Of Small Pleasures

I'm back in Oxford now, after a week's rest at home, and I'm pleased to report that the penicillin and steroids worked their magic and my throat cleared up very quickly. I'm still extremely tired, and had to have another blood test yesterday to try to clarify whether or not this *is* glandular fever or just another nasty infection. I won't have the results back for another week, but in the meantime, I'm enjoying some of the small pleasures in life while I am forced to take everything very quietly for a while.

As I'm going to be spending most of my time in my flat, I thought I would brighten the place up a little, and yesterday I paid a visit to Daisies, a delightful florist on Walton Street in Jericho, just around the corner from me.

(Image from the Daisies website)

I've peeked through the window several times before, but this is the first time I've actually bought anything there, as usually I frequent another florist in the Covered Market in the centre of Oxford. I decided it was high time I investigated my local flower shop, however, and I wasn't disappointed. The stock in Daisies is stunning, and I've just discovered that it's even possible to order some of their spectacular displays online and have them delivered anywhere across the UK, which is something I might bear in mind for future special occasions!

(Image from the Daisies website)

Although I was tempted by half the shop, I did eventually manage to make up my mind, and bought enough to fill one big glass vase in the sitting room, and a smaller porcelain one in my bedroom. Tulips are always a favourite of mine, and I thought the yellow heart peeking out of the orange petals made these particularly pretty:

I love both the look and the scent of hyacinths, so when I saw the gorgeous deep purple of these beauties, I knew I had to have them. They provide a wonderful dark contrast to the fiery splendour of the tulips...

... and really brighten up the sitting room:

I went for more delicate option for my bedroom, with soothing blues and creams fitting in nicely amongst some of the oddments on my dressing table.

When I was growing up, my mum would always make sure that we had new cut flowers every week, and since I've come away to university this is a habit I've enjoyed turning into my own. It's such an easy way to inject some freshness and colour into a room, and I love the way in which they provide an ever-changing ornament.

For now, I'm curling up on the sofa, admiring my bouquet and enjoying the divine smell of the hyacinths wafting towards me. It's having to compete, however, with the scent of Earl Grey, as I've just made myself a big mugful to go along with this morning's postal delivery: Dandy Gilver & An Unsuitable Day for a Murder by Catriona McPherson. This is the latest in the series which started with the wonderful After the Armistice Ball, and I can't wait to read about Dandy's latest adventures!

Sir W warns us in his 1601 essay 'Of Humilitie' that,

'beauty is but a colour, and not reckened amongst the substantiall',

but as I settle down with my book and tea and gaze upon my lovely flowers, I feel content in finding pleasure in the transient vibrancy of their beautiful, colourful petals. And who knows what I'll find in the florist to tempt me next week?

Of The Little Bookroom

A couple of days ago, Merenia left me a comment recommending a website that I might like: The Little Bookroom. Like it I did, so much so that I wanted to share it with everyone else. The Little Bookroom produces guidebooks to destinations in the USA and in Europe, as well as notecards, journals, and more. The guidebooks have a particular focus on everything related to art, culture, gastronomy and couture, so you can see they are right up my street! They also happen to be the most divinely presented guidebooks I've ever come across, as you'll be able to see, since I haven't been able to resist uploading some of the gorgeous covers.

Merenia particularly recommended this shoppers' guide to Florence, and oh! - I wish I'd had it with me when I visited that lovely city a couple of years ago (although I must admit I did pretty well in the shops even without it, partly thanks to this very nice little guide, which I picked up at the wonderful Daunt Books). The cover is so evocative of the richness and beauty of Florence, and makes me doubly eager to go back, just so I have an excuse to buy this book:

I am hoping to visit Paris again in the new year, and when I do, I think I'll find it hard to resist buying at least one of these guides beforehand. I could read this to discover the best places to enjoy something scrumptious in the afternoon...

... scan this to find out where to get a great glass (or bottle) of wine ...

