Springtime...snow

Well I can honestly say I wasn't expecting this:


That was the view on the University of Nottingham campus earlier this afternoon. We are under quite an unexpected amount of snow at the moment! Strange to think that this time last year, I was sitting in the garden in 25 degrees on my week off, with the magnolia in full blossom, drinking dandelion and burdock tea and watching the bees start to come out. I really hope the weather gets a bit nicer for next week and the Easter long weekend, as we are hoping to take a trip to Bristol. Then in two weeks time we are off to Paris!

Anyway, we did have two nice snowdays this weekend. I managed to persuade Mark to drive me to the library on Saturday afternoon (yes I know it's only round the corner but the pavement was iiiccceey!), I needed to return The Blue Flower and I managed to get my hands on two books I have been after for ages! Underground Time by Delphine de Vigan and Monkey Grip by Helen Garner.

I was actually planning to buy Underground Time (or rather, Les Heures souterraines) while we are in Paris but once I saw it I thought, nah, I'll read it now! I'll get another of her books in Paris.

Saturday evening was time to try out a new tart recipe, which was SO GOOD.


Lay puff pastry into the tart tin and crumble in some big chunks of stilton. Cover with some chopped walnuts. Layer with thinly sliced pear and bake the tarts for 30 minutes or thereabouts, on 180 degrees or thereabouts. The added bonus of this recipe is that the making process involves one of the GREATEST SINGLE PLEASURES OF HUMAN EXISTANCE: crumbling blue cheese with your hands and then licking your fingers. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald

When I was about 17 I went a bit in love with Novalis during German A Level. How could you not be? HOW!

The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found this by chance, while randomly searching through books in my local library, and was excited to see it was a historical fiction about 18th Century German romantic poet and philosopher Novalis (Georg Phillip Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg to his parents). Really, who doesn't love Novalis?

The novel is primarily concerned with Novalis/Hardenberg's relationship with Sophie von Kühn, whom he met when he was 22 and with whom he fell obsessively in love.

Sophie was 12. Awkward.

Fitzgerald tells the story through a series of short, snap-shot-like chapters in roughly chronological order. It begins with Hardenberg as a student, visiting his family for the summer, and ends in the midst of Sophie's illness, from which she would ultimately die a few months later, aged 15. The novel flows wonderfully and the prose is almost rich in its poise and simplicity.

I guess my enjoyment of the novel was enhanced by my interest in the real life story and historical figures. Fitzgerald does not pass judgment on the appropriateness (or otherwise) of Hardenberg's relationship with Sophie, but rather explores the influence it had on his life, beliefs and writing. I can understand why some may therefore be disappointed by the lack of drama in the novel, but even still, I can't see how this delicate retelling of a real life story of doomed love would fail to inspire at least some emotion.

This is also the first time I have read Penelope Fitzgerald and I will certainly look out for her other work now.

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Coincidentally, if you have a Kindle, Novalis's unfinished novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen (containing the symbolic Blue Flower) is available as a free ebook in both German and English translation!

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