From Melanie Stacey, book club
If someone asked me to describe Carol, I would have to tell them about
– her hands, always moving to animate her words.
– her love of tea…I never knew her to refuse a cup
– her style, especially her beautiful necklaces which I always coveted
– bringing Edie home from hospital when she was born
– book club evenings where we didn’t always find time to discuss the book which not everyone had finished (or sometimes even started) where we all argued about Angela’s Ashes, when my cooking fused the electrics that time, when someone baked potatoes with plastic-handled forks in them and we had to evacuate the kitchen but in spite of all that, we managed to read and discover some wonderful books too. I remember our first ever meeting, where we did Rumer Godden’s ‘The Greengage Summer’ and all loved it.
– our annual New Year holidays to ramshackle houses where we cooked and danced and walked and laughed and Sebastian brought a framed tarantula along to the first one he came to, when you were the only one sober and had to drive a bloodied casualty of drunken dancing across Exmoor to the nearest A&E.
Part of my life for over 35 years, I will miss you, dear Carol.
Lovely pictures Mel!
The Greengage Summer! What a great book that was and what a fabulous start to that Book Club. If Carol were a book, she might be this one. A big family, a deep connection with and love of France, unabashed enjoyment of food, a shimmering hot August full of sunshine and slow days…and, at the centre of it all, a very English girl.
There is also this quote ‘“I wondered what it was like to be buried and not to be sitting in this pretty satin-papered dining room, eating the things the visitors ate, hors d’oeuvres and pâté, poulet a l’estragon, veal and steaks, salads and greengages, and I hoped I need never be dead.”