Slightly Foxed on Gloucester Road

Dec24

When the quarterly reader’s magazine Slightly Foxed: the real reader’s quarterly started ten years ago I took out a subscription but this year now that I can borrow issues from The Leeds Library I have cancelled my subscription. The result is that I actually read the magazine instead of flicking through it and putting it in a pile “to read later”. However, I am still a great fan of all things ‘Slightly Foxed’ which includes the lovely bookshop on Gloucester Road, Kensington.

Due to predictions of inclement weather yesterday I left home in Leeds extra early to drive down to London. The journey presented no problems and I arrived in good time; leaving the afternoon free.

Letters and messages to the Sly Fox

So I took the Underground Train to Gloucester Road Tube Station and revisited this lovely bookshop. Stocks include new books as well as secondhand, plus cards and bags and mugs. The friendly bookseller [Tony] found me the titles I was interested in from the Winter Catalogue.

In addition to publishing the Quarterly SF also reprint some lovely out-of-print classic memoirs in their Slightly Foxed Editions and Paperbacks.

Preparations for stocktaking at Slightly Foxed Bookshop

Browsing wasn’t easy in the downstairs secondhand department as staff are preparing to stock-take on the 2nd January. The shop was about to close for the Christmas and New Year holiday at 5pm today and is due to re-open on 3rd January 2014.

If you are wondering where the name/term ‘slightly foxed‘ comes from here is one definition:

“Foxing: In a nutshell, a foxed book’s pages have some spotting, ranging from sort of a beige color to a rusty brown (like a fox’s footprints, or maybe its reddish coat). Sometime foxed spots are referred to as “age spots.” The causes of foxing include temperature & humidity changes (don’t store your books in damp or unheated places!), and impurities within the paper (high acidity – most common in modern books with cheap paper, or iron or copper, commonly found in 19th century & older books). There may be other causes as well, such as fungus or other microorganisms. The reason for foxing in a particular book is often difficult to discern.

Foxing is very common in antique books (due to the paper used) and can certainly be found in contemporary books as well.
A book conservator / archivist can sometimes remove foxing, but it’s a very difficult & expensive process.
As far as how it effects value, well, it just depends on how easy it is to find an unfoxed copy. Some very old books may be difficult to find in unfoxed condition; in that case value will not be greatly affected. Modern books are devalued by foxing to a greater degree, because they are more readily available in fine condition.”

Of course, there’s another meaning to fox – sly, clever, crafty. So the sly fox can cleverly suggest all sorts of books for all sorts of reading problems.

A Great Time in Malvern : Books, Tea and a Theatre Visit

Aug14

Last Saturday I arranged to meet up with a couple of members of my online book discussion group for our annual ‘Summer Meeting’ away from London (last year we were at Chatsworth). This year’s venue was Great Malvern in Worcestershire. I had never been there before, nor I believe had Carol, but Simon (Stuck-in-a-Book) used to live not so far away in Eckington so he was pretty familiar with the town and its book shops, of course.

These meetings generally follow a similar pattern. Meet for tea and cake, head off to a book shop or two, decide to have a light lunch, followed by more book shopping and ending with more tea (and often, cake). Anyway the theme is always of tea, cake and books in some kind of order.

Picture Source

As I was dropping off another friend at Great Malvern Station I arranged to meet Simon there. The station is probably one of the prettiest I have ever been to – there is a tea shop (Lady Foley’s Tea Shop) with tables and chairs outside on Platform One and as it is a listed building you can imagine it still has the signs and furniture of a bygone age. The station is slightly out of the town centre though so we drove, uphill, to a more convenient car park.

Great Malvern Priory Church

Malvern Hills

There are two very prominent features that dominate the town: the Malvern Hills that rise straight up vertically behind the town to the west and Great Malvern Priory right in the town centre and which is also the parish church.

