Sunday rest
An article that's not an article
Hi everyone! Sun today – at last!
This afternoon, it was warm! Wonderful. I chose to be in the sunniest spot – our front ‘garden’ (sizable, but: yard + bins). Weeding in the warmth. I know there are no such things as weeds (which are simply plants in the ‘wrong’ place), but as they try their best to push up what remains of the paving slabs that get me safely from house to outside world, I don’t feel too awful about thanking them for their service and moving them on. Not least because the bluebell leaves are here! Yes, bluebells are beautiful in woodland, but have you ever seen them hugging around a recycling bin? A heartening sight.
A couple of weeks ago, Substack changed its user interface so that now, instead of clicking ‘Create post’, I have to click ‘Create article’ … well, today’s certainly won’t count as something as grand as an article, because it’s kind of a holiday week, isn’t it? With it being half-term + sun + Sunday + the BAFTAs ceremony on TV. And the joy of putting the washing machine on more than once, knowing it will actually dry (the bottom of the basket is in sight!).
Instead, here’s a bullet-point wrap-up of the week: one notable thing per day.1
Monday
Started the day with a tea in bed, reading my book for book group to make sure I finished it in time for the meeting (see: Thursday).
Tuesday
Cannot remember what I did on Tuesday at all. (I was working, so maybe I was just being very important and busy?!) … Just had a look at my camera roll to see if that held any clues: a single photograph of some homemade soup and homemade bread, so whatever I was doing, I was well nourished.2
Wednesday
Swimming. Oh wow. The swimming pool at half-term is a whole different deal: a queue for the showers, hide-and-seek in the lockers, and crushed/mushed cheese Wotsits just. everywhere.
Thursday
Got my haircut. Been trying a new style (imperceptibly different to almost everyone but me). Had to ask my boyfriend a million times: ‘But I don’t look like Rachel Reeves, do I?! Fiona Bruce?!’ No shade to either, but I am not politicianing or presenting Question Time (thank goodness). (I’ll take Antiques Roadshow, though.)
Book group at the fab P&G Wells book group in Winchester. This month, we were discussing Andrew Miller’s The Land in Winter. Would you like my review?
I enjoyed reading a book set in cold weather while we were in a spell of cold weather.
I loved the writing – found it very absorbing.
Possibly a bit stereotypically blokeish? Or was that just the characters / the point? But then again, the women were well written … so maybe I’ll disagree with myself here.
Some nice foreshadowing (not easy to do well), some killer lines … e.g., about a room you inhabit every day, suddenly ‘looking as if she had never seen it before’ after a life-shifting revelation.
BUT: in two of the books I’ve read in the last few months, I have been so irked by the prolific specific details about car makes and models. In Alan Hollinghurst’s Our Evenings, I felt it could have saved fifty pages (I’m exaggerating by circa forty-nine pages) if the car names were left out. A friend in book group made a very good point that these details do help to anchor the novel historically (for The Land in Winter, that’s the early sixties), but … I’ve found it mega distracting. Oddly (or not?), both Our Evenings and The Land in Winter describe (more than twice) the same car: a Citroën with hydropneumatic suspension. I do like driving, but I will be happy if the next book I read doesn’t give any page space to car makes/models.
However, I loved this v. accurate insight about apples. If you have ever had, or know someone who has, an apple tree, this might make you smile in recognition:
… There were apples from autumn stored in the back bedroom of the house. They had used half a dozen in a pie, and there were about two hundred left. …3
Friday
A lovely call with a freelancing colleague – we catch up once a month or so about our marketing and general biz stuff.
Saturday
Went to Winchester Coffee Roasters for a coffee! Such a happy, busy place for being out of town on an industrial estate. V. grateful for the coffee on a slow Saturday.
Sunday
Weeding and now watching the BAFTAs: Sobbing at Paul Thomas Anderson’s acceptance speech; confused as to whether the Paul Mescal link/gag mess-up was intentional or not; irritated, as ever, about the too-swift summary / lack of full coverage of the ‘less important awards’.
Okay, I admit, Thursday is one bullet point plus an additional extra-beefy bullet point.
And presumably feeling smug about making homemade soup and bread. The soup was carrot and ginger; the bread was made with curry paste and mango chutney stirred in: seriously delish!
Andrew Miller. The Land in Winter. London: Sceptre, 2025, p. 188.