... and I can make sure I'm doing all of this whilst dressed with perfect taste if I read this and find out just where Paris's chicest women buy their clothes:

If I'd known about this before I went to New York earlier this year, I'd definitely have popped it into my hand luggage to read on the flight over:

But the good thing is that the guides cover the UK too, so I can explore London with fresh eyes after reading this...

... and find some new places to tempt my tastebuds without upsetting my bank balance with this:

For any Janeites out there, this would make a perfect gift when Christmas comes around...

... while these notecards would also make a wonderful present, although I think I'd be much more likely to keep them to myself:

At the moment, The Little Bookroom is offering a 20% 'Holiday Discount', and I for one will be taking advantage of that all too soon. Thanks again, Merenia, for pointing me in the direction of a place which will, as Sir W said in his 1600 essay 'Of Advice', allow me to

'distill the whole world'.

Of Recommended Reading

Although Howards End is on the Landing may not be entering my best-loved books list, one of the things Susan Hill has done for me is bring to my attention a few books or authors which I had never come across before, and which I'm now looking forward to trying. One of these is The Paper House by Carlos Maria Dominguez.

It is a small book of only just over 100 pages, including illustrations by Peter Sis, but despite its tiny stature it sounds like it is going to pack quite a punch. The inside jacket tells us that it is a 'fable about the power of literature to steer our destinies', and it is a fantastical book about the joys and the dangers of obsessive bibliophilia. It arrived in the post today, and I am looking forward to reading it even more after Savidge Reads' recent review of it.

Also awaiting me in my college pigeon hole was another title to add to my new Barbara Pym collection, which I am eager to increase after enjoying Some Tame Gazelle and Excellent Women so much. Thanks to everyone who encouraged me to further my acquaintance with Pym when I asked for suggestions recently, and especially to Merenia, who particularly recommended this latest buy: Crampton Hodnet.

This sounds right up my street: how could I resist a Pym novel which is actually set in Oxford?! I shall be sharing my thoughts on these books just as soon as I read them, and I can't wait to try both of these new additions to my shelves (I can see my new bookshelf filling up rather speedily...), although they will have to wait for a while. I am no further with Stone's Fall than I was yesterday, and it too will have to lie mainly unread until after the weekend: I have a friend from Cambridge staying with me until Sunday, and as I haven't seen her since February, we have a lot of catching up to do, and a variety of pleasant activities planned in which to do it!

I must get to bed now, as along with all the meals, exhibitions, and general frivolities we have planned for the next few days, my friend and I both have to be at the library in the morning, for a couple of hours at least! On the subject of bed, I sign off today with some of Sir W's musings from his 1600 essay 'Of Sleepe':

'This Sleepe is to me in the nature that Dung is to Ground, it makes the soyle of my Apprehension more solid, and tough; it makes it not so light, and pleasant, and I am glad of it, for I finde my selfe too much subiect to a verball quicknesse'.

Of Howards End Is On The Landing

Book Review: Susan Hill, Howard's End is on the Landing (Profile Books, 2009), £12.99.

I read Susan Hill's recently published book Howards End is on the Landing during my enforced stay in bed with 'flu last week (on which subject, btw: I am feeling much better today, so hopefully this time my recovery will be permanent!). Its beautifully decorated dust jacket helped in my fond attempts to pretend that my deathly pallor and hideous purple eye-bags might somehow make me into one of those Pale and Interesting Young Women swooning into their pillows, like the lady in James Whistler's Maud Reading In Bed:

Actually, 'read' is perhaps not exactly the right term. I started reading Hill's book at the beginning, but ended up dipping in and out, alighting on chapters whose titles sounded most alluring, and leaving others until these had run out, and reading other books inbetween*. In itself, I suppose this butterfly approach suggests something of my tepid response to Hill's book. I must say that I don't think this style of reading particularly harmed the book, the structure of which actually lends itself to being read as and how one sees fit. As Verity of The B-Files mentioned in her interesting review, the chapters are extremely short and do not necessarily flow on from one another in any thematic or other way, lacking any overarching structure.

