Summer has arrived in our side of Europe this week, and I've been suffering with it. I've been reading a lot again lately which has been enjoyable. Today I started Letters from Egypt by Lucie Duff Gordon and in the blazing heat I was a bit baffled by the notion that everyone thought her health would improve if she just spent more time in more tropical surroundings. I'm not sure if it did that much for her because she did kick the bucket in a rather untimely manner but maybe there is a point in it for some? I think I would probably die on the spot mere seconds after having left the airplane.
Aside from that today I also finished The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie. I had wanted to read this after having finished a lovely biography about Agatha and I did feel the need to continue with her for a little while longer. Those vintage pockets are just lovely, very snappy reads. Actually I did feel the need to go for another pocket of hers after but I decided on Lucie after all. I've been dying to start in one of my fair few books of letter collections, reading correspondence is so fascinating.
I was just speaking to a friend of mine from Nafplio (Greece) and I told him about Gerald Durrell, he was a naturalist who spent his childhood in Corfu in the 1930s. As a child I've been to Corfu as well, and it was just the most gorgeous island. Now that I am typing this I realize that when I was at my parents house this afternoon I should have taken a look at our photographs from that holiday. Perhaps next week! Anyway my friend will look into Gerald, he had never heard of him before.
The point of that was actually that I also have a lovely book with letters from Gerald to Henry Miller. The cover is rather unusual though so I think I will not be reading that book in public.
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The point of the title was something entirely different though, but it came across my mind several times as I was reading in the comfy velvet chair that I have in front of my bedroom window. I've just been enjoying my room so much lately, and I'm concerned about the future. So far in my life I've been rather lucky and I've always been able to enjoy homes with a view.
In my parents home my bedroom looked out over the garden and over the typical canal with some house boats there as well. In my next home the living room also looked out over a rather large canal, and I was able to see real boats. At night in the winter from the balcony you could see the trains going towards our central station as well. It was just the most lovely feeling.
And currently, it is just the best. My bedroom is rather long and thin but at the back I have windows that go from the ceiling to the window. I have a lovely French balcony which I decorated with fairy lights and two hanging baskets for plants. I am afraid the plants are dead right now, murdered brutally by the sudden summer. Soon there will be something alive in there again though.
The view itself is of the side of a church, you can see the lovely multipaneled roof and the brickwork which is just so nice. In between the church and my building there is also a courtyard, it's one floor lower than my bedroom. I love looking out over it and seeing my neighbors pottering around. I was just chatting with one of them yesterday whilst I was taking out some disposables, and I've understood we are getting a new tenant there too.
An apartment below me on the left side was recently freed up as the previous tenant was moved to a care home after she had tried to set fire to her stove, that was a very exciting evening. The courtyard smelled like burned chickpeas for a few days. Anyway she is happy in the home now, and I've understood a lovely retired Middle Eastern man will be moving in. He's supposed to be very nice so I am looking forward to meeting him.
Anyway I'm just concerned, what will be view of my next home be like? I wouldn't want it to be disappointing because I'm just not used to that. I want to see something lovely, something green. I'd love to have a garden but who wouldn't? In the city that's a wild dream though, but I'd love just a little patch of grass for my cat. I am sure she would love it.
I think that was it for now though because I'd like to get back into Letters From Egypt.
-Lily
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