Today’s beautiful word is libellule which means a dragonfly. It comes from the Latin libella which means flat since the insect sits with its wings thus. It seemed one of those words parachuted into the language from nowhere, so I checked it out. While I was at it, I checked out robinet, a tap, which has worried me for years. ‘Diminutive form of robin ‘sheep’ (because early taps were often in the shape of a sheep’s-head). So now you know.
I shall bring back from Scotland the late 18th century portrait of an ancestor which I came across and bought 15 years ago. I asked an art dealer friend in Edinburgh to flog it but he has failed. He says ‘It’s a very good painting, but the sitter looks as if he’s just found a turd on his dining room table.’ I’ll hang him here and spend a couple of years trying to make him laugh.
I’ll also pack a kilt since the Clan Gathering is in a couple of weeks. Normally I don’t bother with such flummery but, having lived in shorts & crocs for the last couple of months, I have brown knees and the chance to show them off is too good to miss. In Victorian times such a hue carried status, proving that the wearer was an authentic Highlander who obviously wore a kilt every day.
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