I was reading an interesting article today about Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, England, United Kingdom. Ashdown Forest is popularly known as the forest containing the famous Hundred Acre Wood where Christopher Robin [Milne] would go to play with his friends Winnie-the-Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet, Kanga, Roo, Owl, et. al. During the writing of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, author A. A. Milne created a map of the Hundred Acre Wood which has subsequently been used to identify most of the primary locations from the books (“Winnie-the-Pooh” and “The House at Pooh Corner.)”
In 2001, archival footage of a school pageant that took place in Ashdown Forest in 1929 was discovered. Footage from the area was very rare as most had been destroyed over the years. This is the only known footage of the region from the era. After close examination, it was discovered that Christopher Robin Milne was, in fact, one of the children in the school pageant! This is now the only visual record of Christopher Robin actually in the Hundred Acre Wood. Christopher Robin would have been eight or nine years old in the film. He died five years before the films discovery.
While Christopher Robin spent his life in the UK, Winnie-the-Pooh, Eeyore, Kanga and Tigger were donated by A. A. Milne to the publisher E. F. Dutton (who published the hardcover editions that Dominica and I just bought yesterday) in the 1940s. Dutton then, in 1988, donated the stuffed animals to the New York Public Library’s Donnell Library Center branch in midtown Manhattan where they remain today behind bullet-proof glass.
One of these days I want to make a trek to the Donnell Library Center to see Winnie and friends. It is a pretty interesting piece of literary history and to have it so close at hand would make it a shame to not take advantage of the opportunity.
Oreo had to go to daycare today. He has a vet appointment this afternoon to look at his grass allergy and skin condition. He really has to go because he needs more medicine for his itchy belly before we take him camping this weekend in Watkins Glen. Besides it is about time for a normal checkup anyway.
My morning was extremely slow. I am on the early shift all week and typically the mornings are pretty slow but today was far slower than usual. There was barely a single thing happening from six thirty until the “normal day” began at nine.
Later on in the day, though, things went from slow to really crazy. It got so busy, in fact, that I was unable to even get any lunch. I got stuck in the office until almost seven thirty! It was nuts.
Dominica and I were both going to be getting home quite late today so we decided to just eat on our own. She got Burger King on the way home and I just grabbed pizza at the plaza near the World Trade Center with the statue of the financier in on the marble bench.
Oreo’s vet appointment went well. He is in good health and everyone at the vet’s office loves him. He makes friends so easily. He has a growth or something on his tail which is why he had this visit, in addition to needing more antihystamine medication. They took a sample of the growth but the vet does not think that it is anything to worry about. He had tail issue before he came to live with us which is why, according to some of his records, he has no tail of which to speak. It was removed when he was young because of some growth. So we want to make sure that everything is alright.
We watched about two episodes of Third Rock from the Sun but that was about all that we could get through. I got called to do some additional work at the office around ten thirty which kept me busy long enough that Dominica was pretty much asleep when I was done. This week is really wearing us out.