"I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy...."
- C.S Lewis
A delicious, full and busy week has passed, most of it spent in London's Book House on a course for work. Enjoyed polishing my editing skills, but enjoyed being in Wandsworth and its Aladdin's cave of excellent cafes, pubs and immaculately decorated townhouses (I love it when people leave their curtains open!) even more. Maybe I live in the wrong part of London...?
Simple pleasures are indeed the last refuge of the complex, as my beloved Wilde put it. Here are some of my last refuges over the past week:
Perfect coffee
Flowers on a cafe table
London at night and, of course, TS - "the greatest pleasure of life is love" (Euripides)
Peppermint tea in a cupcake-dotted teapot
Perfect breakfast at a cafe in Wandsworth. I savoured every bite, every egg-soaked bit of sourdough and sprig of watercress. You know a meal is perfect when you just don't want it to end. Longed to be a character in an Enid Blyton story where the meal would magically appear again after eating the last bite.
Drinks with wonderful, inspiring friends
Running in a park with a frozen pond
I had never read this before, and absolutely loved it.
Hot chocolate - I'd been running and it was freezing, so I thought I deserved it..... it was perfect, and the skin on top puckered with cold the minute I stepped outside.Finally, although I have no picture to show for it, and it's an odd thing to put in a post titled "pleasures" but I got my first rejection letter for 2009 this week too. Normally I would have to go in search of a comforting article to read on One Night Stanzas (!) and even though it's never great to see your own handwriting on an envelope lying on the floor as you walk through the door (I was a little bit tipsy as well, having just come in from farewell drinks for a few work friends), I was fine with it, because the letter was not only handwritten from the editor herself, but really nice too! She made a few suggestions on how I could better the pieces I submitted, and urged me to try again. So I think I will.
Here's to another week filled with pleasures.
Sometimes a thoughtful rejection is nearly as good as an acceptance (I did say nearly!).
ReplyDeletePerfect breakfasts are essential to life - you can get away with a not so perfect other meal but breakfasts have to be first rate.
Nothing beats the puckering, does it?
ReplyDeleteI admire you for attempting a novel -- wish I had the guts to do it!
My first appearance on Green Ink.
ReplyDeleteI am strangely surprised at how flat the back of my head is ;)
Talking about an Enid Blyton story where a meal would suddenly appear after taking a bite of the last one, in fact, in my book, titled, The Famous Five: A Personal Anecdotage (www.thefamousfiveapersonalanecdotage.blogspot.com), I have a sub-heading, titled, "Food in Blytonian Literature."
ReplyDeleteStephen Isabirye