VILLA KENWIN
BURIER S/LA TOUR

KEEVEY

Téléphone: Burier 5 20 27

21st August 1949

My dear Viola,

What a summer !x They have forbidden us to water and
I have already lost part of the lawn we re-sowed this spring, several
flowering shrubs and a lot of annuals. The grapes and peaches are
drying off and falling, there is no chance anywhere of buying any
green salad. We have had no rain since early June except for
four days at the end of that month.

I spent about ten days with Hilda &t Lugano, she was
very well though feeling the heat a bit. Then an American who
was Perdita's chief in London during the war, joined us and he, Perdita
and myself went to Italy for a week. It was my first visit for
fifteen years. Prices were at least twenty per cent more than in
Switzerland except for taxis. Food good but expensive, all textiles
looked very expensive and people were very shabbily dressed. There
was a great deal of destruction in and around Florence, less from
bombs, they told us, than from mines. People were pleasant but I
feet as if I were walking over a volcano and I was very glad when I
was back inside the Swiss frontier.

I am not enjoying life too much just now because I
have had to have the outside of the house repainted. The general
mess, smell of paint pots, noise etc is a nuisance. Still, it had
not been touched for thirteen years and it is supposed to be done
every seven years so I could not complain and the front now looks
really lovely, a nice cream. They should finish about the middle
of the coming week and then we can clean - it is useless even to sweep
much at present, everything gets in a mess so quickly again.

I am sure that Linda must be enjoying herself these
sunny days and having much fun. I was interested that you tracked
down the flowers (or I should write bulbs) at last. Just imagine
their coming originally from Abyssinia.

All my love, in which Perdita joins, she is
here with me for a few days, then returns to Lugano and from there
to States.

CHEMIN DES PLATEIRES 9A
PULLY
VAUD

Téléphone: Pully (021) 3 25 26

4th December 1949

Dear Viola,

All possible good wishes to you for a very, very happy Christmas and New Year. My " diary " greetings card will come to you directly from England because I cannot get them printed here but I am enclosing a little hankerchief with much love. I can imagine you all now having great fun over Christmas with Linda by this time enjoying the Christmas Tree thoroughly.

My old but familiar typewriter broke this morning, I do not think it is much but I fear it will take about a week to repair and so I am on my tiny portable which has I see a very faint ribbon.

We have had a very mild autumn but a storm the other day

brought down the last of the leaves and I hate looking out on bare boughs
instead of on the golden and red trees we had in the garden.

Hilda seems cheerful and well and I had tea with her this
afternoon, we had a walk first in a little park near the hotel and then
tea in the main street of Lausanne.

I do hope that you will have a very, very happy time over the
holidays - I shall think of you on Christmas Day and of how you must all
be enjoying the festivities in your big, comfortable room,

with all my love, I am so glad that this year

I can send Christmas greetings to you all, having met you, and not just
known you by letter,

VILLA KENWIN
BURIER S/LA TOUR
~~NEW~~ Vaud.

Téléphone: Burier 5.29.27

December 5th 1950.

Dear Viola,

I want first of all to send you all possible
good wishes for a very happy Christmas and New Year.
I expect that you will have a delightful and amusing time
with Linda. I hope that the little trifle I enclose
amuses you: it is so hard to send any real gift from
here.

We have had a month of some of the worse rain
that I remember: the fields have been flooded, and a
vineyard slipped one evening completely over the rail-
way line, but they cleared it in a very few hours.
It really could not have been more unpleasant.

Our great amusement has till been the visit
of a little black squirrel, and, less frequently, a
red one, both of whom come and nibble a coconut we put
out for them.

I go over to see Hilda about twice a week, and
we enjoy our meetings immensely. Unfortunately we have
been so enveloped in mackintoshes we have hardly been
able to recognize each other!

The news look very black to me, but I have
feared it ever since 1947. I hope the people who laughed
at Churchill when he spoke of the danger in that year
will now remember that he warned them. Still, I still
hope that it may be a little longer before we are all
involved in another major war.

We have not been able to do anything in the
garden during the whole of November: it has been too
wet. We have several Hazel trees here and they look
lovely at the end of January. We had wanted to plant
another, but now it is too late.

I do hope that all of you will have the
happiest possible time over the holidays.

With all my love,

VILLA KENWIN
BURIER S/LA TOUR
XEVEX

Téléphone: Burier 5.29.27

February 17th 1951

Dear Viola,

I was very glad to get your letter and to know
that at last you had found another house. All the same,
I think it is a very great pity that you have to leave your
home, for I shall always remember how comfortable and pleasant
it seemed. I expect you had a great job with Linda: it
must have been very tiring watching her all the time.

I think the 'flu this year is quite different from
a cold. A lot of our friends have had it and say they have
never felt so ill in their lives, nor is it always associated
with coughs and colds. There has been a lot here, but it has
been much milder than in England.

We are waiting now with great impatience to hear
from Perdita, though I think she does not expect her baby yet
for some weeks. She does not want us to come out until she
is back from the hospital and the baby is a few weeks old,
so I do not think we shall be out until the late Spring.

I had lunch with Hilda the other day, and thought
she was looking very well and happy.

With all my love,