It’s true that I’m not a fan of TV.  While others discuss what went on last night on The Bachelor, I just smile and nod, exactly the way I did in math class.  I have never seen Survivor and I don’t know anything about any Housewives, no matter from which city they hail.  

I do confess to liking The Big Bang Theory and I do occasionally snuggle on the sofa with my giant son when Modern Family comes on.  (Okay, he’s not really snuggling me, he just watches it from the sofa and I will squeeze in next to him, clinging to the very cording of the cushion to prevent him from becoming aware and telling me to move on.  You moms understand.)

I had heard of Downton Abbey, duh.  I just thought it was another mindless show people tuned in to watch.  Never have I been more wrong.  It is surely a brainwashing time machine, made to make our very existences look dingy in comparison.  

On Sunday I came home from church and took to the sofa like a dowager needing smelling salts.  The weather was horrid, the house was cold and The Goose had said something VERY unchristian in the car that had made me despise his very soul.  The laundry was done, there was no sun to run, I had finished every book in the house, and so, I tuned in, to season 1, episode 1.  

At 11:30 that night, I went to bed wealthy, beautiful and dreaming of picnics and ponies after finishing the season.  

In the morning, I waited for my valet to bring me something beautiful to wear.  Apparently, he was not available.  My lady’s maid did nothing to make my hair look any better, so I resorted to a ponytail.  My breakfast did not arrive on a tray and no one plumped up my pillows.  There was no fire in my fireplace and no one to warm up the house. I am sure my yogurt would have gone down a lot better from a porcelain bowl. 

I spoke kindly to both dogs, with an aristocratic British accent, even whilst plucking a no-no from underneath the piano.  They ignored me.  

No chauffeur was available to take me to the feed store, so I resorted to driving myself, in the pouring rain, and no footman told me the weather was unseasonably dreadful and produced a wrap for the car so I wouldn’t catch a chill.  At the store, I was asked to produce actual payment rather than just putting it on the house tab.  Horrors. 

I waited all day for cook to bring me something warm and delicious for lunch, but, after sitting alone in the dining room for a half an hour, decided to eat peanut butter on Ritz. 

This afternoon, as I was washing out the garage where my swine and the dogs had made muddy tracks, and the back door, that the pig had belligerently thrown her angry countenance against, repeatedly, until it was splintered and muddy, I thought to myself, huh, well this just sucks. 

This is the danger with anything period and English.  The Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, Rosamund Pilcher, for heaven’s sake.  They leave me feeling tacky and poor, with a bad accent and the make-up of a hussy.  Suddenly, my house feels small and dark and my family is horrendous.  It will take me days to recover from my Downton induced delusions unless I do actually awaken, in a country hospital, and this murky, shabby, cloud filled day has all just been a bad dream that came from a fall from my mount.   

Well, I must be off as I have to hurry and dress for dinner.  Ta!