Time is fleet.
We pack our lives like an overfull suitcase, aided by contraptions like the motor car.
We bewail these busy lives of ours: perhaps because we have a choice. We have chosen the city careers, the packed schedules, the extra violin lessons for the children, the postgraduate qualification.
We chose them, and often when things are hectic we feel guilty, as if we have made a thorny bed on which to lie. Life is more important than this, we wail. Our focus should be on those we love, and on the things we love to do.
Things were not always this way, we say. Things were different in the old days.
And we are correct: they were.
Working hours: enshrined in law these days, they have never been so good.
A maid for a family in the 19th century might have a crippling workload, and yet only expect to have time off once a fortnight, say, from two o clock in the afternoon until nine at night. Shop workers had similar conditions: they might not be released until nine or ten at night – but would be expected back at eight the following morning.
There is a harrowing account * of a female millhand who gives evidence to a Parliamentary Commission in 1815. Aged 23, she had working at a flax mill since she was six.
Her hours were five in the morning until nine at night, with forty minutes for lunch, no drinks or time out. If she was late she was strapped; she was a doffer, which meant when the frames were full, she and other children flew in and changed full bobbins for empty ones.
The last ones finished were mercilessly strapped.
Her family were too poor to own an alarm clock. How, asked the commissioners, do you ensure you are at the factory for five in the morning?
She explained: ” My mother has been up at 4 o’clock in the morning, and at 2 o’clock in the morning; the colliers used to go to their work at 3 or 4 o’clock, and when she heard them stirring she has got up out of her warm bed, and gone out and asked them the time; and I have sometimes been at Hunsler Carr [the mill] at 2 o clock in the morning, when it was streaming down with rain, and we have had to stay till the mill was opened.”
Stopping the spindle made her knees and ankles crooked for life: by the time she gave evidence she was living in the poorhouse.
The commissioners asked her: what do you think of the circumstances in which you have been placed, the hardship and the cruelty of it?
The witness, says the account, was too much affected to answer the question.
These people seem to have had no choice but to spend every waking moment working hard. Life must have been a continuous struggle just to stay alive.
These days even the busiest of us in England has a little time to spare, when framed by the horrifying standards of the past. We are comparatively time-rich. We have the choice, as the days tick on past December 17th, to slow our pace and begin to look about us.
Kate Shrewsday 
Lovely post. Of relevence for me today as I battle to accept the death of a lovely young girl.
The time to live is now, in the midst of lifge there is death, and if it does not spur us on to spend the time with those we live and who love us, then what else is time for?
True, Sidey. Read about your loss on Facebook: I’m so sorry. Words aren’t enough at a time like this. It does make one want to run out and seize the day, doesn’t it?
Kate, you are right, we are busy, but in a way so different from those who are poor and have to work every hour to sustain life.
I hope Maddie enjoys the cake making. I think I may be icing mine today…. or at least putting on the marzipan!
As I type our cake is in the oven. Three hours, the book says. Cripes.
Hope the marzipaning and icing at yours goes well. Just loved your self portraits the other day. You have that kitten well trained š
Marzipan done. Shame I forgot to buy the apricot jam to stick it to the cake… had to make do with a little marmalade!!!
Gracious, I never even thought about the jam! Thanks for the reminder!
Marmalade will be just as delicious š
Enjoy. At the time it seems as though their childhood will go on forever, but sadly that isn’t true. They grow up and move away, but if you have done it ‘right’ your relationship moves on to another, and possibly better stage. How lovely to have two weeks ‘off’. Make the most of it.
You might like to watch the little video I have on my blog today. It’s made me appreciate today in a different way.
Thanks, Nuvofelt, I’ll pop over and take a look!
Enjoy it!
I think this photo is my favourite of all yours.
We have a series of them which Maddie styles “Lulu ’bout town”. We snap her everywhere: on the escalator in Tescos, at great country houses, looking moodily out to sea, and so on. I have toyed with setting up a Flickr account just for Lulu the owl.
Do it!
A poignant post relative to times past, yet, an uplifting one with the sharing of the fun to come with young Maddie and her cast of cuddly owls.
A Christmas Holiday can be one of the nicest times of the year, given the somewhat hectic nature of the season, you have chosen your holiday well.
May you and your family, including the rascally owls, adopt Marie Antoinette’s exclamatory and Qu’ils mangent de la brioche”.
Ah, we intend to, Lou, thank you! Hope you and yours have a wonderful Christmas break. Starting, I believe, with a big bash tonight…
The sheer horror, savagery and callousness of it is hard to take in, and yet people to this day are demonstrating the same combinations of greed and cruelty.
Maddie is a constant delight, and owlingly funny. Enjoy playtime!
She is owlingly funny, Col, you are right: we love to listen to the owls playing.
Sometimes I wish I had a time machine, so that I could go back and help all those lost children.
In her teens (from 14 onwards) my late mother was a maid in a large country edifice. Although she held fond memories of the time and her simple life, she was glad to escape the endless working days when she married my father. Unfortunately (and possibly as a result) she didn’t do another scrap of work from that moment until she died at 85 – so my upbringing was done in what was undoubtedly the crummiest house in the village. Yet somehow she managed to drum a work-ethic into me. Funny old world, isn’t it?