After our first tea and cake at Mac and Jac’s near the Priory and a visit to the friendly, helpful and well-stocked Malvern Bookshop :

The Malvern Bookshop
7 Abbey Road
MALVERN Worcestershire WR14 3ES
tel: 01684 575915 fax: 01684 575915
Open: Monday – Saturday 10.00 – 5.00, closed Thursday and best to ring first in the winter.
Several rooms carrying large diverse stock. Quality books bought and sold. Music a speciality. By the Priory steps near the Post Office.

we decided to head up, straight up, vertically up to St Ann’s Well for lunch.

For me it was well worth the climb to see the original well/spring and enjoy lunch on the terrace. The trees are very tall and block the view from the cafe itself but we had fantastic views each time we stopped for breath and looked back across what must be The Vale of Evesham.

The View as begin our ascent to St Ann’s Well

View as we return down to Malvern

“In bygone days Malvern water was remarkable for its healing virtue, an efficacy that was held to be supernatural. How early the waters gained local repute it is impossible to say; but the fact that the old spring at Great Malvern is dedicated to St Ann, and that the well at Malvern Wells is the Holy Well, carries their reputation far back into the Middle Ages at least; while documentary evidence exists that they were in exceptional request early in the seventeenth century, especially for skin diseases, as public open baths.” So says my rather old copy of Ward Lock & Co’s “Malvern” illustrated guide book.

Surely everyone has heard of Malvern Natural Spring Water – the only bottled water used by our Queen Elizabeth II, which she takes on her travels around the world. Or does she still? There are still many natural springs around the town – some with warning signs.

‘Safe’ Malvern Spring in the Town

Natural Spring Water – but beware!

St Ann’s Well

Simon suggested a slightly less steep descent into town and a visit to Books for Amnesty :

Books For Amnesty
3 Edith Walk
MALVERN Worcestershire WR14 4QH
tel: 01684 563507
Open: Monday – Saturday 10.00 – 5.00.
Large general stock of donated books in all categories and at reasonable prices. Malvern has two other secondhand bookshops.

As we arrived he pointed out to me the world’s smallest theatre building in a converted Gents public convenience. I was intrigued and left the hard core book buyers in order to investigate. I bought a ticket for the five minute show and was entertained by The Deep Sea Diva and Stradi and his Various Voyages amongst others. After the show there is a photo opportunity which I couldn’t resist! [Pictures below]

Eventually we bought ices from the shop next door and headed to a park to eat them in the sunshine and for a final ‘show-and-tell’ of the books we’d bought before going our separate ways at around 5.30pm. We all agreed that it had been a most perfect day. We’ll soon be planning the next one …

The Theatre of small Convenience

About the Theatre

The Theatre

Photo Opportunity!

A Chapel, a Diarist and a Book Town: a visit to Hay On Wye and its Environs

Mar7

On Monday I arrived in Wales for a few days’ visit with a friend and former colleague who returned to her home country after spending most of her adult life in Leeds. I’m having a very relaxing few days interspersed with an expedition each day. Tuesday was most glorious. The sun came out and the temperatures rose and spring seemed definitely in the air. We managed a couple of short walks in “Waterfall Country”.

Sgwd Gwladus near Pontneddfechan, Neath Valley

St Mary’s Church, Ystradfellte

Sgwd Clun-Gwyn, near Ystradfellte

By yesterday spring was over and it was winter again – misty, wet and cold. No problem, we thought, for today we have the pleasures of Hay-on-Wye, Wales’s own Book Town, in store.

On our journey to Hay we took two very short detours. The first was to visit the Maesyronnen Chapel. Fortuitously, the adjoining former minister’s house is now a Landmark Trust property.

Here is an extract from the History page from the LT’s webpage for Maesyronnen Chapel:

“A Chapel Founded just after The Act of Toleration

Here we have taken on the neat and tiny cottage, built before 1750 onto the end of one of Wales’s shrines of Nonconformity, the Maesyronnen chapel. This chapel, converted from a barn in 1696, dates from Nonconformity’s earliest days, when any suitable building was made use of for enthusiastic worship. It was probably used for secret meetings even before the Act of Toleration legalised such gatherings in 1689, which explains its isolated position. Services are still held in the chapel, which is cared for by Trustees, who asked for our help. By taking a lease on the cottage we hope we have helped give both buildings a future.”

