dovegreyreader scribbles

A Happy Camper finds out how it's really done @PortEliotFest with Emma Kennedy

We nearly be done, it'll be all over bar the washing-up by the end of this evening so my grateful thanks to the intrepid Happy Campers who have done Team DGR proud with their tireless efforts in the tea room eating almond torte flying all over the festival on our behalf, and my thanks to them both for some wonderful event reports. Here's Angela's final offering for this year...

My last festival action before the promised cream tea back in the DGR tent.  As I was preparing to hear Emma Kennedy’s talk on her latest book ‘ I left my tent in San Francisco’, Bookhound was assembling plateloads of scones and setting out ranks of cups and saucers as the DGR faithful listened rapt to William Fiennes. So I was alone for the first time because Linda was in the land of the Snow Geese.

The floor at the front of the Bowling Green tent was looking a bit worse for wear.  There was that detritus that arises from large groups of people gathering and then dispersing after eating sweeties while listening to Kate Winslet and Lauren Child (in my case wuffling a bacon buttie for a very late breakfast).

Emma Kennedy -  sporting a broken elbow -  started off by reading us an amusing extract which explains why the book has the title it does and as the story unfolded I felt grateful that the trials of the Happy Campers had only really amounted to some forgotten cooking utensils. Compared with skunks, agonising walks in searing heat, and a dwarf called Samson in a red Ferrari (whose strength was not in his hair but somewhere else) our mundane little under canvas challenges were never going to provide material for a best seller.  Questions from the audience revealed that surprisingly, Emma Kennedy is still friends with her long suffering travelling companion and the pair of them did go on to lead useful lives……..hope then for all those parents of gap year students.

A trip back to the 1970s again, (do I deliberately seek out the decade of my childhood?), this time when Emma Kennedy read from her other book, ‘The Tent, the Bucket and Me’.  I was looking at the cover of this in the book tent.  You would know it was a 1970s memoir from the font used for the title; Simon Garfield would be able to tell you instantly which one it was.  Sort of bubbly, a cross between The Goodies and an Egon Ronay cookery book.   Kate Winslet might need to watch her position of ‘best reader using funny voices ‘. Emma Kennedy’s Welsh dad came to glorious life, if Linda had been with me she might have dumped Ivan (for elucidation refer to Harmony Hairspray moment) there and then. There was even another Old Granny in there too.

Thanks, Emma for a really upbeat end to my Port Eliot experiences.

 

 

 

 

Today's shopping list...

How can a blog get any more exciting than this...today's shopping list.
David Vann and his partner Nancy are in the UK and came for tea. Oh my how we have laughed and now I'm on tenterhooks for his next book, Caribou, out here in January. Fortunately I'd done a quick turn around on the tablecloth after the visiting Canadians, so we were fine and Devon cream tea was done and Bookhound and David did the hunting, shooting, fishing stuff while Nancy and I talked life and books.
But the rest of the shopping list...well the installation is shaping up nicely. Tomorrow is setting up day and Bookhound still has his task ahead...to make us a slate gravestone with inscription, while I go and pillage other people's gardens, not such a big ask in view of what I've had to source today.

Pssst....The Port Eliot Festival Flower Show

If your name is Michael Howells or Cathy St Germans or Lady Boyd or Kitty Arden then please could you go and look at another blog ...you're judging this and it's secret.

Right, so I know I really should have asked you first, but there was no one here to save me from myself, it was a spur of the moment thing ...I've entered us (that's all of you, and me) collectively as 'dovegreyreader scribbles' in two classes in the Port Eliot Festival Flower Show.
This was on the assumption that collective imagination and inspiration from 185 countries around the world would help us to come up with some stunning ideas, which we (Bookhound, Offspringette and I) will then transform into entries.

I did check with Lady St Germans and have been reassured that this is not cheating, and that indeed there is much excitement about our entry... no pressure then.
Now the folly of this becomes apparent when I tell you I am not God's gift to flower arranging let alone the Constance Spry of the blog world, and right now the garden has Ox-Eye Daisies which smell vile, Rose of Sharon, Honeysuckle and not a lot more...but this is no ordinary flower show, this is the Port Eliot Flower Show. It won't matter if the Oasis is showing, normal rules of flower show etiquette don't apply, technical mastery and floral precision are thankfully not a pre-requisite, and though natural plant material must dominate, it's about imagination and a love of flowers.
We can think laterally and very creatively and cook up a real storm of an installation which may well veer into a terrible mess, but it's the taking part that counts.
So if you could get your thinking caps on we'd be very grateful...

I won't need too much help with with Class 8

"Hoe, Hoe, Hoe!" An arrangement of weeds not to exceed 18" in any direction.

