The Year in Books - the first two months

Alas moving house has absorbed all the energy (and some) of the first three months of the year, so I am catching up on the first two months' books in one post, then I will do another post for March and April.  First off is January's book, which was The Country Life Cookery Book by Ambrose Heath, originally published in 1937 and republished last year by Persephone Books.  It is arranged seasonally around the months of the year, each month starting with a wonderful illustration by Eric Ravilious and a short guide to what to do that month in the kitchen garden.  Heath's intended audience seems to be the relatively affluent country-dweller, who relies on what is available in local village shops and in the kitchen garden; and it is assumed that both are well stocked.  With an increasing connection now being made between growing and cooking vegetables, for example in some of the books published by Nigel Slater and programmes such as Kew on a Plate, it is interesting to see a writer ahead of his time in his insistence that there should be a greater link between kitchen and garden.  In arguing for this he draws on the work Vegetable Cookery by a Mrs Elizabeth Lucas, who "offers the revolutionary theory that the gardener should be under the direction of the cook".  While most of us today lack both servants, but his remarks on the vegetables to grow (or buy) and eat are still relevant and useful.  Unlike many gardeners of his day he argues against going for size and large quantities of a few crops, in all things he is driven by taste.  This comes across in his recipes, he writes with almost greedy interest and definite conviction: one of my favourite lines comes at the end of a recipe for an apple pudding, "Bake until the top crust is brown and crisp, and eat it with gratitude."

The second book, for February, is a novel, A Song for Issy Bradley by Carys Brae.  At risk of straying into cliché, I found this hard to put down and was utterly absorbed in its world.  However, it is one of those books that it is hard to review without giving too much away.  In short it deals with the effects of a tragedy on a Mormon family living in the North West of England and observes the events through the eyes of different members of the family in turn.  Throughout the family's faith both helps and hinders their grief and the novel explores the tensions of being a family living by different rules and beliefs to that of the community around them.  I rarely read modern fiction, generally having too much of the back catalogue to get through, but heard the short story the novel started off life as on the radio and needed to read the rest of the story.  It is beautifully written, cathartic (I did a fair amount of weeping), but not mawkish or depressing, do read it.

As ever you can see the other entries in The Year in Books here

Fourth Sunday in Advent

December has been flying by, as it always does, so here is the fourth poem, another serious one, but shorter.  This poem brought me up short, it has overtones of Sleeping Beauty, but a better happy ending.  As Joseph says to his brothers at the end of Genesis, "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good", I find God's ability to bring good out of bad a great comfort.

The Wicked Fairy at the Manger
by U A Fanthorpe

My gift for the child:
No wife, kids, home;
No money sense. Unemployable.
Friends, yes. But the wrong sort –
The workshy, women, wimps,
Petty infringers of the law, persons
With notifiable diseases,
Poll tax collectors, tarts;
The bottom rung.
His end?
I think we’ll make it
Public, prolonged, painful.

Right, said the baby. That was roughly
What we had in mind.

Second Sunday in Advent

I discovered this poem last Christmas, in an Advent book called Haphazard by Starlight, which has a poem for every day of Advent and loved it.  It is another poem that connects the Christmas of long ago with now, but in a very different way, focusing instead on the hope that Christmas gives us.  Hope for the future, that Jesus will return and the hope we have in us now, a hope that cannot be counted in a census or understood by the powers of this world.

In the days of Caesar
By Waldo Williams, translated Rowan Williams

In the days of Caesar, when his subjects went to be reckoned,
there was a poem mad, too dark for him (naive with power)
      to read
It was a bunch of shepherds who discovered
in Bethlehem of Judah, the great music beyond reason and
      reckoning:
shepherds, the sort of folk who leave the ninety-nine behind
so as to bring the stray back home, dawning toward cock-crow,
the birthday of the Lamb of God, shepherd of mortals.

Well, little people, and my nation, can you see
The secret buried in you, that no Caesar ever captures in his lists?
Will not the shepherd come to fetch us in our desert,
Gathering us in to give us birth again, weaving us into one
In a song heard in the sky over Bethlehem?
He seeks us out as wordhoard for his workmanship, the laureate
     of heaven

First Sunday in Advent

This Advent I thought I would mark the Sundays of Advent by posting some of my favourite Christmas poems, one on each Sunday, although the odd poem may appear on other days as well.  I decided to start with an old favourite, Christmas by John Betjeman, which masterfully combines Christmas ancient and modern.  I was introduced to this poem when a couple of us read some of it at a prep school carol concert at the local church and have loved it ever since.

