Quiet Days

September 15th. - This is the month of quiet days, crimson creepers, and blackberries; of mellow afternoons in the ripening garden; of tea under acacias instead of too shady beeches; of wood fires in the library in chilly evenings. Elizabeth von Arnim Elizabeth and her German Garden

blackberries

How will you be spending these September days and evenings?

oh, those lilac bushes!

16th May - Elizabeth and her German Garden

'-oh, those lilac bushes! They are all out to-day, and the garden is drenched with scent. I have bought in armfuls, the picking is such a delight, and every pot and bowl and tub in the house is filled with purple glory... I go from room to room gazing at the sweetness, and the windows are all flung open so as to join the scent within to the scent without;' Elizabeth von Arnim

wedding flowers

Which scent without would you like to join you within?

White Blossom

Elizabeth and her German Garden begins on the 7th May and within this day we have this quote. No wonder I have so many quotes from this book.

'There are so many bird-cherries round me, great trees with branches sweeping the grass, and they are so wreathed just now with white blossoms the tenderest green that the garden looks like a wedding.' Elizabeth von Arnim Elizabeth and her German Garden

And then I found these beautiful wedding images on Once Wed

Tidy Grace

Alongside blossom I think tulips are the other flower that heralds spring for me.

'The spring boxes for the verandah steps have been filled with pink and white and yellow tulips. I love tulips better than any other spring flower; they are the embodiment of alert cheerfulness and tidy grace... Their faint, delicate scent is refinement itself; and is there anything in the world more charming than the sprightly way they hold up their little faces to the sun? I have heard them called bold and flaunting, but to me they seem modest grace itself, only always on the alert to enjoy life as much as they can and not afraid of looking the sun or anything else above them in the face.' Elizabeth von Arnim Elizabeth and her German Garden

tulips

What heralds spring for you?

Love

After yesterday's post on painful love let's end Virago Week with

our hope for, our experience of a stronger love.

'Christopher loved her with the passion of youth, of imagination, of poetry, of all the fresh beginnings of wonder and worship that have been since Love first lit his torch and made in the darkness a great light.'

Elizabeth von Arnim Love

love

Thank you Carolyn and Rachel for hosting Virago Reading week. I've really enjoyed it.

Refuge and Shelter

"The garden is the place I go to for refuge and shelter, not the house..... out there blessings crowd round me at every step - it is there that I am sorry for the unkindness in me, for those selfish thoughts that are so much worse than they feel, it is there that all my sins and silliness are forgiven, there that I feel protected and at home, and every flower and weed is a friend and every tree a lover. When I have been vexed I run out to them for comfort, and when angry without just cause, it is there that I find absolution.' Elizabeth von Arnim Elizabeth and her English Garden

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Where do you go for refuge and shelter?

Visiting the Library

'When I got to the library I came to a standstill, - ah, the dear room, what happy times I have spent rummaging amongst the books, making plans for my garden, building castles in the air, writing, dreaming, doing nothing.' Elizabeth von Arnim Elizabeth and her Enchanted Garden

I don't think it usually matters what our jobs are but my thoughts for this post came from my job. You may know that I am a teacher. One of things I love about my new job is the link we have with our local library. Every Tuesday at 9.15am 29 four and five year olds in E1 London walk crocodile style to our local library. Once there we browse the books and gradually more and more of the children hopefully have library cards to start a career of borrowing books from a library.

Their library is different to Elizabeth's personal one but I hope that they begin 'building castles in the air' there.

Elizabeth and her German Garden

Somewhere I read a post about 'Elizabeth and her German Garden' and being a great fan of Elizabeth von Arnim I tucked it away in my memoryand then lo and behold there was a copy in a second hand bookshop. Thank you to whomever originally posted about it. It was perfect holiday reading.


' I lived in a world of dandelions and delights. The dandelions carpeted the three lawns... under and among the groups of leafless oaks... were blue hepaticas, white anemones, violets... And then, before I had a little got used to the joy of their flowers against the sky, came the lilacs - masses and masses of them...


the acacias all blossomed too, and four great clumps of pale, silvery-pink peonies flowered under the south windows, I felt so absolutely happy, and blest, and thankful, and grateful, that I really cannot describe it. My days seemed to melt away in a dream of pink and purple peace.' Elizabeth von Arnim Elizabeth and Her German Garden

My days on holiday really did melt away in a dream....

dandelions , anemomes, lilacs, peonies

Admiration

So the last day of April and our last Enchanted April quote.
'It had been funny and delightful, that little interlude of admiration... How warm, though, things like admiration and appreciation made one feel, how capable of really deserving them, how different, how glowing... She still buzzed, she still tingled, just at the remembrance. What fun it had been, having an admirer even for that little while. No wonder people liked admirers. They seemed in some strange way, to make one come alive. Although it was all over she still glowed with it and felt more exhilarated, more optimistic.' Elizabeth von Arnim The Enchanted April

Some beautiful Italian villas to gaze upon, to relax, to make one tingle and glow, to come alive...

To wake from a restful, peaceful sleep with a day ahead of nothing...

Oh to eat a leisurely breakfast with a warm breeze through the doors...

To walk through these cool arches. Whose feet have walked here before me?

To rest in the shade.

To swim in the pool. admire the landscape.

DayDream... Admire...

kitchen and bedroom arch garden pool

Wishing you an Enchanted May too.

Beauty

'Beauty made you love, and love made you beautiful.' Elizabeth von Arnim The Enchanted April
Some beautiful pictures for today.

An early morning sunrise

Sissinghurst - a childhood favourite.

Claridges all set up for dining, drinking, being with friends and family.

Beautiful flowers in the hallway. 'Welcome, we're pleased you're here' they say.

How could we not have 'Beauty'?
A simple empty beach. Who knows where. But then does it matter?
For me, the most beautiful model.

What's beautiful for you?

Sunrise, Sissinghurst, Claridges, flowers, wedding dress, sea and sand, Christy Turlington

The Enchanted April

Have you read this novel? Oh it is Enchanting. It's uplifting and brimming with life. It gives one hope that things will get better. It's about the strength of female friendships and how we so often wish for someone elses life and all along they're wishing for our life. The passage below doesn't necessarily show this but it reflects how we sometimes feel after a relationship has finished. It struck a note with me when I read it. It took a long time to meet Warmth and find that love. Looking through my books of quotations so many are about relationships ending, or maybe not even getting off the ground but they represent my thoughts and hopes, at that stage in life. And the glory of this book? The bigger picture of although these relationships may end life can still be enchanting whoever we share it with, and sometimes it's the surprises in life which bring the greatest moments of happiness.

'How passionately she longed to be important to somebody again – not important on platforms, not important as an asset in an organisation, but privately important, just to one other person, quite privately, nobody else to know or notice. It didn't seem much to ask in a world so crowded with people, just to have one of them, only one out of all the millions to oneself. Somebody who needed one, who thought of one, who was eager to come to one – oh, oh how dreadfully one wanted to be precious.' Elizabeth von Armin The Enchanted Apri

I have a few more favourite passages to post from this truly enchanting book but this is where I'd like to be sitting reading it now.