Sunday 6th January 1808

Dear Diary,
After some hard riding, I returned late, yesterday eve, from Manchesterford. How big everything seems in the city. I made the acquaintance of a Mr Hilton and we lunched in some style before wandering to finger baubles and pretty things. I had a most amusing time and back at his rooms in Hulme I was plied with sugared fruits and other mouth-watering delights but I resisted the temptation to partake of them all. At breakfast this morning I noticed an unfamiliar face. Fanny reminded me that it was, indeed, my own sister Jane who has been closeted away these past weeks writing. I said " Tell me Joan, what has engaged you in recent times?". She looked up from her lightly poached egg and replied, " A novel, actually, entitled ' How to get someone to do something that they do not really want to do.'" I riposted with " Would 'Persuasion' be a little less wordy a title?". She rose, suddenly, tossed a buttered cob at me and swept out of the room.
At Chapel this morning, the Parson gave an impassioned sermon entitled 'The Evil amongst us'. I doubt he was referring to Old Collette Fairfax but she stared most unnervingly at me throughout the service. Not one to be cowed so easily I bade her 'good day' on departure but she spat a word back that I could not decipher. I recoiled, not from the venom of her reply, but as any fellow would when in close proximity to someone who has had a boiled onion for breakfast. Outside, I was distressed to see that someone had daubed a number of letters in mud upon Python's flank. It appeared to be 'TWOT' but I know of no such word. I have my suspicions as to who the writer might be.