"[...] She plants a row of apple trees along the high brick wall. Two pairs of pear trees on either side of the main path, plums, elder, birch, gooseberry bushes, blush-stemmed rhubarb. She takes a cutting from a dog-rose growing by the river and cultivates it against the warm wall of the malthouse. She puts in a rowan sapling near the back door. She fills the soil with chamomile and marigold, with hyssop and sage, borage and angelica, with wormwort and feverfew. She installs seven skeps at the furthest edge of the garden; on warm July days it is possible to hear the restless rumble of the bees from the house.
She turns the old brewhouse into a room where she dries her plants, where she mixes them, where people come, in through the side gate, to ask for cures. [...] She clears the old well in the courtyard. She makes a knot garden, with box hedges in an interlocking grid, their vacancies filled with purple-headed lavender."
From Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
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Cover illustration by Cally Conway, design by Yeti Lambregts.
It sounds idyllic (and a lot of hard work) Thank you for the excerpt.
Posted by: Mystica | 10 October 2020 at 07:20 AM
I read this recently. What a wonderful book. Am recommending it to so many friends right now...
Posted by: booker talk | 10 October 2020 at 06:18 PM
This excerpt is enchanting.
Posted by: Kathleen | 12 December 2020 at 04:19 PM