But all suggestions welcome, I've got a container lined up but when is a weed a wildflower...I've located a plentiful supply of Rosebay Willowherb about a mile up the road for some colour, will that count?

It's Class 2 that is more of a challenge...

"In the Library" - An Arrangement of Flowers Depicting a Great Novel.
Not to exceed 24" in any direction. Props and drapes may be used. In fact, do not hold back. To be viewed from the front.

Now there's nothing more exciting than having four visiting Canadians, vibrant inspirational women all, you feed them a delicious cream tea (well done to Bookhound) and then you trap them in your book room and ask for ideas. In a flash CanadaGill came up with a brilliant suggestion for the book which we'll have to keep secret... so can you not tell anyone, we'll have to keep it under wraps, keep our powder dry, beware of pale imitations.
But we have great expectations about any ideas you might come up with and with some lateral thinking around the word 'expectations' suddenly we were brain storming and had it sussed.
I've developed the theme a bit further and picked up some old lacy net curtains in charity shop today which I'm going to tea dye, because I'm thinking Miss Havisham's veil as a draping backdrop, and what's the betting the very time I want white nets to go yellowy-brown they stay pristine.
Next I plan to pin our 'expectations' on to the veil. much as you pin your hopes on something, or lay them around and we've been looking at dictionary definitions.
The act of expecting.
Eager anticipation: eyes shining with expectation.
The state of being expected.
Something expected: a result that did not live up to expectations.
Prospects, especially of success or gain.

I'm wondering if you're getting the gist, if so all ideas for 'expectations' gratefully received and they can take the form of pictures or actual things that create a mood of expectation...so far they include
a half-knitted sock (has to be in there somewhere)
a sealed letter
a little parcel of books
a picture of the England football team (ha ha)
eggs
closed flower buds
seeds
caterpillar
various newspaper headlines
quotes from books
adverts for plastic surgery
a bus ticket

and I'm sure you can think of more, it can be as weird, whacky and wonderful as you like and if it's a picture and you want to email it to me please do, we'll put your name and location on it as the suggester or find a picture of it ourselves and print it off.
The flowers will have to be mainly the daisies (just pray they last until Friday which is setting up day) but with a Miss Havisham wedding bouquet look to them, so plenty going over to seed and there are a few foxgloves left...digitalis and all its poisonous connections with the heart, more lateral thinking about that jilted bride and there's plenty of ivy around. The Tinker has suggested that we arrange for it all to catch fire at the end of the show, I thanked him profusely for the idea, but said perhaps not.
I have a feeling this is going to end up looking more like a fusion of The Old Curiosity Shop and The Darling Buds of May but never mind, over to you, please do name your 'expectations.'

dovegreyholidays...

One of the joys of the last eighteen months spent working from home, as a self-employed virtual health visitor, is that it hardly seems like work as I knew it.
No more smart work clothes, eating lunch in my car, traipsing along farm tracks up on Dartmoor in the pouring rain, driving miles and miles in a day, catching horrible bugs in doctor's surgeries, going to meetings that bored the socks off me, no more NHS managers, no more missing the summer in the garden. There could be drawbacks I suppose... like perhaps not actually seeing people and babies, or pining for the pit bull terriers that sit on your lap and drool all over your trousers, or feeling lonely because you're not in an office having a laugh... except we use skype as our office and we do laugh a lot. But I'm dealing with lots of very sad things, and words are all I have to work with, so I have to remind myself to take a break from work every so often and recharge the batteries, which is what I'm doing for the next two weeks.
No plans to stray far from home or blog and lots of lovely things penciled in the diary, including a visit from Mrs KFC and friends from Canada which we are more than over-excited about. They will be staying at a nearby 'very nice hotel' and we shall be serving Devon cream tea on the verandah because how can we not. It's also the annual village Cherry Fair whilst they are here, so if Canada wishes to witness traditional English village mayhem with a good old rural wellie-throwing contest and Guess the Weight of the Cake we will be able to oblige.
It's a very scaled down Dartington for me this year because for reasons various ( to do with publicity and marketing requirements) I have declined the kind offer of six free tickets, and will be paying my own way just like the old days. I am planning to see Per Peterson whose latest novel The Curse of the River of Time I have just finished, Charlotte Moore speaking about Hancox, Lyndall Gordon on Emily Dickinson, Jon McGregor speaking about Even the Dogs and Carol Drinkwater... the first Mrs Herriot in the TV series All Creatures Great and Small and now the author of the very successful Olive Farm series. Carol has very kindly done a lovely dovegreyreader asks... for us which will be on here soon, and I'm really looking forward to meeting her next week.
I will hopefully be getting to Port Eliot again this year too.
I was very generously offered carte blanche for a dovegreyreader event which I'm embarrassed to say I declined in a bit of a panic and a sudden dearth of imagination (chicken...but next year I wonder about a knitting tent...or a quilting tent..) but I will be blogging around the festival and Offspringette may come along and blog about all the noisy things.
I meanwhile am very much looking forward to the Persephone Tea with Diana Athill, Margaret Drabble will be speaking too and you can be very sure I won't miss the new Flower Show which sounds quite amazing. I've been sent a sneak preview of  Michael Howell's designs for the set and it's fabulous, with a fantastic line up of events all set in the Orangery. This includes Alice Oswald's mother, gardener Mary Keen, talking about Growing Alice's Flowers and with recorded poetry readings by Alice....bliss and much more about that soon.
But even though we're not going away, it's holiday time and I need holiday reading so I've been having a gaze around the shelves because it would be a good time to settle down with a chunkster of a book.
I still haven't read A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel so that might make the cut if I fancy a bit of French Revolution.

