Bath I: paradise

A big house at the top of a hill overlooking Bath. Almost too beautiful to believe. A drawing room, a garden speckled with pink and purple flowers, a tunnel of gently fragrant wisteria. Bacon for breakfast, a four poster bed, Molton Brown in the bathroom, fresh milk and proper sugar cubes. It was a 21st birthday celebration, a present from my mum, and we were spoilt rotten.

Black swans and paintboxes

I took lots of photos when we went to visit Chartwell, a National Trust house & gardens once owned and lived in by Winston Churchill. Lots of photos of the gardens, which were lovely. Early autumn purples, a huge vegetable garden complete with sleepy hens, rolling lawns landscaped to hide the house and make you feel far away from everything. Black swans sitting by a lake.

The house itself, design-wise, wasn't completely to my taste (nor was the overpowering ivy vined wallpaper covering the whole of the upstairs landing). But, being nosy and obsessed with other peoples homes, I still loved exploring all the rooms, particularly liking all the 1930s kitchenware and - bizarrely - one of those old trellis-y lifts. Preserved interiors are fascinating, especially from that sort of era - not quite four poster beds and chamberpots, but not quite modern either. I kept imagining what the house would look like had it not been preserved, and had been updated as the decades moved on.   

In buildings set apart from the house Churchill had his art studio which was crammed floor to ceiling with his paintings - yes, as well as leading the country and being a great writer & orator he was also a pretty good painter. In fact the visit really inspired me to pick up my brushes again. I loved this quote from Churchill:

"We must not be too ambitious. We cannot aspire to masterpieces. We may content ourselves with
a joy ride in a paintbox."

River Cottage for lunch

Food in order of photographs: selection of homemade breads & butter; sugarsnaps, hazelnut pesto & toasted almonds; wild boar burger, foccacia bun, homemade ketchup & chips;  smoked wild boar tenderloin, blackberries & Trill leaf; chocolate brownie, praline & ice cream.


So there's this guy called Hugh who wears black-framed specs and is a bit of a foodie. Once upon a time he ventured into the depths of Devon in search of a better, more self-sustaining lifestyle. He moved into a former gamekeeper's lodge called River Cottage and began growing and rearing his own, turning his produce into delicious meals. A few years (ok, a decade and a half) later and River Cottage isn't just a cottage with a vegetable patch any more, it's grown into many projects, from books to television series to canteens and delis. But everything is still centred around the same belief in locally sourced food. Which makes sense really - the fresher the food, the better it tastes (especially if Hugh has a hand in the cooking).

We found this out back in August when we went to the River Cottage canteen in Axminster to encounter a very tasty lunch. Wild boar burgers. Focaccia bread. Delicious homemade butter - and I hate butter. Hazelnut pesto, fresh greens, blackberries. And a really gooey wodge of chocolate brownie.

River Cottage may have become a bit of a business enterprise, but it's one with its heart in the right place. If you find yourself in that part of the country, go to the canteen. And you'll remember how good a humble homegrown vegetable can be.

A month of snapshots

Lots of rainy days to be had. I can't wait for some sunshine, but there is something lovely about pottering around at home while the rain is tumbling past the windows. Jugs of fresh flowers everywhere to remind myself it's still summer. Making my room as cosy as possible. Venturing out for coffee sometimes. Learning how to use a sewing machine and making myself a skirt.

It doesn't always rain. Catching the warmth of the sun on flowers when I'm out and about, a happy remembrance that it is summer. Days and days of cloud and rain make those moments of sunshine all the sweeter.

Last weekend I saw Bruce Springsteen perform in Hyde Park. The clouds parted for a little while just as he came on stage to perform a beautiful acoustic Thunder Road. Then later, the rain rolled in again, but it didn't matter. We danced through a torrential downpour. Bruce is amazing. The show was brilliant (despite the now infamous sound switch-off at the end - a terrible decision, even if I think Paul McCartney is a bit awful). Those are my boots pre-show and post-show. Things got a bit muddy.

Before the show, we caught the Tube to Tower Bridge to see the Olympic rings and the Shard. I have to confess I'm not hugely excited for the Olympics, but I do think the rings look good. The Shard on the other hand... not a fan!

