full of light and silver

Are you enjoying the new series of Downton Abbey? Sunday evenings once more have a rhythm to them.

'I must agree with you when you speak of beautiful furniture. Who does not enjoy food upon shining tables with glass full of light and silver - Ah! ....'the sensation of the fingers of a well-polished silver-spoon!'
...
'But,' he said dramatically, 'what shall happen when the tables no longer shine, when those who clean them are taken from you and there is no time to sit and polish spoons?'... 
'Then how terrible to see the table dull, to see, perhaps scratches, to know you cannot preserve the beauty you enjoy, because there is no time in the day for so much. No, no,' he went on, 'that shall not happen, that must not. Silver and shining mahogany and bright glass must remain in memory beautiful, and not be seen in actuality smeared and unkept. I like better to have this table' - he smote the deal with vigour - 'which is so clean, and to see my good friend en casserole, rather than to have it made lordly and perhaps cold in a silver dish not well cleaned!' Jocelyn Playfair A house in the country

kitchen

I think this story line might be one hear more of this season. 

faded penciled notes

One of the books I've enjoyed having the time to read this holiday is Mrs Bridge. But oh my the ending. This passage has been me this week enjoying preparing for aunt Violet and my parents for lunch today and then friends for supper this evening.

"...she went to the cupboard where the old recipe books were stored.... Mrs Bridge began looking through them, seeing pencil notations in her own handwriting, scarcely legible anymore. Her husband liked more pepper in this, no bay leaves in that - whatever he wanted and whatever he did not like was expertly registered in the margins, and as she turned through these recipes she thought how strangely intimate the faded penciled notes remained; they brought back many scenes, many sweet and private memories; they brought back youth." Evan S. Connell Mrs Bridge

kitchen

My recipes books do have faded and splattered pencil notes in them, about who they've been cooked for, whether they were adapted, how they turned out. They do not have any comments about how Warmth likes his food though!

toast-drinking

Whilst away I read The Paris Wife by Paula McLain about Hadley Richardson, Ernest Hemingway's first wife. It's made me look out my copy of Fiesta:The Sun Also Rises to see which pages are turned down.

'I say that is wine,' Brett held up her glass. 'We ought to toast something. "Here's to royalty".'
'This wine is too good for toast-drinking, my dear. You don't want to mix emotions up with wine like that. You lose the taste.' Ernest Hemingway Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises

toast

Do you like emotions with your drink? I know I want to mix memories with my drink, so I think that means I want emotions with it? 

Wash you ashore

Reflecting on the previous post being a young woman waiting for love and continuing to mull on the emotions and stories remembered through sorting letters from the years. I'm thinking quite a lot about memories.

'He knew that memory was as uncertain in its behaviour as the sea; it could wash you ashore on any old forgotten beach;' Rose Tremain The beauty of the dawn shift in The darkness of Wallis Simpson

Thankfully I've now been washed back to the present shore.

memory

Certain Moments

In amongst all these letters are quotes and poems sent to me, mainly from mum. A quote in a card sent from Twin when nursing a broken heart in 2001.

'For a while she [Mrs Morel] could not control her consciousness; mechanically she went over the last scene, then over it again, certain phrases, certain moments coming each time like a brand red hot down on her soul; and each time she enacted again the past hour, each time the brand came down at the same points, till the mark was burnt in, and the pain burnt in, and at last she came to herself.' D.H. Lawrence Sons and Lovers
love

A proper letter

Last time I saw mum she raved about this book. She lent me her copy. I loved it so much I now want my own. At the same time mum also made sure all the letters I've been storing at home are now here with us. I am currently trying to go through over 20years of letters. Wish me luck as I try to decide which to throw and which to keep. So, as well as loving this passage it also seemed relevant. Thinking about all the different papers used to write these many letters.

"Nonetheless, as she read them over and over, she forgot for a moment where she was and she could picture her mother in the kitchen taking her Basildon Bond notepad and her envelopes and setting out to write a proper letter with nothing crossed out. Rose, she thought, might have gone into the dining room to write on paper she had taken home from work, using a longer, more elegant white envelope than her mother had. " Colm Toibin Brooklyn
letters

Have you read Brooklyn? If you have what did you feel/think? If you haven't please do and then write about it so I can think about it more.

Eyes surfeited with beauty

I'm enjoying reading Ripening Seed by Colette for passages like this. Although it is making me want to be on holiday, by the coast, in France.

'An off-shore breeze wafted the scent of the new-mown after-crop, farmyard smells, and the fragrance of bruised mint: little by little, along the level of the sea a dusty pink was usurping the domain of blue unchallenged since the early morning. Phillippe did not know how to express such a thought as: 'All too few are the occasions in life when with mind content, eyes surfeited with beauty, heart light, retentive, and almost empty, there comes a moment for the senses to be filled to overflowing: I shall remember this as just such a moment.' Colette Ripening SeedWhat moments are you remembering this month?