Francis Kilvert Memorial in Clyro Parish Church

St Michael’s Church, Clyro

From Maesyronnen it was a short drive to Clyro and the former home of the Reverend Francis Kilvert famous for diaries recording his daily life and walks in the area. Kilvert was curate at Clyro when he began writing his diaries but he only lived there between 1865 and 1872. He lived at Ashbrook House which, until recently, had been an art gallery but currently the garden looks rather overgrown and unloved. Two plaques on the wall of the house record the fact that Kilvert lived here.

Ashbrook House, Clyro

Read an interesting article here about Kilvert, the man, and his diaries.

It ends : “Sadly, it’s difficult to find copies of Kilvert in bookshops today. The one-volume abridgement, published by Penguin, and subsequently by Pimlico, has fallen out of print, while Plomer’s three-volume edition has long been unavailable. To celebrate the 70th anniversary, Cape should consider authorising a critical edition of the diary, drawing on the surviving manuscripts, as well as on the background information amassed by the Kilvert Society in the years since its foundation in 1948. That way we might have the opportunity to gaze afresh on the radiant, picturesque world of the Rev Kilvert.”

Well, all that has changed and we saw several versions of the diaries in Hay book shops in the full 3 volume format (for around £130+) as well as reissues of the abridged version, above.

Clyro is also the location of the Jacobean-style mansion built by Sir Thomas Mynors Baskerville a friend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who borrowed his friend’s name when writing The Hound of the Baskervilles. The house is now a hotel and needless to say there is also a pub of the same name.

And so on to Hay itself. Despite planning in advance which shops to visit and preparing lists and so on I found that I was rather overwhelmed with choice. I realised that I am so dedicated a library user these days that I have less and less need to actually own books. It also seemed to me that in each shop we visited the value of each book was known and there was very little chance of a real bargain. However, that said, it’s an extremely pleasant way of spending a cold, damp Wednesday afternoon in March.

Hay Castle

Richard Booth’s Books

Inside Addyman’s Books at Hay on Wye

The Honesty Bookshop, Hay

I bought only one title and that was from the Honesty Book Shop in the Castle precincts – all hardbacks £1 and all paperbacks 50p. It is a hardback copy of The Nutmeg Tree by Margery Sharp. It’s in pretty good condition and I’m pleased with it.

The Bernese Bears and the Saturday Food Market

Feb19

I’ve written about Bern and its bears here once before, about a year ago, when an article in the Independent prompted me to wander down Memory Lane not knowing, at the time, when I’d next make a visit there.

The Old City of Bern is classed as a UNESCO World Heritage site and this is not surprising when you see it. It’s a beautiful city with lovely cobbled streets, beautiful architecture, famous shopping arcades with delightful, mostly ‘one-off’, shops but very far from being a museum-piece. It hosts lively markets and is busy and bustling. I love it.

Choosing breads

B had finally finished work for the week and early on Saturday we walked to the Old Town to shop at the market, have a coffee and walk along the arcaded streets down to the new ‘Bear Pits’ – or Garden, really – on the opposite bank of the River Aare. It was freezing cold and snowing but this didn’t stop anyone going about their business and the market (although very much bigger and busier in the summer months) was thriving.

Cheese stall

Meat stall

B knew all the best stalls for buying our commissions: cheese and dried meats for our Raclette evening meal, vegetables and breads. In order to defrost we nipped into the Einstein Cafe – a popular, currently trendy, cafe just by the market and under the (not open in February) Einstein House Museum. [I discovered on this visit that Einstein also lived for some time in the same street as B but as it was dark on Saturday evening I was unable to take a decent picture – next time!]

Tea at Cafe Einstein – relatively the best

Warmed, we left the cafe to visit the bookshop over the street. Naturally, we browsed and chatted about the books and authors we saw and B ended up buying a book, which, had it been in English, I too would have succumbed to buying. Translated the title is “On the track of Byron and Tolstoy: a literary hike from Montreux to Meiringen”. I’m hoping that in the spring B and P may put this reading into action and participate in at least some of this week-long hike and report back to me on its progress.

