Devon knows

Lonsdale re-reads E. M. Delafield's Diary of a Provincial Lady. The Diary of a Provincial Lady, which first appeared in Time and Tide on December 6, 1929, is very funny, and famously so. She is a countrywoman who can't play tennis and who is terrified of horses. Her trench warfare with the ghastly Lady Boxe, her silent battles with her unresponsive husband Robert and the intricate square dances performed with invisible knives with neighbors and other parents, provide laughter of delighted recognition. She first reads the "PL" twenty years ago, and returned to her during lockdown as a rest cure from all those headlines, remembering her simply as a funny distraction.