Christmas by John Betjeman

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain.
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hooker's Green.

The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that villagers can say
'The Church looks nice' on Christmas Day.

Provincial public houses blaze
And Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says 'Merry Christmas to you all'

And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children's hearts are glad,
And Christmas morning bells say 'Come!'
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true? and is it true?
The most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?

And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant.

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was Man in Palestine
And lives to-day in Bread and Wine.

The Year in Books: November

This month's book, The Dreaming Suburb by R F Delderfield, is one set locally to wear I live, which is always a matter of great curiosity, to see a place one knows at a different time and through different eyes.  The novel is set at the far edge of Addiscombe, about a mile and a half east of central Croydon, then the far edge of London, where a street of suburban houses hit the countryside.  Although sadly and predictably swathes of suburbs have covered much of that countryside since.  The action opens as the First World War finished and followed various residents of the avenue through to the beginning of the second war, via the vicissitudes of the intervening years.

R F Delderfield

Delderfield writes in defence of the suburbs, already by the 1940s (when he wrote the book) denigrated, arguing that residents of suburbs have dreams and worries, hopes and fears, just as a city or country dweller has.  It is clear that he enjoyed his time living in Addiscombe as a child and that he retained vivid memories of the place.  He has changed very little about his descriptions, depicting Addiscombe almost exactly as she was and is, almost street by street.

"The Rec" 1918

This is not a great work of literature but it is a pleasant, relaxing and engaging read: the characters are engaging and "real" and he is skillful at weaving a story through their various lives and the events that surround them.  Throughout there is a definite sense of how people react in their various ways to the history that surrounds them, in this case things like the General Strike and the Munich crisis.  The change in the suburb is charted too as the great houses decay and streets of terraces fill their grounds.

"The Lower Road"

Croydon as a whole has a bad reputation and a low self esteem (if one can say that of a place?) these days and so it is lovely to see a time in her past when this was not so.  A lot of these problems have come about from appalling decisions made in the second half of the twentieth century and which continue today.  But Croydon does have a proud past and we should celebrate it more, from the Old Palace, regularly visited by kings and queens, especially Elizabeth I, to the college of the East India Company and the world's first international airport, which saw Amy Johnson return from her solo flight to Australia.  Croydon has other literary claims to fame, for example, at the time that Delderfield lived in Addiscombe, D H Lawrence was living a few streets away, teaching at a nearby school and beginning his literary career and in the previous century Arthur Conan Doyle had lived a few miles away in South Norwood.

But to get back to The Dreaming Suburb, I would recommend it as a gentle, well written book, which captures a time in our life as a nation through the lens of an ordinary street of ordinary people, a perspective different to most histories.

Photographs of Addiscombe past from here

To see the other entries in The Year in Books click here

The year in books: March

Yet again I have let the month almost slip through my fingers and get away without me having written about this month's book, or rather books, as this month's book is truly a trilogy, although made up of comparatively short books.  Ursula Holden's The Tin Toys trilogy, consisting of The Tin Toys, Unicorn Sisters and A Bubble Garden.  Like Penelope Fitzgerald, Ursula Holden began writing comparatively late in life, after attending a creative writing class in her late forties.  The novels are about three sisters growing up in England and Ireland around the time of the second world war.  Each novel is narrated from the perspective of a different sister, providing fresh insights and perspectives on the girls' joint past and uncovers what each knows about the others.

I bought this on a whim, as I had a dentist's appointment coming up and our dentist always runs late, making a good book a must for the waiting room, and I must admit I had vaguely expected something a little cosier.  Whereas these books are far from cosy, they make up a tale of neglect, of children pushed from pillar to post and considered an inconvenience by their mother who would rather follow her own path.  I get the impression that the children's mother feels that as her husband has died and thereby deserted the family, she is entitled to go too.  So the children move from one unsuitable place to another and endeavour to bring themselves up, searching for love and trying to make a home wherever they end up.  Holden evokes places as they seem to a child well, making her places atmospheric and her people real, with all their flaws. In many ways the adults around these sisters are every bit as lost, damaged and vulnerable as the children and just as unable to find their way through a changing world.  For a key theme of the novels is that of class and the impact the second world war had on the lifestyle of the upper classes.  In this new world it is the lower classes who thrive, while the upper classes struggle to adapt and are without suitable resources.

