long mornings

'June came in with fields of white clover, and Catherine spent long mornings in the open, reading to Audrey whilst Adam slept and the sunny countryside slept too, mile after undistinguished mile, all about them. Swifts swung overhead, blue church spires pricked the distance, the scent of clover was solid on the windless air.' Elizabeth Cambridge Hostages to Fortune

reading

In the blissful ignorance before TT is born I like to imagine sitting under our apple tree reading whilst TT sleeps or plays. If I manage it once with our current weather then I shall be content.

Food was wonderful

One of the many rituals that distinguish the weekend, or holiday, to Monday to Friday is breakfast. Eating toast to be precise, in the week it's cereal.

'Audrey went on eating bread and butter and marmalade. It was exciting to eat. It had three tastes. The bitter jelly taste with the candied peel in it, the smooth taste of the butter, and the woolly taste of the bread. Food was wonderful.' Elizabeth Cambridge Hostages to Fortune

breakfast in bed

Yes, food is wonderful. If you're not working tomorrow what are you looking forward to?

feast days

Today with #shareadvent it's Gratitude. This post makes me grateful for a festivity to break up the dark winter months. An excuse to see family, celebrate, reflect and be joyful.

'How wise and right feast days were, and how cleverly Christmas broke up the winter ... just when the weight of the cold and darkness were beginning to make themselves felt.' Elizabeth Cambridge Hostages to Fortune

light

hot and shimmering with candles

The prompt for #shareadvent today is. 'Light a candle. Remember. Give Thanks.'

'Audrey stood and looked at the Christmas tree. She had had a good tea, though not as good as she would have liked, or could have managed. Now there was this new and shining thing. The little spindling thuya which she had seen, dusty and lonely, in its pot, stood translated. Its spiky boughs stood out stiffly. bright with red, yellow and pink butterflies, hot and shimmering with candles. 
The point of the flames strained upwards, there was a smell of warm wax. she was too happy to shout or sing. She was so happy that she had a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. It hurt, yet she wished that this minute could go on forever. The wonderful tree was true.' Elizabeth Cambridge Hostages to fortune.

candle

#shareadvent

two boxes of fancy notepaper

We started some of our Christmas shopping this weekend and had our traditional Christmas shopping lunch of a Pret turkey sandwich.

'Either side of the crowded dirty street the lights were coming out in the shop windows. Snow fingered their faces like cold feathers. They went gay. They bought red, green, yellow, and solferino candles in a box for a shilling at an ironmongers, they bought red and gold cake frill for sixpence at a cash drug stores, and two boxes of fancy notepaper and two pairs of gloves at a drapers. They bought oranges, and chocolate mice, and soap babies, and penny whistles for the stockings...' Elizabeth Cambridge Hostages to Fortune

gifts

Are you an organised buy gifts in advance person or do you like to save it for nearer the time?

sitting in the garden

One flower bed is looking especially gorgeous this summer. I think it might be something to do with an abundance of foxgloves.

"They were sitting in the garden. The acacia, after dying back twice, had recovered and was full of milky flowers. The borders had thrown up blue and white spikes of lupin, white foxgloves and bell flowers." Elizabeth Cambridge Hostages to Fortune

sitting 

Perhaps sitting admiring the garden is another criterion for a beautiful day?

bookshop to bookshop

After a delightful Friday evening mooching in Daunt Books, spending my birthday book money, and a little bit more. I was fortunate to buy two of the lovely Daunt Books published books Illyrian Spring by Ann Bridge and Favourite of the Gods by Sybille Bedford. I was looking out for these but the cover of Mrs Bridge by Evan S. Connell tempted me and so another book was bought.