Having heard Sue McGregor extolling the virtues of Norman Lewis on A Good Read a few weeks ago I have a stack of his books ready and waiting and dipping into the biography Semi Invisible Man by Julian Evans has also piqued my interest. Norman Lewis seems to be a highly respected, brilliant and much-loved writer about whom I know very little and I would like to know more...I've made a definite start on the biography and reading A Voyage By Dhow alongside I feel stellar praise for my new best friend Norm coming on.

                         
Seeing Peyton Place by Grace Metalious on Simon's selection for the NTTVBG Summer Reads reminds that I have it and have been meaning to, so I might.

There seems to be a buzz around The Clay Dreaming by Ed Hillyer, good recommends reach these shores, but it's 540 very big pages long so I might just chip away at that and see how I do.
This next one might not make for holiday reading, but arriving in the post another book which had me jumping up and down with excitement, others may not see it as quite so exciting but it's my sphere and I can't wait to read it, The Mind of the Child - Child Development in Literature, Science and Medicine, 1840-1900 by Sally Shuttleworth and published by Oxford University Press.

It is the most impressive looking book, scholarly and copiously referenced as you'd expect, so it will take me some time, but I have a feeling it will lead me nicely back into the nineteenth century novel.
So that's enough to keep me going, how about you...any good holiday reads lined up?

Port Eliot Litfest 2009

You'll know from here that I adore Port Eliot, and you now know that I'm taking you all along to the entire Port Eliot Literary Festival, because the blog is going to sneak across the border into Cornwall and we'll be there for the whole weekend, with a laptop, a wireless signal, a camera and a very big picnic basket and we are going to have one very great big amazing time.
You don't even need to ask if I'll be sleeping in a yurt because you already know the answer, it's a no. Canvas is for painting on not sleeping under etc etc, so I'll be coming home to my bath and bed each night.
I'll also be 'performing'  on the Saturday, So You Think You Want to Write a Blog?
Well I haven't exactly written it yet, let alone painted the scenery or done costumes and rehearsed or sorted out the music and the dance routines or trained Rocky up , so all suggestions welcome, and very quickly too before I start to have sleepless nights.
In fact perhaps I could so some market research now, a sort of 'dovegreyreader asks...the readers' and then I could call it evidence-based research when I get there.
So  if you could enlighten me, I could then enlighten them, and this isn't an ego trip, I can take it, so please be honest and say what you feel especially when you get to question four.

• How did you find dovegreyreader?
• Why do you read it? 
• Does what you read about here influence your reading, if so how?
• What don't you like?
• If you were asked for three words to describe dovegreyreader scribbles what would they be? 
• Bored of Ireland  if you're still there, is it still a 'load of trivial, rambling rubbish' or have things improved around here?

If you've got time after that, take a look at the Port Eliot line up too and let me know who you'd like me to try and nab to say a few words on here, because we're going to be taking along the virtual armchair and it all promises to be very exciting indeed, so we'll talk about that some more and very soon.
I've already sorted out a few people I don't want to miss.
Good friend of dgr scribbles Justine Picardie will be there.
I'm going to be meeting up with Nicola Beauman from Persephone Books
I just have to see Barbara Hulanicki and find out how to make vintage work again and to tell her that my student nurse flatmates and I used to go to Biba if only to breath in the air back in the early 1970s.
Then I must find Kit Berry and her corn dollies.
Kate Summerscale of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher fame will be
'creating a mysterious and intriguing happening to take place inside the wonderful Port Eliot House.'
I'm also going to be a bit of a stalking fan (writers must shudder at the very idea) and try and find Kamila Shamsie to get my copy of Burnt Shadows signed, and then I'd love to catch up with Susie Boyt because I'm reading My Judy Garland Life and me and Susie, we are best friends now.
I'll be in danger of talking to Susie as if I've known her for years, show us that tap dance step Susie, go on...never mind about the Italia Conti school, I didn't go there either but at least you had the skirt...shall we just sing a quick verse of Over the Rainbow...honestly, I promise I wouldn't sing you off the stage.
Then there's Sarah Waters and Port Eliot surely the most perfect setting for any discussion about The Little Stranger and conjuring visions of Hundreds Hall.
Plus, it's no good, I'm too excited to keep this from you a single minute longer because...
talking of 'dovegreyreader asks...' just guess who is sitting in the virtual armchair, 'neath the gentle glow of the standard lamp this coming Monday?
Yes really, you definitely don't want to miss it.