Thanks to the book's sub-title, 'A year of reading from home', and from what I knew of the book's premise before reading it (Hill decided to read only books already in her home collection, aside from review copies and academic works, for a year), I was expecting a kind of reading diary, probably arranged chronologically, and discussing the highs and lows of Hill's experiment, her frustrations at not being able to purchase new books, and her delight at (re)discovering old ones. Thus I expected a book with a fairly strong narrative drive, albeit with plenty of more general bibliophilic digressions along the way: it is perhaps for this reason that I found the lack of coherency slightly irritating. The book is much less about Hill's 'year of reading from home' and more about the way in which particular books evoke particular memories, leading her into dreamy reminiscences, often about famous writers she had encountered or been friends with throughout her life. It is this type of thing which makes the genre label 'memoir' on the back of the dust jacket so apt. Although I enjoyed reading some of Hill's stories, and some of her more general musings upon books were interesting (I am of her mind in disliking the idea of e-readers, for example; although I had to disagree with her rant against bookplates, loving them so much myself! I found it ironic indeed that I should have put my own bookplate in the front of this book before reading it...), I was disappointed not to have more about this particular year in Hill's reading life. I felt at the end like I had little understanding of whether or not this had been a worthwhile thing for Hill to do, and had scant sense of what the year had actually been like for her - so much time was taken up with past stories of varying degrees of interest.

Although some dissenting voices have been cropping up (most notably Claire at Paperback Reader in her thoughtful review), it is generally completely positive responses of Hill's book which have been flooding in, with bloggers joyful at a book whose author is obviously a bibliophile herself. Personally, I would recommend this book, but with reservations, and although Hill displays some lovely turns of phrase, I cannot say that this has inspired me to read any of her novels (which I had not done before reading this, although I did enjoy the thrilling stage version of The Woman in Black a few years ago!). In an odd way, I found the book to have a somewhat reserved and listless tone about it, even when Hill was at her most enthusiastic, although this is simply a matter of personal taste, for, as I have said, in many ways the book is extremely well written. All in all, a bit of a curate's egg!

* On one of my breaks from Hill's book, I picked up my as yet unread copy of The Affair of the Thirty-Nine Cufflinks by James Anderson, the third in the Burford family mystery series. I had very much enjoyed the first two, the deliciously titled The Affair of the Blood-Stained Egg Cosy and The Affair of the Mutilated Mink, and it was a delight to return to the Earl and Countess and their lively daughter Gerry for another riot of murder and mayhem. Anderson's books are great fun, affectionately recreating the atmosphere of the Golden Age detective stories, but with tongue often firmly in cheek. I really felt like some proper comfort reading last week, and this did the trick admirably! I love the covers of the reissues of Anderson's books, and recently bought a card featuring the same picture as that which adorns the cover of the first title, which is now decorating my mantelpiece:

I have just now begun the second of the book haul which arrived alongside HEiotL the other day: Iain Pears' latest novel Stone's Fall. As I have mentioned elsewhere, I am a huge fan of Pears' great book An Instance of the Fingerpost, and I have high hopes of this new one, which looks to be equally intricately structured and plotted. I am only four chapters in, and am already hooked! Hopefully my next review will be a little less luke-warm than my response to Susan Hill...

Another bookish quotation from Sir W to round things off today. This one comes from his 1601 essay 'Of Trappes for Fame', and delightfully describes Sir W himself making a happy discovery sitting amongst the volumes in his own library:

'I happened very lately amongst my bookes to meete with Diogenes Laertius, where I was much delighted, euen more then euer I was with any booke, for I do beholde their words and writings with nothing so good a stomack as I do their liues, and to know what they did. I found hardly a page, but I wished my memory, to gather some griftes in them, not a line but so full of precious liquor, as the words were too shorte wasted for the matter. He is in great estimation with me, and shal be one of my neerest companions'.