Ursula Holden photographed by Fay Godwin in the 1970s

In many ways I was reminded of Noel Streatfeild's wartime novel for adults Saplings, which deals with similar themes of neglect and the way children could be pushed from pillar to post during wartime.  Both novels do much to dispel the sometimes cosy image we get of the second world war; there is no cheery Blitz spirit to be found.  Other novels exploring similar themes include Streatfeild's first novel The Whicharts (later re-written as Ballet Shoes) and Eleanor Graham's The Children Who Lived in a Barn.  While Marghanita Laski's novel The Village explores similar themes of the war's impact on society.

In summary I would recommend The Tin Toys Trilogy most heartily; I read it in great gulps, riveted and wholly inhabiting their world and will have to go back and re-read it, hopefully more slowly.  Although I am currently attempting that with Rebecca West's magical novel The Fountain Overflows and for all my good intentions I get too drawn in to go slowly and instead read it in great deep draughts.  Do you find you have the same problem with some novels?

Virago have republished The Tin Toys as a Modern Classic and I sincerely hope that they republish more of her books soon.  Here you can hear a short interview  with Ursula Holden, who is in her nineties and living in a convent nursing home in West London.

January Ends

January feels like a month to be endured, despite having a birthday in its middle I still feel less than enthusiastic about it.  The fairy lights and sparkles are packed away and once more life is earnest, life is real.  Life is also wet, windy and dark.  So I cannot say that I am sorry to see the back of January.

Meanwhile there has been knitting activity in the background, I have finished the knitting on Dad's jumper, started the making up and in between times, in the interests of my own sanity, knocked up a quick baby jumper and a warm cabled hat.  Pictures anon I hope.

One of the little bright spots, like a missive from a brighter, happier land, has been the arrival of the first catalogue of books published by Daunt's Books, an excellent independent chain of London bookshops.  If you feel gloomy about the survival of the High Street, or wish for inspiration for how to revive the High Street, go to one of their shops forthwith.  Preferably their Marylebone High Street shop branch, which is where I found them, fortuitously, on the way to a medical appointment nearby.  Going to one of their shops is a joyous experience, the Marylebone shop is an original late nineteenth century bookshop, with a wonderful galleried room of books on every country or region of the world, arranged by region, then country, covering more traditional guide books, dictionaries and maps as well as books on their literature, history, art and cookery.

The bookshops are well curated and always have something new to catch your eye and the publishing list is similarly good.  It is like a well thought out and selected delicatessen rather than a pile 'em high behemoth and full of such tantalising titles.  Like Persephone Books they are mostly titles that have undeservedly gone out of print and I look forward to spending some of the book tokens my kind friends and family have given me for Christmas and my birthday.  But don't take my word for it - go and feast your eyes.



As a last note I am pleased to note that Persephone are currently selling Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield, a funny little book that deserves to be better known.  My copy is one that had belonged to my mother's cousin, 'Aunt' Daisy and although she died when I was 12, it is lovely to make that connection and read a book that I know she enjoyed - we inherited two copies, one an omnibus edition which is falling apart.  Albeit she did not managed to obtain a copy with the original illustrations; I suppose you cannot have everything?

Anyhow onwards into February, searching for signs of the beginnings of spring as we go.

The Year in Books: January

I know I am a little late to the party but I came across this idea from Laura at a Circle of Pines, for an informal, book a month, book group and thought I would join in as I have been doing a lot of reading lately and because joining these things can be fun.  You can find out more about the idea behind the year in books here.

So my book for this month is Angel by Elizabeth Taylor (not the film star), one of the books I had for Christmas.  One of my neighbours, who has a similar taste in books, recommended Elizabeth Taylor and Elizabeth Jane Howard, a friend of Taylor's, also spoke highly her books in her autobiography.  Angel tells the tale of Angela Deverell, a writer of popular, somewhat racy but badly written novels and explores the relationship between real life and fiction, truth and delusion.  Elizabeth Taylor writes with skill to make you engage with a character who is prickly and not always the most likable and she avoids censure or judgement, simply telling her story.  It is almost as though she found herself wondering who writes these novels, which might be equated to modern *Mills and Boon* novels, who are they and what motivates them?  I did wonder if Taylor had the writer Ethel M. Dell in mind when creating Angel Deverell, perhaps reading the introduction (I never read it before reading a novel in case of "spoilers") will cast some light on it?

