1. The Mitford was given to me as a birthday gift late last year. Oh-so-pretty a cover & I really enjoyed the read too: tumultuous larger-than-life characters in childhood; impossibly escapist attitudes to marriage & romance. ... One of those novels which takes such a hold of your attention that suddenly it's 1am & yet you still don't want to put it down. It's curious than the sequel, Love in a Cold Climate is better known to me than this, its predecessor. I certainly want to read the other now.
Choice excerpts include...
Sad and tired as Linda was, she could not but perceive the beauty of Paris that summer morning as she drove across it to the Gare du Nord. Paris in the early morning has a cheerful, bustling aspect, a promise of delicious things to come, a positive smell of coffee and croissants, quite peculiar to itself. . . . .
The people welcome a new day as if they were certain of liking it, the shopkeepers pull up the blinds serene in the expectation of a good trade, the workers go happily to their work, the people who have sat up all night in night clubs go happily to their rest, the orchestra of motor-car horns, clanking trams, a whistling policeman tunes up for the daily symphony, and everywhere is joy.
This joy, this life, this beauty did not underline poor Linda's fatigue and sadness, she felt it but was not of it. She turned her thoughts to old familiar London, she longed above all for her own bed, feeling as does a wounded beast when it crawls home to its lair. She only wanted to sleep undisturbed in her own bedroom. [131-2]
“Oh, don’t pity me. I’ve had eleven months of perfect and unalloyed happiness, very few people can say that, in the course of long lives, I imagine.”
I imagine so too. Alfred and I are happy, as happy as married people can be. We are in love, we are intellectually and physically suited in every possible way, we rejoice in each other’s company, we have no money troubles and three delightful children. And yet, when I consider my life, day by day, hour by hour, it seems to be composed of a series of pin-pricks. Nannies, cooks, the endless drudgery of housekeeping, the nerve-racking noise and boring repetitive conversation of small children (boring in the sense that it bores into one‘s very brain), their absolute incapacity to amuse themselves, their sudden and terrifying illnesses, Alfred’s not infrequent bouts of moodiness, his invariable complaint at the meals about the pudding, the way he will always use my toothpaste and will always squeeze the tube in the middle. These are the components of marriage, the wholemeal bread of life, rough, ordinary, but sustaining; Linda had been feeding upon honey-dew, and that is an incomparable diet.’ [169-170]
. . . . .
Both [Tony & Christian] would have spoken to her exactly, in every respect, as if she had been some chap in the club. Fabrice talked to her, at her, and for only her, it was absolutely personal talk, scattered with jokes and illusions private to them both. She had a feeling that he would not allow himself to be serious, that if he did he would have to embark on tragedy, and that he wanted her to carry away a happy memory of his visit. But it also gave an impression of boundless optimism and faith, very cheering at that dark time. [177]
2. I'm now one chapter in to a non-fiction read, The Golden Thread. I'd spotted it last summer whilst table-browsing in The Little Ripon Bookshop* (which is an absolute delight, by the way) & had made a note of its name for later. There are paperbacks available but.... who'd willingly pass up on this gorgeous cover? I'm hoping it will pay literary dividends, bringing together my love of niche BBC4 factual documentaries & costuming combined.
*Also where I might've just had a fan girl moment on spotting Green Crayon. Happily Drew Daywalt & Oliver Jeffers' book, The Day The Crayons Quit was nearby so I could provide my bemused friend with a speedy explanation. 
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