subsequent eccentricities

'She wore green sandals, which fact in itself is enough to explain any of the subsequent eccentricities in her conduct. Green as a Cornish sea they were, flat as a Cornish beach at low tide, and decorated on the toes with a chaste cut out design.' Stella Gibbons A young man in rags from Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm

Oh to be walking along a Cornish beach with the sand between my toes today...

human history

Travelling by train to Canterbury, swooping along the English countryside and then mooching around our village.

'Great Warby was not a beauty-spot, but it had the charm of an unspoiled English landscape where people have lived for a thousand years and every foot of earth has its human history. Elaine loved the place, she could not think of any other part of the earth as home...' Stella Gibbons Sisters in Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm

home

This is how I feel. Where's your 'part of the earth as home'?

life flows tranquilly

Mother and I had a delightful day in Bath during the holidays. I'll post about it later but first of all this to put us in the mood

'Deltenham, the country town to which colonels and admirals retire on their pensions, stands in a bowl whose sides are green hills. When a visitor gets out of the train at Deltenham he notices at once the difference in the air: it is fresh and cold, and so it should be, blowing down as it does from those flat summits padded with ancient turf.
The town cannot be said to have fallen asleep in 1760, when most of it was built, because, even then, it was not fully awake. To-day , its life flows tranquilly through wide streets, past pale square Anne and Georgian houses, and pastry-cooks' shops, where the ageing daughters of very old generals sit eating eclairs from silver forks, quietly dying into the background of England's history.' Stella Gibbons Golden Vanity in Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm

silver forks

We didn't see any ageing daughters of very old generals but did have a lovely tea and cake to revive us.

moon-mistletoe

We're at a wedding today so 'hang mistletoe in your home' for #shareadvent is perfect. We've yet to decide where to hang the mistletoe we've bought but I do hope there's at least one sprig somewhere at the wedding...

'The long street was packed with people, and there was a feeling of frost in the air, but no stars, only a dense, muffling bed of cloud almost touching the bare beechwoods on the hidden hills all around the town. In the butchers' shops the dangling turkeys were tied up with red ribbon, and hares decorated with spiked bunches of holly and moon-mistletoe..' Stella Gibbons The Little Christmas Tree in Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm

mistletoe