Daisy's Diary

by I love music

Daisy would have been very young when she started work at Downton Abbey in 1912, probably no more than 12 or 13, and not yet begun to educate herself as she did in later years. This is Daisy's story told in her own words and with her own grammatical errors.

4. Chapter 4

***Practice***

Dear Diary

I am getting quite good at cooking now. Nobody thought I would after I burnt the cakes and got called Daisy Daydream again. They were only very little cakes for the other servants as a surprise, though. Mrs Patmore still won't let me cook for upstairs yet. She said I need more practice and I could poison them..

Thomas said it was certainly a surprise that they were burnt when he ate one even though we hid the burnt bits with icing Mrs Patmore made because I can't do egg whites properly yet. Mrs Patmore said she will have to show me all the ways to hide cooking mistakes, which is very kind of her. I have noticed she rolls her eyes and sighs a lot. I think it is because she has lots of superstitions to think about, but she is very nice when she's not in a panic over soufflés or throwing salt over her left shoulder or worrying about it being Friday 13th.

Can you believe she told me on only my THIRD DAY here that I was a bright girl and might be a cook too one day? I was so happy when she said that I couldn't keep my mind on anything afterwards. Of course it was before she saw the mess I made of the eggs I cooked for the servants' breakfast.

I tried to explain that I never got on with eggs and she said that was the daftest excuse she'd ever heard and I was a stupid girl after all. I was so upset after being told I was bright. But eggs ARE a nuisance with their yolks breaking all over the place soon as you put them in the pan so it's not my fault. I never could get them right when I helped Mam, but it didn't matter because the kids and me ate anything - we all did, we were so bloody hungry all the time - so we didn't care about messy yolks or if the shell was accidentally left in.

I started to cry when she shouted, but Mrs Patmore patted my hand and said not to be so silly because everyone was looking at me. Then she showed me how I should break them and put them in the pan. I get along with eggs much better now.

I was so proud when I baked some more biscuits and they turned out all right again so I wrote a funny little poem about it as I read in a book they call biscuits cookies in America. Do you like it?

I am a rookie

learning to cookie

and if you lookie

you'll see I baked a cookie!