One Million Tiny Plays About Britain by Craig Taylor

I've been reading One Million Tiny Plays About Britain by Craig Taylor, and published by Bloomsbury, for several months now because it's not a book I wanted to read cover to cover in a week or so.The book's been picked up, put down, a few more plays read, left for a while, back to it again, but it's been a constant on the book circuit around the house.
These little dramatic encounters first appeared in the Guardian and many readers were justifiably fooled into thinking they were 'snippets of dialogue snatched from real life.'
It's hard not to read and feel as if you are eavesdropping on real-life conversations when in fact each is a dramatic little play of its own between two people and each cleverly representing and exposing some little nuance of British life.
Two builders on building site.
The mother sitting by her son's hospital bed.
Two mother's standing near a Santa's grotto in Barking.
Two DJs prepare for a New Year's Party in Watford.
Each no more than a few pages long and described by Richard Eyre as 'dramatic haikus'  a 'keyhole through which you can peer at contemporary Britain'.
Craig Taylor must be out there with his wits and his ears about him listening to the great British public to have come up so much that feels so accurate, because as you read you listen and you can hear, and I'm now sitting here wishing I'd walked around all those doctor's surgeries I've worked in over the years with a little notebook to hand.
Just think of all those waiting room gems I've missed, all those front desk observations I haven't really observed.
Having shared an office with district nurses for many years I've listened to enough one-sided phone calls to fill an encyclopaedia, you know the sort of thing,

Nurse - Oh dear that must be awful for you...not since last Saturday...yes, that's five days...no, right...no you don't take them...no definitely not...have you been swallowing them then...oh dear, and they still haven't worked have they...no don't do that...no really best not to...I'll call round later and we'll sort it...well I'll explain how when I see you.

Nurse - He's pulled it out again has he...that can't have been easy...gosh...really...was the balloon...no...it was still inflated?...yes...I'll bet...yes that will have made his eyes water quite a lot.

Mine on the Health Visitor side of the room equally amusing to them so they used to tell me and usually involved asking 'what colour is it?'
But nothing as clever as Craig Taylor who does include a few medical encounters, but mostly these are the moments that anyone of us could witness except I doubt I'd quite be able to define the unspoken embarrassments or expose the prejudices as well as Craig Taylor does.
This is clever dialogue and now I'm intrigued by mentions of  Return to Akenfield, Craig Taylor's 'documentary-portrait of rural England through the voices of its inhabitants.' Not only for its links to Ronald Blythe the original author of Akenfield published thirty-eight years ago, whose new book I'm really looking forward to, but for this as outlined by Andrew Motion in his 2006 review,

'Return to Akenfield is a generous tribute to the generosity of the place it describes, and tells a heartening story about tolerance and resourcefulness. Have the same qualities saved and invigorated other villages elsewhere? It's difficult to say, and reasonable to feel doubtful. The faulty connection between town imperatives and country living remains one of the great national issues of our time.'

Being almost villagers ourselves (fifteen years done, not sure how many before full entitlement) there's much more I'd like to explore there
Michel Faber in his foreword to A Million Tiny Plays About Britain highlights the messy demographics of modern Britain and with it the vast ocean of material available, but also that to describe these in too much detail would entail using more words than the play itself, but he also rightly says everyone will have their favourites.
Mine this week?
Play no 64 (Two sisters are on a train home to Suffolk) and more than that I can't say, but if you lay hands on the book I think you'll find your own favourites too.
Craig Taylor will be performing a selection of these plays with friends at Port Eliot and I can't wait.

