half-magic

So beautiful the last several days. The cats are loving it, as am I. Back from a spin I pull the car into the drive and there they are, Gwynnie and Claire, synchronized swimmers of the driveway, greeting me, flopping down, rolling lasciviously on their backs in unison, celebrating, clamoring -- they enjoy an audience. Of course!

I bask in the sun too, on the porch with a book. On my camembert run the other week I stopped by the Chatham library. I logged onto a computer and listened to a couple of music videos (A.A. Bondy, David Gray). Frustrated with faulty earphones I logged off. That library is larger than the one I usually go to. I had an opportunity to find books I don't usually have access to. I remembered that the 12534 had linked to a mention of a gardening writer. I logged on again. I looked up the link, ascertained that the old brick building in which I stood contained his books, noted the Dewey decimal, and in short order cleared the library of its holdings of his gardening books (there is now a gap-tooth on that shelf).

So yesterday while soaking in sun I paged through Garden Open Today, by Beverley Nichols. Nichols is an enjoyable read, and the books (the ones in my temporary possession) are enhanced with enchanting illustrations by William McLaren. I love books for adults that have illustrations - an aspect I miss, as an adult, from children's books. McLaren's illustrations remind me of whoever illustrated the Edward Eager books [ed: N. M. Bodecker], the ones in which children I would have liked to know had problematic encounters with magic in Silvermine, New Canaan.













I may be less interested, ultimately, in Nichols' gardening advice than in provocative passages such as the following, which make me wish to abandon the horticultural realm altogether (635.9) and raptly attend to his life observations of a different sort (391 maybe).

[With regard to old roses]... Another thing to remember is that they are very straggly, like women who leave things littered all over the bedroom. More than any other flower, they put me in mind of certain women, women who have such beautiful faces that they can afford - or think they can afford - to forget their gloves and their stockings and the back of their necks. (No woman should ever forget the back of her neck, but that is a subject which must be reserved for another volume.)

It has been quite a while since I gave the back of my neck a second thought (sigh) but I can assure you that this morning in my shower, my hair pinned up, I gave it considered soaped attention.












Here is more on Nichols, a link I discovered while trying to find a McLaren image from Nichols' Garden Open Today. He's a local blogger, whose blog I follow (yes, I'm very careful walking these country roads). You two are about the same age I think, and share an alma mater. By the way.

What else. Looked up a little town on I-70 between Park and Voda in my road atlas. It is beautiful here today, sunny and in the 70s. The garden is waking up all at once. Yesterday where I saw a few green shoots - this morning is a mound of perennial geranium to come.

Sending all my love along the wires.