Cornflower

From Potter to Presley

      Simon's recent post on this book had me reaching for my copy for a re-read, and it's every bit as good and as funny as I found it first time round. Counting My Chickens: And Other Home Thoughts by Deborah Devonshire, with an introduction by one of her greatest fans - Tom Stoppard, no less - is a collection of writings on a variety of subjects from fashion :"I buy most of my clothes at agricultural shows", to Beatrix Potter's "The Tale of Ginger and Pickles" : "...the best book on retailing ever written" to inequalities among siblings: "My sister Unity had far more [pocket money] than ever her age warranted, because my mother said she liked money more than the rest of us."

     In a piece on things to be done away with and things to be brought back, Cupressus Leylandii, hotel coat hangers and female weather forecasters are put in the former category, while the latter includes " Invalid Bovril, brogues, mourning, silence, housewives, spring cleaning, nurses in uniform, the 1662 prayer book, pinafores for little boys, fish shops, Bud Flanagan, Ethel Merman and Elvis Presley".

    This is a book which can't easily be pigeon-holed; there are serious articles on the countryside and its proper management, affectionate tributes to staff and friends, references to the running of a great estate and anecdotes from Debo's unusual childhood. Suffice to say the writer's voice is inimitable, the humour unselfconscious and the effect on the reader one of unrestrained hilarity!

Pink shoes and happiness

     Unusually for a girl who loves blue so much, I have a pair of pink shoes.

Here they are - suede ballet flats, comfortable, practical, a pretty shade ...

     My daughters went shopping together the other day and the younger one bought some pink shoes. Just look at this:

     She thinks she's the bee's knees in these, of course, and I'm not such an old fuddy-duddy that I can't see why, but I'm reminded of the scene in Alexander McCall Smith's Blue Shoes and Happiness where Mma Ramotswe accompanies Mma Makutsi to the shop to buy the coveted blue shoes: "For those shoes would most certainly give Mma Makutsi trouble - the moment she tried to walk anywhere in them. That, thought Mma Ramotswe, was glaringly obvious." Later Mma Makutsi admits her unwise choice, "But I felt great happiness when I wore them, and I shall always remember that." Mma Ramotswe agrees, "Well, that's the important thing, isn't it, Mma? To feel happiness and then to remember it."

    By the way, my shoes, the ones sitting demurely in the sequin-reflected glow of Harriet's heels, are from Helen Bateman's wonderful shop (and she does mail order, too).

Bookshops

    

     By popular demand, here's a piece on bookshops. Dovegrey wrote recently about her visit to Mostly Books in Abingdon (you can read her post here); it sounds like a very welcoming place run by people with a passion for books (and they serve homemade cake, too, so what could be better?).

    What do we look for in a bookshop, whether it's a big chain store or a small independent shop? A congenial environment is a good start. I can recommend this one, for instance, a converted watermill, sensitively restored and arranged to house a gallery and coffee shop alongside a good selection of books. Knowledgeable staff is the next thing, but they ought to have the right manner, too, not be off-hand or off-putting. They should know their stuff and welcome their customers; you can find that at this excellent place.

     Do we want music playing? When Waterstone's first came to Edinburgh it felt very different from the 'traditional' bookshop: it stayed open all evening so you could pop in after work, it had a massive stock of interesting and unusual things - not just the predictably ubiquitous - and they played classical music, softly, all the time.

    Should there be comfy seats to encourage lengthy browsing? Coffee and 'real' cake, rather than cellophane-wrapped, cloned muffins? Old books as well as new? What would your dream bookshop be like, or perhaps it already exists?      

Spring blossom

   

     A walk in the Royal Botanic Garden this morning, and if I've matched my notes of plant names to pictures correctly, at the top is Prunus avium (see A. E. Housman), below it Magnolia denudata, and then Malus x robusta 'Red Siberian'.

Brushing up

     Almost a year ago I wrote this post about the concept of "following the brush", based on a review of a book which had just come out. And now, here's the book: Liza Dalby's East Wind Melts the Ice arrived this morning courtesy of Random House, and looks as though it will be a fascinating read.

     The book is a collection of 72 essays (based on the 72 seasonal units of an ancient Chinese almanac) and follows personal experience, natural phenomena and meditations on "the cultural aesthetics and preoccupations of China, Japan and California" by Liza Dalby, an anthropologist specialising in Japanese culture. 'Seasonal' is the keyword here, dividing the year into five-day segments and identifying the character of each and the subtle shifts from one to the next. It looks like a book which can be read straight through or can be absorbed in its own 'real time', a passage for every five days. An oriental 'book of hours' perhaps?

Gosh

      If Change of Heart is typical of Jodi Picoult's books, I can see why she is so successful. I couldn't put it down!

123

      I've been tagged by Angela to do the following:

1. Pick up the nearest book.

2. Open it to page 123.

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the next three sentences.

5. Tag five people and acknowledge who tagged you.

     Right beside me is Jodi Picoult's Change of Heart (I'm half way through and it's compulsive reading). The required passage on page 123 is:

"He sighed. 'Yeah, and I even went to parochial school, like you.' 'What made you stop?'"

     A bit like the Page 69 Test, but with less to go on, unless you happen to hit a meaty bit!

Consider yourself tagged if you'd like to try this.

Realisation

     Just a few days ago my pelargonium looked like this; today it looks like this!

