And now for something different

The coughing has subsided, the chills and fever are gone, only a sore throat and a slight but nasty cough remain. It is late at night, which seems to be the hour when all bloggers get active. I seem to be awake and as alert as I have been for the last few days. So I must blog. It will be a notice to myself that I have survived the dread flu that has been nailing students, parishioners, co-workers, and virtually everyone else this side of the mountains.

I must be on the road to recovery. This evening I finished a book by a friend on one of my favorite historical characters, William Marshal, who rose to be regent of England after serving three Angevin kings, Henry the Young King, Henry II, Richard, and John. Wait! - that's four of the rascals - maybe I am not as recovered as I thought. David, the author, has a great quote that can stand for how I feel about all those from the past whom we try to understand:

Generations of romantically-inclined historians have long overstressed the military element in aristocratic life ... It is as if we judged today's upper class only by their oings at Badminton, Klosters, Henley or on the golflinks. It is arrogant to assume that the twelfth-century aristocracy was less complex than ours, simply because it is so remote from us.

Back to the personal stuff. The last thing I remember well before I got sick was my dear niece Mulan coming down from her mountain top to visit. I took her with me to walk the little lummox along the river trail, out past the dam to the farm where the little chocolate pony lives. He was waiting for us. The lummox wanted to nip at his muzzle like he usually does but contented himself with only gently nipping his long mane. I pulled him away and my niece had a long talk with the pony while feeding it little handfuls of grass he couldn't reach through the fence. They both seemed very content.