Q&A: books

Last week Rosie tagged me in a lovely Q&A all about books, and being the bookworm I am I couldn't resist taking part. This post feels very fitting on a wet and windy Sunday - the perfect conditions for losing yourself in a book. Warning: it's a long'un!

The rules:

1. Post these rules

2. Post a photo of your favourite book cover

3. Answer the questions below

4. Tag a few people to answer them too

5. Go to their blog/twitter and tell them you've tagged them

6. Make sure you tell the person who tagged you that you've taken part!

I tag Louise, Jessica, and anybody else who is reading this and is tempted to take part. Don't forget to let me know if you do complete it as I'm all for sharing the book love.  

I have lots of favourite book covers but I chose this one as it's the inspiration behind the name of this blog. This book is from a secondhand shop and is really old - it has a bookplate that reads 'Strictford Congregational SS - Awarded to Mary Hunter for Regular Punctual Attendance, December 29th 1914'. I love finding books that come with these little pieces of history - handwritten bookplates, personal messages, dedications (the best one found in an old Steinbeck - "To Pat, For all the words you thought I couldn't say, with love, The Twit"). A feature that could never be found on a Kindle...

What are you reading right now?

I’m reading Claudine in Paris - Colette. It's about a seventeen year old girl starting a new life in Paris and her observations of the city. I've only just started it, but it's very readable so far...

Do you have any idea what you’ll read when you’re done with that?

The other weekend I did something I haven’t done in years and went to the library. I had a long browse along the shelves and emerged with a stack of books, just like I’d do on a Saturday morning aged ten. So the books on my pile to read next include:
Possession - AS Byatt

Heart Songs - Annie Proulx
A Gathering Light - Jennifer Donnelly

What 5 books have you always wanted to read but haven’t got round to?

Dombey and Son – Charles Dickens

To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

Tender is the Night - F Scott Fitzgerald

Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
The Perks of Being a Wallflower - Stephen Chbosky

What magazines do you have in your bathroom/lounge right now?

Country Living, Vogue and the Observer Food Monthly – sums me up!

What’s the worst book you've ever read?

I remember when I was about twelve and was staying in a B&B on the west coast of Ireland. I’d exhausted my own book supply and had to go ferreting through the shelf of old books left by guests. I picked up a Mills and Boon novel, not really knowing what it was. And it was awful.

What book seems really popular but you actually hated?

The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards. I didn't hate it, just thought it wasn't very well written.

What’s the one book you always recommend to just about everyone?

I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith, because it’s a book I’m completely and utterly in love with.

What are your 3 favourite poems?

All really common choices; I need to read more poetry!

The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock - TS Eliot

in Just-spring - ee cummings

Ode to a Nightingale - Keats

Where do you usually get your books?

One of my aunts is a writer and has contributed to much of my ‘library’ with secondhand novels she’s recommended and the stack of books I’d get every birthday.The rest come from charity shops or Amazon. I think the prices in most bookshops are absurd so I only buy a new book if it’s a favourite, a special edition, or a recipe book.

Where do you usually read your books?

In bed, just before I go to sleep. I also love lying in the garden in the summer sunshine with a novel and a glass of iced tea!

When you were little, did you have any particular reading habits?

Nothing particular - I just read a lot. On the sofa, in the bath, in bed, after school, over my bowl of Ready Brek in the mornings, over my dinner in the evenings, and sometimes curled in a duvet in the cupboard under the stairs (when I wanted some peace and quiet or was pretending to be Harry Potter)

What’s the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn’t put it down?

The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins, which Rosie is now reading! Apparently even Thackeray pulled an all-nighter because he couldn’t stop turning the pages, so I’m not alone.

Have you ever “faked” reading a book?

I don’t think so, although there were some books I skim read for GCSE/A level because I didn’t like them.

Have you ever bought a book just because you liked the cover?

Yes – not novels but vintage books and illustrated childrens books I find inspiring.

What was your favourite book when you were a child?

