Ladies Of A Certain Age

Two Weeks to go and Counting......

This afternoon, these two ladies practised taking tea in style, at the Swan at Streatley, on the river Thames. In three weeks time, we will be doing the same in a beautiful hotel  on the Grand Canal in Venice! Today, it was wet and miserable, so a very English cream tea with Earl Grey was just the ticket.

Our tea marked both the end of summer, (for we sat inside instead of riverside, watching the swans) but also served as a little memorial occasion for our mothers - this week being the anniversaries of both their passings.

It was one of Liz's Mother's favourite places to take tea - and although my own mother never visited, still with the comforting tea, scones, jam and cream, I was reminded of her own abundant warmth and hospitality. We both raised a cup to them, remembered them with our deepest love, and then tucked them both back under our hearts.

A Lady of a Certain Age Moves to Brittany

"I'm in my garden in Finistere, filling out change of address cards. It's an afternoon at the beginning of September 2000, a soft haze over the countryside. The Atlantic is breathing tides and seaweed, the reassuring sound of the warning buoy like an owl.

I live in Finistere because I've moved here.....it wasn't by chance: for a woman of experience, there's no such thing as chance....

A couple of months - that's all it took. I left the country I'd lived in for 55 years. The time had come. Drunk on freedom, I drove away. I wasn't looking - but I found Finistere. Not far from Brest I felt I was getting close, and then it wasn't long before I was standing in front of the parcel of paradise that is mine".

I picked up this book in a charity shop in Winchester this afternoon (Winchester, the City of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Winchester,
bathed today in glorious autumnal sunshine)...Chosen firstly because I was
attracted to the "watercolour painting on watercolour paper" cover, then by the title. But having read the first three chapters, I realise that I recognise the narrative - it was a book  serialised on the radio - and I remember being captivated by the fragment of the story that I got to
hear - I didn't catch all the episodes.

So now a book that sang to me from the shelves is enchanting me on the page. The author, too, is a Lady of a Certain age - and I can't wait to see how she experiences her new found freedom!