Elizabeth Taylor

I tend to do a lot of my reading in the bath in the evenings and it is a mark of the quality of this book that my baths grew longer and longer as I got more gripped by the story.  Elizabeth Taylor's books fit into the Persephone Books, Elizabeth Bowen, Barbara Pym, Elizabeth Jane Howard sort of genre of novels of small happenings in seemingly ordinary lives which are nonetheless capable of tremendous interest and of being utterly compelling.  Naturally each of these authors have their own flavour but they all operate in the same sort of sphere.

If you wish to read what others have been reading this month you can see the list back on Laura's blog here, meanwhile I need to consider what to read next month.

52 Weeks of Happy - Week 10 (also belatedly)

I am still behind with blogging, this time because of a week effectively wiped out by a cold in the head, a minor affliction that is capable of making one feel disproportionately unwell.  However, this post belongs to the week before this just gone, the week of toothache.  My life has been so full of fun lately.  But it is good to look for some positives even in the middle of the nasty stuff.

1. The 109 bus - I have never been so glad to see a bus in my life.  I was on my way to the dentist and had arrived in the suburb by train, walked out of the station and become completely disorientated (note to self: next time take a map).  So I managed to go the wrong way out of the station and walk for what seemed about a mile in the wrong direction.  The penny was just dropping and I was getting dangerously close to my appointment, when I found myself beside a bus stop for buses running towards the direction I had just come.  To my intense relief there was a 109 bus crawling along the road towards me that delivered me to the dentist's just about on time.  Mercifully the toothache and general jaw pain seems to be inflamed gums, rather than the more serious problems I had been imagining - note to self: do not immediately leap to the worst possible conclusion over *everything*.

One of my dad's toy buses for illustrative purposes

2. Confusion by Elizabeth Jane Howard - I have been deep in the Cazalet novels lately, devouring them greedily.  I cannot remember when I was last so engrossed by a series of books or a fictional family, I found myself truly caring what happened to them and whereas in the earlier books I had been enjoying and taking note of the writing and narrative devices, all that detail began to fly out of the window as I got further into the story.  I cannot recommend these novels enough.  For so long I have been limited in my reading by brain fog and tiredness, so to be able to regain some of my previous capacity for reading is a real joy.



3. Robins - out in the garden during some rare sunshine I saw both robins, the first boldly sitting on a branch just above my head singing lustily, the second creeping about the undergrowth and holly, battling curiosity and cautiousness, unable to resist taking a look at me despite nervousness.  I have great hopes of a nest of little robins.



4. Beautiful yarn in the sunshine - this is Mind the Gap by Trailing Clouds, Blue Faced Leicester wool yarn dyed in all the colours of the London Underground lines.  As I have plans (or hopes?) of casting this on soon I had been winding the yarn and thought the opportunity for photographs was too good to miss.

52 Weeks of Happy - week 9 (belatedly)

Life has somehow overtaken me and I am now two weeks behind in "52 weeks of happy", it may be challenging remembering what happened in the week before last so you will have to bear with me!  I did consider doing weeks nine and ten in one post, but that seemed somehow to be cheating.

1. Camomile Tea - recommended by a friend because I was so stressed and tense I could not relax, to the point where I was rigid with tension or shaking.  It worked almost at once, unlocking the tension enough that I could then work on relaxing and could cope again.  Since then I have had some every day and while I am not completely sorted, it is helping.

2. More signs of spring - some more tree prunings, this time from the magnolia tree outside the house.



3. Marking Time - the second of the Cazalet novels by Elizabeth Jane Howard.  It is ages since I was so lost and absorbed in a book, or a series of books.  They deal with the life of an extended family in the years surrounding and during the second world war, there is so much skill in the way she tells the story from different perspectives and managing to produce an ensemble work in which there are no weak or under-developed characters.  I have ended up caring about these characters intensely, truly caring what happens to them.  The novels are being beautifully dramatised on radio 4 across this year to mark Elizabeth Jane Howard's 90th birthday.

4. Apple loaf - from the Edmonds' cook book, essentially a soda bread with grated apple added.  It was moist and tasty with a dense but not heavy crumb.  Even better it was not hard to make so hopefully I will be able to make it again soon.  I am considering whether some spices and sultanas would make good additions, sounds like experiment time!

