Category: Books

#1610 theoldmortuary ponders

On By Juliet CornellIn Books1 Comment

I received this book for a birthday in my last year of junior school. I first read it at the age of 11. Adult me wonders why anyone thought it was a suitable book for an eleven year old. Just because I could read it doesn’t mean that I should have read it. This was the exact edition that was gifted to me. I found it recently in a charity shop. I’ve always created cimematic images in my head when I read books. My images are significantly different from actual Cinema or T.V productions of the same novel that I have seen. Finding this book showed me why. My image of the whole story is completely played out in the colours of autumn. Not the monotone and dusty decor that traditionally surrounds Miss Havisham. A bunch of flowers, well passed their best reminded me of her wedding bouquet, the one in my head.

Although the charity shop book is old and faded if I perk it up a little I can see the colours that inspired my 11 year old imagination.

Memory is a funny thing, the first thought I had when I found the passed their best bouquet in my kitchen, was ‘ Miss Havisham’s bouquet.’

Not that I am suggesting that my colour palate is more correct than T.V or Cinema but slightly surprised that I stick with it despite most other media prefering dust and monotone. I remain stubbornly stuck in my 11 year old head on this one, should you be interested the wedding dress is sepia and coffee coloured. What would be my colours of choice if my first read of the novel was in a plain school version at the age of 15 having watched it as a T.V drama in black and white. Colour imagination is an inexplicable thing . I am very glad to have solved this one and still uncertain if the story would ever been fully understood by an eleven year old.

#1609 theoldmortuary ponders

On By Juliet CornellIn Books, Family, Interior Design1 Comment

Yesterday started with a dramatic rescue. Mondays are our child-care days. I have probably never mentioned that on the blog before. The day starts early, and is punctuated in the early afternoon by a gym class, but beyond that restriction we allow the day to be free flowing, shaped by serendipity and the weather.

This bee was caught in a spiders web, a brunch perhaps for a spider settling into the outhouse for the winter. I rescued her by gently pulling the web from her furry legs. The small person and I were concerned that one leg was broken as it was stuck up in the air. The small person has spent part of the summer on crutches so she is an expert on broken legs. There were theories on bee leg care. As far as bees are concerned I have just the one trick in my first aid box. Sugar.

Maple Syrup was chosen and the bee was presented with a small puddle of it. We watched her drink in the golden fluid. The’ broken’ leg started to move normally. Moments after I caught this picture the bee unfurled her wings and flew off. The small person was very happy. And I did not need to worry about supplying a tiny crutch.

Other small person drama’s were less easy to defuse. A favourite pebble went missing. In hand one moment and gone the next. Superficial but thorough looking did not locate it. I was more engaged than you might expect, because it was my favourite pebble.One end of the dining room had all its furniture moved. The pebble was found. The small person mopped and cleaned the floor. We moved the furniture back into different positions and found the missing pumpkin decorations. Definately a bonus.

The small person was very proud of her morning achievements. The October tree was decorated in its new position.

Certainly a morning spent in an unexpected way. I sense that she believes the whole thing was only achieved because she was there. The irony of the missing pebble is impressive.

#1284 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books2 Comments

Which fictional world would be the most fun to vacation in?

In my case the fictional world would be double fictionalised. Kenneth Grahame wrote The Wind in the Willows set on the Thames near his home in Pangbourne. Every time I read this book I imagined the action taking place in the countryside I was familiar with, the borders of Essex, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.

At age 8 that was my lived  experience. The countryside of John Constable. The Thames as I knew it was a wide and softly muddy estuary  washing into the North Sea near Southend.

In my head Ratty, Mole, Badger and Toad mucked about in a river that looked a lot like the Rover Stour, which was close to home.

When I was older and more familiar with the Cotswolds version of the Thames I imagined that Wind in the Willows might be better suited to that location. I only usually visited the Cotswolds in the summer, which is the only season I ever think about when Wind in the Willows crosses my mind.

The double fictional location of the Cotswolds.My choice tacked on erroneously to Kenneth Grahame’s  book,  would most certainly be a fun and fabulous place to vacation/holiday in. It is always summer in my mind but not actually in the book.

The landscape of the Cotswolds would seem very familiar to Ratty, Mole, Badger and Toad. Shepherds Huts and Gipsy Caravans dot the landscape, as do very expensive car salesrooms. For me good bookshops and coffee places hide out  in small towns and villages. So do very upmarket garden centres, a particular holiday weakness of mine. I know that Toad would regularly shop at Daylesford or the Burford Garden Centre. Ratty and Mole would express caution at some of the prices.Badger would roll his eyes. They would be helpful shopping companions for me too in such places.

