| Both sides previous revision Previous revision | |
| On 1 December 1885, TLM-P, Nora, Lizzie Jardine, Maggie M-P with her little son Hervey, Meta, Dorothea, Alienora, Robert, Julius and his nursemaid, all departed for London on the steamship //Quetta//.((//The Queenslander//, 5 December 1885, p.909.)) {{:to_london_1885_screenshot_2023-11-09_095613.jpg?200|}} Nora and her children stayed overseas until late 1889, with quite some time spent in Switzerland.\\ | On 1 December 1885, TLM-P, Nora, Lizzie Jardine, Maggie M-P with her little son Hervey, Meta, Dorothea, Alienora, Robert, Julius, 4-month old Ruth and an unnamed nursemaid, all departed for London on the steamship //Quetta//.((//The Queenslander//, 5 December 1885, p.909.)) {{:to_london_1885_screenshot_2023-11-09_095613.jpg?200|}} The purported aim of the trip was to give the children experience of European culture and to learn French and other languages. They arrived in Malta in early February 1886; six weeks later they were at Pozzuoli near Naples. They slowly moved north through Italy to Switzerland. By October 1886, they were in Lausanne, where Nora and her children would spent three years. The older children honed their social and recreational skills with tennis and dancing and gymnastic lessons - with Nora keeping a stern eye on her daughters' deportment. The younger children spoke basically in French. A highlight for Nora was reconnecting with Rosa Praed, now a well-known author of 10 books who moved in gentry and literary circles in England. As Patricia Clarke points out, , the two friends had not met for nearly 12 years and, of her step-siblings, Rosa had only met Meta, the last time when Meta was two years old. Their lives had dramatically diverged: Nora's 'world was dominated by domestic troubles, sometimes problems with governesses, more often the incessant demands of jam-making and sewing ... She complained of deteriorating eyesight from constant sewing, reading and writing'; a suspected cancerous lump proved to be 'caused by constant working of her treadle sewing machine'. Her only break from Brisbane had been visits to her mother in Sydney, and a trip in 1880 to the Melbourne Exhibition. Nora and Rosa met at Châlet Patience Chapelay at Champêry, a 'summer holiday village in the Swiss mountains.'((Patricia Clarke, //Rosa! Rosa! A Life of Rosa Praed, novelist and spiritualist//, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1999, pp.104-05.)) \\ |