[Sue Deacon]

If the bad weather is keeping you in, I would like to recommend a couple of books to while away the hours and to inspire.

The first is 'For all the tea in China' by Sarah Rose. If you like your cup o' Tay, you should find this fascinating . It tells how Scottish gardener and botanist Robert Forture was sent by the East India Company to China to steal the secrets of tea.

In these days of commercial flights and refrigeration it is easy to forget how tough it must have been to successfully transport fragile seedlings from the mountains of China to the coast, then on to slow ships in hostile, salty conditions to Indian ports and then by cart up to the mountains in India. All the time dealing with a nation that didn't welcome foreigners 'snooping' around, idiot port officials, ignorant 'hauliers' and chin-less wonders for bosses!

The second is a book I have had for YEARS! I am not even sure it is still in print, but you might get it on Amazon. It is called 'Portrait of a Country Garden' by Rosanne Sanders. It is a month by month collection of beautiful watercolours and seasonal poems, including one of my all-time favourites 'To Nature' by Coleridge - 'It may indeed be Phantasy....'

I do watercolours - watercolour pattern and illustration on china was my career for years. But I struggle to produce the same quality paintings as this lady. Perhaps the difference is, I was a designer she is an artist!?

It is a 'feel good' book and I wouldn't part with it for anything.

Does anyone else have book suggestions to while away the winter (other than the seed catalogues )

[Ado 2]

Hi Sue thanks for those suggestions. When I was sick over Christmas I read The Lovely Bones , there was a film made about it but I never saw it. It was a great read. I read a book by John Steinbeck called Brning Bright. I had recently reread of Mice and Men. Also a book by Joanna Trollope and a book by Colm Toibin who is know at the moment by the film Brooklyn ie a book he wrote. The one I read was of short stories called a there and Sons. I eat books. Yum yum yum

[Sue Deacon]

I have seen the Lovely Bones - a bit harrowing, don't think I would like to read the book. I like something a bit more upbeat. I am a big fan of Terry Pratchett's Disc World books.

[Ado 2]

A film is only someone's version of the book for the stage as it were. I never have liked a film after I have read the book. My imagination and vision of the book is never anywhere near the movie version. For example the movie The Help I literally turned the TVs off after 10 mins, there was no way it was what the author had written. The written word is way stronger

[tagwex]

We went to the cinema yesterday to see Brooklyn.
First novel I ever read was a Christmas present when I was 7. Black Beauty. Read it all that day and still have it. Best book I ever read was Trinity by Leon Uris.

[Ado 2]

I went to see Brooklyn too, I couldn't help noticing all the woollens. Ha Where I grew up in the Midlands ( Ireland ) I went to the library every week, I got my mother and fathers books too. Zane Grey or similar for me da and Georgette Heyer or a Catherine Cookson for the ma. I eventually read all of the girls section and I had no qualms going over to the boys section Hardy Boys etc. Can you imagine a divide even in books. I was often accosted by the local librarian in the street. "You have books overdue!" Ha I used to avoid passing her house ha ha Ahhh those were the days, when you stood in line by the pot belly stove to get your books stamped.

[tagwex]

We know where the midlands are! It is all a lake now.
Enniscorthy due to flood again today at high tide.
In Brooklyn, did you notice in the scene filmed at the island north of the town, where Rose is reading a letter from her sister, that there were no piebalds visible?

[Ado 2]

Poor divils, hardly able to eep their heads above water now. I recognised the beach tho and Tagoat church ! !

[tagwex]

Ohhhh Tagoat was it? We were wondering.

[Ado 2]

Yep