The original 1908 illustrations by Ernest H. Shepard and my  2019 photograph will give you a clue as to why I shifted my own fictional location for these stories to the Cotswolds.

1908 illustrations
Daylesford Garden Centre and Farm Shop May 2019

So, my apologies to Pangbourne. Perhaps I should visit for some authenticity.

P.S in researching this blog I realise my  60 year old paperback is no longer capable of the page turning required for research. Time to get a new copy.

This pink Porsche was also parked near the vintage vehicle on the same day.

#1351 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books1 Comment
©theoldmortuary

If you could have dinner with any fictional character, who would it be?

This is slightly cheating but I would ask AI to write a novel where the male protagonist was exactly like my father. I would then edit out the glitches and inaccuracies, print out a small run of the books  and then invite the character, that would, in truth, be him. Then I would invite him for dinner and natter away. He was the steadier half of my gene pool and would reliably turn up. My mum would be almost as interesting to meet up with but might at the last minute find something better to do.

He and his wisdom have been  deceased for more than 30 years . The same for my mum. The conversation would not be all one way. I have five more years of life experience than them.  They might want advice on retirement or travel and grandchildren. Something they had briefly but were never really well enough to enjoy. I, for certain, would be taken to task for living a life as an artist and designer, when they skipped off this earth  I had a sensible career. One they pushed me towards to protect me from the giddiness of life as an impoverished creative.

However if I stick to the rules I would go for a much more tricksy diner companion. John-Baptiste Grenouille from Patick Suskind’s 1985 novel. Perfume. Let me be honest the dinner date would scare my pants off. And not in a good way. He is the one character that really lives on in my  head and Perfume is a book I re read more than any other. There is no accounting for this choice. I am not by nature a lover of literary horror. I don’t speak 17th century French or any other French for that matter. I can no more explain my choice to you than I can justify it to myself. He is just a character that slipped into a fissure in my brain and refuses to leave. Maybe, by confronting him over a meal I might get some insight into this curious decision. Maybe I would not even survive the meal.

#1524 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books, SerendipityLeave a comment
Firestone Bay

The past, on the other hand, arrives in chunks, sometimes when you least expect it or sometimes unreliably when you really need to remember something important or significant.

We are doing a little more grandparent caring at the moment as my daughter has a fractured shoulder.

I read such a lovely quote about Grandparents today. In a book that I have bought for a gift, but just reading the acknowledgements made me need to buy a copy for myself.

The last acknowledgement in Where Sleeping Women Wake by Emma Pei Yin is just the most gorgeous and significant quote about Grandparents and their grandchildren.

‘ Grandparents, in this life we were fated to meet yet destined to part’

But not just yet, there is loads to do before any parting happens.

#1509 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn blogging, Books, history, Serendipity2 Comments

Something is up in blogland. Inexplicably my reader stats for this year have jumped. Not quite half way through the year my blogs have already been read by the same  number of people who read my blogs in all of 2025.

A red letter day of sorts. It seems appropriate to share the blogs of past June the 15th’s.

Pandemic Pondering # 89

Pandemic Pondering #447

#239 theoldmortuary ponders

#632 theoldmortuary ponders.

#948 theoldmortuary ponders.

#1321 theoldmortuary ponders.

Some time hopping for you all. Which is a really crafty way of throwing in a book review. This morning I was awake early finishing a book that I have loved. I just couldn’t quite finish it last night.

Time hopping in books is either to your taste or not. No spoilers here but the time hopping element in this book is as near perfect as any that I have read.

And if that were not enough the book stops almost exactly where my blogs for June 15th start. In a shop just after restrictions were lifted post Covid

Picture from June 15th 2020

In another quirky little coincidence the bakery, where I bought this doughnut, has been in business for 5 centuries. The exact time span of Tracy Chevalier’s book. Life is every bit as strange as fiction.

My 5 year effort seems pretty tame compared to 5 centuries.

#1508 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books1 Comment
Our Yard store in the style of Derek Jarman

Black timber and a bright yellow door is a small homage to the garden/yarden style of Derek Jarman, who created an other worldly garden at his home, Prospect Cottage on Dungeness Beach, off the Kent Coast.

I am not certain how I stumbled into the world of Derek Jarman it would have been in the early 1980s in Brighton.I love the way he writes and his aesthetic style.

