
"The light lasts past tea-time in February, and because of that there comes a day sometimes when it is possible to achieve a mixture of firelight, daffodils, open windows and tea. Delectable. If to this is added an optimistic bird singing outside, and the people sitting round the fire know each other well enough to be able to sit back and say little if they feel like it, then one can forgive February for everything. For about half an hour it can be my favourite month."
Stella Martin Currey, One Woman's Year.
We can't run to daffodils yet but we do have snowdrops, birdsong, and light until five, so that's all good.
With my tea and an agreeable companion I've been reading Major General Paul Nanson's book Stand Up Straight: 10 Life Lessons from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst which is not as 'niche' as it might sound and offers some solid principles by which to live. I knew something of the rigorous training Sandhurst gives its cadets (as this post will explain) but the Academy's Commandant presents here - succinctly and very readably - the ethos and reasoning behind it and explains how that might apply to civilian life.
I've now moved on to Artemis Cooper's biography Elizabeth Jane Howard: A Dangerous Innocence which has been on the shelf, unopened, for a disgracefully long time. I enjoyed EJH's memoir Slipstream very much indeed, likewise many of her novels, so this should be a satisfying read for what is forecast to be a very stormy weekend.