Of New Arrivals

More goodies to battle my cold arrived in the post yesterday:

I had an Amazon voucher left over from my birthday, and these are some of the riches which have resulted. All three are books which I've been wanting to read for ages, and all three, coincidentally, have rather nice covers:

Hilary Mantel: Wolf Hall

Susan Hill: Howards End is on the Landing

Iain Pears: Stone's Fall

I am very excited about all of these books, and will be posting about each of these as and when I read them (starting with Howards End is on the Landing). I also thought I would share the pretty little bookplate which has gone inside all of them -- marked now of course with my name, the name of my college, and the date of purchase:

I shall leave you with another bookish quotation from Sir W (happily, there are many!), which this time comes from his wonderful 1601 essay 'Of Essayes and Bookes'. Although I am not sure if I am always so virtuously minded as he in my choice of reading matter!

'I thinke well of these Bookes named, and the better because they teach me how to mannage myselfe: where any of them grow subtile, or intend heigh matters, I giue my memory leaue to loose them. There are none that I scratch with my pen that doe not fatherly counsaile me to the way of vertue'.

Of Alpine Books

Hmm, well, as you can see, 'tomorrow' turned into a few days - apologies about that! I spent last Friday in the British Library, looking at some manuscript commonplace books, which I hoped would be of use to my thesis. In the end they contained nothing too exciting, but I always love leafing through volumes such as these - the little manuscripts in which readers of the past noted down extracts from their own books, often under various themes such as 'vanity', 'fame', 'death', and the like, extrapolating little chunks of wisdom, or simply recording favourite passages for posterity. They are a wonderful record of Early Modern reading habits, and, like the annotations in the margins of old books, have a great gift for taking you back into the past, bringing you almost face to face with those ghostly readers. I stayed in London on Friday night, spending the evening at a flat-warming party for two friends - and hence blogging rather fell by the wayside. Then Saturday was spent journeying back to Oxford (rather earlier than I would have liked after the party of the night before...), packing up, and then travelling home to Staffordshire. My lease on my College room ran out last weekend, so everything has been bundled into bags and boxes and brought home until the lease on my new house begins in mid-September. It will be the first time that I have lived out of New College accommodation since starting there as an undergraduate five (five!) years ago, so I am tremendously excited. The last couple of days I have been at home, doing a million and one things, and preparing for tomorrow - when my mum, grandfather, and I are off to Greece. My father is Greek, and he and his second wife and their son - my fourteen year old half brother - live in Athens, but tomorrow we are going to see them at their house on Rhodes. We will be there for a week, so I am ashamed to say there will be yet another break in my blog - although things will be back to relative order after that, once I am safely tucked up in my new Oxford abode...

But I promised Books at the Chalet, and Books at the Chalet is what you shall have. The one very bad thing about books, at least when one is carrying them in a rucksack, is that they are Rather Heavy. I must admit that there were a few moments on my journey when I cursed myself for having packed quite such a load of them, but then, surely there are few things worse on a reading holiday than running out of reading... Not that I needed to have worried unduly, for it turned out that the Chalet itself housed a rather nice little library - or at least, several shelves in the salon, full of books which had been donated by Chaletites over the years. A few had been enjoyed rather too much by the mice to be of much use (the little creatures seem to have held strong opinions about the Shakespeare authorship question, having methodically nibbled out his name on the spine of the Collected Works...), but there was still a goodly number. You can see a glimpse of the Chalet library here:

The Chalet's library covered a wide range - there were plenty of books about the local region, of course, including Henriette d'Angerville's wonderful account of her petticoated ascent up Mont Blanc in 1838...

Much to my delight, there was also a wide selection of Golden Age mystery novels, and indeed of crime writing throughout the ages. I was very pleased to find one of the Dorothy L. Sayers I was yet to read - The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club - which whiled away a few happy hours on my birthday, as well as a Ngaio Marsh which was new to me - Grave Mistake. I also chanced upon Appleby Plays Chicken by Michael Innes, which I pulled off the shelf after being intrigued by the title, and the fact that the author's name was vaguely familiar to me. I then became hooked into reading thanks to the first line, which informed me not to expect too much excitement from a reading party ... how could I resist? Of course the Devon based reading party of Oxford undergraduates which Innes describes becomes fraught with all sorts of excitement - spies, murders, and cartons of pineapple juice, but it also reassured me that 'New College men don't do much in the blood-letting line', and indeed my own little reading party remained thankfully free of nerve-shredding chases or unexpected pot shots. 

