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Castle Combe, England (by George Ciobra)

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'Nyx, Night Goddess' by Gustave Moreau, 1880

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The “best” you see in others is really a reflection of the best in you. The potential in you that you haven’t fully tapped into

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Rilla of Ingleside Book Club Chapter 8

This is such a good chapter! It's got everything I love about the book and I feel it finally gets going. Also--it's funny! There's a lot of humour here, LMM proves her writing genius in ROI.

One of the themes covered here is how quickly people adapt to a new order, and this includes the Anderson baby at Ingleside. (I make these posts as if I was a new reader, therefore not using his name yet.) The depictions of the baby crack me up. Small breakable lizard. She weighed the creature every day. The thing took a colic. The little wretch. It howled. His hands were like claws. I find it hilarious, okay? But I agree with Walter that it took courage to take a strange baby in.

I'm sad for Rilla that Miss Oliver moved out of her room, but then, Gertrude is an honest person and won't pretend she is fine with sharing a room with a baby when she's not. It makes her more human; she's a gothic heroine but she's still real.

I forgot to mention that I like Rilla's diary. I like letters and diaries.

I've never experienced the type of society like Junior Reds (or AVIS that they had in Avonlea) so I can't understand why serving lunches would be such a hill to die on.

We had a battle royal over it.

Was it like the Hunger Games? (Would be appropriate.)

She is just a perfect angel, while I am only angelic in spots and demonic in other spots.

And so you should be.

And she gets imposed upon, just because she is so sweet and willing; but I don't allow people to impose on Rilla Blythe and 'that you may tie to,' as Susan says.

This is precisely why you should be demonic in spots. Utilise that dark side. Or the shadow self, like Carl Jung called it.

One can ship real people in one's head but one can't expect them to become true. Walter calling Una a tea rose doesn't mean much, since he's a poet and probably talks like that all the time.

One day some boys threw stones at Monday and old Johnny Mead, who never was known to take notice of anything before, snatched up a meat axe in the butcher's shop and chased them through the village.

I want to see this. Dog Monday melts my cold black heart. I'm still a cat person, make no mistake about that.

Rilla's description of Fred Arnold also cracks me up. I like that she's honest. Why should she pretend that his nose is not a problem when it is?

When he talks of commonplace things it does not matter so much, but when he talks of poetry and ideals the contrast between his nose and his conversation is too much for me and I want to shriek with laughter. 

I'm telling you this chapter is hilarious.

Rilla: I will not think of Kenneth again if he could leave such an insulting message. Rilla a paragraph later: if someone like Kenneth said something so poetic to me, I'd be enraptured.

The doctor and Mrs. Blythe exchanged amused, satisfied smiles behind Rilla's back; and nothing more was said about Hopetown.

Anne and Gilbert as the best parenting team.

Is there a reason why Rilla could not contact Jim Anderson? It always confused me. Though it's incomparably worse that he does seemingly nothing to ensure his baby son is okay. He was surely told of his wife's passing--did he not care at all? Meg Conover was right about him, shiftless and all.

Even the British navy cannot sail on dry land, Sophia Crawford.

Flawless logic from Susan.

And I hope she doesn't know that I nearly drowned you that first morning when Susan wasn't there and I let you slip right out of my hands into the water. Why will you be so slippery?

Snorting.

I am not going to have people saying 'what a puny little thing that baby of Rilla Blythe's is' as old Mrs. Drew said at the senior Red Cross yesterday.

Interesting choice of words her from old Mrs Drew. The baby of Rilla Blythe's. And his father doesn't care much, from what we're told. The boy is already more Rilla's than anyone else's.

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Non-writers don't understand how much of writing is just googling things like "when was the croissant invented" for worldbuilding reasons and staring off into the distance.

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Something I forgot to mention, on the day of Sam Claflin's birthday, I received an AO3 email that I got kudos for one of my Billy x Camila fanfics. I don't often get kudos, it's the unpopular pairing as you know, but it was a nice touch that it happened on that day of all days (though the reader probably read and clicked the kudos button the day before, but that's precisely the point, I saw it on Sam's bday).

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Once again sharing my Single Life pinboard.

I promote becoming happy while single not bc I'm against relationships, or don't want people to find love. I promote it bc I believe that, most of all, one should have a good, fulfilled life on one's own. And it's then when you meet the right partner, bc you will not settle for just anybody.

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Flowers Of Cathedral Yard 2

A few weeks ago I posted some nice pictures of flowers growing in the yard of Manchester Cathedral, and here I am doing so again. Because, a week after I took those first photos, I strolled down to the cathedral when I didn’t make the train to Clitheroe from Victoria Station, and had an hour to wait for the next one, I saw there was a new rosebush. Plus some more. I like combining architecture…

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Watched The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and despite all the right ingredients, it just didn't land for me somehow. WW2, espionage, humour, action, ragtag band of heroes, good score, yet... I mean it was still good, but could have been better. I can't put my finger on it.

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Portofino, Italy

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bitch this is all you’re gonna get. this life, this face, this body. you better not ‘maybe in another universe’ your way out of everything. sit your ass down and face this. go make tea and have a picnic and read a goddamn book. kiss your loved ones, send that damn text, and hug your siblings. this is all you’re gonna get.

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Horrified Rilla loosened the blanket round the baby’s face a little. The mite had stopped crying and was blinking up at her. It had big dark eyes in its ugly little face.

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Rilla of Ingleside Book Club Chapter 7

The war news bits in this book are some of the most enjoyable parts for me, I admit. I like how LMM uses dialogue to inform the reader about what is happening. I've actually learned about some of the WW1 battles from ROI, as well as some geography. And I find Susan optimism inspiring.

Rilla practicing what she preaches--doing actual good work--proves she's no hypocrite. Also, crying for an hour in Rainbow Valley and venting in her diary are healthy outlets. It's not like that's all she does, there's enough hours in the day for both. Can we stop being so harsh on her please, Lucy Maud.

Okay but. Just bc someone doesn't like babies and children--or in my case, doesn't want to have any--doesn't mean they wish them harm. "I want that kid to be looked after well, just not by me" is a valid sentiment.

I'm going to say something controversial here, but I find some of Meg Conover's lines funny. Not perhaps what she says--nothing funny about this situation--but the way she delivers it. I believe what she says about Jim Anderson is true; a man who enlists without even saying goodbye to his pregnant wife doesn't sound like an exemplary husband.

I wonder how LMM got the idea of carrying a baby in a soup tureen. Any old vessel in need!

Susan had learned by experience that when Dr. Blythe put his foot down and said a thing must be, that thing was. 

I know LMM meant this to be the Blythe streak, but it's good that he did, in a household with that many kids, he had to have the authority. He was right about Rilla having to be the one to look after the baby if she wanted him to stay at Ingleside. But Rilla has her own determination too.

That first bath is genuinely funny.

Keep cool! Rilla was oozing perspiration at every pore. 

I bet she was.

"She's upstairs, Mrs. Dr. dear, putting her baby to bed."

So uhhhhmmm, does this mean that Anne is now grandma?

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2025 books - the count of monte cristo by alexandre dumas

There is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world; there is only the comparison of one state with another. Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live. The sum of all human wisdom will be contained in these two words: Wait and Hope.