You have no idea how hard I am trying to resist talking about the weather because every time I do it makes me feel conscious that it seems like I have nothing better to say and I also feel so embarrassingly and predictably British in doing so… buuuut it was 16 degrees on Friday and holy smokes we are back, baby. I cannot wait to start reading in the park and writing outside in cafes. And what could be even more British than getting ahead of yourself because of one warm day in March?
I got through Another Marvellous Thing by Laurie Colwin and I am devastated that I can never read it again for the first time. It’s the best thing I’ve read in such a long time. Francis and Billy chew over their affair, dissecting it again and again from new angles. I hungrily wanted to understand how they wound up falling in love. Definitely need to read some more Colwin soon.
“He could never have compared his mistress to a summer day, but rather to one of those gray, overcast days in middle autumn when the angle of the light makes everything clear.”
I started a new book and I don’t really want to talk about it. I rarely ever put a book back without finishing it, I can only think of two other times. Deep breaths. Maybe I’m just in a bad mood after finishing the wondrous Another Marvellous Thing. Post-book blues are getting me down and nothing compares. Perhaps this is my doomed rebound. I’m resisting the ‘failure’ of not finishing a book and trying to reframe it as regaining time for things I enjoy. I’m now eyeing up a copy of A Room With A View by E. M. Forster that’s been gathering dust for years. And I’m plodding along still with The Last Witch of Scotland by Philip Paris audiobook.
Other interesting reads:
The Millenial redemption arc
With Love, Meghan - the satisfaction of watching someone get really into a new craft
The case for brands setting up book clubs
Nothing gets a man’s eyes rolling quite like a woman talking about astrology
In defence of whores
Reader, I divorced him
An argument against self-improvement
The Glastonbury lineup was released this week and I have already imagined the goosebump-inducing experience of hearing certain songs played live. Yes, he makes an appearance every year but Praise You by Fatboy Slim has been an off-on contender for my desert island disks and what might now seem monotonous to others will be a magical first-time moment for me. Didn’t mean to make it sound like we’re going to fuck.
I was writing a short story this week and I included a line about making crowns out of daisy chains. The meticulousness of women’s work huh! I used to love picking buttercups and seeing if someone liked butter or not based on the shadows under their chin. Or wishing on a dandelion. Children feel their way through nature in the sweetest of ways. I don’t think I have the fingernails or the patience for daisy chains these days.
Last week on holiday, our dinner table chatter mostly consisted of mulling over our own Off Menu choices. I’d kick things off with delicious tasting tap water, and I saw an article this week about the best tasting tap waters in the world. Scotland reigns supreme in Europe, closely followed by the Nordics. There are lots of things that can impact how tap water tastes. When I imagine my Off Menu tap water, it flows directly from a fresh mountain spring.
I struggled this week to find something to hate enough to write about here. My shoes gave me blisters, does that count? I feel like Cady on Mean Girls struggling to critique herself in front of Regina George’s mirror. I didn’t want to stoop to foot talk, but on the back of a week including pancake day and 16 degree weather everything looks pretty rosy.
The first stanza of Dear March - Come in, by Emily Dickinson, encompasses my giddiness with the weather this weekend and bookends today’s post perfectly.
Dear March—Come in—
How glad I am—
I hoped for you before—
Put down your Hat—
You must have walked—
How out of Breath you are—
Dear March, how are you, and the Rest—
Did you leave Nature well—
Oh March, Come right upstairs with me—
I have so much to tell—
