enchanting aromatic foods

'He lay back for a little while in his bed thinking about the smells of food, of the greasy horror of fried fish and the deeply moving smell that came from it; of the intoxicating breath of bakeries and the dullness of buns... He planned dinners of enchanting aromatic foods that should be carried under the nose, snuffed and thrown to the dogs... endless dinners in which one could alternate flavour with flavour from sunset to dawn without satiety, while one breathed great draughts of brandy' Evelyn Waugh Vile Bodies

eating

Whilst I'm typing this out the delightful scent of Julia Child's Coq au vin, as cooked by Warmth is enchantingly floating up the stairs.

Hope you had a weekend of eating delicious food.

And meanwhile

One of the lovely books I read this summer was A Favourite of the Gods by Sybille Bedford re published by Daunt Books.

'Anyhow who is this ideal husband of yours? Where is he?'

'He isn't an ideal husband, he is just a man I should be proud to marry.'

'Have you met him?'

'No. Not even in fiction. I have no idea what he'll be like. But I shall know when we meet.'

'That sounds like love.'

'So much is,' said Constanza.

'And meanwhile, darling, you had better take me.'

'Meanwhile,' she said, 'is for people who do not know when to wait.'

Sybille Bedford A Favourite of the Gods

fiction

Do you have a fictional character you'd like to love, be loved by and spend your life with?

Magic and Lavender

This seems the perfect quote for a Friday when it's Paris in July.


'It was our favourite time of the day, this in-between time, and it always held and seemed to last longer than it should - a magic and lavender space unpinned from the hours around it, between worlds.' Paula McLain The Paris Wife

favourite time

Hope you have some magic and lavender this Friday.

Castles in the air part 2

Thank you for your thoughts on castles in the air - wonderful daydreams. In the final pages of Good Wives the theme of the sisters' castles in the air concludes.


"And yet your life is different from the one you pictured so long ago. Do you remember our castles in the air?" asked Amy
...
"Yes, I remember; but the life I wanted then seems selfish, lonely and cold to me now. I haven't given up the hope that I may write a good book yet, but I can wait, and I'm sure it will be all the better for such experiences... said Jo
...
"My castle was the realized of all. I asked for splendid things, to be sure, but in my heart I knew I should be satisfied, if I had a little home, and John, and some dear children like these." said Meg.


"My castle is very different to from what I planned, but I would not alter it, though, like Jo, I don't relinquish all my artistic hopes, or confine myself to helping others fulfil their dreams of beauty.

daydream

Perhaps our real life is better than our castles in the air.

Castles in the air part 1

Castles in the air

When you read these words what do they mean to you?
I have now read two books this year with references to 'castles in the air'. Half way through writing this post I saw a sign 'Look up to see the castle in the air'. I don't think I'd heard it before, and feel I've slightly missed out. Do you know where it originally comes from? Do you know of any other books that refer to this phrase? Am I being particularly dense and ill read/unknowlegeable in not knowing it? Was it a phrase of a particular era?

In My Brilliant Career written by a very young Australian and published in 1901.
'With aunt Helen, however, I was content anywhere, and build a castle in the air, wherein one day she and I were always to live together - for ever!' Miles Franklin My Brilliant Career

In Little Women (published 1868) there's a whole chapter titled 'Castles in the air'
"Wouldn't it be fun if all the castles in the air which we make could come true, and we could live in them?" Said Jo


Meg "I should like a lovely house, full of all sorts of luxurious things; nice food, pretty clothes, handsome furniture, pleasant people, and heaps of money, I am to be mistress of it, and manage it as I like, with plenty of servants, so I never need work a bit. How I should enjoy it! For I wouldn't be idle, but do good, and make every one love me dearly."

luxurious

Jo "I'd have a stable full of Arabian steeds, rooms piled with books, and I'd write out of a magic inkstand, so that my works should be as famous.... I want to do something splendid before I go into my castle, - something heroic or wonderful, - that won't be forgotten after I'm dead. I don't know what, but I'm on the watch for it, and mean to astonish you all, some day. I think I shall write books, and get rich and famous; that would suit me, so that is my favourite dream."

books

Beth "Mine is to stay at home safe with father and mother, and help take care of the family."

home

Amy "I have lots of wishes; but the pet one is to be an artist, and go to Rome, and do fine pictures, and be the best artist in the whole world,"

Roma

Can you answer my questions?
What would your castle in the air be?

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?

Buying Clothes

I love the changes in season. By about April I'm desperate to be in summer clothes and at this time of year I just want to wrap up all cosy and warm...

Having spent alot of August wallowing in memories here we are thinking about the future...

'Buying clothes is a gesture of optimism about the future...' Linda Grant in Vogue November 1996.

This is what I unattainably daydream of wearing this autumn...

Paul Smith

DKNY

This is what I have bought for autumn.

All Saints

Still on the search for the perfect boots.... these maybe....

Episode

Not forgetting some new winter gloves....
What will you be buying/coveting this autumn?

From Shadow to Sunlight

I've chosen this quote for today as it links to Friday's quote about believing and hopefully the scars do heal...