'Tis the season of the litfest

July dawns and measured plans are afoot here for getting to some literary festivals.
Having already realised that I won't manage quite as much of Ways With Words at Dartington as I did last year, I've had a good browse through the programme and picked out the events I absolutely can't miss; writers I've read and written about here and others in progress.
It will be an early start to get across the moors in time for a 9.30am start on July 11th to hear William Fiennes talk about The Music Room,

'Books like this leave a feeling, a resonating mood, for me a pitch-perfect sense of optimism and goodness, I think The Music Room might possibly be one to put on the 'Roger Deakin' shelf and revisit every so often, there is something timeless and quite life-enhancing about it.'

On that same day, a showing of the documentary film about the collaboration of artist Leonard Baskin with Ted Hughes. Baskin best known by me for his illustrations to Crow, and later that afternoon Andrew Motion delivers the Ted Hughes Memorial Lecture, 'How Ted Hughes Became'.
Back again for Sunday to hear Sarah Hall talking about her latest novel How to Paint a Dead Man.
I loved The Electric Michelangelo and this book has really impressed me too, and later that day another book which impressed me, Amanda Craig talking about Hearts and Minds and then Jill Dawson on her latest book The Great Lover.
I have just finished The Great Lover and am left with mixed feelings so I will be interested to hear more about it.
Later in the week I don't want to miss Anne Chisholm talking about her biography of Frances Partridge which I'm also hoping to have read before I go.
Then a big day with Hilary Mantel (twice) Penelope Lively and Margaret Drabble so plenty to look forward to and I'll be sharing it all with you as and when it happens.
I've finally got right into Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and can report that for me this has not been a book to read in dribs and drabs. I read the first ninety pages about two months ago, diverted into post-operative reading and, having just read those ninety pages again, now realize that this is the book of the concerted effort, snatched reading just hasn't worked.
Now I'm in, I'm completely in, and right up to my stomacher in Tudor shenanigans and quite horrified at how flimsy my grasp of Tudor history actually is and I'm beginning to wonder if it would help, with a book that feels as complex as this, to have a better grasp.
For someone who was educated on the very site of Nonsuch, Henry's most lavish palace, this is all a bit of an embarrassing state of affairs which can only improve.
430 years on clearly not a lot imbibed through being at one with that Tudor earth out on the hockey pitch.
That's the palace not the school by the way.
Once I've recovered from all that Ways With Words excitement we'll have to do a very quick turn around because just look where we're going next and we might need wellies.

For anyone who hasn't been around at litfest time you might want to check out Ways With Words 2008 to get an idea of what happens, and you can find previous Port Eliot visits here, because dovegreyreader scribbles will still be here but indulging in as-and-when posting rather than same-time-daily.
It's like buses, three at once then a gap so that will be happening from about July 10th onwards but Team Ulysses will still convene on the 16th as arranged (sorry, not letting you off that)
Litfest time is one of the few occasions when I write and publish on here almost immediately the thought has left my mind, so dangerous times ahead.
Unedited, quick proof read for howlers...words like public are always a worry, so easy to lose that 'l'. I'll probably drop a few huge clangers and the typos will abound, but we'll all be having fun and that's what matters.
More about Port Eliot reading to come.

Port Eliot : Episode Four - Below Stairs

There's something beguiling and compulsive about an opportunity to see a bit of a stately home that is not open to everyone else, which is why Bookhound and I could contain ourselves no longer and dashed into the Basement Haunting right after the evening talk at Port Eliot thinking we'd then saunter back in and have a good look at the archive and chat to everyone, say our thankyous and bid farewell.
Except it didn't work like that.
Once we emerged at the other end we were shown out to the car park.
We'd been below stairs and there was to be no return to the glamour and glitz of life above stairs, it felt quite as it must have done to those who worked in this strange world centuries ago.
The Round Room at Port Eliot with its legendary Robert Lenkiewicz mural was the locaton for the evening event and also a display of facsimiles from the du Maurier archive held at Exeter University. For me the most striking picture that of Daphne seated with her father Gerald, looking for all the world like a glamorous couple, he holding her hand firmly on her knee, Daphne looking uncomfortably away, not meeting his reverential gaze which is firmly fixed on her eyes.Surely we expect this gaze to be the opposite, daughter looking at father, making this a picture that told those thousand words and more about the strange relationship between father and daughter.
More fascinating discussion about the paper trail that underpins Justine's writing of Daphne and some very informative details from Jessica Gardner the curator of the archive, and all as the Lenkiewicz mural radiated its multiplicity of strange and complex metaphors down on us. Occasionally my eye wandered off to yet another Robert mystery and this mural is known to contain many, it is unfathomable but spectacular for its scale and artistic prowess, a mix of portrait, still life, trompe-l'oeil and imagery. In death Robert Lenkiewicz has certainly continued to arouse the interest and achieve the notoriety he constantly courted in his life.
Follow this link and get a flavour of the house and a virtual 360 degree tour of the Round Room for yourself, it's truly astonishing. I'm going to write more about the guide book when I get it back because it's a very entertaining and beautifully presented treasure. The Tinker snaffled mine eagerly, but I do now have the horse's mouth (or should that be the elephant's mouth?) explanation for the symbolism of the pachyderm.
Everyone I've asked has shrugged and said they hadn't a clue so in the end it made sense to ask the one person who'd know and the Earl has obliged. More soon on that.
But off to the basement we went ushered in by designer Michael Howells and we should have guessed when we jokingly said 'we might not be back ' and he replied ' you won't be coming back' that he was right.
Firstly the candelit cellars. Round so presumably beneath the Round Room and some stock in evidence.
'Anything worth drinking in there,' someone asked us as we emerged,
'all of it probably,' quipped Bookhound.
Then along to the Housekeeper's Room, the Gun Room, the Servant's Hall, everything dimly and eerily lit by candles, surprisingly spacious and clearly all as it had been seventy plus years ago. This was another complete world, a parallel community existing beneath the one it served, and with a dining room 100 feet from the kitchen they must all have been as sleek as that whippet Roo St Germans. Glimpsing shadowy rows and rows of servants bells all named by room and you begin to imagine the bustle and activity down here whilst life waited expectantly and demandingly upstairs.
The atmosphere was cold, chilled and yes haunting, we weren't expecting the figure in the rocking chair to come to life and get up to answer the phone either, nor to hear that it was Mrs Danvers on the other end.
A lasting image with which to depart as I finally head into that long-awaited re-read of Rebecca forty years on. It is certain in my mind now that Daphne had a house as grand as Port Eliot in her mind when she wrote Rebecca, so all a fitting end to a magical and unforgettable weekend.