From here we walked through arcades until we finally had a view of the Bernese bears new ‘garden’ no longer a pit but a very open area alongside the river – much more pleasant for both bears and visitors. Of course, the bears were sleeping so we didn’t catch sight of any.

The new Bear Garden in Bern

You won’t be surprised to see that bears turn up everywhere in the city and Canton of Berne.

Bern and It’s Book Mine

Feb18

Arriving in Bern a week last Thursday I dropped my bags off and took a walk in search of a secondhand book shop that I’d read about somewhere on the internet.

“Bücherbergwerk Monbijou, Monbijoustrasse 16 (on the street through which tram line 9 descends from Hirschengraben near the main station, in the basement of the building marked ”SWICA”), ☎ +41 (0)31 381 71 25. Open Tu-F 10AM-5PM and Sa 11AM-3PM. The used books store of the Swiss Workers’ Aid Society.”

The Swiss Parliament Building from Monbijou Bridge

The Gurten from Monbijou Bridge

From B’s place you cross the Monbijou Bridge from where you gain fantastic views of the city, the Bundeshaus (Parliament Building), the River Aare and the nearby hills of Gurten.

Along Monbijoustrasse I spotted the sign for SWICA and dived underground to find a cavernous book shop filled to overflowing with secondhand books and maps and comfy chairs and lamps. Two floors under is the foreign language section with a large section labelled English Books.

The English books section in the lower basement

Generally the price of each book seemed to be 3 Swiss francs but on selecting 5 to buy the assistant suggested a total of 10 francs. This seemed a very fair price to me.

I bought two old paperbacks :

An illustrated story of Tom Thumb – it’s the 200th anniversary of the publication of Grimm’s Fairy Tales and my German Conversation Class have been talking about them:

The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski for Barbara and a copy of Charlotte Bronte’s Villette which I gave to my other Swiss friend, Susan.

I dared not buy any more books as I had to watch the weight in my suitcase and I knew everyone at home would prefer Swiss chocolate to musty old English books!

Hirschengraben

My walk then continued to the Hirschengraben and the Bundeshaus and Bundesplatz and over the Kirchenfeld Bridge and back to Barbara’s place.

The Bundesplatz with temporary ice rink

View from the Bundes Terrasse (Kirchenfeld Bridge on the left)

Lord Byron’s Lover’s Books in Leeds

Nov7

An interesting article caught my eye in The Independent on Sunday on 21st October: Byron Treasure Found in Gift to Used Bookshop.

The secondhand bookshop in question is a relatively new one set up last year in a redundant building in the grounds of Harewood House. I’ve been a frequent visitor at the house and love to walk around the terrace gardens, woodland and the walled garden and, if it’s open, browse the book shelves.

The Augusta Leigh Display at Harewood

The article in question tells the story of a member of the volunteer staff at the shop discovering amongst donated books some inscribed “Augusta Leigh, St James’ Palace”.

With no idea who the Augusta was Audrey Kingsnorth began an investigation that lead her to the Byron connection. Not only was Augusta Lord Byron’s (mad, bad and dangerous to know) lover, she was also his half sister, the result of the liaison between John (Mad Jack) Byron and Amelia Osborne. The books had been acquired by the donor (now in her 80s) following the purchase of a London House; the bookshelves of which were to large to move.

Close-up of the Display

“[One] of the donated books, Trimmer’s Fabulous Histories, is inscribed by Augusta to one of her children: “Henry Francis Leigh from his dear Mamma on his birthday, January 28th 1828″. Henry Francis died at 33, leaving a widow, Mary, and a daughter; Mary remarried and had another daughter and a son. Augusta had seven children, one of whom, Elizabeth Medora, is thought by many to be Byron’s lovechild.”

Valued recently at around £2500 the books will put up for auction at a later date. As the books are currently still on display in the shop I thought I’d pop along and have a look at this valuable donation to the Harewood Bookshop.

