WIDE WEDNESDAY

What do you do when it is hammering down with rain and you can’t go out anyway because you are self-isolating? Well, you look around for something that would suit the challenge of Wide Wednesday.

After having my shower and sitting on the bed, reading my book and enjoying my first cup of coffee, I saw my bookshelf and decided that it would fit the bill.

I am quite organised in many ways, but I don’t arrange my books systematically - I like to just put them where I think they look good together rather than have all of one sort of book with others of the same ilk.  Mind you, it makes it a bit difficult when I am looking for a particular book, but then in the looking, I will come across one that I haven’t looked at or read for a while, so then I can stop and enjoy that.

Mr. HCB has sent quite a lot of his books to charity shops over the years - in fact, he let all his Jack Higgins and Stephen Leather books go, but I’m not quite that generous and like to keep my books - and some of them are quite old and have memories attached to them.

I enjoy a wide variety of books and there are many more in my Quiet Room.  I have lots of novels, including the one sent to me recently by a friend, "Redeeming Love", which I am really enjoying.  I also have several poetry books, enjoy reading books about English grammar and other non-fiction books and I do have a lot of Christian books.  I have just noticed, looking at the selection of books in this shot, that one of Mr. HCB’s cricket books has found its way onto the shelf, “Nicely Nurdled, Sir!”  I didn’t actually know what the word “nurdle” meant, so looked it up and Mr. Google tells me that it means : “To score runs, usually in singles, by using low-risk shots to gently nudge the ball into vacant areas of the field.”  No fun there then!

The oldest book on this particular shelf is the one next to the cricket book, the one with the dark red cover, "The Methodist Hymn Book with Tunes".  It was originally given to Christine Lovibond by Ernest Iles, Mr. HCB's uncle at Christmas 1939.  Someone, probably Christine, has written in pencil CEL and ESI.  Christine and Ernest were married in March 1942 before he went over to France in the Second World War.  Sadly Ernest was killed in action in July 1944.  Ernest never actually saw Mr. HCB, who was born in April 1942. 

However, when we found Christine a few years ago and went to visit her, she gave this book to Mr. HCB and you can tell by the sticky tape on some of the pages, that it has been well used.  Although Christine had remarried twice, she still carried a photograph of Ernest in her purse - when we met her we found that so poignant.  

I love this quote from “Pride and Prejudice” but I daresay the books in Jane Austen’s library were better organised than mine!  I could certainly live without television, but couldn't live without books.  

“I declare after all there is 
     no enjoyment like reading! 
How much sooner one tires 
     of any thing than of a book! 
When I have a house of my own, 
     I shall be miserable if I have not 
          an excellent library.” 
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice