I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

First published in 1949, I love this fictional memoir of a teenage girl living in eccentric poverty in a remote Suffolk gatehouse before the War.  It is such a cosy and humorous read from the start as the heroine, Cassandra, sets the scene: 

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. That is, my feet are in it; the rest of me is on the draining board, which I have padded with our dog’s blanket and the tea-cosy.

I love all the characters but my favourite is Stephen Colly: He has lived with us ever since he was a little boy - his mother used to be our maid, in the days when we could still afford one, and when she died he had nowhere to go. He grows vegetables for us and looks after the hens - and does a thousand odd jobs - I can’t think how we should get on without him. He has always been rather devoted to me; father calls him my swain.

When Miss Marcy, the librarian, calls round to chair an ‘Enquiry into the Finances of the Mortmain Family’ everyone’s income is written down as ‘nil’ apart from Stephen who will contribute his  25 shillings a week’s wages from working at Four Stones Farm, leaving him time to still work for the Mortmains in the evening.

Stephen is such a kind, honourable soul, and his ‘fair and noble’ good looks enable him to go to London  to model for photos,  and later to star in silent films. He saves up his earnings to buy Cassandra a small potable wireless for her birthday, only to be upstaged by her wealthy American friend Simon staying nearby who sends a a wireless and a gramophone combined with a blue record case to match. Nobody ever had such a glorious present. 

‘Yours has a real wooden case,’ I told him, ‘with such a beautiful high polish’.Oh, I was sorry for him! After all the months he had been saving up! I ran after him and, from the top of the kitchen stairs, I could see him staring at his little brown wireless. He turned it off, then went out into the garden with a most bitter expression on his face.

‘Oh, Stephen!’ I cried, ‘ It was a much bigger present from you. Simon didn’t have to save - or work for it.’ 

‘No, that was my privilege,’ he said quietly.

I love the description of Stephen’s room ‘in the  bit of the kitchen  where the hen-roosts were; father turned it into two two little rooms which Stephen and his mother had - hers is just a store-room now’.

...the narrow window was almost overgrown with ivy and the whitewash on the wall was discoloured and peeling off in flakes. On the chest of drawers his comb was placed exactly midway between a photograph of his mother with him as a baby in her arms, and a snapshot of me - both in aluminium frames much too large for them.

But it is Simon who has won Cassandra’s heart by the end of the novel. 

...

.

The Owl Service by Alan Garner

It is fifty years since I read this short novel and I have enjoyed re-reading it. It is such a strange, disturbing tale, set in a remote valley in Wales, and of its time. Alison and Roger are teenagers staying in a Georgian house and discover an old dinner service in the attic, decorated with an owl design, or is it flowers? Their friendship with a local boy Gwynn becomes tense as they find themselves caught up with an ancient legend: how a beautiful wife Blodeuwedd was created out of flowers for Lleu but was turned into an owl after she became unfaithful to him.
Soon after discovering the plates a strange panel is revealed, and the power of the legend  is unleashed...
“She was tall. Her long hair fell to her waist, framing in gold her pale and lovely face. Her eyes were blue. She wore a loose gown of white cambric, embroidered with living green stems of broom and meadowsweet, and a wreath of green oak leaves in her hair.”
All these years later I find myself wondering what happened to Alison, Roger and Gwynn in the aftermath of that hot summer c.1967.

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway

A fictional account of lives caught up in the Siege of Sarajevo, the longest city siege in the history of modern warfare that lasted nearly four years from 1992 -1996.
Loosely based on the story of a renowned Sarajevo cellist who played Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor for 22 days to honour 22 people killed in a mortar attack queuing to buy bread in the besieged city in 1992.
'The Cellist of Sarajevo'  is a powerful book concentrating on a few characters whose stories are interwoven in the tragedy of war as snipers in the hills overlook the shattered streets below. The writing is spare and gripping: a testament to the sorrow and pity of war across the world, past, present and future.

'The apartment she's in was once a nice home.On the walls opposite the windows, daggers of glass stick out of the plaster like darts stuck in a corkboard, and a slush of human occupation, papers, photographs, a shredded sofa lies discarded. Someone will come along eventually to pick it all up, if only to burn as fuel. She tries not to wonder too much about the people who used to live here, what they were like, if they were happy, if they are still alive, if they died here.'

'Every day, at four o'clock.' She turns towards him as she says this, as if there's something he does not understand.' Every day he sits there and plays. People go and listen. Some leave flowers. I've been several times. Sometimes I listen all the way through, and sometimes I leave after a few minutes.'

'In a few seconds the door will open. At least four men , maybe more , will burst through and, as quickly as they can, they will fire as many bullets into her as possible.
She hears one of them take a step back, knows he's about to kick in the door. She closes her eyes, recalls the notes she heard only yesterday, a melody that is now longer there but feels very close...'

Simple Pleasures, edited by Ivo Dawnay

I bought this little hardback at Kew Gardens one autumn  and it is delightful to dip into: 55 little essays by different writers about 'little things that make life worth living'. ' The deepest pleasures almost always come from the simples sources' and yet, ' there is nothing simple about simple pleasures'. My favourite essays include 'A Good Log Fire', 'Owls at Night' 'Gone Fishing', 'Welsh Rain' and 'In Pursuit of the Purple Emperor'.
'For one heady month in midsummer the Emperor takes to the air, and people vulnerable to obsessive behaviour go quite silly.'
'Suddenly - and I had warned you about visions and waking dreams- there it was , the subject of my wildest aspirations, a pristine Iole male imbibing some mysterious ambrosia on the woodland floor. The experience  realised one of those dreams that mean all and everything to the dreamer without meaning anything to anyone else. Such desiderata are of the utmost importance, being the passion of the individual soul.' Matthew Oates
Reading this book made me want to write about my favourite 'simple pleasures' too. I can't imagine anyone not wanting to do the same.

The Promise of Winter by Martin Marty and Michah Marty

A cold day coming in the middle of a mild winter. Snowdrops and winter aconites are in bud and my favourite shrub, Hamamelis,  is flowering with delicate yellow tassels.Winter flowers bring their own joy: cream hellebores, Daphne and Winter Jasmine, reminding me of the garden in Lucy Boston's 'Children of Green Knowe' and Patrick Synge's 'Flowers in Winter' which surveys the possibilities of having colour in the garden even in the coldest months.
 Today is Shrove Tuesday and  our prescribed Lent reading is a course based on the Psalms.
 'The Promise of Winter' is a book I have enjoyed for many years with meditations based on psalms, accompanied by beautiful black and white photographs of snow drifts and snowscapes.
'Rather than looking ahead to spring, 'The Promise of Winter' explores the signs of promise and presence found in the winter of the soul. It is this presence and promise that provide  spiritual strength to help people live during ordinary days and fallow seasons.'
I find it comforting to observe these bleak landscapes; there is a simplicity in winter following Christmas festivities we need to embrace: a time of quiet and reflection befor spring comes and days lengthen once more.'Farmers know that in the rhythm of the year and the nature of the soil, there is a reason for fields to lie fallow for a season - winter.' Enjoy it while it lasts.

Egyptian Palaces and Villas by Shirley Johnston

Home from a wonderful trip to Egypt and enjoying leafing through this lavishly illustrated book of colour photographs: the ultimate bedside book to relive the romance of Travel. Egypt is a beautiful, fascinating country and I long to return. I loved revisiting Mena House, where we stayed close to the Pyramids, the Cataract Hotel, Aswan and the Winter Palace, Luxor, imaging walking through the rooms again as Agatha Christie once did when she wrote 'Death on the Nile' in 1937.
' " That's Hercule Poiret, the detective," said Mrs. Allerton. She and her son were sitting in brightly painted scarlet basket chairs outside the Cataract Hotel, Assuan.'
'Poirot passed out on the other side on to the terrace overlooking the Nile. Here were little tables set for tea, but it was early still. He stood for a few moments looking down on to the river then strolled down through the gardens.'
'Dinner was over. The terrace outside the Cataract Hotel was softly lit. Most of the guests staying at the Hotel were there sitting at little tables.'
I first came across this book of palaces and villas on SSMisr, a lovely old steamer on which we travelled up the Nile visiting temples and tombs on the way. Birds flew in and out of the deserted temples, and I was reminded of the little swallow in Oscar Wilde's story, 'The Happy Prince' who was 'waited for in Egypt. My friends are flying up and down the Nile and talking to the large lotus flowers. Soon they will go to sleep in the tomb of the great King. The King is there himself in his painted coffin. He is wrapped in yellow linen and embalmed with spices. Round his neck is a chain of pale green jade, and his hands are like withered leaves.'
 And now I am fascinated by all the other palaces I may never see, beautifully photographed with exquisite attention to detail.I long to visit Alexandria, and should I return to Cairo, I vow to stay at the Gezira Palace,, transformed for the Empress Eugenie's stay in 1869. Travel is a wonderful experience to be savoured long after returning home, thanks to such a sumptuous book: a veritable feast of delights.

Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner

I first read this short novel (184 pages) in 1985 and recently re-read it as we were staying at the Grand Hotel du Lac in Vevey where it was written. It is a charming spot, much more attractive than Montreux and the hotel smaller, prettier and friendlier than all the other Belle Époque hotels in Switzerland. I loved its feminine decor, fresh flowers everywhere and the pastel portrait of the actress Anna Massey in the lobby. She had played the heroine Edith in a television adaptation of the story soon after it won the Booker Prize. Everything came to life: the steamers on the lake, the little town close by, the Italian shop in Montreux where Mrs. Pusey bought her exquisite lingerie...I loved re-reading it all. I had forgotten the sharp sting of betrayal at the end of the novel and it took me by surprise again as it did all those years ago.
I treated myself to a couple of illustrated books of the hotel to savour the memories. One is called Dream Makers and matches quotations from the novel to lovely photographs of the place.
'On the opposite shore she could make out lights that seemed almost welcoming now: the lights of the Hotel du Lac.'
I long to go back but the book takes me there in an instant.