"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.
No book is "unopened, for a disgracefully long time"! It is maturing, perhaps you will take a week or a year of indeed a lifetime to feel it is "ready". The book doesn't care. I have a few (very few books) maturing and I am not concerned in the least if I never read them even though I want to. Chill :-)
Posted by: Dark Puss | 07 February 2020 at 07:31 PM
You are right, of course. I bought that book in hardback as soon as it came out, so keen was I to read it; given how long it's taken me to get to it I could have waited for the (cheaper) paperback!
Posted by: Cornflower | 07 February 2020 at 07:56 PM
I have the book, the daffodils and the tea, sadly not the fire - but I'm not opening any windows yet!
Posted by: Mary | 08 February 2020 at 03:05 AM
Open windows? Brrr!
Posted by: callmemadam | 08 February 2020 at 08:42 AM
One Woman's Year was an unexpected Christmas present to me. I love it....Persephone rarely get it wrong! It is shelved beside other monthly books, mostly nature in content and I set aside an afternoon near the beginning of each month to read the relevant chapters from all. Loved the thought of the light returning, thrills me every year.
Posted by: Fran H-B | 08 February 2020 at 12:35 PM
:-) x
Posted by: Dark Puss | 08 February 2020 at 01:17 PM
I bought One Woman's Year as a Christmas present to myself, and I love the portayal of a gentler, slower world. Like Fran, I try to set aside some time each month to read the relevant chapters from my monthly and nature books - but unlike her this one is shelved with all the other Persephones!
Posted by: Christine Harding | 12 February 2020 at 10:17 PM
I love this book. I never thought it would be 'picked up' by Persephone and I'm sure had I suggested it to the powers that be at Persephone they'd have rejected it as not being weighty enough, so I was surprised to see they had re-issued it. I have an original copy from the 1950s, it's a fun read.
Posted by: Margaret Powling | 10 March 2020 at 07:54 PM