Regretting Rien

As well as collecting quotes from novels in my note books there are also a few from newspaper articles. This one is from The Times (2oth November 1999)

Alan Jackson: "And when you look back at your life, meanwhile, are you Frank Sinatra-ish 'Regrets? I've has a few.' Or do you come down on Edith Piaf's side, regretting rien?"

Qunetin Crisp: "Dear boy, you can only regret things if you turned down alternatives. Why did I marry such an awful woman when I had the chance of this one or that? Why did I stay so long in this dreary job instead of taking the offer of that one? ...No alternatives, and so nothing to regret."
Edith Piaf

Are you Sinatra or Piaf?

String My Thoughts Together

Another lady, in some ways very different to Lady Slane but in her memories a little similiar. I really enjoyed reading, or rather devouring a couple of train journeyseant it was swallowed up rather quickly, my second DE Stevenson - Mrs Tim of the regiment. This passage slightly sums it up, and is also the diary entry for my birthday.


'...a blessed feeling of idleness encompasses my soul....
My thoughts drift across the garden and hang upon the trees like fairy lights, or curl upwards and vanish like the smoke of Burnside chimney. I can take a thought from the cupboard of my memory - just as I take a dress from my wardrobe - give it a little shake and put it on, or fold it away.
... How nice it is to lie here in blameness idleness, and let these vagrant memories flow through my body like a cool stream!
Somewhere in the world there must be a formula (am I trembling upon the edge of it now?) which, could I but grasp it, would reveal to me the Secret of the Universe. For there must be a secret, of course; the world would never roll over and over on its way through Time and Space if everyone's thoughts were as vagrant and purposeless as mine. This secret, once known, would string my thoughts together like a necklace of pearls.
But where to look for the secret - where to find it? Those mountains, dreaming so peacefully in the sunshine - do they possess it? ...Shall I find it in the swallow's jagged flight, as it darts across the garden in pursuit of flies? Shall I find it in the call of the cuckoo, echoing sadly from the pine-clad hills? Or is it hidden deep in the hearts of human beings - a piece here and a piece there - so that if you could find all the pieces and fit them together, the puzzle would be complete? But the hearts of humans beings are so difficult to find...' DE Stevenson Mrs Tim and the Regiment

idleness

Where does the secret lie for you?

The Kitchen

Alot of the talking and thinking happens in the kitchen in A House in the Country.

"Cressida Chance, alone in the kitchen, slammed the oven door, filled a kettle and put it on the boiling-plate of the stove, scattered cups and saucers and plates on the big table at one side of the room and fetched bread and butter and homey from the larder."

are so happy

"The kettle began to sing on the cooker but memory would not be stopped."

"It is my experience,"... "that in the kitchen you make friends; in the drawing-room you make conversation."

it's mary ruffle

"If a kitchen is not homely it has lost its soul!"

Are so happy
Discussing women and cooking

"Hard? No!" he exclaimed brightly. 'It is a question of fashion only! When cooking shall become the fashion, of more effect than a new hat or a new shade of lipstick, then there will not be so many who hate it!'

What are your thoughts?

Seasonal Roar

"Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning... Consider the kitchen of a spreading old house in a country town. A great black stove is its main feature; but there is also a big round table and a fireplace with two rocking chairs placed in front of it. Just today the fireplace commenced its seasonal roar...
It's always the same: a morning arrives in November, and my friend, as though officially inaugurating the Christmas time of year that exhilarates her imagination and fuels the blaze of her heart, announces: 'It's fruitcake weather! Fetch our buggy. Help me find my hat.' Truman Capote A Christmas Memory

kitchen

Dr. Zhivago

I'm joining in with the group read at Nonsuch Books.

I've seen the film many times but this is my first time of reading Dr. Zhivago. As ever when it's this way round I'm trying to make sense of the book with film thoughts often clouding in. The first time this happened was on reading

'Her [Lara] dark hair was scattered...'

but no this is Lara Antipov

Suddenly reading

'he owned an enormous estate in the Urals, near Yuryatin;'

'Yuryatin' a word which ones hears so much in the film and to suddenly see the word leap off the page sends shiver through me.

My main thought is from having read JoAnn's post on translation I'm wondering if I should be carrying the new hardback version around. Especially as I love collecting passages I feel I'm so missing out. I'm now reading it thinking "I wonder how this was translated in the new version?" At least I have a great reason to re buy (especially as I don't like the front cover but that's a whole other story) and re read Dr. Zhivago.

As this is the beginning of Dr. Zhivago group read I thought I'd end this post with.

"All these people were there, together, in this one place. But some of them had never known each other, while others failed to recognise each other now. And there were things about them which were never to be known for certain, while others were only to await another opportunity in order to reveal themselves." Boris Pasternak Dr.Zhivago (Tr.Max Hayward & Manya Harari)

How is this passage in your translation?

And Yet The Books

Today is National Poetry Day and so there had to be a poem....

And Yet the Books

And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,
That appeared once, still wet
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,
And, touched, coddled, began to live
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion.
"We are," they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it's still a strange pageant,
Women's dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.

Czeslaw Milosz

@

I don't fully understand this, but that's what I like about poetry.

Happy National Poetry Day.

Fools for Memory

On Sunday we visited Tate Modern and the Exposed exhibition.

I loved the series of photographs by Harry Callahan 'Women lost in thought'.

Harry Callahan 'Women lost in thought' series. Tate Modern Exposed

'You know that we women are such fools for memory; I declare we do walk backwards through life, with our faces turned towards the past.'

Rose Tremain Music and Silence

These past few weeks that's really been me, onto the present now.

As I re read this quote though it puzzles me. Do you think it's only women who are 'fools for memory'? I'm not sure. I know I am but I don't think it's because I'm a woman. How about you?

Bathroom of the Vanities

Warmth bought me Christopher Reid's A Scattering for my birthday, it's a collection of poems he wrote after his wife died. Here's part of my favourite one, which seems appropriate as we pack up our flat. Thankfully we're packing up under very different circumstances to this poem.

Bathroom of the Vanities

The model mask, the mannequin moue,

the face I loved to catch her pulling

after sundry perfecting dabs

and micro-adjustments in front of the mirror

will never be seen, by me or the mirror, again.

......

Odd bottles in an orderly queue -

Issey Miyake, Parum, Tea Rose, the eternal billing

doves of L'Air du Temps - keep their caps

on, converse their last drops of essence and aura

and wait for no one.

Christopher Reid

@

How poignant thinking about all our lotions, potions, scents which we will leave behind.

The memories scents evoke...

Believing

So this time last year I journeyed off by myself to collect my wedding dress. I didn't realise how emotional it would be. Walking out of the shop carrying my dress - I was about to get married. Wow. This was so right. I realised that I'd always hoped to marry but I'm not sure I let myself believe I would. There's a limit to how many times friends can say 'Of course you'll meet someone' and then you don't, and then you do but it doesn't last, and then you don't and then you do - and this time it grows and lasts and you're about to be walking down the aisle to the man you love.

'She had never really believed that it would work out happily; she had hoped, but she had not believed.' Sebastian Faulks Charlotte Gray

@

I believe in Pink

So this time last year it was my very very lovely hen night. I think you know by now how important my girlfriends are to me so this was an extra special day. Being a quote and gift girl and by way of saying 'Thank you for your continued friendship' and because the theme was 'pink', a truly favourite colour of mine. I decided to give each dear friend a single pink rose, a cherry cupcake recipe and this quotation..

"I believe in pink. I believe that laughing
is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing,
kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when
everything seems to be going wrong. I believe
that happy girls are the prettiest girls.
I believe that tomorrow is another day
and I believe in miracles."

Audrey Hepburn

We met for afternoon tea here.

My what delicious food, pink champagne, friendship we had...

And then a red velvet cake.... with heart sparklers

Peonies - my favourite flower in teapots...

After eating loads, drinking lots of pink champagne we left with a goodie bag and went to a private room at The Perseverance for more fizz, food and friendship.

Thank you for a lovely evening x

That's a story dress

'That's a story dress.'
F.Scott Fitzgerald

When I first thought about using this quote I'd imagined a picture of a fantastic dress, maybe one of Vivienne Westwood's creations. And then over at HipHip GinGin I saw this dress by Bibhu Mohapatra. Now this is a story dress. And why? It will be worn on so many occasions. To dear friends' weddings, maybe out on a date, to the theatre, pretty much anytime of year. On the French Riviera where this novel is set. It will be worn many times and so there will be so many stories attached to that dress.

It's a story dress.

What's your story dress?

History of the world in 100 objects

The British Museum and Radio Four are in the middle of a series called 'The History of the World in a 100 Objects'. I was baking my birthday picnic cakes, using my Grandmother's electric hand mixer, whilst listening to this programme and it made me think. Firstly about the family history behind that object. Was it the first one my Grandmother had? What difference did it make to her baking life? All the thoughts and cakes, hopes and dreams that happened with it. This would be especially true with Granny as she shows her love through baking. And when she became too old to bake, I was just beginning and so inherited it. I still use it. I treasure it even more that she's frail, her memory is disappearing she's still Granny but oh so different.
So it holds great family history. However it holds social history too. It's brown and a 'Curry's' home brand. And yet it also holds world history. On the side it says 'Made in Yugoslavia'.

So, although I may lust over a kitchen aid

I shall remain faithful to Granny's.

What object holds history for you?

Wedding Memories

'Memories do not come leaping to order...they are evoked by a smell, a glimpse of colour, a tone of voice, a note of music.' Mary Wesley The Vacillations of Poppy Carew

Summer is coming and with it the memories of last summer. The preparations for our wedding, our marriage, our life together. And they're not leaping to order.

The scent of the sun reminds me of the day.

The clothes remind of preparing and honeymoon. Summer shoes the places I walked to.

source

The perfume I was given as a gift reminds me of the preparations. Coco Mademoiselle reminds me of the day.

source

There might be a few wedding memory posts coming up. Well I do have all the fantastic passages we knew, found and didn't use.