"Afterwards they would walk from bookshop to bookshop, and they knew them all, considering the books which, one day, they were going to buy. The very look and smell of them was fascinating, their clean wrappers, the exciting reds, the sombre blues and rich browns. There was a bookshop smell, too - a smell of old settled dust, watered down in layers, printer's ink, and a taint of glue. They would stand close together, looking in through the window .
'We'll have that some day..and that...' 
'We must get it in a really good edition,' William would add. 'I like a book that opens decently and has good clear print. I never feel the same about a book I've read in a cheap edition.'
'I'd sooner have a cheap edition than no edition at all,' Catherine would argue." Elizabeth Cambridge Hostages to Fortune

bookshelf

Are you a Catherine or William as far as books are concerned?

Pastry was made with your hands

There are lots of times in our house when I think of the women before who lived here. Often when reading books I wonder about who lived here when the character I'm reading was alive. There are a few times when I feel more connected to these women of yesterday, one when I'm scrubbing the tiles on our kitchen floor and another when I'm making pastry, by hand. These seem to be tasks that haven't changed through the ages.

'...she knew where the jam was kept and how to tie it down. She knew that bread was kept in the earthenware pan, smelling rather like a flower-pot, in the larder, cake in a tin in the cupboard. She knew that salt and eggs both made silver go a queer colour, that pastry was made with your hands and cake with a wooden spoon. She liked the hot smell of the oven, part grease, part warm metal, when the door was opened to put the pastry in. She loved the smell of rising bread, and of bread hot out of the oven, the queer, ether smell of steaming potatoes and the flat wash day smell of boiled pudding.' Elizabeth Cambridge Hostages of Fortune

kitchen

Whom do you imagine having lived in your home before?

Shone with gold and white

Having spent a lovely few hours in the garden this weekend. 

This passage is perfect for Warmth and I.

'In May the fruit trees and the crocuses and the daffodils all flowered together. The garden shone with gold and white. Little debased violets bloomed in the roots of the box borders and around the trunks of the pear trees. The old gnarled trees themselves were crowded with masses of white flowers with pink stamens. Blood-red spears of peonies broke the soil. The beds were full of plants that Catherine and William could not recognise. The weeds came up too.' 

Elizabeth Cambridge Hostages to Fortune

flower

I think someone should invent a flower equivalent of Shazam where you take a photograph of an unfamiliar flower and it tells you all about it. I'm currently trying to work out whether certain somethings are flower or weed in our garden. As there are two of these flower/weeds in the garden I've kept one and dug another up. 

The glory of May

'Slowly, laboriously, the years swung through the cycle of the seasons, crawling up to April, tumbling over into the glory of May, waning, falling away like a dead leaf, and leaving behind them as little impression as is made by a leaf's fall. Catherine wondered that so much trouble should have so little result.
The same tomorrow, and the day after that, the same next spring, next autumn, next year, the year after next.' Elizabeth Cambridge Hostages to Fortune

glorious outside drinks

After our wet April here's hoping to a glorious May. 

What do you have planned? 

Hoary with blossom

I'm still in the wonder of blossom.

'As she stood up to go she looked out at the stretch of garden behind the cottage. The newly turned earth was studded with green plants, against the spring sky a plum tree stood up hoary with blossom. Irene's mother looked at the tree and her blue eyes took on a deeper colour.
'It's a wonder, isn't it?' she said. 'When I go up the garden to shake it, so as the blossom shall set, I could fair worship it.' Elizabeth Cambridge Hostages to fortune

blossom

Living in a new area I'm continuously being surprised by new trees giving out their beautiful blossoms. I keep looking at what's happening to the trees after the blossom.  I could fair worship blossom.

Fairies Poached Eggs

Whilst walking around Ham House the other weekend, as one does, the lawn was awash with daisies. I knew I'd read a good daisy quote recently.

"Audrey squatted down on the grass at Catherine's feet...amongst the green blades, her fingers picking the flowers neatly up and dropping them into the water...
'Fairies poached eggs!' she said, pointing to the floating daisies." Hostages to Fortune Elizabeth Cambridge

daisy

Now to try and place this in a sentence this summer....