MinxterBLOOM

Over the winter break, a dear friend listened patiently to my New Year's resolution to try outdoor distillation or hydrosol formation with some of my plants.  A day later, she sent me a link to an ebook as a gift: Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townhend Warner. Warner held some association with the Bloomsbury group, via Stephen Tomlin and David Garnett. 

What a delightful and quick read!  I wish the 1926 book were longer, so I keep thinking about Lolly.  Laura, better as Lolly, moves to the country after a nearly 20-year stint as the most excellent auntie to two London children.  Not long afterwards, Lolly understands that her pleasant transformation is that of a becoming a witch.

Plants figure highly, hence my love of this book and this post.  Here are a few quotes;

“London life was very full and exciting [...] But in London there would be no greenhouse with a glossy tank, and no apple-room, and no potting-shed, earthy and warm, with bunches of poppy heads hanging from the ceiling, and sunflower seeds in a wooden box, and bulbs in thick paper bags, and hanks of tarred string, and lavender drying on a tea-tray.”

“She forgot that she was in London, she forgot the whole of her London life. She seemed to be standing alone in a darkening orchard, her feet in the grass, her arms stretched up to the pattern of leaves and fruit, her fingers seeking the rounded ovals of fruit among the rounded ovals of leaves.”

“It is best as one grows older to strip oneself of possessions, to shed oneself downward like a tree, to be almost wholly earth before one dies.”

...to shed oneself downward, like a tree...