via email:
Hello Jerseydress,
I have recently discovered your blog and have been following it ever since with great interest.
I have been reading Betty Neels for 25 years on and off and am rediscovering Betty Neels with your blog.
I was wondering if you could help me find the title of a Betty book.
I believe it is a MOC and our heroine finds a dog on her walks. She brings it home and when the doctor returns, he comes straight in and asks something like: “What have we here?”.
There is also a woman “friend” – our enemy, who our doctor presents the dog to. Our enemy is of course not amused.
Do you know this?
Best regards from Betty Dorthe
Dear Betty Dorthe,
Welcome, welcome! It's wonderful to meet new Bettys.
It's Saturday and we're supposed to have our first snow today, so I'm off to the store for a little stocking up (I live at the top of a steep hill - when it snows, even if it's only an inch or two, we're sort of stuck until the roads are sanded). I'll throw your question out to our remarkable readers -I'll bet the farm that someone will come up with the answer to your question.
Love and snow shovels,
Betty Debbie
Betty Dorthe,
ReplyDeleteI did some google-sleuthing for you. The book you are looking for may be "The Hasty Marriage". Then again, maybe it isn't, because the story differs from what you remember.
MOC - check, though later in the story.
The dog was knocked down by a car just as Laura and Reilof reached the hospital, and they took it to casualty.
And I think it was the anaesthetist who said, "What have we here?" (Haven't got the book with me so I can't verify that.)
All of this happened while Reilof was still infatuated with Laura's sister Joyce.
Hope this was helpful.
Betty Anonymous
I think it's A Winter Love Story, in which Claudia MOCs Thomas Tait-Bullen and moves into his London home. Early in the marriage, she finds a starved and abandoned mutt puppy in Hyde Park. His response to her, "Thomas, I'm so glad you're home. Come and see what I found this morning..." is, "And what did you find?"
ReplyDeleteA few days later, his 'old friend' Honor Thmpson drops by at tea time, and Thomas introduces the pup. She replies, "You aren't serious? It's a horrid little stray. He must be filthy, and he's hideously ugly..."
I don't know what's with all the ellipsis in this one. Betty must have been channeling Babs Cartland for a moment.
And welcome, Betty Dorthe. I hope we'll hear from you regularly. Just this evening I was reminiscing with a friend about a party I attended in Paris a few years back, in late December, at the home of a couple of Danes. They served glugwein (not sure of the Danish spelling) that was quite tasty, and little olliebollen-type things with the most astonishingly delicious, rich jam made from some kind of brambleberries. If you know the recipe for any of those things, please feel free to share.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your welcome.
ReplyDeleteI am quite sure that the book is A Winter Love Story, so now I know how to spend my sunday afternoon. Thank you Betty van den Betsy!
About the glugwein and Olliebollen-type - you must be thinking about "gløgg" and "æbleskiver", which is served quite often in december, when the Danes wants to "hygge". I found a wikipedia-site in english about "æbleskiver": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86bleskiver
In Dutch it is apparently called "Poffertjes", although I can´t recall it mentioned in a Betty novel. I will try to find a recipe as soon as possible.
Recipe for "æbleskiver" or apple slices
ReplyDelete4 servings
5 cups flour, ½ tsp salt, 2 tsp sugar, 1 teaspoon cardamom, 1 teaspoon soda, 3 eggs, approx. 4 cups buttermilk, grated zest of 1 lemon, 4 tablespoons oil for baking
Mix flour, salt, sugar, cardamom, baking soda and grated lemon peel. Whisk egg yolks and buttermilk together and stir into the flour. Add the oil and let the dough rest for approx. ½ hour. Whisk the egg whites, then turn them into the batter and pour into a jug.
Warm apple slice pan and pour a little oil in each hole to the first apple slices. For the next it is not necessary as the dough is fortified oil. (I omit the oil and put a little butter in each hole instead).
Fill the holes up with three quarters of dough. Turn the apple slices when they begin to solidify and highlight the edges. Before you turn the apple slices, you can put a thin slice of apple or some apple sauce in each. (That's why it is called apple slices, but most Danes just eat them without).
Turn apple slices several times by sticking them with a wooden stick or a knitting needle. If there is dough on the stick, cook them a little longer. Hold the apple slices warm in the oven. They are served with jam and icing sugar.
Enjoy!
I must admit to be a fan of animal rescue in Betty´s books.
ReplyDeleteI know of a dog rescue in Dearest Love and A Winter Love Story.
Do you Bettys know of any other rescues?
Welcome, Betty Dorthe! I like Bettys who come bearing recipes.
DeleteDoes The Hasty Marriage count? I think that was the one where Laura ordered Reilof to stop the car after a dog was hurt by a hit-and-run driver.
Mistletoe Kiss: Ermentrude rescues a kitten tied up in the rain and hides it while working at her desk as a receptionist. Found out by the supervisor, but the RDD takes the blame.
The kitten rescue in The Mistletoe Kiss is my all-time favorite. The RDD is adorable in taking the blame.
DeleteHola betty Dorthe,
ReplyDeleteAdore a good rescue scene too, especially when she saves larger animals and people. Kitten saving is a bit less dramatic and fun. Of the top of my head about dog saving, in the 'The Promise of Happiness' she saves her own dog and in 'Cassandra by Chance', Cassandra saves two animals with the blind doctor giving her a good rescue shove. In 'Three for a Wedding' she saves her gift puppy twice and steals a boat.
Betty AnHK
Cassandra jumped into the cold water to save her niece, and they were both rescued by the blind ogre who had slid into the water to help them.
DeleteIn "Roses Have Thorns" Sarah's cat Charles gets caught in a rabbit snare.
In "Caroline's Waterloo" Caroline saves Queenie, the donkey, from the cruel tinker(?) who owns her.
Betty Anonymous
In "Years Happy Ending" Deborah takes the two dogs out for a walk, one of them falls into the freezing? pond, she can pull him out, but gets lost in the dark.
DeleteBetty Anonymous