Tasting Regency Life: Seven Miles for Seven Days

       This week's Bennet experience comes to you quite by accident. Literally. It wasn't a car accident, but it was the first time I've pulled over to the emergency lane and clunked off the freeway into the arms of the nearest repair shop.
         How is one's car clunking apart at all parallel to the life of a Regency girl? Well, transportation was not such an easy affair as it is today. Obviously, there were still carriages pulled by horses not engines. The train had yet to appear in existence for another couple of decades. So your options were to travel by post, a sort of stagecoach public transportation which would cost you. Or to maintain your own stable of animals and vehicles which required some wealth.
         The Bennet's had one carriage, and my family stables five, practically one for each driver. Except that recently, all five of these horseless carriages have repeatedly been lame or colicking (common horse problems in case you were wondering).
         My family maintains this vast stable of steeds by brokering in older horses which sell cheaply at market. However, in the last few weeks, this practice has sort of caught up, and as a result, we are this week attempting not to drive beyond the seven mile radius in which our insurance will pay for a tow. And this is what brings me once again into a pair of Elizabeth Bennet's slippers.
        In her world, walking was probably the easiest mode of transport. We see Lizzy walking profoundly throughout the text. And I'm postulating that in a pair of her shoes and petticoats one doesn't always walk a great distance further than seven miles. So this week, I'm mostly at home writing or reading or walking--or getting graciously picked up in friends carriages--and beginning to understand a bit about how Regency women might have felt.