When I started writing dovegreyreader scribbles almost seven years ago now, or maybe it's eight, I'm losing track, I thought I'd stop once the ideas and the reading inspiration ran out. I couldn't imagine even keeping this going for a month, so it is a constant source of surprise and delicious expectation, waiting to see what will grab my attention next, which books or writers will give me that addictive buzz of reading enthusiasm. I never know where it will come from, am never quite sure how it arrives or how it makes itself known to me, because I don't try too hard, but sure as books is books I know it will. I never panic about reading, or not reading, or think I have 'reader's block' because I have picked up a pile of books and nothing seems to work. I just go and do something else before picking up another pile, eventually something fits the moment, and in the case of a little project ....well the idea is suddenly there and I am onto it in a flash.
Now of course this could all lead to trouble, and a horrible panicky backlog of half-baked unfinished projects, except that doesn't bother me either. Apart from our year-long read I don't set myself schedules, or apply pressure to complete, so currently I am still reading Hilary Mantel in order of publication and have Eight Months on Ghazzah Street waiting in the wings, and nor have I forgotten the Zola Rougon Macquart series, the next of which is waiting for an autumn day when a trip to France from the armchair feels spot on....and of course, along with many of you, I am about to start A Suitable Boy.
This summer my attention has also been inexplicably grabbed by Lucy M. Boston, so one of my proposed reading projects for this winter is a complete and leisurely read of Lucy M. Boston's Green Knowe books, as well as her memoir Memories, and Diana Boston's lovely book The Patchworks of Lucy Boston.
It ticks all the boxes really doesn't it.
Nice bit of accessing the Inner Child.
Patchwork..
And then who knows maybe a visit to Hemmingford Grey to see The Manor and the quilts and the gardens, because Lucy was a keen gardener too.
And even better, Lucy Boston published all her books after the age of sixty.
I'm hurtling towards a golden jubilee of my own in a matter of weeks so its good to know all things are possible, look at Mary Wesley and Penelope Fitzgerald too. A Stranger at Green Knowe, the fourth in the series, won the Carnegie Medal. Penelope Fitzgerald won the Booker for Offshore, let's hear it for us diamond jubilee-ers. Thus far I am just extraordinarily excited at the prospect of cheaper train fares with a Senior Railcard.
I have spent the summer accumulating the books ( that brand new copy of Memories surfaced on eBay and far cheaper than You-Know-Where) because we only had The Children of Green Knowe on the shelf, bought after watching the memorable and magical TV series back in the 1980s, and I had to turn the house upside down to find the book. Wouldn't it be nice to watch that again I thought, and so imagine my horror when I read somewhere that the BBC have apparently lost the tapes and there is no copy of it to be found. Except on youtube some enterprising person seems to have come good and there are various episodes available, and now I discover an online petition to get the series released on DVD, all very confusing but at least it's on the radar.
A quick scan of Lucy Boston's life on wikipedia, along with some interesting online articles including this one by Celia Eddy about the quilts, has really whetted my appetite for this whole project so much more Green Knowe-ingness to come.
Any more Lucy M.Boston fans out there...
Has anyone been to Hemmingford Grey...
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