Port Eliot - Episode Three and my first ever link to a dog's blog

I suspect most people fall in love with Port Eliot at first glimpse. Even Napoleon it would seem.

'Napoloen, gazing at Port Eliot land from the sea as he sailed into exile, said it was the most beautiful place in England. Enfin cec beau pays',

so reports Captain Maitland of HMS Bellerophon ( and I cribbed that from the guidebook)

As Catherine St Germans explained, it is a house full of secrets and hidden places and, in the knowledge that Daphne du Maurier and her sister Angela were frequent visitors in the 1930's, it doesn't take too much of a leap in joined-up thinking to speculate on how Daphne's imagination would have been inspired by such a magical place as she delved deep to create the setting of Manderley for Rebecca.
If imagination be partly a composite of images and impressions, then Port Eliot spins a deep and strangely intricate gossamer web of them across your mind.
As we sat in the library on Friday evening and I listened to Justine read the opening pages of Daphne, though I'm now very familiar with the words, in every setting they say something new and different and I think more and more people are realizing that Justine has actually written a very important book. Not only contributing hugely to a Daphne du Maurier renaissance but also adding renewed impetus to the work of Bronte scholars searching for the missing book of Emily Bronte's poems. The loss of the Honresfeld manuscript, its whereabouts shrouded in mystery and intrigue, is now emerging as another important thread from Daphne and there are some literary super-sleuths back on the trail.
Justine's tenacious and diligent research has caused many a professor to sit up and pay attention because by returning to primary sources she has opened up new lines of enquiry. Indeed the powers that be at The Bronte Parsonage Museum may now be lying in a darkened room with cold compresses sprinkled with lavender water on their foreheads, so persistent were Justine's entreaties. Accessing the Symington letters file, forbidden to all who went before and therefore unopened for fifty years, must have been quite a moment.
Then you sit in a house like Port Eliot, where nothing has ever been thrown away, and suddenly you wonder what unknown treasures this house must hold? Now I've seen the basement, heaven alone knows what's in the attics, even King Tut would be impressed.

Daphne had her way with the weather yet again and the afternoon event moved from the garden to The Orangery (what a useful addition an Orangery is) as that very particular brand of West Country rain fell; it doesn't seems like it's raining at all but you will be soaked within minutes. Justine and Catherine engaged in a warm and fascinating conversation about all things Daphne and the audience was entranced yet again. The sun shone briefly for the slap-up Rebecca tea and so we were able to sit in the garden and cope admirably with the generous profusion of cucumber sandwiches, cream scones and chocolate cake.
With an eye for gates these days I espied this one leading into the Orangery and suddenly Catherine's words about a house and garden full of secrets never felt more real.