Shaking off the black dog

I've been meaning to write a less "heavy" post for a while now, but haven't quite got around to it as I've been feeling a bit down and apathetic and lethargic, which is not me: I hate it. So I'm trying to shake it off, remember the good things.

Spring and early summer are particularly easy times of year in which to find good things to celebrate, even when it's been raining constantly as in the past few days, especially as we have needed the rain so very much. There have been plenty of birds in the garden, yesterday a wren was making a disproportionate amount of noise for a bird so tiny while feeding its young and a fledgling robin has been making his fluffy first attempts at solo life and visiting our bird feeder. So birds and their song: there is good thing one.

Then the plants, oh the plants, coming up in merry profusion and confusion, self seeding, growing back from apparently lifeless twigs, we have had a baby cherry tree, several cow slips and a single rogue daffodil coming up in the middle of the lawn, plenty of nasturtiums growing from last year and flowering gloriously, with a golden colour that looks like condensed sunshine and roses, so many roses. Around the roses, which are past their first flush of glory, are two flowering Jasmines, which are smelling heavenly - I go out into the garden and stand by them and inhale! Our garden is starting to look like a garden and less like an untidy patch of ground. The vegetables are coming along nicely too; the runner beans in particular, appreciating the rain and having astonishing growth spurts. Bees of many varieties (hard to identify as they do not stay still long and are very small!) are busy all through the day on all the flowers, particularly around the Hebe hedge by the front door.

Inside there have been some good plays on the radio lately, including some on the Plantagenet kings and a Terrence Rattigan season celebrating his centenary. Some good books, though the only one I can remember having read recently is Dorothy Whipple's High Wages, an engaging and interesting novel about life in a Lancashire in the early twentieth century. The protagonist, Jane, is a very likable character with real spirit, at times when reading I found myself 'cheering her on' as she took on the attitudes and set ways of the community around her.

Naturally I have been knitting still too, socks, baby items for the ongoing population explosion among my friends, hats, a cardigan, the usual things. But my heart is not quite in it just now, I am not sure why, but I can't quite settle or focus. My concentration is not good, yet I am bored of simpler patterns. Though looking through my recent photographs I have finished a couple of major projects recently, including a baby blanket, so I should perhaps expect a bit less of myself?

Were I physically well the depression would be so much easier to shake off through keeping busy and doing new things, changing things, exercising. I can do so little of any of that and it does get to me sometimes. I am trying to keep going and battle on, keep trusting Jesus and staying positive, but goodness me there are times when it is hard!

Now we are (twenty)-six

I turned twenty-six a couple of weeks and I'm still trying to adjust to being a really very adult age. It is the sort of age where one should have one's life beginning to be on track and heading somewhere, career, own place, own life; only I don't. Yet another birthday has come and gone and I'm still here, still sick, still at home, still seemingly going nowhere. Once again I need to look to God and remember that He "knows what He's a-doing of" and that He looks at things differently. Looking to Him, trusting in Him, pressing on to know Him are the things that matter, whether I have an independent life or not and remember that He loves me just as I am.

I also need to return to looking at the small good things of life, the

perspective that can bring sanity and even content to hard times. I was very blessed on my birthday, my mother and sister collaborated to make me a cake and I received many lovely cards and presents and was even sent flowers - via Interflora! My supply of reading matter for the next couple of months is assured, though I have already savoured and enjoyed Henrietta Sees It Through by Joyce Dennys - an utter delight and brilliant evocation of the small things in life, much in the same vein as Jan Struther's Mrs Miniver.

Naturally my haul included knitting related items, my good friend Peppermintpenguin (her ravelry name) sewed me a lovely project bag, and I had several gorgeous knitting books including More Last Minute Knitted Gifts and Alice Starmore's famous Fair Isle book (reprint, not the original). So as you can see, I have very little to complain about really.

While I am twenty-six I must re-read A A Milne's excellent book of verse

Now We Are Six, a book I remember with affection from my childhood - as a passing note I would recommend Milne's writings for adults as well as his renowned Winnie the Pooh books. I can still remember turning six, in pre-prep 1 at school, feeling tremendously grown up and having a lovely party. On that note of nostalgia I shall return to my knitting as I need to get more socks made.

Sunflower

This sunflower grew up by itself, probably from a seed in the bird seed feeder and is just on the cusp of flowering. It's amazing watching it slowly unfurl and form.


