Summer: for or against?

[callmemadam]

I'm still reading back to back O Douglas but only in bed, which makes it slow going. The current effort, Jane's Parlour, I'm getting on with less well than the others. It deals with a more upper class set and the main character is a woman who has five children yet whose sole domestic chore is to speak to Cook in the morning. She is praised for not finding her quiet life boring but when you read a description of a typical well-filled day (author's view), it sounds like a holiday.

I would guess that every one of O Douglas's books contains at least six references to 'a good fire'. Also, many of her characters express a preference for autumn and winter over summer. Surprising, you may think, when they live in Scotland. I do understand this though, as autumn is my favourite season. When other people are sunk in gloom at the end of summer, I get a perked up, everything-starting-again feeling. There's many good things about summer: Test cricket, Wimbledon and going out first thing in the morning to pick a pound of strawberries, some lettuce and a bunch of sweet peas to name just a few. The garden is starting to get a heavy, July-ish look about it which means it will soon be time to read Emma again. I don't know why, I just always do reread it at this time of year.

Here's a rather dark little picture of me picking strawberries.



Unrecognisable, heh, heh. Of course, if I'd known I was going to have my photo taken, I would have put on a big shady hat, carried a trug and done some flower snipping; 'a nice, ladylike occupation'.

Comments

[sloopjonb.livejournal.com]

Ah, well, Scotland. You see, they don't have Test cricket, or Wimbledon (well, not until that Murray kid turned up), but they do have midges. Here's what the immortal Para Handy had to say about midges:

"A gun would be no' much use wi' the mudges of Colonsay," replied the Captain; "nothing would discourage yon fellows but a blast of dynamite. What wass there on the island at the time but a chenuine English towerist, wi' a capital red kilt, and, man! but he wass green! He was that green, the coos of Colonsay would go mooin' along the road efter him, thinking he wass gress. [...] The first night on the island he went oot in his kilt, and came back in half an oor to the inns wi' his legs fair peetiful! There iss nothing that the mudges likes to see among them better than an English towerist with a kilt: the very tops wass eaten off his stockin's."

This may explain the Scots antipathy to summer ..

Nice garden, btw.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

This may explain the Scots antipathy to summer ..
Very true.

Nice garden, btw.
Thank you.

[minniemoll.livejournal.com]

I like autumn too, it means I can stop feeling guilty about not gardening...

I still haven't tried O Douglas, one day I will retrieve them from the loft.

That photo is very tantalising, now I vaguely know what you look like, but I don't think I'd recognise you from it ;) Nice garden though.

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

I can stop feeling guilty about not gardening...
Ha! I know just what you mean.

That's a very small area of garden, the so-called vegetable patch, with behind it large shrubs which I planted years ago as a screen for next door's horrible garden full of brambles and bracken. They're cleaning it all up, now. The dangling object is a hideous plastic owl frightening off the birds.

No one has spotted the quote, yet. Virtual prizes.

[minniemoll.livejournal.com]

I've looked again, but I can't see a quote :(

The garden full of brambles and bracken sounds like the back of mine... I keep meaning to clear it all up, but it doesn't seem to happen.

Big shady hat

[(Anonymous)]

Is this not Barbara Goode from 'The Good Life'?

Re: Big shady hat

[sovra.livejournal.com]

I think the quote is either something by Gertrude Jekyll or as someone suggested, from 'The Good Life', but Margot Leadbetter rather than Barbara.

Have always hankered after a herbaceous long border which I would deadhead carrying my willow trug and wearing a suitably aged straw hat...

Re: Big shady hat

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Both wrong and in fact I misquoted it myself. It should be,
'That's a very dainty, ladylike occupation'.
Lord Peter Wimsey to Harriet in Busman's Honeymoon.

O Douglas

[(Anonymous)]

I've been wandering around your wonderful blog, and just came upon O. Douglas and was so surprised because I actually own Pink Sugar by her, though I haven't read it yet. Got it from anglophile books:
http://www.anglophilebooks.com/
I'm going to put it on my pile of books on deck. Thanks for the reminder.

Re: O Douglas

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

Glad you like the blog! I have all O Douglas's novels and have written about her quite a lot, comparing her with Alexander McCall Smith, for instance. Good comfort reading. Most people like Penny Plain best.