Everyone chatted to everyone else even if they didn't know each other, which is what you do at Port Eliot, or was that just me? It was a pleasure to meet Oxford Reader and it is also hoped the Port Eliot Daphne du Maurier day will become an annual event so must add this to my list of Essential Pilgrimages.
Justine chatted and signed books with her perfect blend of humour and enthusiasm and just take a look at the Devon designer footwear, note plain NOT flowery.
Meanwhile I dashed home before the evening event to get into passable cocktail and canapes gear (not moving in these circles this was a guess, but read here to discover the Unimagined and serious trouble a canape can get you into, poor Imran) , to find the Gamekeeper had caught a whopping great big sea bass down at Halton Quay and was busy filleting it in the kitchen.
Mess, ugh, fish, ugh, scales and guts everywhere, ugh, out again.
Much as I love the National Trust, of necessity the essence can be diluted whereas there is something quintessential about a house like Port Eliot, a much-loved home left completely alone and untouched. It's a house replete with a soul, unassuming eccentricities and a setting with a voice of its own; sometimes declaring loud, sometimes the merest whisper but a voice that you can almost hear, a voice that laughs too as you wander through, and one that echoes back in time across that sumptuous Repton parkland.
Then I think Port Eliot could also be unique in other ways.
Surely the only stately home in the land that has a dovegrey dog with a blog, don't miss Roo's thoughts on the general public and 'the bloody parrot'. This could catch on, imagine what the Royal corgis would have to say? If anyone gets a whiff of a Royal Corgi Blog please do let us all know.
The hundred opening days for 2008 will be up by June 10th but plan ahead for 2009. The litfest will be on again next July, check with the Estate about opening times for the house, make sure you come via the A38 and the Tamar Bridge and then divert off left to St Germans a few miles later. I can promise you a beautiful and magical introduction to any visit to this most enchanting and mysterious county.

Coming Soon : Episode Four - The Basement

PS If you haven't read Unimagined by Imran Ahmad please don't miss it, it was Ann Widdecombe and dovegreyreader's Best Non-Fiction Read of 2007 and it says so inside the book.

Port Eliot - Episode Two

Being met in the hallway of one of the nation's most unique stately homes by the chatelaine is something of a treat.
Port Eliot is a mix of ancient monastic with remnants of tiled floors dating back to the 3rd century, 9th century foundations, 13th century windows, bit like ours really...windows done in 1996, floor laid in 1998 you know the sort of thing. In the 18th century Sir John Soane and Humphrey Repton arrived and the real fun began.
Why be dependent on the tides and have to arrive at your front door by boat when you can divert the estuary and create a park? Now by park, I mean park as in huge, stunning landscaped vista drawing the eye from tree to tree and on to the horizon as far as it can see.
The paintings are truly jaw-dropping in their importance and every one seemed to be by Sir Joshua Reynolds. I think the one which captured all our imaginations was that of Hester Booth dressed in harlequin who has been termed 'England's first ballerina.' Hester danced privately for both the Kings of England and of France and by various means (ie a daughter by the man behind the South Sea Bubble financial swindle) Hester brought great fortune to the Eliot family and they continued to prosper.
Imagine walking into your sitting room and saying 'That's a Van Dyke over the fireplace', Catherine St Germans can, in fact it's ten little Van Dyke's (and as if that wasn't enough the frame was made by Robert Lenkiewicz) and it is clear she adores everything about this house and so did I. As the 10th Earl says in his introduction to the most honest and informative guide book you will ever read (I was up until 2am reading it)
'Some might say Port Eliot is a tip; others may say it is a classic example of gilded decay.My wife and I love it as it is.'
It's not difficult to see why.
Even as I sat in a chair, leather worn bare, horsehair stuffing peeking out at me, that George Bernard Shaw had sat in,(there's a photo of him sitting in it ) in a real country house library housing some priceless books and even one called The Book of Dove Magic, I could sense the voices whispering from the walls. It was surreal. The atmosphere is wonderfully benign and tangible, it's all nurtured with love and completely cherished, this is a house that just feels as honest as the day is long when you walk inside.
Like our house, nothing has ever been thrown away.
The difference is Port Eliot is vast, 11 staircases, 15 back doors, and 82 chimneys and half an acre of roof which has never knowingly been watertight in its entire history so there's plenty of room to store it all and every day is yielding new discoveries.
We loved the museum standard Louis 14th Boule ormulu-mounted brass inlaid armoire in the Morning Room, far too precious too touch you'd think, but no, we could stroke it and what a joy to see it houses the family's collection of vinyl records.
Everything is lived in and loved and has the patina of a million fingerprints that nothing could ever achieve but time and daily use, and now in the light of my visit, I'm completely reappraising our Wilton rug.
It measures a mere 14ft by 10 ft but it was old when it was given too us and already going threadbare. I love it but for years I have juggled it round to hide the fast-growing loss of pattern and exposure of weave.
No more.
Threadbare is excellent and I'm now quite keen for it to move into the actual hole-in-the-rug phase which for some reason I had been dreading.
This is the Port Eliot look and I've realised, forget new immaculate, this is the look that all the best, most loved homes should emulate.
I haven't even told you about my trip to the loo or Justine's talk on Daphne yet, and you'll have to forgive me because I have to dash back for a slap-up Rebecca style cream tea in the rhododendron gardens, a look at the du Maurier archive exhibition, a better look around the house, a chat with Anne from Bookends in Fowey who will be there and I must gather some more reassuring tips on the Port Eliot look which I think we are some way to achieving though unwittingly.
Tonight can you believe it, we will be drinking Daphnes, a Nigella Lawson cocktail concocted for the evening, plus a trip around the basements and a Michael Howells haunting. Michael is the resident designer of Ballet Rambert and set designer for John Galliano, Christian Dior and Mario Testino...can you even begin to imagine what lies in wait?
If you are anywhere near or even distant, you've still got time to get there and I can guarantee your journey will not be wasted. Ring 01503-230211 to check ticket availability, say dovegreyreader and you will be transformed into a student and pay student rates accordingly.
More soon.

