Normally, I am not a TV watcher. Partly because we don’t have cable and partly because I have
never found any series that truly captivated me. I enjoy reading and prided myself in my ability not to get
sucked in to any of that mind-numbing entertainment.
Enter Downton Abbey.
I get it, guys! I get it!
I realize I am late in the game on the British Drama (I
watched it via Amazon Prime for free!), but I have never been so fascinated
with a television show ever. I
sometimes watched in batches (also known as binge-watching to the younger set),
so willing was I to waste time sit in my chair by the fireplace and
relax with the 1920’s aristocratic Crawley family. I was obsessed with the goings on upstairs AND downstairs in
the impressive mansion. And now
that I am done (and good thing, since I was clearly ADDICTED), I actually miss
the characters, some of them more than others. Actually, the ones I didn’t like began to grow on me by the
end.
I also made my dog watch it with me. He was the most fascinated with Isis
(did Robert and Cora actually sleep with the dog between them when the pup was
dying??? I like dogs, but really).
And lest you think my mind has turned completely mushy by
ingesting so much at Downton at once, I have written a blog recording observations
I made whilst watching:
1. Sitting down for tea and cake several times a day is a very
good idea. I don’t know
about y’all, but the reason that this show appealed to me was because my life
was so busy and I was craving some relax time. The British folks in Downton weren’t burning the candle at
both ends (in fact, they weren’t burning candles at any ends near the
completion of the series when they had all those new-fangled light bulbs), if
you know what I mean, but they were certainly open to stop whatever they were doing to sit down for tea and
yummy-looking cake. If we adopted
this habit, I think we would all feel less frantic and happier—especially if we
used cute little teacups with saucers. And if we never had to bake the cake.
2. Breakfast in bed after you are married also seems like a
very good idea. Come on
now; who doesn’t like breakfast in bed?
Especially if it happens EVERY DAY. I did notice, though, that after the Downton folks got a
toaster downstairs, breakfast seemed very toast-centric (which seemed
reminiscent of my children’s offerings when they sweetly brought me breakfast
in bed for Mother’s Day) for both the family and the servants. But, hey, Cora seemed to like it.
3. Speaking of Cora; I’m glad she’s not my mom. Cora seemed so completely
aloof at all times (except of course with the hospital fiasco when she actually
showed some preferences. Oh, and
that time that Mary had that dead guy in her bed; she seemed pretty perturbed
then too) and so completely out of touch with reality that she didn’t even
question the fact that her middle daughter went to Switzerland for almost a
year to learn French…really. Did
Edith seem especially fluent when she returned, Cora? Did you even ask her
about her trip? EDITH WENT TO
SWITZERLAND TO HAVE A BABY!! A BABY!! And Cora had no clue. Even when the child became “their
ward,” Cora thought everything was just dandy. Lady Cora did have a few
redeeming qualities but let’s just forget those right now and pretend she was a
bad mom, K?
4. Babies. Can we
talk about birth for a second? I
have personally had four babies and each and every one of those births was a
huge messy affair. Both Sybil (I’m
sorry no one but your husband Tom talks about you Sybil. I really liked you and I’m sorry you
died because they didn’t take you to the hospital) and Mary birth children on
the show and are seen lying in perfectly crisp, very white sheets minutes after
the birth. Maybe if you are a British
aristocrat, even birthing a baby is a very neat and tidy affair.
5. Babies turn into children. Funny how that happens. It is also funny that none of the
parents on the show seem to really care about being part of their children’s
lives. What do these children do
when they aren’t all sleeping in one room together in their little beds being creepily watched by their sometimes very mean nannies?
Does the Downton crew actually interview their nannies before they turn over
their children’s lives to them? Do the children actually know who their parents
are? Do the grandparents know who
the children's parents are?
6. When you don’t have a job and you live with your parents,
you have plenty of time to change clothes. Did anyone else notice that the people of
upstairs Downton seemed to be changing their clothes a lot? Was this fun for them to have someone
dressing and undressing them multiple times a day? And, on a side note, did anyone else notice that Dickie
(Lord Merton) who is supposedly in bed dying from a blood disease descends the
stairs in a shirt and tie (with a robe over them, of course) in one episode
when Isobel Crawley comes to visit him?
Weird. If someone is
supposedly dying, remove their necktie so they can breathe, even if they are British.
6.5 When you don’t have a job and you have a ladies maid, your hair ALWAYS looks
good. Seriously, I need
one of these. Or maybe I just need
new hair.
7. Now that we are talking about clothes, why was Baxter sewing
ALL THE TIME? I mean,
these people didn’t look like they were being especially rough on their
garments with all their sitting up straight and drinking tea. I don’t think they even wore any of
them long enough to wrinkle the fabric.
But Baxter keeps sewing and sewing and sewing—both with the new “sewing
machine” and by hand in the candlelight.
Was she just really slow at mending? Or were the Crawleys more active in their off-screen time?
8. Shining shoes seemed to be a full time job as well. Is it just me? Or did you also think that the servants
spent a HUGE amount of time shining shoes? Maybe shoe shining needs to become more of a priority in my
life. Or maybe I need to hire
someone full time to shine my shoes so I, too, can have nice footwear to go
with my nice hair (see point 6.5 for clarity).
9. While we are on the subject, can we talk accessories? Specifically gloves. I want to talk about elbow length
gloves. As my hands and I get
older, I notice that they are very blotchy and leopard-like. Maybe I should start wearing elbow-length
gloves all the time so that people assume I am much younger than my
chronological age and so that they know that I am a human and not a feline
because we all know felines never wear gloves. For more insight into my aging woes, check out this post.
10. Downton had an abundance of guests but
that’s okay because guests aren’t a problem when you have a cook and servants. The Downton folks must be extremely
popular, or maybe they are just the right distance between all the other towns
around because they have an abundance of guests. Cora is always okay with this, though, because it causes her
no extra hardship and she still gets to eat breakfast in bed. Also, I am wondering how old one had to
be a kitchen maid in the aristocratic era because Daisy looks right around 10.
11. We all need to write more letters. After I finished watching the Downton
series, I wrote a bunch of people actual paper and pen letters. I was motivated by all the letter
reading, writing, posting, and expecting that was part of the Downton day. The letters I sent, however, were
normal size and not the mini letters that everyone opened at the Abbey.
12. Sometimes mean and conniving people are
just really unhappy. And
by this, I am referring to Barrow, who has numerous problems that we shall not
mention here. His biggest problem
is that he is not very nice. And
nobody is very nice to him. And when
his partner-in-meanness, Ms. O’Brien, leaves, he gets extra nasty. But at the end, when they pull him out
of the bathtub almost dead, I felt a little bit sorry for him and I tried to
remember all the times that he had been a little bit kind. It was difficult. I have other keen observations about Mary and Edith’s
meanness to each other and Mary’s general meanness overall, but I will stop
here so as not to sully their characters.
Also, I’m glad I don’t have to ride horses side-saddle in a dress
because that would make me mean as well.
And probably the horse too.
That's all I got folks. Let me know if you want to have a Downton reunion of sorts where we all get together and relive our favorite shows and commiserate about the psychological health of little Marigold; or even if you just want to come over and have tea and bring me some yummy cake.