Along with these, I even got in a bit of academic reading matter, borrowing Two Antiquaries: A Selection from the Correspondence of John Aubrey and Anthony Wood by Maurice Balme from my former tutor. Aubrey particularly is one of the seventeenth-century characters most dear to my heart, and his Brief Lives - anecdotal and amusing potted biographies of his contemporaries (many of them still well-known names) - are intensely enjoyable. His interests were - as with so many figures of the time - hugely wide-ranging, covering nascent science, archeology, history, literature, and more. Wood, too, is a curious figure, and their long correspondence makes interesting reading. Wood, incidentally, is the fourth narrator of Iain Pears' terrific novel An Instance of the Fingerpost. Set largely in Oxford in the late seventeenth-century (hmm, wonder why that appealed...), it's amazingly well plotted, and combines intelligence and solid research with great pacing, wonderful atmosphere and superb evocation of its historic period. Highly recommended. 

I also managed to fit in time to devour some of the books I had taken with me - although typically the one which had added the most weight to my backpack - Forever Amber - remained untouched (I shall be taking it to Greece with me instead). I adored Mariana, which has further convinced me that Persephone Books can do no wrong, and have finished reading the other grey cover which I took with me - The Fortnight in September - just a couple of days ago. I enjoyed that too, but will save my remarks on it until it is time for its discussion at the September meeting of the Oxford Persephone Reading Group, which I shall be attending for the first time this month. My holiday wild card - The Calligrapher - lived up to expectations in being an enjoyable bit of fluff with some funny lines and some added local (to me at least) colour with the references to Donne and various calligraphic hands (even my former tutor was intrigued enough to speed-read it). I very much enjoyed The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - I thought Flavia was a great heroine and I look forward to reading more of her adventures. My last bit of rucksack reading was The Magic Toyshop - and what can I say, except now I understand what all the fuss was about! Surreal and disturbing, but full of flashes of fire and beauty - I loved it, and can't wait to read more Angela Carter. Apparently there is to be a production of The Magic Toyshop staged by students at the Oxford Playhouse next year; a friend of mine on the Chalet trip will be stage managing it, and borrowed my text to read with interest exactly what he will be working on. I am intrigued to see what they make of it - and await the recreation of the puppet theatre with great anticipation! It could, I think, be a truly spectacular evening.

But the most exciting literary moment of my trip came not from the depths of my much detested rucksack (it was so heavy that when I crouched down to pick something up that I'd dropped at the Metro station in Paris, I became nailed to the floor like a drunken snail ... luckily a gallant Frenchman was on hand to help me up again). Nor from the much thumbed volumes of the Chalet library - although the 'Chalet books' - the diary records of all the trips which have been kept by Chaletites over the past century - made absolutely fascinating reading, and I was thrilled to sign my name to this year's party list, and make my tiny impression in Chalet history. Rather, the great bibliographic thrills came from the Early Modern books which two of the party - one of the New College English tutors, and another man, who used to be a Junior Research Fellow at the College in the '80s - brought along. They brought their books together one morning and ran an informal seminar, or, rather, chatted to us about the things they loved:

We heard about books which had been to China and back, tossed about on stormy seventeenth-century seas; marvelled at the tale of a book which had crossed on the Mayflower to become part of an Englishman's home in the New World; wondered at Early Modern strategies to ward off the Plague (all get together in one room and not eat anything, apparently - no wonder the Black Death saw off so many. We decided we wouldn't pass on this suggestion as a way to cope with Swine Flu...). As you might imagine, I was in seventh heaven...:

And we were all exceptionally smug in the knowledge that neither Univ nor Balliol (the other two colleges with which we co-own the Chalet, and with which we have a 'friendly' rivalry), had never had such treasures at one of their so-called reading parties!

