Liz Moody’s Dulwich Life is written by Anna Sayburn, inspired by Gainsborough’s portrait “Mrs Elizabeth Moody and Her Two Sons”. It imagines how Mrs Moody might live today.
Saturday 21 June
Hooray for zone four! Found a neat little terrace house in Penge, with a garage and tiny garden, only minutes away from the train station. The boys turned their noses up at sharing a bedroom, ‘especially as Ranjeel’s got my bedroom all to himself,’ as Tom pointed out. But it’s only two stops to school, so works out perfectly. We can all go together, I pointed out. They went into a huddle. A few minutes later, Sam came to ask if I’d mind sitting in another carriage, as that would be less embarrassing.
But I had a fantastic first week at work. I’m looking after the smaller boys, mainly making things out of tissue paper and playing in the sandpit. Don’t know why everyone makes so much fuss about working; it seems fine to me. And Ozias has shown me how to use the cappucino machine in the staff room.
Mummy and Mrs Yoga are round helping me pack the house up, ready for the move. Mrs Yoga’s patched things up with her husband, and they’ve decided to move to Tuscany full-time to put the olive groves on a proper financial footing. She says it was the success of the olive oil tasting party that gave Mr Yoga the idea. She asked if I’ll be her London agent. So that’s two jobs!
Mr M has finally agreed to go for an interview at Ranjit’s dad’s law firm. Today he’s busy trying to sell the Cayenne (won’t go in the new garage and we can’t afford the petrol anyway). I think he’s secretly enjoying the frugality – reminds him of his glorious Edinburgh upbringing.
So, today’s the end of our Dulwich life. Liz Moody’s Fabulous Penge Life starts here!
Photo: Thanks to teegan on Flickr.com (with CCL)
Gainsborough’s “Mrs Elizabeth Moody and her two sons” can be viewed until 5pm every day except Mondays at Dulwich Picture Gallery (Picture by Permission of the Trustees of Dulwich Picture Gallery)
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3 Comments
I thought Liz handled “hard times” like a real trooper. I’ve enjoyed watching her strength of character develop over the last few weeks. Watch out Penge!
Liz is a great character – will we continue to hear of her exploits in Penge?
Gainsborough’s Mrs Moody died very young, when Sam and Tom were very small. When they were a bit older, Mr Moody had Gainsborough add them to the painting of his dead wife, so confusing generations of art historians until the invention of the X-ray machine!
Thanks for the nice comments; it’s been a lot of fun imagining life for Mrs Moody. So sad to think she died young – she kind of makes me think of Princess Diana, all tragedy, fashion and beauty, as well as the two young sons (come to think of it, isn’t there are resemblance with the fair haired older one and the auburn younger one?). Maybe we could catch up with Liz again later in the year.