January 10, 1944

1100 10 Jan 1944 (V-mail)

Dearest Marty,

I am much better this morning, thank you. I’m sorry I sent you that long, sad story last night, even if it did do me a lot of good. We really had a very fine time yesterday this morning it is exceptionally cold and the atmosphere is clear though the sky is pretty cloudy. It’s freezing, for a change, and the mountains are more covered with snow than I have yet seen them. No snow down here. The natives say February + March are the real winter months in Ireland. Yesterday, ?? of shrubbery along the walks on the hotel grounds, we saw a lot of shrubs, 4-6 feet high, with four perpendicular rows of leaves along each branch. Perfectly straight rows- and a little clump of small lilac-colored flowers on the end of each branch. I never saw it before, but as I have said there is a lot of sub-tropical stuff cultivated around here. The ? is still sprinkled with bright yellow flowers, too. I was thinking about Home the other day, as usual and it occurred to me that if I went home now the country would probably look pretty bleak + forbidding. Ireland is so green, even with the leaves off the trees- there is plenty of shrubbery with leaves, + nice ? grass. But even so I’d much rater be with you. The grass is always greener where you are. Maybe I’ll get a letter from you today.

Much love,
B