memes – Page 167 – What Cathy Read Next…

I have book blogger Rosie Amber to thank for introducing me to this weekly meme hosted by The Propagator which I’m taking part in for the first time. If you’re interested in taking part as well you can find more details here.

Without further ado, here are six things that have given me pleasure, caused me frustration or had me looking forward to brighter days in the garden this week.

1) Potatoes (the variety is Rocket) chitting in preparation for planting into containers in a month or so’s time.

2) Although it may not look like much at the moment, this path leading from our French windows was previously lined with box hedging that succumbed to box blight. It’s been a hell of a job to dig them out. Only a couple of daffodil bulbs have survived.

I’m thinking about planting a lavender hedge or a row of some kind of low growing evergreen shrub. Suggestions welcomed.

3) Seeds of some of my favourite vegetables to grow waiting for the right moment to be started off in pots on a sunny window sill.

4) A heuchera (below left) that has made it through the winter without losing any of its lovely bronze foliage.

5) Nice fat buds forming on a rhododendron (above right). I don’t know the variety as it was in the garden when we bought the house but it has lovely crimson flowers.

6) Being a book blogger, I can’t finish without featuring some books can I? Here’s a couple of second-hand gardening books bought as much for their covers as their content.

Enjoy spending time in your garden, allotment or outside space this week.

background book stack books close up — Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Pexels.com

It’s the first Saturday of the month which means it’s time for 6 Degrees of Separation!

Here’s how it works: a book is chosen as a starting point by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate says: Books can be linked in obvious ways – for example, books by the same authors, from the same era or genre, or books with similar themes or settings. Or, you may choose to link them in more personal or esoteric ways: books you read on the same holiday, books given to you by a particular friend, books that remind you of a particular time in your life, or books you read for an online challenge. Join in by posting your own six degrees chain on your blog and adding the link in the comments section of each month’s post. You can also check out links to posts on Twitter using the hashtag #6Degrees.

This month’s starting book is No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood. As is often the case, it’s book I haven’t read but I know it was nominated for both the Booker Prize and the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2021.

Thinking of authors named Patricia immediately brings to mind Patricia Highsmith and her fabulous book Carol (originally published as The Price of Salt) which I read in 2018. (I thought the film version was equally brilliant.)

A price of a different kind is the subject of The Bride Price by Buchi Emecheta in which a young Nigerian girl is grudgingly allowed to continue her schooling but only because she will fetch a higher bride price – the money a man’s family must pay to the family of his prospective wife. In 1983, Buchi Emecheta was listed as one of twenty ‘Best of Young British Writers’ by the Book Marketing Council.

Another author on the list that year was Rose Tremain whose latest book Lily was published in November 2021. It tells the story of Lily Mortimer, abandoned as a baby and taken to the London Foundling Hospital.

The Foundling by Stacey Halls also involves a baby left at the London Foundling Hospital and her mother’s search for her six years later.

Thomas Coram was the founder of the London Foundling Hospital and Coram Boy by Jamila Gavin, which won the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year Award in 2000, is the story of two orphan boys, Toby and Aaron. Toby has been rescued from a life of slave labour in a faraway country whereas Aaron is the illegitimate son of the heir to a large country estate. The book was adapted for the stage and produced by the National Theatre in 2005.

The final link in my chain is another book that was adapted for the stage, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. It was produced by the National Theatre in 2012, winning seven Olivier Awards in 2013.

My chain has taken me from page to stage. Where did your chain take you?