The List of Donations

A Copy of The Golden Treasury Open at a Poem of Byron’s

The Old King’s Highway : Route 6A Cape Cod

Oct10

The final nine nights of our September New England holiday were spent on Cape Cod at one of our very favourite places : The Lamb and Lion Inn at Barnstable. This year was our fourth visit but this shrank in insignificance when we met two couples who had been visiting for their 18th and 23rd times respectively.

The Lamb and Lion Inn right on the 6A

So, I was pretty familiar with the Old King’s Highway but have only on more recent visits realised the full historical significance of this road. When you cross the Sagamore Bridge you join Highway 6 the main dual carriageway that links the Sagamore with Provincetown 72 miles away. However, to reach the Lamb and Lion and follow a slower pace and drop down a gear or two you need to take the Route 6A to the north.

The 6A leaves the 6 at Sagamore and rejoins it just west of the town of Orleans and in total the OKH is 34 miles long and traverses seven towns and is just yards from the beach in some places. In fact it is hard to realise that you are so near the seaside as you drive along but turn left (north) down almost any lane as you drive from Sagamore to Orleans and you’ll find sandy beaches hugging Cape Cod Bay or, nearest to us at the L&L, the lovely sheltered Barnstable Harbour.

Sunset at Barnstable Harbor Beach

When we stay on Cape Cod we have a very limited “comfort zone” so the part of The Old King’s Highway that I’m going to tell you about is just that between Barnstable and Dennis. I just checked on Mapquest and it’s a distance of about 11 miles.

I have tried to find out exactly which “Old King” the highway is named for but it’s not mentioned in the bits of literature that I have collected and no sign on “Google” either. I assumed King George III but it’s much older than that – a late 17th century extension of the King’s Highway from Plimouth. The whole of it is designated a Regional Historic District and is the largest such district in America. It is also one of America’s most scenic highways.

“This 34 mile roadway winds through 7 cape towns, past hundreds of historic sites and landscapes, including farmsteads, cranberry bogs, salt marshes, sea captain’s homes, and village greens.”

In addition there’s America’s oldest library (The Sturgis Library), a famous artist’s home (Edward Gorey), a Coastguard Museum, a unique secondhand bookshop (Parnassus Books), an Historic New England property (The Winslow Crocker House), great eateries and interesting, one-of-a-kind shops and galleries, roadside fruit and veg. stalls (we recommend the heritage tomatoes), shipyards and churches and cemeteries and all of those just within our 11 mile zone.

Historic House plaque – one of very many along the 6A

Deacon John Hinckley House (one of many historic properties along 6A)

Thomas Hinckley Lived Near Here – such signs abound on the 6A!

Inside The Sturgis Library, Barnstable

The Trayser Coastguard Museum, Barnstable

Hallet’s Soda Fountain

My ice cream soda is ready!

Parnassus Books (so much more inside!)

The Winslow Crocker House

(Sea) Captain Bang’s Hallet House

Edward Gorey House

Sesuit Harbor Cafe

Sesuit Harbor

The Decoration of Houses : a Visit to Edith Wharton’s New England Home : The Mount

Oct3

There will be some readers here who know very much more about Edith Wharton than I do and who will have read many more of her books than I have but for many years I have wished to visit her home The Mount in western Massachusetts. I have a collection of newspaper clippings about the house, its renovation plans and about her library of 2,600 volumes that finally arrived back at her American home in 2005 after 100 years spent in Europe.

On 14 September, the day we left Naulakha, we arrived in Lenox, the location of The Mount, and after a delightful lunch on the tree-lined main street we set off to find the house. It’s a little way out of town but handily placed just off the Highway. But once dropped off at the ticket office I was in another world of peace and comfort a million miles from the roar of traffic.

That Friday was the start of a weekend-long Wordfest a literary festival of writers and readers the first talk due to begin at 5pm. I’d checked this out in advance and been told that although the house would remain open to the general public there would be no guided house tours. Luckily, I arrived with minutes to spare before the final house tour of the week.

