kind to me, and friendly, and on our picnic lunches on my journey always two or three sprang out of the ground in the most deserted spots, they always do. They sat in a hopeful little row nearby and watched and came forward timidly when invited and accepted a sandwich with a soft “Grazie signor Capitano” (They are sedulously in respecting rank here; and after ten minutes we were friends and on waving terms. So it will be a sharp pleasure to see and touch your son Richard. I know I shall get impatient of noise and prancellations about the house, off temper and unreasonableness, but not too impatient I hope. I shall always admire elegance of childishness and try to be fair in seeing points of view. So there is the picture and there is he, walking, with his hands behind his back. And I shall be so shy when we meet and not unproud of him.

                        As for the silk, if you really want it for anything else, use it so. I know you will have pretty nighties and what do they matter anyhow, what I mean is….well, use the silk for a curtain if you wish, or shirts for Him. Does he perambulate at all now, or walk everywhere ? He will be getting more talkative I suppose and will be improving in his grammar. But enough of that young man, only he is so present in my thoughts. This afternoon I’ve had a joyous two hours net-practise. Got fourteen would-be players from the two units and we borrowed some nets and had ten minutes each and some fielding practise. It was very good, but very dusty, matting wickets, not like the lovely green of home. But good to keep one’s hand in.

                        Will Dickie mind us going off for three months In 1948 to Italy? I think we’ll bring a car, and come by sea to Naples, and spend two weeks there, drive up to Rome for two weeks, then up to Sienna, across to Perugia, and so to Florence for six weeks, then drive home via Venice and Turin, Riviera and France and so home for July 1st. It will need two good selling books, and some work out here, but we can do that. I have so much for you to see, if only the Belvedere Apollo and Raffaello’s Transfiguration. And you will love Sienna, and of Florence I have written. It is lovely, and I can understand why it has appealed to the English for so long.

In the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence there were six or seven artists making miniature copies of pictures, and exquisite they were. All on ivory and priced at about ten pounds. Peter nearly fell. I was very good and there was a great deal I didn’t buy. I got some prints which I am sending off tomorrow, and a few little printed miniatures, which cost only ninepence each and look quite charming. You can send some to other people if you think fit, or keep them. There’s the baby Stuart, one that I think is David, the head of a Botticelli virgin, a child St. John, and one of the Holy Family travelling, I sent a print of it last year.

                        I’m in a minor key this evening, its soft and Soft and gentle, and the others have all gone to the cinema in the camp, so its quiet and peaceful, and very nice too. Yet somehow nostalgic for Great Alne and the quietness there, where you make loneliness impossible. I shall sit and write letters, then read a little and then to bed, in due course. All very pleasant. And yet, as I say, these still spring evenings, with our garden situated around us, do not make things easy. But to have, or to take notice of moods is foolish. Oh, apropos of your remarks about the Germans, a very beauteous young maiden Peter and I came across – and gazed at for a long time- in an art gallery in Florence suggested that the best thing would be to forbid all Germans for all time to go to Florence. That, she said, with true Florentine love of her city, would be punishment enough. Its a good idea. You are a Florentine really. We might have one of the daughters born there, and thus have a true Florentine in the family. Give her brushes and oils when young and sit back.

                        Yes, I’ll write to Eleanore one of these days. I like the Great Alne folk, they are a charming tribe. Where do the Sunderlands live ? Oh, Michael Fitz’s letter was charmingly written and absolutely typical schoolboy – letter, progress of the term, polite things.