Ideal home

    "... the houses at the town end of Worship Street were just as beautiful as the others, if a little smaller. They lacked the porches and fluted pillars of the larger houses but they had fanlights over their front doors, white doorsteps snowily scrubbed, beautifully spaced windows kept scrupulously clean and shining, and an air of contented solid comfort that was very reassuring. They did not look like houses in which anything could go very wrong. To pass them was to think of shining beeswaxed floors, pots of jelly on a scrubbed shelf and a walled garden behind the house where nectarines grew on the south wall."

    Elizabeth Goudge, The Dean's Watch.

    The picture - an illustration from Jill Barklem's Brambly Hedge books - reflects the spirit of the piece, if not the letter.

Comments

[mog]

Just finished The Dean's Watch and loved it. It really lifted my spirits, so much so that I have ordered another Elizabeth Goudge book from the library, 'The Scent of Water'.

I have kept all the Brambly Hedge books that my daughters read , the stories and illustrations are so wonderful!I can't part with them.

[Cornflower]

I am still only about half way through The Dean's Watch but really loving it, and having read a few distinctly non-uplifting novels lately, relish it all the more!
My children's Brambly Hedge books are all still here, too - delightful illustrations.

[woods]

You seem to have a hotline to our birthday lists! The four season collection of Brambly Hedge was my daughter's choice for her last birthday ... she is in her twenties ... many books live happily in our home for any age.

[Cornflower]

You're never too old for Brambly Hedge!

[Val]

I've never read the Gouge book you mention but the extract is delicious and reminds me (for some reason) of O.Douglas
I love the Bramly hedge illustrations and really enjoyed this https://madsmousehouse.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/miniature-mouse-tree-house-inspired-by-brambly-hedge/
although how they had the patience I'll never know :0)