We assembled at the back of the house in a courtyard, which that day was covered with an awning to protect Wordfest members from either sun or rain, to be told about EW’s plans to build The Mount and their execution. As I heard more and more about this remarkable woman throughout the afternoon I began to think that here was another American polymath about whom I knew only the merest facts and of whose literary output I have read very little. (But I have seen several of her films!)

Edith Wharton collaborated with architect Ogden Codman to produce her first book The Decoration of Houses. Published in 1897 it was a denunciation of all the excesses of Victorian interior decoration and a plea for a return to classical proportions, harmony and simplicity. She designed and built The Mount according to these principles. She was able to move in in 1902 and spent the summers and autumns between 1902 and 1911 at the house (the rest of the year she lived in France). By 1911 her marriage to Teddy had failed and she moved to live permanently in France. That year the house was put on the market.

From the courtyard (which was to serve as a bridge between the outside of the house and the inside) we went in at the back door. The entrance hall was planned to bring the outside into the house. It was conceived as an artificial cave or grotto with statues and fountains. Here visitors wishing to see the great novelist had to wait to know whether they would be admitted to her presence or not. It was here that we learned that The Mount was modelled on the English 17th century Palladian-style Belton House in Lincolnshire and on neo-classical Italian and French examples.

Next time I will take you on a tour of the house but just now I want to show you what a lovely lovely place it is. After the tour free access is allowed throughout the house and grounds. There are room stewards handily placed who are able to answer any questions and Information Boards in every room.

Photography is allowed everywhere. There is a great gift and book shop in the basement scullery.

Some of the many book displays in the shop

Teas and other refreshments are served on the terrace and you may sit at tables on the front lawn.

The View and A Terrace Tea Table

The house from my terrace tea table

There are two interesting and entertaining exhibitions on the second floor.

and

You may walk around the estate and the gardens and even visit the mound where her beloved dogs are buried.

There’s a further exhibit in the Stables but these were being prepared and were already receiving the Wordfest participants.

The Stables

All in all my time there was too short to take it all in and I’m definitely up for another visit if I can manage to pass by again in future. Because of the Wordfest event I decided not to return that same weekend.

Milady’s short trip to Geneva

Jul16

Geneva is not the most attractive of the cities I have visited in Switzerland (like Bern, Zurich and Lucerne) but beyond the designer watch ads atop the lakeside buildings and Geneva’s ‘mountain’ looking more like a rocky ridge, from where I was standing, I found a delightful Old Town and two worthwhile excursions to fill my two days perfectly.

Lake Geneva

On the first full day we boarded an early boat, the S/S Simplon, from the Quai Mont-Blanc and headed off under rather cloudy overcast skies for an hour and three quarter lake cruise to Yvoire on the southern shore of Lake Geneva.

Whenever she can Milady hopes to travel in style

S/S Simplon and the famous Jet D’Eau, from Quai Mont-Blanc Geneva

Paquins Lighthouse

The S/S Simplon leaves us at Yvoire

Yvoire is in France but there are no passport controls or inspections it was just straight off the boat into the Restaurant du Port (the name tells you where it’s located) and lunch was served!

Restaurant Du Port, Yvoire

The proposed return sailing was cancelled which meant a 3 hour stay at Yvoire and you can only spend so long eating lunch. This attractive little medieval town was full of tourists so we two decided to take a walk to the next stop and pick up our boat from there later.

After inspecting the little shops we set off to find the footpath to Nernier. (Sounds like something out of C. S. Lewis.) It was a most pleasant walk along shady paths and tracks past interesting houses but with minimal views of the Lake, unfortunately. We came across a lovely wildflower meadow, visited an old church and arrived at Nernier with lots of time for people-watching at the port until the Simplon arrived on the dot at 5.37pm.

The small beach at Nernier

The Old Town

The next day I made a morning visit to the Old Town. There are some steepish climbs and lovely cobbled paths and streets and I enjoyed browsing in a secondhand book stall on the way and at a second hand book and prints shop on the Grand’Rue. There are some delightful street cafes for outdoor refreshments and the Cathedral is situated there. There’s a great view from the tower but we didn’t go up. It’s a lovely area for a bit of “flaner“.