I need to carry on with my packing for Greece now - among which are a few more books! As well as Forever Amber, I'll be tucking my current read - The Lady and the Panda by Vicki Constantine Croke - into my carry-on. This is the amazing true-life tale of the American dress designer and socialite Ruth Harkness, who took over her dead husband's expedition to China in the 1930s to bring back a wild baby panda, and in doing so changed the course of wildlife conservation. I have only just begun it, but it looks to be a fascinating read, one which first came to my attention thanks to Deanna Raybourn's recommendation of it on her fabulous blog. Incidentally, if you are a fan of atmospheric historical murder mysteries with a bit of sizzling romance thrown in, Raybourn's Lady Julia Grey series is great fun (the first is Silent in the Grave, and let me tantalize you by saying it has one of the most brilliant opening lines I have read in a long time). Along with this, I'll be packing Matthew Lewis's 1796 succes de scandale, the Gothic shocker The Monk. I rather sheepishly noted, when picking it off my shelf today, that I bought my copy on 8 April 2005 (I record the date of purchase in all my books, along with my name - it it always rather nice to look back on), so opening its pages is an event long overdue. My ipod is loaded up with an audio book recording of Alexander McCall Smith's Corduroy Mansions, as well as Frances Osborne's The Bolter - a biography of Idina Sackville, the woman who inspired Nancy Mitford's character known by the same title. Hopefully all of this will keep me occupied on the beach!

Now, packing really does call, and, as Sir W announces in his 1600 essay 'Of Censuring', I must sadly say that, for the moment at least,  

'I haue done with bookes'.

Luckily Sir W returned to his favourite subject soon after this terrible proclamation, as, no doubt, shall I!

Of Provisions

Today has been spent running around Oxford making arrangements and sorting out a few last necessities for my trip to the Alps, which begins tomorrow. I realise that I have been mentioning this little jaunt without actually explaining why I - a girl who enjoys her home comforts perhaps more than most - am taking myself off to a chalet on the mountain slopes, miles away from the nearest hairdryer. I shall explain properly tomorrow before I leave, but suffice to say at the moment that I am now equipped with everything one could possibly need to fend off any type of biting creature you care to mention, enough plasters to soothe the blisters of a small army, and, thanks to skirmishofwit, the means to make sure that a little bit of girly luxury finds its way into the chalet at shower time:

Most importantly of all, however, I have enough books to keep me occupied for ten days up a mountain. I shall have company of course - I am not quite hare-brained enough to disappear into the hills alone - and I plan to spend some of my time strolling gently along the less arduous of the mountain tracks, admiring the alpine flowers and commenting on the view while my more adventurous companions strike off up the glacier. Mainly, however, I can't wait to have ten days cut off from emails and telephone calls, away from my studies, to sit down undisturbed and simply read.

I read all the time while I am in Oxford, of course, but most of this is for work - the literature of Sir W's time, rather than my own, or the arguments of critics. I genuinely enjoy this reading (or most of it, at least...), but I miss having the time to read for enjoyment alone. I always have at least one non-work book on the go, for reading over lunch, or before I go to bed, but I am almost giddy at the thought of having ten whole days to really indulge myself with books which are purely for fun. I am hugely thankful that I seem to have escaped the curse which afflicts some English students - of losing the ability to read 'for fun', and attacking each and every novel as if required to write a 20,000 word paper on it afterwards. I still get every bit as much enjoyment out of a good old-fashioned murder mystery or regency romance as I ever did before, and so, although I shall be taking a little 'work' reading with me, this holiday is really a chance for a proper break, to be immersed in a few books not written by men who died four hundred years ago...

In case the photograph is a little hard to make out, my reading selection comprises the following: The Fortnight in September by RC Sherriff; The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter; Mariana by Monica Dickens; The Calligrapher by Edward Docx; Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor; and The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley.