'One day you find it' repeated Rodolphe; one day, quite suddenly, just when hope seems lost. And the horizon opens up it's like a voice crying 'Behold'. You feel you must tell this person the secrets of your life, give them everything, sacrifice everything for them. Nothing is actually said, you just know. You have seen each other in your dreams. There it is at last, the treasure you have sought so long, there right in front of you; shining, sparkling. Though you still have doubts, you dare not believe it; you stand there dazed, just as if you stepped from shadow to sunlight.' Gustav Flaubert Madame Bovary

sunlight

I have a little bit of a moral dilema. It happens with Anna Karenina too. Saving quotes about passion and love when the couple are having an affair. Hurting others. Does it decrease their love? Or does it just mean that for us the reader, reading it out of context it's bittersweet. And oh I have so many love quotes that are between lovers should I then not use them? What are your thoughts?

Mrs Harris Dreams of Paris

The relaunch of this novel and it being Paris in July meant it had to be read and read now. Which passages spoke most to me? Why the dresses and the flowers. So today it's dresses of the imagination.

'One was a bit of heaven in cream, ivory, lace and chiffon, the other an explosion in crimson satin and taffeta, adorned with great red bows and a huge red flower.'

@

' There was rhyme or reason for it, she would never wear such a creation, there was no place in her life for one. Her reaction was purely feminine. She saw it and she wanted it dreadfully... She could only stand there entralled, rapt, and enchanted, gazing at the dresses...'

Dior Spring 2007
' She was...engrossed in these living creations of silks and taffetas and chiffons in heart-lifting colours...'

@
'...beauty, perfection, the ultimate in adornment that a woman could desire. Mrs Harris was no less a woman than Lady Dant, or any other. She wanted, she wanted, she wanted a dress from what must be surely the most expensive shop in the world, that of Mr Dior in Paris.'

@
' The more she tried to think of other things the more the Dior dress intruded into her conciousness, and she lay there in the darkness, shivering and craving for it.... she could... imagine it hanging there. The colour and the materials kept changing, sometimes she saw it in gold brocade, at other times in pink or crimson satin, or white with ivory laces. But always it was the most beautiful and expensive thing of its kind.'

Dior Spring 2010

One Fine Day

After our glorious sunny weekend it seems apt to be posting this today. When reading this novel the English summer seemed a life time away, but I almost felt like re reading it this weekend as the weather so fitted the weather of One fine Day. It's a short and sweet book which I really enjoyed and found uplifting.
The two words which come to mind when thinking about this book are 'daydreaming' and 'escaping'. Laura goes about her daily life reflecting and reminiscing. To a time before marriage and the war, to during the war, on their life today and to where they might go tomorrow. Laura is aware of her part in society and that her 'easier sort of life has come to an end.' She now has to look after their daughter, whom she dearly loves, shop, cook, wash up. These two passages show some of her feelings to her home.

'Now, said the house to Laura, we are alone together. Now I am yours again...She knew all her house's little voices as she had never done in the old days when there had been more people under her roof.'

'...my day is a feeble woman's day following a domestic chalk line, bound to the tyranny of my house with its voices saying, Clean me, polish me, save me from the spider...It is so long since I measured out a day for myself and said, This is mine, I shall be alone.'

As the story unravels the glimpse at the marriage of Laura and Stephen is touching - in the end I felt that they were right for each other. Her fondness for her daughter. At the end I had the feeling that things would be alright. They would manage. And that would because of their tight knit family unit of three.

My favourite sentence in the novel is about half way through. All the strain of the war and now keeping house means Laura feels she's aged and this is summed up so beautifully when Laura describes the handsome young whom she's asking to garden for them looking at her

'He looked at her amiably, as though she was a nice sofa... She had noticed it young men looked at you as though you were a nice sofa, an article of furniture which they would never be desirous of acquiring.'

source

Never mind when I am old I shall wear purple. When I am old I shall be a chaise longue...

A Little Unique

'And she did not want him to think her quite mad, only a little unique, only containing within her just that measure of the unexpected sufficient to make her irreplaceable.'
Rose Tremain Music and Silence

I've always loved this sentence. Is it something about the female creature? I think it's there in our modern female characters - Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally, Bridget Jones and surely Carrie Bradshaw. But yet isn't it also there in Elizabeth Bennett? We like to be unique - but not too much hence the importance of the word 'little'. If we're too unique who will dig deep enough to get to know us? Will our eccentricity put others off? But a little unique is that something we all desire to be on occasions?
The two things which reminded me of this...
I've been experimenting with perfume and although this next bit is by no means unique, it is unique to Warmth. I've been layering my scent with his Paul Smith. It's not me using his scent, he never wears it, but it's the 'woman wearing a man's scent' thing. And that is also what's appealing about being a little unique - it's different to everyone. My 'little uniqueness' to you is somebody elses 'quite normal'.
Secondly, as we get to know others more we reveal our thoughts, hopes, daydreams and sometimes daft thoughts. That moment of 'What are you thinking?' and it's something really random. Do you pretend it was erudite or do you just think 'Oh let's go with the truth.' Warmth looked at me and laughed when the other day I shared this thought.
'I was so busy thinking about what I was going to wear that I forgot to put my bra on.' What makes this unique for me is not the thinking of what to wear but that I don't have the bust of someone who ever goes without their bra, even in a small flat. What makes it unique to him is that anyone could think of what to wear that much to be forgetful.

So what's your 'little uniqueness' in this world?