Other than that nothing too dramatic to report. Lots of knitting, bits and pieces of crochet, some interesting reading including New Grub Street by George Gissing, which is a fascinating portrait of Victorian London life and the first emergence of the mass media and modern age.

I do wish it would stop being so grey and make up its mind, either get the rain over with or go away and let us have some sunshine!

Peaceful weekends

This weekend has been lovely, peaceful, quiet, social, but not in an overwhelming way. Yesterday I spent the morning watching Time Team on More4 and knitting; they make a good combination and enable me to engage with history (my main academic love) in a way that my brain can cope with. I also like the programme's good humour, lightheartedness and the willingness of the archaeologists to enjoy a joke.

In the afternoon, after posting a birthday present to a dear friend, I went to knitting group in central Croydon. We meet on the first Saturday of the month in Cafe Nero in the Allders end of George St, near the George St tram stop and opposite 'The George' pub, from 2.30. Yesterday afternoon's meeting was lovely, sociable and relaxed and the combination of air conditioning and iced drinks made a welcome relief to the sheer heat of recent days. If anyone reading this lives in/near Croydon and feels like joining us you would be welcome, we also meet on the third Thursday of the month from 6pm, generally in Cafe Aroma in High St. Although we're called "Croydon knitting group" other portable crafts are very welcome, we have done knitting, crochet, spinning, tatting and cross stitch at meetings between us so far. Naturally some crafts are always going to be more difficult to do out and about - bit hard to heave a pottery wheel down to a coffee shop! If you want more information feel free to email croydonknittinggroup@googlemail.com

Today I haven't done anything in particular, listened to Gardener's Question Time on BBC Radio 4 and then to the Classic Serial - P.G. Wodehouse is perfect for a Sunday afternoon, particularly when it stars Martin Jarvis and Patricia Hodge. As ever with Wodehouse I struggled a little to keep up with who all everyone was, particularly among the younger set; I tend to find it works best simply to listen/read on and go with the flow of the story, it's just as enjoyable as understanding what exactly is going on and infinitely less mentally taxing! The only pity about Wodehouse dramatised is that one misses out on the sheer creativity and wit of his prose in his descriptions of people, places and what have you.

Alas despite all this I still haven't managed to finish knitting this blanket for SANDS, I'm not far off, just need to persist. I have garter stitch fatigue! So I'll get on with knitting it while hoping it starts to rain before plant watering time! (There are some promising clouds up there... anyone know a rain dance?!)

New year, new cardigan

I am pleased to announce that the vine yoke cardigan did 'work', it fits, doesn't look too silly/outlandish/hand knit and is wonderfully, beautifully warm in a way that can only be appreciated with this much snow and ice around. The Christmas socks were also a great success and I was incredibly impressed with the yarn - Socrates Solemate from Violet Green. A merino treat for feet with beautiful stitch definition and that doesn't lose a drop of the dye when washed, the colour is just as fresh, clear and bright after about ten wears and washes as it was when it was in the skein. They are also the most comfortable socks I've ever worn (sorry Colinette Jitterbug!), silky soft, smooth and looking as good as new. To celebrate the wonder of this yarn I ordered some more, in a colourway called "The Sea, the sea". Someone at Violet Green is obviously a fellow fan of Iris Murdoch since a new colourway in this yarn is called "Bruno's Dream" - gorgeous greens with the slightest hint of yellow.

I'm pondering what are the most Murdoch-esque socks I can make with the new yarn, possibly something inspired by the sea, I may go back and re-read the book to gain some inspiration. If I do the socks could be some time in the making as it is quite a lengthy novel, though I remember being utterly wrapped up and swept away by it on the first reading (sorry for the slight pun there, unintentional). Iris Murdoch's novels are so richly atmospheric and her characterisation magnificent, if you haven't read any of her novels do, borrow mine!

Returning to the slightly more mundane, from the literary, I'm working on a new cardigan, Peasy by Heidi Kirrmaier, a rather elegant top down number and perfect knitting for that delightful post Christmas crash (which we won't dwell on). It is a replacement for a staple of my wardrobe, the navy blue-goes-with-everything cardigan, since mine has developed interesting holes. I will try to darn the old one, but it is on its last legs, having bravely survived more than a year's hard wear. Anyhow enough burbling for today, I'm going to attempt to repair the sleeve of my vine yoke cardigan, some stitches appear to have come loose or something on the bottom of the sleeve and as we all know, a stitch in time saves nine.