The Daughter of the Manor - Discussion Thread

One of the early signs that Tony is the villain is that he is 'useless around the house'. I don't generally have high expectations that anyone these days (man or woman) is great around the house, but a willingness to pitch in even if you're not brilliant does rate high marks in my book.  I'd like to say that all five of my boys are helpful and knowledgeable about helping around the house...I'd like to...but frankly, their skill sets vary quite a bit. They can all run a washer and dryer, wash dishes and do at least basic cooking (a couple of them are actually quite good cooks), in other words, none of them will starve to death or go naked due to lack of clean clothes.  My oldest son could make a lemon meringue pie, including crust, from scratch when he was twelve years old.  He didn't go on to culinary greatness, but I know he can read a recipe.  #2 son is a much better all around cook - as a teen he specialized in rolls and pizza crusts, but he can do quite a bit more - he likes to experiment. #3 son is my chef.  Although he's majoring in computer science in college, he's also taking a cooking class this semester. #4 son can follow the directions on a box of pretty much anything - but he's not much of a improviser (unless you count putting srarachi sauce on nearly everything) His strong point is cleaning the kitchen and doing dishes (I'm looking forward to having him around for a little while when the current semester is over also). He's not too bad at laundry either. #5 son. Hmmm. He can cook - but doesn't very often.  He can do laundry - but doesn't very often. He's passable at loading and unloading a dishwasher...but....yeah, I've got some work to do on that one.

Leonora comments about how 'Tod' is an unusual name for a dog' and I'm like, huh?  They don't call people Tod in England?  (Also, isn't that the name of the puppy in Fox and the Hound?).

James' manservent is named Cricket which is 1) Awesome and 2) Betty Keira thinks that maybe, just maybe that it's the name of a female character on The Young and the Restless (right?--I can't believe she knew that.)

James' sister is a 'farmer's wife' which sounds really normal until you find out that they also have a Nanny and a land agent.  Land agent? Here's what the infallible Wikipedia says about land agents:
A land agent is traditionally a managerial employee who conducts the business affairs of a large landed estate for a member of the landed aristocracy of the United Kingdom, supervising the farming of the property by farm labourers and/or tenants and collecting rents or other payments.
I'm not sure that means James brother-in-law is 'landed aristocracy'...but it does sound posher than what I think of as a farmer.

James spends around 7 minutes with each patient. Is that enough? Discuss.

There is a prodigal runaway (Janice the Vamp) in the district who just had twins (illicitly) and abandons them to return to her wild life in London.  James wisely asks Leonora to be his chaperone when he goes out to visit her at her mother's house. Discretion is the better part...etc.

Leonora...had been cudgelling her brains as to how to present sausages disguised as something else...I had a conversation with my youngest college student last night...he wanted some dinner menu ideas...it sort of boils down to the same problem Leonora had.  I had to dig deep into the further reaches of my memory to come up with the stuff Dr. van der Stevejinck and I lived on in our poor starving college student days. I didn't bother going further back to my single and starving days...I'm pretty sure I lived on ramen noodles and oatmeal (*shudder*).