It is. I don’t blame her: after some of the accounts of the hard work of the life of a maid I have read I wouldn’t work again. Life is very short. But when we have a day off these days there is something comforting about making everything orderly again around the house. Not that I manage this very often.
What a graceful reminder to enjoy the moment. Hope your holiday is filled with joy!
Thanks Selena, and yours too.
Thanks for the perspective, Kate. We have it soooooo goooooood!
Enjoy every mioment as Maddie flaps her charges’ wings! What a Hoot! š
We will, Nancy. We’re so lucky to have this time: a full week before Christmas! Yippee! Loving your pre-Christmas posts. They really put us in the mood!
Oh, Kate, such a lovely post, indeed, with the owls and Maddie and cake to be made with a reminder that times aren’t as hard as we think they are. My maternal grandmother, Annie, was a cleaning woman all her life. She was still cleaning houses at 80 and died at 81, with a wonderful sense of humor to boot. I sometimes wish I had her stamina, but, never her life. It was hard.
The play. Enjoy the play. It warms my heart to hear about your children and their imaginations. I’m smiling, here, across the pond – oh, and I just put the owl on our woodland Christmas tree.
Thank you, Penny….Maddie will be delighted that the owl has pride of place there, Penny. I shall tell her!
Wishing you all a lovely holiday. What a great photo too š
Thanks Nicola. We have photographs os owls in the strangest places š
Is there any hope that Maddie is considering a career as a children’s author? Or failling that, that she might allow her terribly gifted mother to chronicle their adventures? My Felix would love to read stories of Holly Moonflight, Google, Lulu, & Plop.
Project! I read your comments to Maddie, who is a formidable writer in her own right. I will say that her brother, Felix, adores the owls. I hear this otherwise gruff streetwise eight year old acting his part as Headmaster of St Hoots out with astonishing enthusiasm š
I was thinking exactly the same as I read this post – someone in the Shrewsday household should be writing these stories…
Maddie has just begun, EB, spurred on by Cameron’s suggestion. We are just setting up a blog for her – the first post is already up. think it’s www. myawfulowls.wordpress.com. Problem is, the first story is one of arson. Hmmmm….
This post will be what I remember every time I feel overwhelmed about how much I have to do. Although, I sometimes feel guilty that I take too much time to stare out of the window or run in the park. I’ve wasted so much time in my life.
I loved Maddie’s owls. The picture today is exquisite. Thank you for coming to the party. It was great to see you and Phil for a few minutes, and I know Lou was thrilled to get to talk with you.
It was wonderful to see you all too, Andra, specially in the run-up to Christmas. Time wasting: I think we underestimate what our subconscious needs to create; any time spent staring out of the window is time when our minds can rest and formulate plans in the background. This must be how you wrote that amazing series of posts this week. It has been a roller coaster and makes me pray anew that some publisher takes up this talent and runs with it. I’d like a paperback of that stuff on my bedside table.
Lulu the arsonist? LOL!
The photo is perfect – could be Maddie’s entry for this week’s self-portrait photo challenge.
Ah, yes, on her first day at St Hoot’s her new form room was unfortunately the science block. She procured a bunsen burner and the rest is history.
Dear Kate a timely reminder of how very fortunate some of us are today – we are in the Christmas spirit too – having made our cake today, the house is full of fruity, spicy smells, it looks good, and hope yours turns out well too.
Smells: some of the best things about Christmas, aren’t they, Rosemary> We’ve cooked up some mulled wine too: house perfume. Have a wonderful week.
All that prosperity generated since Industrial Revolution by exploited labor. Here in US I can’t understand the contempt for unions that exists even among the working class. The unions are the only advocates working people have.
Hear, hear, Carl: contempt for unions exists here, too, and apathy. If anyone read that account they would see why we have them, and just how they protect us.
I just like that Maddie has a cast of owls for her performances! How cool (and unique) is that? I do spend a ridiculous amount of effort bemoaning how little free time I have, Kate, and chagrined, I really feel challenged by this post! My lack of time is almost all by choice–and not so the examples you’ve presented. You certainly made the very best choice possible for your time today. What a gift you give one another in your family by being so attentive to all forms of celebration. Debra
It is luxury to have a week before Christmas to prepare and spend time together, Debra. We are very fortunate indeed. These are days we really shall seize!
You just gave me an appreciation for the little time I have in this busy week! Thank goodness it isn’t the 19th century! Where would I ever find time to blog š
Where indeed? Some time between 10pm and the early hours when the colliers got up! Not much fun!
Great post, great reminder to enjoy our luxury of personal time. It dovetails with my ongoing rummaging into Victorian London. Just now, a mini study of women’s lives during that period. Very interesting, and even though not necessarily new history to me, still shocking. The owls rock!
They do, don’t they š Some of the parliamentary papers of the time bear scrutiny and reflect on the lives of women at the time. To have to listen for the colliers in the early so that one could get one’s family up – and risk being far too early – it does not bear thinking about.
Excellent post, Kate. Grim to start with (oh yes, we are sooo lucky) but ending with a smile.
Thanks EB: these reports to the parliamentary commission can cause a sharp intake of breath. It is sobering to realise that the industrial might of 19th century Britain was built on such shocking disregard for the human beings who fuelled its success.
Maddie’s owls make me grin.
Me too š