I said  in my last post that I loved the New Yorker. The issue for January 4, 2016 arrived today on Thursday, December 31. The front cover was minimalistic with a woman standing on an iceberg in a field of ice looking at the stars,  but it was the back cover which made me smile and hand the magazine to Starter Husband. We both agreed that Maggie Smith got the role of her career by playing the irascible Dowager  Countess of Grantham, Violet Crawley. She has some of the best lines and you can look them up on the web such as at the Huffington Post.

Over Christmas, my German mother-in-law had the local PBS station on the television, and I watched the last episode from season 5. Now after that episode in May 2015, I was feeling a bit weary of the whole crew at the Abbey. Mary was just too self-contained and cold for words. It was totally unrealistic that Carson would propose to Mrs. Hughes. Can Anna and Bates just catch a break instead of always being pulled around by fortune and false accusations?!?! Lady Edith is too pitiful for words. She finally finds a man whom the brown shirts kill, she has baby and has to hide the baby, and it goes on and on. Enough! And why doesn’t Isabel just marry nice Lord Merton. Really! Don’t worry about Christmas with his awful sons.

Wait….after this past Christmas I might need to reconsider that last bit of advice.

Still, I am very much looking forward to Sunday night at 9 Eastern Time so I can watch the first episode of season 6. Preferably with a glass of red wine.