A Glass of Blessings

Finished my re-read of "A Glass of Blessings" (Barbara Pym) yesterday.  Loved it even more the second time. 

Could it end up being my favourite Pym?   I will have to settle for it being one of  my favourites, as its impossible to pick a favourite between Glass and "Excellent Women" and "Quartet in Autumn", and "Some Tame Gazelle" (which is surely the funniest).

Wilmet - spoiler alert - gets everything wonderfully wrong throughout. And the world Barbara Pym is writing about is the world I was born into - the world that lingered on into the 1950s.  I feel at home in her world.  And she is so funny.

Anyway, to get to my dazzling diary - my partner for field service on Thursday cancelled, so I decided not to go to the group but to do a call - long overdue - to a very nice lady my age, who lives within walking distance. We had a good talk and I hope to continue it next week.  My excuse for calling will be to deliver a copy of the new magazine.

She really seems to appreciate them.

She has been a churchgoer all her life, but seems to know as little about what the Bible says as I did before I talked to the two Jehovah's Witnesses who called.

I must pray about this.  I need to find the right brother or sister to go along with me.

I can't think what I did in the afternoon. Finished my study for the meeting and lay on the sofa dozing in front of the telly - trying to rest my horribly swollen legs. 

This morning we shopped - for us and for Jacks - delivered her shopping and had a coffee and a chat. She is feeling no better, no worse.

And we had a chat with Bea of the North on the phone. The Bavarian branch of the family has just left after a short visit.  They did a tour of the local brewery - and were amazed and I'm sure pleased to find out that the machinery came from Friesing, their local town. 

So my blog returns to a glassy note, where it began, and to a literary note, as I too have had a novel published.  And my latest reader just told me she loved it, really loved it!   Which is what every author wants to hear, that  they have written a book that people enjoy reading.  And I had better be honest and say that her husband found it a bit slow going but did like the second half when it became more incident packed.

https://www.fantasticbooksstore.com/waiting-for-gordo-all-formats.html