sad Andromache

Yes the boxes of school files keeps coming. Scribbled in the corner of an 'A' Level Classical Civilization file was this poem. I remember it and so am now storing it here for safe keeping.

Parting in war time Frances Cornford

How long ago Hector took off his plume,

Not wanting that his little sons should cry

Then kissed his sad Andromache goodbye -

And now we three in Euston waiting room.

goodbye

Golden Afternoons

We may have just come home from a wonderful time in Berlin but... Who can resist a quote by Gabriel Garcia Marquez about Paris, love and autumn?

'In Paris, strolling arm in arm with a casual sweetheart through a late autumn, it seemed impossible to imagine a purer happiness than those golden afternoons, with the woody odor of chestnuts on the braziers, the languid accordions, the insatiable lovers kissing in the open terraces...' Gabriel Garcia Marquez Love in the time of cholera

Where would you like to be strolling this weekend?

paris

Just Talking

I'm getting ready for Persephone Reading Weekend hosted by Verity and Clare and was reminded of this quote. It seems fitting as Warmth and I both have the week off work to spend together in London.

'But - but if you can get so interested in a conversation with someone you're in love with that you forget about wanting to kiss them, then - well then it looks as if you're safe to go ahead...
She thought of the dozens of married couples she knew, who were apparently quite happy... but who never seemed to want to be alone together. Society was made up of people like that, she thought; people who had to run around and go to parties and be constantly surrounded by other people; couples who, if they were alone, would even turn the wireless rather than face the prospect of just talking. And yet life was not long enough, no time could be too long, to talk to someone whose mind answered your mind, so that conversation was like a double set of thoughts, carrying each other along indefinately...
I don't mean that a perfect marriage consists of endless conversations! I only meant that the thought of endless conversation wouldn't be a sort of bugbear. And, of course, one would want to run around and do things with other people sometimes. But the best part of the party would be the drive home!'
Jocelyn Playfair A House in the Country

talking

We went to a great party on Saturday night and yes - the best part of it was travelling home together - discussing the evening.

A Kiss of Tenderness

'And the lutenist understands that this is what she wants, not a kiss of tenderness, not an insubstatial caress, but the kiss which is all-consuming, which marks an ending of all that has been and the beginning of all that is to come.' Rose Tremain Music and Silence

kissing
Happy St. Valentine's Day x

I hear your name

This post started out being about my name. My two names written in the front cover of A Room With A View, the fact that after this holiday I shall get round to changing my name on my passport. And so this poem would be used. But.... it changed. Reading this poem in the light of the novel I could just imagine George saying Lucy's name over and over again.
So, this poem is for George and Lucy.

Name

When did your name
change from a proper noun
to a charm?

Its three vowels
like jewels
on the thread of my breath.

Its consonants
brushing my mouth
like a kiss.

I love your name.
I say it again and again
.............

I pray it
into the night
till its letters are light.

I hear your name
rhyming, rhyming,
rhyming with everything.

Carol Ann Duffy

name

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

Know me, look at me

Warmth wanted to read a new book. He wanted suggestions. I suggested Suite Francaise. He loved it. It's brought back my memories. He cried on the tube at the end. That's one of the many reasons I love him.

'Not a word of their true feelings was spoken; they didn't kiss. There was simply silence. Silence followed by feverish passionate conversations about their own countries, their families, music, books... They felt a strange happiness, an urgent need to reveal their hearts to each other - the urgency of lovers, which is already a gift, the very first one, the gift of the soul before the body surrenders. Know me, look at me. This is who I am. This is how I have lived, this is what I have loved. And you? What about you my darling?' Irene Nemirovsky Suite Francaise

lovers

A Whirlpool of Kissing

'There was such an incredible logic to kissing, such a metal-to-magnet pull between two people that it was a wonder that they found the strength to prevent themselves from succumbing every second. Rightfully, the world should be a whirlpool of kissing into which we sank and never found the strength to rise up again.' Ann Patchett Bel Canto

eternal kissing

from here to eternity

loveandlavender

Doiseneau

A White Rose

Discovering these wonderful white roses by Zoe Bradley reminded me of this poem.

'The red rose whispers of passion,
And the white rose breathes of love;
O the red rose is a falcon,
And the white rose is a dove.

But I send you a cream-white rosebud

With a flush on its petal tips;

For the love that is purest and sweetest

Has a kiss of desire on the lips.'

John Boyle O'Reilly 1844-1890

I do love roses, so much so that I knew they'd be the flowers for our wedding. Cream white rose but with a flush on its tips so well describes them. The time I really love roses is when they're just about to fade and wither. There's something even more delicate and precious about them. Is that unusual?

A Temporary Madness

'Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body... Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away... We had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.'

Louis de Bernieres Captain Corelli's Mandolin

Happy Anniversary to our dear friends who were married this day last year and used this quotation.