Mrs Duberley's Diary Saturday March 24th 1855

In amongst the busy calendar of social events in full swing in the Crimea were the Spring Race Meetings.As Helen Rappaport points out in No Place For Ladies
"for the British officer class so far from home, the Crimea took on an air of normality with the resumption of traditional sports of racing, hunting, bathing parties on the shingly beache east of Balaklava, fishing in the River Chernaya, cricket matches..."
It's hard to imagine all this in progress as the bombardment of Sebastopol intensified

Can this be a journal of campaign? I think I must change its name to a new edition of the Racing Calendar.
The French races today were very amusing. The course was crowded, the sun shone, and French officers were riding at full gallop everywhere...The 'steeplechase' course, 'avec huit obstacles' , was delightful:the hurdles were not sufficiently high to puzzle and intelligent and active poodle; the ditches were like the trenches in a celery bed; and the wall about two and a half feet high. But it was a very merry meeting. We rode up with Captain Lushington, Colonel Douglas, Colonel Somerset, Mr Vansittart and Major Peel, and afterwards lunched with le Comte Bertrand, on game pie and champagne.