Prospect Cottage

Modern Nature, his book about HIV and creating a garden is one of my favourite books to dip into, until I loaned it and it has failed to be returned. Or has simply been misplaced or left somewhere.

There are so many nuggets of wisdom  to take from his musings but this little quote always makes me happy.

How luxurious and fortunate is it, to wander aimlessly either mentally or physically within our own lives.

 

Yellow door. 2.0

Last year I painted this door yellow. Only at dawn did it look even close to the perfect egg yolk yellow. Any later sunlight and the bright white walls bleached the yellow to a horrible acidic shade that was very much not to our taste. Traffic Light by Zinzer is perfect.

#1392 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books1 Comment
Bluebells and a reed bed at Exton.

Bluebells this morning just because. Today is post book club. 2026 has been a year for challenging book club reading. Not that reading always has to be easy, but grey winter months need some light and book club reading has not provided that this year. However challenging books create great book club conversations, which is exactly what we had yesterday. But this morning just the first chapter of the new book makes me feel very optimistic that I am in for a really enjoyable read in April. Which is fabulous because all my ordered library books are on a waiting list and my Christmas book pile has just been exhausted.

First world problems in a problematic world. But books are where I escape. Bluebells are good for that too.

#1394 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books, Film, Yardening1 Comment
Crepuscule in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney.

‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet’

Crepuscule is a bare root rose that I planted last year. I thought the name was clunky and ugly until I learned that Crepuscule was a French word for sunset. 

While I was away in December my bare root rose decided to put out her first ever flower.

I was both thrilled and concerned. What is beautifully acceptable in the early summer in Sydney is not the norm in a wintery Stonehouse. She also has a very high standard set by her Australian Cousin.

A new found love of growing roses brings with it some tough decisions. My bare root rose should be concentrating on growing roots not blooms. The secateurs were deployed to Crepuscules first efforts at budding and blooming. A Tragedy, some might say.

Which leads me tortuously to last nights outing to see the film Hamnet. On the day that awards and accolades have started tumbling in from the Red Carpet Film and T.V Awards Season.

I don’t often go to films of books that I have read that don’t seem to naturally lend themselves to a Screenplay. Hamnet was just such a book. Deeply enjoyable and dense but a bit of a tricksy read in parts. I couldn’t quite see how a screenplay could replicate my reading experience.

I shouldn’t have worried, Chloe Zhao the screenwriter and Maggie O’Farrell the original author and now co-screen writer did a brilliant job . Pruning and distilling the original text into something that worked brilliantly for me on screen.

Most times I put books and films of books into different filing systems.

Hamnet joins Perfume by Patrick Suskind as a film that I regard as accomplished as the original Novel. I imagine it works just as well for those who have not read the book.

Pruning and distilling at its best.

#1388 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Books1 Comment

The two weeks after my birthday were pretty well mapped out with appointments, normal life and creative periods. I am half way through this two week period and it has not panned out at all as I expected. Normal life and creative periods are the soft tissues that are formed around the skeleton of life which is formed by meetings, appointments and essential admin. This two week period would have pottered along  quite nicely. A virus slightly knocked me off the tracks until yesterday and then I was all set to get things done. Almost as the virus  walked out and shut the door a series of phone calls cancelled four appointments that I had scheduled over the next few days. Some will not see the light of day until 2026. With diary gaps I planned other things.  This morning I decided to go for a pedicure and some foot care. My normal place is always buzzing  and I never need an appointment. Except today I did, so it was a very brief visit and I have booked for Saturday.

So instead of pampered feet I decided to move a book case ready for the hallway to be painted.

I knew it was a mammoth task. This bookcase is both a transit hub and a dead end.

There was never a before picture and the picture above is certainly a temporary set up.

A load of random paperwork has gone into recycling and I have a small bag of books for a charity shop.

But what of the bookshelf. So many books I will never read again, some I have never read. 

My mums text books from her sexual health clinic. More than 50 years old they are an amusing and at times uncomfortable read. My dad’s books that carried him through brutal and ineffective chemotherapy . My childhood books and the books belonging to my children. Maybe 20 or so books that will be read again.

So is this a bookshelf or a repository of mine and other peoples memories? I think it is both, and before it moves back to the newly painted hallway I will empty it again to move and paint it so it isn’t quite so shabby. I bet I won’t be able to get rid of any more of these books to a charity shop, but they will be tidier after the next move.