Cologny

I can only take so much aimless wandering interspersed with breaks for tea or beer so in the early afternoon I took the bus out to the residential suburb of Cologny. My purpose was to visit the Martin Bodmer Library and to try to find the Villa Diodati, the former home of Lord Byron and now a private residence.

The Bodmer Foundation is fantastic! It’s one of the biggest private libraries in the world and the breadth of the display is simply breathtaking. There are samples of the written or typeset word from the earliest times – Greek papyrus fragments, the oldest manuscripts of St John’s Gospel – to ‘modern’ American first editions – Ginsberg, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Hemingway – and everything in between. And not just literary but medical, scientific, music. There’s a Shakespeare 1623 First Folio and an early Chaucer Canterbury Tales. All displayed in a modern, subtly-lit underground gallery on two floors designed by Swiss architect Mario Botta.

From the Bodmer gallery it’s a 10-15 minute walk to the Chemin de Ruth and number 9, The Villa Diodati.

First I found the entrance gate and a bit further along the road is a meadow with seats and a view over the lake and towards the city. It’s called ‘Le Pré Byron‘. An Information Board welcomes you to the spot and explains :

“On this very spot the story of ‘Frankenstein’ was born. During the summer of 1816, the weather was atrocious, cold and rainy spells alternating with violent thunder storms. At that time, Byron, a 28 years old poet , was renting the Villa Diodati to the left of this meadow. … Mary Shelley was also spending the summer at Cologny at Jacob Chappuis’ home situated at the lower end of Montalegre, below where you are now standing. One evening at the Villa Diodati Byron and Mary Shelley made a bet as to who would be the first to write a horror novel. Mary became excited at this idea, completed the story of ‘Frankenstein’ a year later in England and won the bet.”

As you walk down towards the lake the house becomes clearly visible.

From the lake side it’s an easy bus ride back into town.

Amsterdam Made By Hand – De 9 Straatjes en De Noordermarkt

Apr20

For quite some time I have had my eye on this lovely little book and as soon as I knew about my trip to the city I could not resist buying. To me there is something very special about these travel publications from the Little Bookroom. Here’s a press comment from their website :

“The Little Bookroom…wants travelers to slow down. They’ve carved themselves a niche in the over-crowded travel book industry by thinking small with titles that define the character of a city.”—The Pittsburgh Tribune

There’s an area of Amsterdam, very near to our digs, called The Nine Streets [De 9 Straatjes]. On our first morning we found ourselves wandering along the nine streets, popping into cafes for sustenance and to warm ourselves, calling into boutiques, shoe shops, design shops, galleries and studios, trying things on and generally having fun spotting the unusual. We also took lots of photos.

Antiquariaat Culturel

Gasthuismolensteeg 4

“Culturel is run by Hans and Ina Cramer, who I like to imagine spending their non-working hours amid a snug muddle of crosswords, sleeping dogs and homemade cake. Their business oozes quintessential second-hand bookshoppishness, with precarious towers of tomes and ceiling-to-floor shelves crammed with literature, art and history books hand-picked by Ina. None of them is catalogued; there is no computer, let alone a website, or even a till. Among other books, I have bought an Esperanto translation of The Little Prince here, and also a copy of The Diary of a Nobody, mainly because I liked the fact that on the inside cover Hans has written ‘very funny’.” From an article in the Guardian in 2008 : Amsterdam: literature’s capital city

De Kaaskamer – The Cheese Shop (7, Runstraat)

The Noordermarkt celebrates its 25th birthday on 5 May 2012.

Akelei on the Noordermarkt

The Noordermarkt, also very near our place, lies in the shadow of the Noorderkerk just by the Prinsengracht. Mainly it’s an organic farmers’ market with stalls of mouthwatering fruit and vegetables, spices and herbs and homemade honeys and preserves. It operates on Saturdays and in addition to the food stalls there are several secondhand and ‘made by hand’ stalls, including Akelei (jewellery), Anne (recycled clothing and stuff) and Anna Maria Preuss.