Lovely day, really hot, but still very few trees in leaf. This afternoon Charlotte May Shaw, D & I went into North Park Wood, & had our team there, we made the donkey carry all the things on his back. It was very lovely & peaceful down there, the anemones were out, & the Larch just in leaf.

The food question is getting more serious every day, the Germans are determined to starve us out their U boats are busy sinking ships of all nationalities within a limited zone around the British Isles. Every day appeals are issued urging people to eat less bread and stop we do what we can, have a oatcake for lunch & dinner, no pastry, no early-morning bread & butter. But there are a good many people in the parish who laugh at the idea of rationing & say they do not intend to economise.

On the Western front our armies are going forward, but it is not there the war will be decided, but in the stomachs of the people in England.

Tonight Dorothea, Mary S, Ellis & myself all worked away in the fowl run & planted potatoes. It has been an immense work, & we hope something will come up.

Miss Moore has had a weekend at home. She told me that Briggs’s brother who was taken prisoner in November 1914 has escaped from his prison.