victorian visiting

Etiquette of morning calls and visits of ceremony

| Myth | Lore | History, Reading

One of the reasons I love reading Victorian/Regency novels is that I get a glimpse of the everyday rituals, strange to us now, that were so important to the people performing them. One of those rituals that always seemed at once charming and terrifying to me was the obligation of the morning call 0r social visit. So much seemed to hinge on those visits! For example, from Jane Austen’s Persuasion: “Where shall we go?” said [Mary], when […]

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Ruins of St Mary’s Abbey, York

| Places

In 2010 I visited York, England. I’d always wanted to go there, primarily because I was excited about all the historical sights in the town. My site’s header comes from that trip – it’s a small bit of what remains of St Mary’s Abbey, a Benedictine abbey established in 1088. As a Canadian, finding a structure that old and still standing was amazing. And it was made no less amazing by the fact that it was

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And feet that run but they come back home

| Misc., People, Places

When you move back to your hometown, nobody warns you about the absence of time. The way you can hold your palm to things that have happened. You can watch them happen again, they do happen again, it’s so easy, and makes so much sense. You don’t even have to try. You remember, and you forget again. You can still be surprised, if you want to be. Related: Memory things.

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Food in writing

| Misc., People, Reading

As I wrote about last year when I read Ethan Frome, descriptions of meals in books are one of the things that really catch my attention when I’m reading. I like to imagine how all the elements of the meal work together. I read this description recently in Margaret Drabble’s The Ice Age: Sadie brought her a tray full of chicken soup and chopped liver and cold chicken and cold salmon and salad and fruit and

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Novel things.

| Writing

In 2010, I completed NaNoWriMo. I wrote a novel called Practice, which was accurate. It was practice. I’d written two book-length things as a teenager – and I don’t say this to make myself sound impressive. One of them was basically the plot of The Outsiders, except the Ponyboy character was a girl. Plus, these were book-length things for 13-year-olds. By contrast, my NaNoWriMo book was just over 52,000 words, and I was proud of

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A library clerk saves the day!

| Myth | Lore | History, Places | 2 Comments

A few months ago, I visited Ottawa and went on a guided tour of Centre Block (which is one of our Parliament buildings, for those unfamiliar). It was very interesting to see all of it, but my favourite was the Library of Parliament. There were many gasps from my group when we walked in, and I was definitely one of those people. I mean, just look at it! In 1916, a fire broke out in Centre

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Nothing and everything

| Misc., People, Places | 4 Comments

Nothing changes, maybe even me. I wrap my scarf around my neck three times and nestle in. I drive my father’s car in the dark, in the rain, winding my way around random streets, wandering until I run out of coffee. Or I’m an early morning passenger with a bagel in my hand, passing my husband his coffee as we wander together, wondering how our lives will be next year. He drops me off at the station and the sun is

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The finality of history, and escapism

| Myth | Lore | History

  I’ve been reading a lot of historical fiction lately. I’ve been enjoying it, returning to it regularly, with the same urgency I often feel about certain history and biography books I read. I am indeed an adult who deals with her problems, but at the same time, I’m also quite prone to escapism. Lately I’ve been feeling a bit fatalistic about the state of the world and the direction it’s heading in. One way

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Connected to history

| Myth | Lore | History, Places, Reading

Memorial plaques for three of the family members of Plum Johnson, author of the memoir They Left us Everything (check it out at amazon.ca or amazon.com), which I mentioned in a recent entry. I would hesitate to call this “history,” but seeing these plaques (I had forgotten they were there, so they took me by surprise) brought up the same feelings that visiting actual historical sites or artifacts gives me. That sense that you can be so

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The Outward Room

| People, Reading

I wondered how it was that I had never heard of this book and its extraordinarily promising young author. I asked around, but no one seemed to know or remember Millen Brand, or his books. It’s somewhat frightening to learn that good books – even books heralded in their time – can disappear so quickly and completely. [. . .] All of Brand’s work is modest and sincere, two qualities that are undervalued, if not

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