Anything by Roald Dahl or Enid Blyton. I longed to be the sixth member of the Famous Five and roam sandy beaches drinking ginger beer all day... And when I was really young, there was a book called Each Peach Pear Plum which I think my parents could probably recite by heart, they read it to me so often. “Each peach pear plum, I spy Tom Thumb...”

What book changed your life?

I’ve read a lot books in my twenty years, but I don’t think a book has changed my life, not yet

What is your favourite passage from a book?

 O lord this question could be pondered over for hours! I love this passage from I Capture the Castle:

“He stood staring into the wood for a minute, then said: "What is it about the English countryside — why is the beauty so much more than visual? Why does it touch one so?"

He sounded faintly sad. Perhaps he finds beauty saddening — I do myself sometimes. Once when I was quite little I asked father why this was and he explained that it was due to our knowledge of beauty's evanescence, which reminds us that we ourselves shall die. Then he said I was probably too young to understand him; but I understood perfectly.”

What are your top five favourite authors?

Nigel Slater – not strictly an author but his food writing is amazing

John Steinbeck
Roald Dahl
F Scott Fitzgerald
Laurie Lee

What book has no one heard about but should read?

Emotionally Weird - Kate Atkinson. It's often found shunted to the back of charity shop shelves but is an unusual and brilliant book. It's like nothing I've ever read and there is something so nostalgic about her descriptions of university life in 1970s Dundee, and a summer on a remote wind-battered Scottish island.

What 3 books are you an “evangelist” for?

I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith

The Summer Book - Tove Jansson
Granpa - John Burningham (the most beautifully-illustrated, heart-warming, touching and saddest childrens book there ever was)

What are your favourite books by a first-time author?

The Outsiders – SE Hinton

What is your favourite classic book?

Most of the books mentioned in this post are probably seen as classics. Also love Oliver Twist - Dickens, Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte and The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald.

5 other notable mentions?

Toast - Nigel Slater (an amazing mix of autobiography and food writing)

Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons (just brilliant)

The Country Girls - Edna O'Brien (a wonderful, funny coming of age story set in 1950s Ireland)

Le Petit Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupery (who doesn't love this book)

The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (a perfect spring story for all fans of the outdoors)

I'll always be a big reader. I nearly went to university to study English, until I realised I didn't want to study books - I wanted to read and enjoy them. It's one of the nicest pleasures in life to curl up with a book and a cup of coffee; you can forget about your own life and worries for a couple of hours, or maybe discover that somebody has described perfectly your own feelings and experiences, or just enjoy the ability to visit other places and other times.

I'll end with a quote from one of my favourite plays/films, The History Boys:

"The best moments in reading are when you come across something — a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things — that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it's as if a hand has come out and taken yours."

 
And, very importantly, as John Waters said, "If you go home with somebody and they don't have books, don't f*** them."

that christmas tree smell

 

Last Sunday we donned Santa hats, played Christmas crooners ("let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...") and rummaged in the huge box of tree decorations all afternoon. That box is like concentrated nostalgia for me, the contents ranging from decorations crafted by mine and my brother's chubby 5 year old hands, to ones bought last week. Tree decorating always feels special, and once the tree's up I don't have any Scrooge moments. Just seeing the tree lights twinkling in the corner and catching the Christmas tree smell (I'd never get a fake tree) gives me that surge of childish excitedness. Christmas!!

The festivities extended around the house - cards hung with ribbon like bunting, a Christmas wreath in the hallway, new lights in my bedroom, and a stag cushion from Primark which only cost me £3!

When did you put your tree up? If you've got photos, link me to them - I love looking at other people's trees!

Happy advent!

 

It's December! And the above is what I came downstairs to this morning, to my great excitement. You're never too old for a chocolate advent calendar! I have the same one every year - big sucker for vintage Christmas graphics. My brother and I were of course studying the Where's Wally calendar closely over our cereal - I still haven't found Wally yet.

Flashes of festivity are beginning to appear in my room...

Have a fun first day of advent everybody! I can't wait to put Christmas songs on my iTunes (where they will be horrendously overplayed, naturally) and indulge in Love Actually marathons. And complete my mission of trying every Christmas coffee flavour on the high street.