Last week while I was watching the PBS miniseries Wolf Hall, my son happened to wander in during a particularly sad scene and, immediately intrigued, asked me what was going on. Without spoiling it for you if you haven’t seen… Read More
Note to teachers/parents: This blog may contain information/language that is inappropriate for kids under ten.When I showed my husband Wednesday’s blog about divorce corsets, he stopped at the part about busks and asked me what a busk was. I was… Read More
During the sixteenth century, cocoa was a drink reserved for Spanish royalty. In 1579, some English pirates searching for gold aboard a Spanish ship mistook the cocoa beans for sheep droppings, and burned the valuable cargo.… Read More
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, fashionable women wouldn’t consider travelling without a black velvet mask, called a vizard, to protect their complexion from the sun, from the dust kicked up by horses, and from gritty, polluted city air. Such… Read More