October 24, 1943

Hi,
Today I got your letter of Oct 7, remailed Oct 11. Thank you very much for the puzzles. I’ve been trying to do English ones now + then, but most of them are the kind that take hours to finish + I get tired of fooling with them before that. And with this I am mailing you a long letter about our trip to Windsor + Eton. My cold is practically gone, so much so that tramping around all day with wet feet didn’t affect it at all. They have allotments in this country all over the place- that is what they call Victory gardens- even on embankments along the railroads + in moats around old castles + such odd places. And they are the most luxuriant gardens you ever saw. Each vegetable looks like a prize-winner. They produce lovely tomatoes- only about the size of a crabapple, but nice + red and with excellent flavor. We also get a lot of apples, a little larger + not so good. Outside of many towns you see a couple of large fields divided up into little allotments, each with its own tool shack- looks like an American hobo jungle until you look twice. Incidentally, I haven’t seen a Brussel sprout since I got here- why I don’t know, maybe because I have only eaten in army messes + the better restaurants. Or maybe the British got tired of them last year. I have just been appointed assistant men officers again, which probably means nothing more than it did the last time, unless Frank Hamilton gets sick or something. Tell Toots I’d like to go to the tea-party with her some day.
Love B