Favourite Books From The Last 12 Months

This weekend I am at the Writers’ Festival in Perth, so I thought it would be a good time to review some of my favourite reads since the last festival. I had the pleasure of listening to and meeting Louise Allan, a lovely, natural lady, who seems surprised and perhaps a little overwhelmed by the success that has come her way. I hope you will all read this, her first novel, and love it as much as I have.

I think all of my choices are excellent reads, but would love to hear your opinions and comments. I’d also like to know what your favourite books were.

The Sisters’ Song: Louise Allan

I am reading this book for the second time, partly because I recommended it to my book club and we are meeting to discuss it next week. I’m enjoying it even more the second time.

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Wordsworth’s Cottage and a Monster Storm

Dove Cottage

We had planned for our last day in Ambleside, to visit Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum, Ruskin’s house at Coniston and generally enjoy driving around the picturesque countryside.

 

 

 

Mary Mary Quite Contrary (our name for the GPS system that came with the hired car) behaved quite well; only one little detour and we were parking beside the cafe attached to William Wordsworth’s former home.

With tickets in hand we soon joined the merry group of Wordsworth admirers for the tour of Dove Cottage where he lived with his sister Dorothy (who seems to have done much of the work around the place while His Nibs swanned about, creating his poems.)

 

We began in a small room on the ground floor where Wordsworth received his guests. Coleridge was a regular and, from what I’ve read of Dorothy’s diary, he stayed with them often.

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Busy Bee and Evocative

I receive heart-warming responses from some of you for my poetry, so here are a couple more. I may have posted ‘Evocative’ before; please forgive me if that’s so. It’s one of my favourite poems and one that I hope you will all enjoy. Please let me know if my images stir your memory.

If you’re not a ‘Busy Bee’ yourself (I’m certainly not one these days) I’m sure you will recognise a friend who is, in this poem. Please pass it on to them with love and appreciation; where would we be without them?

BUSY BEE

She buzzes about

ever so busy

my busy bee

darting from daisies

to dahlias and dianthus

dusting them all

with pernicketiness.

Collecting pollen

and flicking it in flowers,

where would my garden be

without her?

 

EVOCATIVE

Sweaty armpits, old gym shoes,

potatoes rotting in a cupboard,

dirty nappies, pig manure,

a drunk, lolling in his vomit.

Burning tyres, gutted homes,

flames roaring through the bush.

 

Fried onions, vanilla beans,

bacon and toast and percolating coffee.

Leather seats in a new car,

rain on parched earth,

a baby, fresh from the bath.

 

Eucalypt leaves on a wet day in London.

Yardley perfume that granny used,

sweet peas, picked from a garden.

Old spice after-shave,

the coat you always wore.