An Inspired Life

With only a week to go before we head up north, my girls and I decided to pay one last visit to my own personal favourite NT property...Greenway House, the once much-loved home of my most favourite author, Agatha Christie.

Oh to live in such a lovely property! The very setting inspires one to write. Did you know that her book Dead Mans Folly was inspired by and set in Greenway? In fact, it was just a few weeks ago that I was watching Dead Man’s Folly with David Suchet, and caught a glimpse of the house in the background. I hadn’t known that they had filmed part of that episode at Greenway – how lovely!

Just a quick pic of my favourite exploring partners, they sure are growing up quickly!

As per usual, my favourite parts of any NT that I visit…the kitchens and gardens. In the kitchen, there are rows of wonderful vintage cookbooks. I took this photograph as a reminder to seek out one or two of the titles that caught my eye and because the sight of a full bookshelf brings joy to this homeschooling mums heart. I really do love books 😍

These pots! Oh my goodness, what it is about terracotta pots I just don’t know. I desperately want my own little pile of pots stacked neatly against a garden wall, waiting to be put to use in the spring or perhaps a made into a cosy home by a friendly garden robin for the winter. 

Gardener Carol Klein made a wonderful gardening program of her garden through the seasons and she had loads of terracotta pots filled with tulips. I determined then and then that I would do the same. I should still have time after we move into our new home in October (can you believe that we will be staying in my husband’s hotel for a whole month while we look for a home? Ugh). They have to be terracotta pots though, no yucky plastic.

Now…take a look at the walled garden and the greenhouses. Be still my beating heart! The picture above looks like Peter Rabbit could just hop right out at any moment. Picture perfect! If I had a garden like this I think I would spend most of my time out here pottering about, or perhaps I would set up a writing desk and on warm summer days, I would write in the walled garden surrounded by the greenhouses and pots of new plants. On rainy days I would move my writing desk into one of the greenhouses and watch the rain falling on the glass and running gently down the panes.

In the smaller of the two greenhouses, we encountered the sweetest little Siamese cat. She wasn’t very old, not even a year I would guess. She was sprawled out in the flowerbed and rather enjoyed all the petting and strokes she was getting from us. We were rewarded with loud, appreciative purrs.

I was talking to my grandmother this week about books. My girls and I went to see Christopher Robin at the cinema on Monday (Go and see it! It’s wonderful!), and I was reminded of how very much I love my childhood books. I will still use certain of them as part of seasonal displays after I’ve had a read through them again of course. I still enjoy my childhood classics and I still read them as an adult. I was telling my grandmother that I could quite easily live in a storybook. How wonderful it would be! 

After I had shared this with her she shared a memory with me. When I was very small she took me to see Mary Poppins when it had just come out. Apparently, I ran up the aisle towards the screen wanting to go an join them in that chalk painted world in the park.

So you see, it appears I have had a love for books and the worlds they offer from a very young age. I suddenly understood myself a little better 😊. Family gives us a sense of, and insight into, who we are and where we come from. They give us a sense of belonging. After that little conversation, don’t feel like such a weirdo for loving my childhood books or for cherishing the adventures they offered me still to this day.

Anyhoo, the point of that rather long-winded story does have a connection to the photograph above because as I go through the days of my life I will often happen across a scene such as this arched door in the walled garden leading to another garden room that reminds me of a storybook world. This one for some reason reminds me so much of what I imagine Alice in Wonderlands garden to look like. Perhaps she ran down a path just like this one through a face-brick arched door in the wall just like this one and out into the rambling gardens before encountering the white rabbit and following it down into a magical world through the rabbit hole.

I copied a quote into my Commonplace Book this morning and I wanted to share it with you. The book is Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray, and this quote really struck me because it holds so much truth about what kind of life you choose to have. It is all about how you look at the world.

“The world is a looking-glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it, and it will, in turn, look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion, and so let all young persons take their choice.”

Blessing to you all today…