Tuesday intros: Elizabeth Taylor.

I'm joining Diane at bibliophile by the sea who hosts Tuesday intros. My choice this week is a novel by one of my favourite English authors, Elizabeth Taylor. (NOT the actress!) After last week's devastatingly haunting John Banville novel of love between a schoolboy and a married woman I've re-read 'In a Summer Season' which deals with another uncomfortably-matched relationship.

You can tell from the opening paragraph that the novel is something of a period piece, it was first published in 1961, but the novelist portrays human emotions with great skill and a wry humour that is timeless. She has pin-pointed English middle-class life perfectly.

Visible Monday - frayed denim

Who'd have thought it, according to the papers my old frayed shorts are the height of fashion! It has taken a good couple of dozen years to get them to this state of desirability, frayed to the point of imminent collapse. I've not been seen outside the garden in them but now that they are so fashionable perhaps I should saunter out?

Perhaps not!

Earlier in the day I wore a respectable skirt, featured many times before on Visible Monday, on a trip to the surgery to pick up antibiotics. Our woods are full of deer and yesterday I removed a tick from my leg so treatment to avoid Lyme's disease is required. I am usually carefully covered up but due to the unusually nice weather I'd neglected to tuck trousers into boots - I'm looking suitably chastened, I'll not make that mistake again!

Short-sleeved liken blouse from H&M, cotton cardi from Boden for Patti's Visible Monday.

Tuesday Intros: Ancient Light.

This week I'm reading

I'm not yet half way through. The writing is beautiful, with a first person narrator who moves back and forth between the present and the past.  I have no idea as to how, or indeed whether the two periods of time will come together.

How is this for a riveting opening !

Joining Diane who hosts Tuesday Intros.

Friday Skywatch, Promenade des Anglais.

Today I'm posting an old photo of the Promenade des Anglais. The sky is a perfect blue, everyone is relaxed and happy.

Shortly after this photo was taken we looked at the sea and, although it was October, went back to the car, got into our swimsuits and jumped into the inviting water. The family were in Nice to celebrate my sixtieth birthday, quite some time ago now. For us, as for very many others, the beautiful city of Nice has always been a place of happy associations. My heart goes out to those innocent people caught up in the carnage that followed the Bastille Day celebrations.
Wherever you are in the world, dear Skywatchers, I wish you peace and compassion for your fellow man.

Tuesday Intros, 'Life After Life.'

For the past week I've been reading Kate Atkinson's, 'Life After Life,' a book that moves back and forth over the same periods of time throughout it's 477 pages. The strap line is

We follow the life, or lives, of Ursula Todd at reoccurring dates in the last century - not exactly Groundhog Day but something similar! Here is the opening paragraph for Diane who hosts Tuesday Intros.

  

Following from November 1930 we are introduced to Ursula, the central character, at the moment of her birth.

I like Kate Atkinson's writing, it is clear and inventive.  I thought that I could guess the ending to 'Life After Life' when I was about half way through the book, but I was wrong!

A room of their own.

There is currently an exhibition entitled, 'A Room of their Own' at the Victoria Gallery in Bath of paintings from the Charleston set and artefacts from the Omega Workshop. Items have been borrowed from sources around the country and they create a very interesting show - all very much tidier than Charleston farmhouse itself which is gloriously unkempt and reminds me of the house that I grew up in!

Self-portrait, Duncan Grant.

Vanessa Bell

One of her beautiful paintings.

Interesting to read that the paint was just poured onto the screen. The finished work looked controlled and well-designed, not random at all.

Such a lot has been written over the years about the lives of the Bloomsbury Group and their friends, all neatly and amusingly summed up by the well-known quip,

talked in circles,

lived in squares,

loved in triangles!