Looking me squarely in the eye

Alice once recommended Instagram to me.

Square pictures.

I'm thinking about it.

Did you know she has a new blog?
Go now.

Vines on an old stone wall

Agatha Christie and her family loved to collect things.

They put serious time, energy and money into their collections

and some of them are displayed at Greenway.

A great many things though were piled haphazardly

in glass fronted cupboards and display cabinets

where they looked excessive and unlovely.

 I am trying to reduce my possessions,

and I have to admit to a mea maxima culpa cupboard 

containing a small collection of Poole pottery jam pots,

so this was a thought-provoking sight.

In the end, I decided that

this vine,

on this stone wall, 

was the loveliest thing I'd seen at the house

and that I could take a lesson from it.

Mystery at Greenway House

No photographs were allowed in the house

so I've taken this description from Agatha Christie,
by Laura Thompson.

Greenway House, that magical white box 
set above the gleaming Dart;

Greenway, with its wild romantic gardens;

Greenway, rooted in its Devon history and yet,

with its ghostly pallor,

looking as if it might at any moment vanish into air.

Agatha Christie wrote to Max in 1942,

"Too dear for our possessing" 
but what excitement to possess it!

I thought tonight, sitting there -

it is the loveliest place in the world -

it quite took my breath away.

Agatha bought Greenway in 1938 for six thousand pounds...

The main rooms opened out from a central hall:

library, dining room and sitting room,

which itself led to a drawing room with long,

white windows giving on to a small, secret lawn.

The first floor had five main rooms,

with a large handsome master bedroom

and a vast lavatory with a wooden surround,

the kind that Agatha favoured.

Above were more bedrooms

and a bedsitting room for Rosalind;

behind was a complexity of servant quarters,

a pantry downstairs and a huge

high-ceilinged kitchen.

Everything was high, deep, rightful.

Everywhere was secrecy, enchantment, mystery.

A strange thing happened.

A false door, put in by Agatha to balance the real door 

on the other side of the fireplace in the drawing room, 

has been opened up by the National Trust

to facilitate the flow of visitors.

As I walked through it I heard something fall, 

seemingly at my feet, 
clattering loudly onto the floorboards.

The people just ahead of me turned sharply at the sound

and we all looked to see what had been dropped.

I checked - it wasn't my lens cap which has 

an annoying habit of popping off the camera,

it wasn't my glasses. I carried nothing else.

In any case, it sounded heavy and had bounced noisily.

Did the couple in front drop anything?

No. They were mystified. 

We all looked carefully

to see if anything had rolled away, 

but there was absolutely nothing there.

Being Miss Marple

Midsummer by Albert Moore.

Warm isn't it? More like July than May.

I could have done with someone fanning me in the train today.

I went to see The Cult of Beauty at the V&A last week.

I can't remember much about it because I seethed my way round.

The following exchange at the ticket desk is to blame

for my ugly mood.

Me to man at desk.

'Please could I have a £12 ticket?'

(Full price.)

Man looks up.

'Twelve tickets?' he says incredulously.

'Are you mad?' he didn't say, but his face did.

Me.

'No, I just need one £12 ticket please.'

Man looks back at screen.

'Actually - £9,' he says firmly.

(Concessionary price.)

'Oh. OK. Thank you,' I say through a rictus grin.

Because what was I supposed to do?

He clearly knew better than I do, how old I am.

A queue was forming and an argument about my real age

would have been unseemly and ridiculous.

So - I gather that granny chic is all the thing

and I am going to embrace it.

Go with the flow.

Give up the battle.

Roll on 60.

Being Miss Marple is the way forward.

I went shopping and bought this

and this.

 I was going to model it but then I decided

I didn't want you all lining up to agree with the man on the desk.

Clearly the cream isn't working.

Comfort zone

China tea, the scent of hyacinths, 

wood fires and bowls of violets -

that is my mental picture of an agreeable February afternoon.

Constance Spry

Her house was lovely.

It was comfortable in a way that was not as usual 

in 1910 as it is today.

For instance, there were several bathrooms,

invariably provided with delicious essences 

for softening and scenting the water

which was always hot.

The beds were soft and sheeted with the finest linen.

The Rising Tide - Molly Keane

and from Agatha Christie's The Hollow,

Midge a shop assistant,

 on being told she would understand the class struggle better

if she were a worker:

'I am a worker. That's just why being comfortable is so attractive.

Box beds, down pillows -

early morning tea softly deposited by the bed -

a porcelain bath with lashings of hot water -

and delicious bath salts.

The kind of easy-chair you can really sink into...'

Midge paused in her catalogue.

'The workers', said David, 'should have all these things,'

...'I couldn't agree with you more,' said Midge heartily.

Our daily lives are full of stress,

much of which is unavoidable.

I believe that if our homes cannot provide 

some kind of refuge or respite from that stress,

both physically and emotionally,

then they have failed in one of their most critical functions.

From supporting the body at rest or during relaxation -

physical comfort at its most basic -

to most elemental pleasures that put people at their ease,

comfort provides a necessary sense of renewal.

For me, comfort is neither mindless luxury 

nor suffocating indulgence:

it is the essential breathing space 

in which we can simply be ourselves,

surrounded by the things we really like

rather than things we think give us status.

Sir Terence Conran

I shall cleave to these 

images as the house is

colonised again by the electrician

in pursuit of The Fault

and the builder  eliminating the cause of

The Mould.
P.S Can you still get bath salts?

Who dunnit all?

This arrived in the post today.

I have never been a particular fan of crime writing,

beyond a lazy enjoyment of Miss Marple 

(always Joan Hickson please) and 

Hercule Poirot (David Suchet) on television.

I bought it on the strength of a description of the Queen of Crime

 in 'An English Mystery - Agatha Christie' by Laura Thompson.

'All her life she was fascinated by the ordering of a home.'

In her 1957 book, 4.50 from Paddington,

she created a character called Lucy Eyelesbarrow, 

an Oxford graduate who,

 'in addition to scholarly brilliance,

had a core of good sound common sense.

She could not fail to observe 

that a life of academic distinction

was singularly ill rewarded. 

She had no desire whatever to teach

and took pleasure in contacts with minds

much less brilliant than her own. 

In short, she had a taste for people,

all sorts of people - and not the same people

the whole time. 

She also, quite frankly, liked money.

To gain money one must exploit shortage.'

That shortage was the post-war loss of servants.

'Lucy Eyelesbarrow did everything,

saw to everything,

arranged everything.

She was unbelievably competent 

in every conceivable sphere.

She looked after elderly parents,

accepted the care of young children,

nursed the sickly,

cooked divinely,

got on well with any old crusted servants 

there might happen to be (there usually weren't)

was tactful with impossible people,

soothed habitual drunkards,

was wonderful with dogs.

Best of all she never minded what she did.

She scrubbed the kitchen floor, 

dug in the garden,

cleaned up dog messes,

and carried coals.'

The secret to this happy life was that 

she only did all these things for a fortnight at a time,

never booked herself for more than six months ahead,

 charged the earth

and took frequent short luxurious holidays.

I have yet to discover if she is an accomplished

murderer too, but will let you know.