Noye's Fludde and Port Eliot

I'd allowed plenty of time to get to the Friday dovegreyreader event at Port Eliot for 5pm.
From here a mere eighteen miles so even given leisurely-scenic I'd be early. But in true Daphne style, as I was about to set off, the thunder crashed around the brimming pewter skies, the lightning forked and we had a veritable Noye's Fludde as the heavens opened.
If the Kayaker hadn't just set off for four months white water river guiding duties in Canada he could have paddled along the lane with ease (that's actually the Zambezi not Devon).
This is predictable.
The minute he leaves the country in search of snow we have a blizzard, hunting white water and we can expect a flood.
Undaunted I crossed the moat that had appeared around the house to get to my car, set off in my trusty Fiesta chariot and quickly realised I'd soon be needing armbands. Funny how it doesn't look that deep until you are in the middle of it.
The lane was flooded, water slopping up the wheel arches and I'd only driven a hundred yards.
Reversing back to the house I decided to float to the other end of the lane where actually the water was even deeper but I just kept going and ignored the strange whining noises coming from somewhere near the front of the car.
Is that where the engine is?
Does it matter if water gets in?
Call me irresponsible but on principle I refuse to learn about cars, that's what the RAC are for and when they arrive I can get the instruction book out to find out how to open the bonnet.
Things aren't that bad yet but in a minute they could be because I then made a completely irrational and stupid decision based on my eagerness to get to where I was going and turned left. As I headed downhill towards the Tamar in order to cross it and climb the other side of the valley, thus cutting twenty miles off my journey, it quickly became apparent that the Tamar was not waiting for me but seemed to be coming to greet me.
Suddenly I also notice in stark relief the combination of ancient trees that tower over the lane and the lightning. I'm safe in my Ford 'Faraday Cage' I think but not so good if a tree topples.
Do not ask me how I didn't splutter to a halt as the water got deeper and deeper and the underneath of the car's had a real good wash, but eventually seeing sense I turned round and headed uphill again for the main road. By this time the flood descending downhill to meet the ascending Tamar was like nothing I had ever seen before and I'm still only five minutes from home and I've been swimming around in circles for half an hour and now I'm driving against the tide and the wipers are swiping fit to take off and I still can't see a thing.
The dovegreyreader event will be starting without me at this rate, but actually I'm beginning to feel slightly nervous at the sheer quantity of water outside.
Check the brakes, that's what you're supposed to do.
No don't check the brakes, if they don't work I won't be able to go to Port Eliot, I'll find out soon enough. Where's the Land Rover when you need it? The Land Rover's on its way back from delivering the Kayaker to Canada via Heathrow that's where.
I'm going to have to go the long way round and suddenly I'm not sure of the way so I ring the Gamekeeper, who thinks I've arrived, to tell him I'm back at the end of the lane and he swims along to me in his van with a map and then heads on his way to help someone whose house is flooding.
I don't ask about ours.
If it's flooded I won't be able to go to Port Eliot, I'll find out when I get back.
Eventually I summit at the main road and crack on, finally screeching up to the front of this incredible house that is Port Eliot at one minute to five where thankfully the brakes do work and I don't drive on in through the front door.
So what's waiting inside?
Well everyone else for a start, and Justine Picardie attired in dovegrey and clutching a copy of Daphne and Catherine St Germans with a dovegrey dog and all those fabulous Joshua Reynolds paintings, so then we...
Well that's enough excitement for one post, more soon, but special, astonishing, amazing doesn't even begin to describe it all.