Blue books

     Just for fun, can anyone think of a book with the word 'blue' in the title? Here are a couple to start with:  Thomas Hardy's A Pair of Blue Eyes, and The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier, but there must be lots more.

Blue is the colour

    In The Morville Hours: The Story of a Garden (in which there are so many wonderful, quotable passages, and I recommend it highly) Katherine Swift describes blue as "the colour of possibility", and anyone who has ever gazed at a clear blue sky or an expanse of deep blue sea will understand what she means.

                         

      She comes up with wonderful words for the many shades of blue: looking at her garden in August, she says "I try to lift my spirits with blue late-summer flowers: Cupid's dart, monkshood, the cool blue fireworks of Agapanthus exploding like sherbet on the tongue.....I breathe in their colours, counting off the shades - navy-blue, purple-blue, sky-blue, pale blue, rehearsing other names from Sir Thomas's Garden Book: 'grideline'. from 'gris-de-lin, flax-grey, with tints of lilac; 'bertino', blue-grey; 'murrey', mulberry colour; 'watchet', sky-blue, the colour of childhood holidays by the sea."

 

   

     How has such a beautiful colour - and one associated with inspiration and spirituality, and as Katherine Swift says, possibility - given its name to a state of melancholy?

    (The pictures, by the way, are all of things in my house - which isn't completely blue, despite the impression given!)

Pas de deux

     I can hardly do better than to quote Penny Vincenzi's summing up of Hester's Story by Adele Geras: "A real lose-yourself-in-it book...a not-to-be-missed treat". That's exactly what it is.

     Hester Fielding was the star ballerina of her day. Her story follows her early childhood in Paris to the miserable years spent with relations in Yorkshire and then to the discovery of her gift for dance and her ensuing brilliant career, but in contrast to her very public face her personal life has always remained a closely guarded secret. Now retired from dancing but playing host to an annual ballet festival at Wychwood, her house on the edge of the moors, Hester is about to find her world turned upside down.

     A Ballet Shoes for grownups, this book has a wonderful feel for the world of dance, from the intense, unrelenting physical demands made on the performers to the music, magical effects and pure theatricality of 'the show'. The story moves back and forth effortlessly between Christmas 1986 - the run-up to the festival's opening performance which this year is choreographed by the talented, sympathetic Hugo Carradine - and Hester's early career, her patronage by the formidable Madame Olga and her time in Piers Cranley's Charleroi Company in 1940s and 50s London where she made her name. As events unfold in the present, what actually happened in the past is dramatically revealed.

     The story is full of romance, heartbreak, steadfast friendship, dedication, sweat and tears, and without giving anything away, there's a great ending. On a personal note, I was surprised and pleased to see that some crucial scenes are set in a place we love to visit! It's the perfect book to curl up with and, as Penny Vincenzi says, to lose yourself in, and while I don't quite feel the urge to don a tutu and practise my entrechats, it has certainly made me want to go to the ballet at the first opportunity.

Jousting gremlins and other stories

     There are gremlins in the lists! Picture mischievous creatures suitably armoured and caparisoned, lances at the ready, ladies' favours proudly worn. The reality is nothing as romantic or bizarre, just malfunctioning booklists. I've been trying to add things to the lists on the left and they are either not recognised at all or are being linked to the wrong site, which is frustrating. Meanwhile W.G. Sebald moved himself (the cheek of it!) back up to "Current Reading" from his proper "2008" position. I'll stand no nonsense from these writers, dead or alive, so I've removed him....

         

      However, gremlins apart, reading has been progressing. Finished a few days ago was Adele Geras's excellent Hester's Story, which I enjoyed greatly and which will get a post of its own soon.

         

     "Current Reading" is now the beautiful and unusual account of the creation of a garden, Katherine Swift's The Morville Hours. Described by Sir Roy Strong as "a magical and moving book"  and by Anna Pavord as "an intriguing...story of a place, a person and her plants", a hundred pages in I'm loving this, and can't wait to get back to it.

       

     Up next for review will be Alice Hoffman's The Third Angel. I read her Blackbird House a while ago, so I'll be keen to get on with her latest book which is set mainly in London and covers three generations of women and the years from the present to the 1950s.

      

     Then comes a bestselling author whose books I have never read. My introduction to Jodi Picoult will come through Change of Heart, which promises tough themes and moral dilemmas.

A day in the kitchen - 4

     It works, Igor, it works! Yes, seven hours cooking for the lamb, the reduction and emulsification of the sweet wine, garlic and cooking juices, it all results in meat so tender you can pull it apart with a spoon, and a delicious accompanying sauce. Not cheap, not quick, (not terribly photogenic in finished form) but very good, and I wish I could have transmitted the gorgeous aromas which have been coming up from the kitchen all day long as the dish intensified!

A day in the kitchen - 3

      When the lamb has had its twenty minutes in the stock, transfer the meat to a plate and discard the broth. Return the lamb to the casserole, arrange the garlic around it, pour on a bottle of sweet or medium-dry white wine (I used less then that as the recipe as given serves eight while I am feeding fewer). Season. Cover with a double thickness of foil and the casserole lid and leave in a very slow oven for seven hours.

A day in the kitchen - 2

     The next stage is to add the lamb to the stock, cover and leave to simmer for 20 minutes. While that's cooking, take four or five heads (yes, heads) of garlic and separate and peel their cloves.