The Calligrapher is my collection's wild card - I had never heard of it, but when I saw it in the bookshop today I was immediately lured in by the blurb on the back, unable to resist a book which is about 'a world-class calligrapher and a serial seducer', who is transcribing Donne's Songs and Sonnets for a wealthy patron when an indiscretion catches up with him. It sounds like it should be suitably enjoyable froth, and as John Donne was a good friend of Sir W, it even has a tangental relation to work...! The other books are all ones I've been wanting to read for a while. Forever Amber I've been curious about ever since I read about bad girls reading it surreptitiously as a banned book in the Chalet School series of my childhood, and it looks like a great romp. Angela Carter has been recommended to me so many times, I've decided I simply must try her, and besides, how could I resist such a gorgeous cover? (Incidentally, anyone else interested in Carter should pay a visit to this review of The Magic Toyshop at Verity's Virago Venture, and also the guest posting there on the same topic by Paperback Reader, both of which further fueled my desire to become acquainted with Carter's work).

Mariana and The Fortnight in September are two more to add to my steadily growing collection from the wonderful Persephone Books; and The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie sounds delightful, and right up my street. I am also just now cogitating about which audio books to upload to my ipod (apparently, although the chalet is without electricity, there is a hotel a little distance away where I can charge both my camera and my ipod, so I can listen away unimpeded, and unfortunately have no excuse for returning from holiday without photographic evidence of me in walking boots carting a rucksack around, as the excuse that 'the battery ran out before I had chance' just isn't going to wash...).

And although I shall be deserting him for a little while, I can rest confident in the knowledge that Sir W would approve of my 'reading holiday', being himself a true book lover - his admission here in his 1600 essay 'Of Censuring' is one of the reasons I am sure he and I would get on:

'I am determined to speake of bookes next, to whom, if you wold not say I were too bookish, I shuld giue the first place of all thinges here.'

Of Being Tempted To Exercise

Anyone who knows me, knows that Exercise and I are not exactly soul mates. When I was younger, I was - amazingly - actually pretty sporty: I swam, played badminton, went horse-riding, and even learned how to do backwards somersaults on the trampoline. Heady days indeed. And how long ago they seem! After I became ill with M.E. at the age of fourteen, exercise was out of the question - for a long while I barely had enough energy to move from bed to the sofa. To be fair, a lot of the activities had stopped earlier ... but my illness really put the kibosh on any that remained. Thankfully, since I started university, my health has (touch wood), basically been fine, but even though I'd now count myself as pretty well completely recovered, somehow I've never quite managed to recapture that childhood enthusiasm for sporting activities... 

Even when I was younger, I was never a fan of team sport (well, I played netball for a while, but I think that was just because I liked the little pleated skirt you got to wear), and I have to confess to skipping the descriptions of hockey matches and tennis tournaments in the school stories of my childhood. All that whacking sticks around in the mud never quite appealed, and I think I just have an innate horror of anything requiring a gum-shield. Even quidditch never fired my imagination - I always thought that the beginning of Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire would have been vastly improved by a fat red pen slicing through 90% of the description of the World Cup.

I did, however, go for a while to pilates classes, and then did a term of yoga in my third year as an undergrad, which I actually really enjoyed. Unfortunately, when the enthusiastic American friend who came to yoga with me went back across the pond, I never quite made it to classes on my own the following year. But I've been thinking recently that with the amount of time I spend sitting hunched over a desk, if I don't want to end up a wizened old woman with a hump by the time I'm 30, I should probably do something about it. And recently I came across an excellent added incentive in this divine yoga mat and kit bag. The line has just been introduced by the wonderful oGorgeous:

Now, this is really my kind of exercise bag! The bags came to my attention thanks to a feature on the fabulous style and lifestyle blog Modish, and they come in various designs, although the one with the bow (rather aptly called Fashionista) is far and away my favourite. It would go so nicely with my current handbag... If anything is going to inspire me to find a new yoga class, this is it!

And as Sir W, in his essay 'Of Life, and the Fashions of Life' (1600) reminds me, when I enjoy Good Food as much as I do, a little exercise once in a while may not be such a bad thing...

'I am afraid our much Eating, and little Exercise, is the cause of this our lowe flying, and heauinesse: our many Crudities send vp dull heauy vapours, that makes vs like better of a bed, then of a saddle.'