Tuesday - just to say ...

Just to say that I shall not be able to leave comments for a week, after today, but shall be thinking of you - and have left some cats to mark the days.

HAPPY BLOGGING!

¡Hasta luego!

Sunday Snippet

Heron's Cove

On the balcony at midnight's hour
feeling healing balm of night,
lips tasting depth of darkness,
hearing soft laps of incoming tide licking smooth
humps of speckled rock resting heavy
in a luminous glow of silt beneath;
immersed in that vital salt soak,
forever drinking of a stealing tide creeping and covering
just as darkness touches and claims skin heat
enfolding it in a cool cloak
and night conceals the solitary heron.

Ann Sharples

Friday Furniture for Olga

Furniture finds of my daughter, the woodworm specialist! Especially for Olga as promised.
Two chairs and a bedhead.

Wordless Wednesday

Tuesday Taster

Now, this is not the opening paragraph, but it amuses me. Hope that you, too, are amused:

From, 'The Diary of a Provincial Lady' by E.M. Delafield

'Go up to night-nursery and offer to read Lamb's 'Tales form Shakespeare'. Vicky says she prefers 'Pip, Squeak and Wilfred'. Robin says that he would like 'Gulliver's Travels'. Compromise with 'Grimm's Fairy Tales', although slightly uneasy as to their being in accordance with best modern ideals. Both children take immense interest in story of highly undesirable Person who wins fortune, fame and beautiful Princess by means of lies, violence, and treachery. Feel sure that this must have disasterous effect on both in years to come.'

Sunday Snippet

As I have just finished reading 'The Lantern', I shall share three snippets from it:

'That afternoon, as I left him in the kitchen and went upstairs to the library room, a light switched itself on. One moment, I was on the the twilit stairs, carrying a notebook in one hand and a cup of tea in the other, and the next the room ahead of me was flooded with brightness.
I stopped and listened. No sound.'

'When I smelled that perfume, I was drawn back helplessly into a sunlit world of Maman's flaky almond biscuits with their hint of bitter apricot kernel, earth-like cocoa powder clinging to our bare legs, light, warm winds sifting sugared scents from the kitchen where the orange mirabelles were being bottled; and on, far beyond the aromatic, to the distant sound of the goat bells .....'

'Too late an image flared in my mind: the battered old lantern with the stub of candle burning. The puddle of light on the path. But by then I had been dismissed and was on my way out. I could have turned back and mentioned it. But I didn't.'

These snippets are from 'The Lantern' by Deborah Lawrenson.

I hope that you find the flavour of the novel and the subtlety of the words and the way in which they are used entice you into reading the book.

Flowers for Friday

In the pink!
The pink hibiscus has decided to glorify us this year;
may it glorify you, too.

Wordless Wednesday Mosaics

Sunday Snippet

Photograph - Dr. David Sutton 'The Complete Guide to wild Flowers'

'I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows,
Where ox-lips and the nodding violet grows;
Quite over-canopied with lush woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania some time of the night,
Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamell'd skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.'

From 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' William Shakespeare

Summer

Scudding clouds,
Sea tang,
Silk sand.

Thoughts for Thursday

I am back with the Lake Poets once again, in fascination.




Cloud over Catbells (John Gerrish): "Many a walk in the clouds on the mountains did I take."
Coleridge describing his struggles with 'Christabel' in a letter to Josiah Wedgwood.

'THE SEARCH FOR INSPIRATION

As Coleridge developed his powers of prose, his
power of writing verse seemed to be on the wane.
"My poor Muse has deserted me," he had written to
Thomas Poole, from Germany, "perhaps when I
return to England I may find her again." She continued,
however, to elude him. 'Christabel' still lay in his
desk unfinished; Coleridge had promised to complete
the poem for inclusion in the new edition of 'Lyrical
Ballads', but the result was intense, exhausting, and
frustrated struggle. " I tried and tried, and nothing
would come of it . . . many a walk in the clouds on the
mountains did I take: but all would not do," he told
his patron, Josiah Wedgwood, despairingly. Coleridge
had counted upon the euphoric effect of the Lakes to
restore his Muse to him, but to no avail. When,
suddenly, she did return, it was as a result of an
evening's wining and dining with a local clergyman.
Muses are proverbially unpredictable! Clearly this
one preferred a libation of wine to a wander in the
clouds. 'Christabel Part II', a miraculous performance,
was at last composed and, on October 4th in triumph,
with a draft of the poem in his pocket, Coleridge set
out for Dove Cottage, via Helvellyn, to read 'Christabel'
to the Wordsworths.
Coleridge had started out late and his walk was a
long one, but it was a clear night and the moon was
almost at the full. His notes, jotted by moonlight,
indicate that by the time he had arrived on the
summit of Helvellyn he was virtually in a state of
intoxication from the excitement and breathtaking
beauty of the walk. Above all he was overawed by
moonlit Striding Edge, "That prodigious Precipice of
grey stone with deep Wrinkles facing me." He stood
for a long time gazing at the astounding scene around
him; mountains, lakes, tarns, spread out under the
night sky around him, an incredible chiaroscuro of
shadow and moonshine.'

From 'The Illustrated Lake Poets' by Molly Lefebure





The dramatic 'Striding Edge' (Abrahams) on Helvellyn, taken from the
spot where Coleridge stood gazing at it in awe and wonder.

I was drawn to this piece in particular as I, too, have climbed Helvellyn - once up Striding Edge in fear and trepidation at the age of thirteen, with a friend whose parents waved to us gaily and called out, "See you at the other side!" and drove off.
There was no going back and where the rock rises steeply, just below where Coleridge stood, is practically vertical with a drop into a tarn way below on one side, or to a stony valley to the other. I recall clinging on, travelling on all fours and thinking that I would have to spend the rest of my life there. Fortunately, some strong and older youths took us under their wing and helped us to the top. Such relief! The other side is less steep, more of a tough walk than a climb, and this, I presume, is the route that Coleridge took ... but at night!! Brave or mad?

Tuesday Taster

On the front cover of this novel is a quote:

'A superbly crafted novel ....'

And so it is.
I have just finished reading 'The Art of Falling' by Deborah Lawrenson for the second time and it is as poignant the second time around as the first.
For me, it encapsulates the qualities that hold a story close to my heart; the words chosen and the style in which they are crafted to draw in the reader and keep them spellbound until the final sentence.




Here is an excerpt -

'Some of these people actually knew him. They knew him as he had been and they wanted a triumphant end to the story, not this inconclusive, cowardly diminishment of their heroic young soldier.
She puts her head down. 'I'm sorry.'
She will not cry. She senses the embarassment around the table, hears the rustle of napkins and the muffled sound of glasses replaced on the cloth.
The Massimo is speaking. 'He was here.''

From 'The Art of Falling' by Deborah Lawrenson