I’ve discovered a fascinating and useful website – The British Larder. Scrumptious recipes with clear instructions and excellent photographs to make your mouth water. Also, interesting comment and information accompany the recipes. Interested in cooking or finding your way around, like me, you’ll like it. It’s free and you receive regular recipes via email.
A sumptuous book, recently published now stands on my bookshelves holding its own among the books with the sea as their subject. EMPIRE OF THE SEAS by Brian Lavery, an expert on Naval subjects, is linked to the TV series of the same name presented by Dan Snow. With it succint text and superb colour pictures it shows the value of having a static book to recall the movement on the screen. A book you can dip into at will, where you can soon find what you are looking for, seems to me preferable to TV, recordings, and discs. They do not give quick access. Apart from that they do not have the same, lovely feel that comes with a book. A combination of this sort, TV with book, does work well provided both productions are of equal quality.
However, a book of this nature does pose a problem for the book collector: where should it be placed if your library is divided into sections - history, naval or sea?
My latest novel is in the hands of my publisher!!!! Yipee!!!! Hi, don’t be in such a hurry to relax. You’ll now have to think of the next one !! Hold on before you start saying ‘Told you so.’
I already have. I start thinking of possibilities before I finish the one I am writing. They are only germs at that stage. They have to be given some life. Which one? That or that? I toy with them (that’s the stage I’m at now) until one begins to really catch on and I can see a beginning and an end. I have a general background. When I begin to put the main characters into that they begin to take on life. Then things begin to happen – they react to each other, to happenings around them, they make things happen, and this all draws other characters in, unknown until I am introduced to them. It is an exciting process.
The snow and ice we have suffered since mid-December trapped me in my house – I only got out to cross the road to the village shop with extreme care. I did not venture any fiurther – I had no need. If I had attempted to do so , and fallen, I could have become a liability to other people. So I stayed put.
Yesterday my eldest daughter was with me and we went to a fine view from the edge of the North York Moors. The thing that impressed me, because of the narrowness of my recent confinement, was the BIG SKY. The space, the vastness, were almost overwhelming. The power generated was so palpable that it felt as if a new world was coming alive all round. I’m sure it was heralding the coming of Spring and that the traumas of recent weeks were being pushed into the background.
I wish that could be true for the sufferers in Haiti. May their BIG SKY bring hope and comfort.
I was interviewed yesterday by a journalist for The Independent on Sunday. He is doing a feature article about romantic fiction and had got my name from the Romantic Novelists Association. He is involving three authors – two females and one male. It will appear in the Colour Supplement of the issue of 14th February — appropriate, as it is Valentine’s Day.
So look out for it and please pass the word round. Should be interesting!!
My Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without receiving a book of one kind or another. More of that later but there is one I want to mention now – my Christmas present to me! It hasn’t a place on my bookshelves yet – I’m still reading it. When it does find its home it is the sort of book I will keep taking down and dipping into. It is a book about books, but in once specific realm.
BOOKS DO FURNISH A HOME by Leslie Geddes-Brown (Merrell £24.99)
This is a beautifully presented book with excellent colour photographs showing how people from all over the world deploy and present their books, so fulfilling the author’s premise that books do furnish a room. She bring’s not only her expertise as an interior designer to this but also her obvious love of books. Presented in the right way books can decorate a room; they can become a living entity in the house, create a good feeling that comes with being among good and reliable friends.
Leslie Geddes-Brown allows the pictures to speak for themselves giving us only sufficient text to explain the placements of books within the house and with a short caption to each picture takes us into homes where books are loved.
Being a book lover myself I have already gained much pleasure from this book and know I will continue to do so whenever I open it.
Book lovers don’t miss it !
Been neglecting my blog. Can’t blame the snow for that!
We have had a considerable covering but not as bad as some places. Used to like it when I was younger but not now! I’ve stayed indoors since Christmas except to visit the village shop directly opposite me (I’m lucky) Thought it wisest when I had no other necessity to go out. Thaw set in Sunday night, continued yesterday and again last night. A gentle one, nothing dramatic. Now I can get the car out it feels freedom is with me again!
Had a great Christmas with some of the family visiting. All made successful journeys though some took longer than usual.
2010 – I hope a good one for all who read this.
Back from Tesco. We shouldn’t starve at Christmas! There are a few more things to get but they are obtainable at the shop directly opposite me in the village. Even if snow develops I’ll be able to get them. Turkey on order there too. I have 14 miles to go to the supermarket. Thank goodness we didn’t have the snow I hear they have had in the south. Did I buy too much? Yes and No. Got the usual everyday things but … well at this time of the year I listen to and read Delia and Nigella and think I’ll try that. So I get the ingredients. Probably will use them only once and eventually the Use Before sends out its warning. But hopefully I won’t meet disaster and the family will have enjoyed my effort. Got a new starter in mind and a different way with red cabbage, and a new gravy as well as a mouth-watering trifle!! I’ll keep the turkey straight-forward ! Happy planning everyone.
There is a shelf in my kitchen. If it held pots and pans I wouldn’t be writing about it here. It holds BOOKS, recipe books, handy for use. Nearly 50! And there are 40 others and two part-works in my library – back-ups to those in the kitchen. Why so many? Well, many of them were my wife’s – she loved reading recipe books. I never could see the delight in that until I was left on my own and had to cook for myself and friends. I became interested in cooking and realised why she liked reading recipe books. I have become adicted! Now, in my kitchen I have, Delia Smith, Nigella Lawson, Mary Berry, Lucy Young, Susannah Blake. What an array to help me ! Not one male in sight ! Oh, yes, there is one creeping in – James Martin. Among these I have a bulging file of recipies cut from magazines and newspapers. I am only following my wife here because among her books I found a note-book with cuttings stuck in. But there is another in which she had written recipes. Apparantly this practice started in her school days when part of her School Certificate curriculum was domestic science that included cookery. In that recipe book are such delights as Aunt Lizzie’s Sponge Cake, Mrs Simpson’s Marmalade, Mrs Lumsden’s Butterscotch Sauce, Mrs Flintoft’s Buns, Miss Dalton’s Ginger Biscuits.
A kitchen needs books. If they are precious to you, as they are to me, take care to keep them, when in use, out of the way of spillage and splashing. Happy reading that brings you mouth-watering results !
My Art teacher, when I was at school in Middlesbrough, used to occasionally direct our attention to architecture. This fascinated me and since then I have always had an interest in architecture. I left school in 1939 and went to Teacher Training College at Strawberry Hill, Twickenham 1940 – 42. Because of the war the course was curtailed to two years and we were only allowed to complete our second year provided that in that year we did military training as well. I chose to do the initial training for aircrew.
I have a book in which I have written Kingston-on-Thames June 1942. I must have bought it there just before I left College. What is it? THE STORY OF THE ENGLISH HOUSE by Hugh Braun. There’s the influence of my Art Teacher coming through ! It was published by B.T.Batsford in April 1940 – a First Edition. I bought it new at a cost of 10s 6d (ten shillings and six pence – about 50p for those who don’t recognise ‘old money’) It led me to more architecture books (more of those in later editions of ‘From My Bookshelves) but it also led me to more books published by Batsford – 44 now stand in colourful array on my bookshelves