.......Even after I have removed the books that are due back at the library at the beginning of the week I am both dismayed and delighted at the treats awaiting me, and the time I feel comfortable with allotting to lolling around reading - and sometimes eating chocolates, when there are so many things I should be getting 'in order'.
The lovely long retirement that Charles and I had left me with zillions of snapshots, dozens of family, home and garden movies and videos and a great plethora of keepsakes - bits and pieces of china and jewelry that need a new home, besides all the current projects that keep me busy, busy, busy...
And the garden!
The results of a long and wonderful life are all this lovely chaos that needs be be dealt with!!!
So where shall I fit in the time to read Kate Atkinson, whose books I have just discovered. Loved her "God in Ruins" and felt she could have spent an afternoon talking with Charles, so many of Teddy's tales exactly matched his, - the method of choosing crews, the discipline in the air amongst the men, the tracers and the crowded streams of bombers. I am half way through "Life after Life" but have had to leave it to quickly finish "My Name is Lucy Barton" which I am finding sensitive, but depressing......
One of the books awaiting me in the stack(s) is "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin. I think it is right up my alley!!! The subtitle is "Or, why I spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean my Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun".
The garden is growing by leaps and bounds. When Bruce and I went along the fence on our evening walk I realized that passers by can no longer see me curled up with a book on the garden swing under the big umbrella. Soon the barn flowers will be in bloom, and the little purple clematis is courting the lilac tree that leans against the fence, twining itself amongst her branches.
It has been such a kind year for the roses, - I can't remember them being so prolific. The Day Lilies are flowering along the front fence and the delphinium are six feet high in the garden (although I lost the pretty blue one I had just planted this year??) I tied together some old silk stockings to make a tender rope to keep the sweet peas against the fence and out of the neighbour's yards. Great huge quantities of bloom, but these heritage sweet peas don't have the fragrance of the annuals. The sweet allysum and the evening scented stocks join with the nicotiana to make the evening air heavenly as it slips through open windows and doors.
and June will be just as gorgeous as May
A rainy week-end forecast, - good reading weather!!!
3 comments:
I know some of the books you mentioned, Hildred. I only read on the Kindle now, but I love it for both my daily reading and for traveling. I always have a book at my fingertips without having to carry them along. I can't read actual books now because of my allergy to formaldehyde which is in both paper and ink. Thank goodness for electronic books. I read all the plants already blooming in your garden and pictured each. Those roses are spectacular. I still have snow in my yard, but wherever it's melted little green shoots are showing. I'm wondering if any of the seed I spread in the fall will come up? I'm hopeful. Stay well, Hildred.
Such a lovely garden and books to savour.
Your memories and your yard are both beautiful havens. I like that the flowers have grown to give you a privacy fence as you sit and rock and read.
I mostly read on Kindle now and the virtual pile of To-Be-Reads is less intimidating (and takes up way less room in our small spaces). But we still go to the Library (Bill is computer savy, but refuses to read electronic books). Right now I'm reading (hardcover from the Library) Bill Bryson's "Road to Little Dribbling' and loving it being the Anglophile I am -- and I have always enjoyed his curmudgeonly sense of humor. I had "Lucy Barton" from the Library on my Kindle and I forgot that it was a library book. When your time is up the books you've borrowed just disappear. Saves on fines -- but it is imperative that you finish them during your three weeks. Been meaning to check it out again and you've reminded me.
The Happiness Project is good in theory. Some of the things she did I thought were kind of silly, but I think everybody needs to pick their own happiness projects. I know what mine are and I work at it (work isn't the right word, but you know what I mean.)
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