Alice in Wonderland is a great tale of fantasy for all ages. Adapted many times, none compare to Carroll’s original tale. Go through the rabbit hole to find out why.’
 
‘Emma

 An enduring classic, Emma is a romantic meddler. It often backfires getting her in trouble. Austen’s Emma is the perfect accompaniment to long summer evenings. Edward Cullen has nothing on Mr. Knightley.’
 
‘Three Men in a Boat

 Originally meant as a serious travel guide, Jerome found the material so funny that it was published as a comedic novel. This ranges from severe hypochondria to disastrous picnics. An absolutely hilarious summer must.’
 
‘The Yellow Wallpaper and other Stories

 A selection of short stories is a great way to get your teeth into some classics this summer. Charlotte Perkins oilman weaves feminism and great writing seamlessly into these disturbing tales.’

Mairead also recommends the intriguing and eerie 

Grimm’s Fairy Tales

Dark and scary, Grimm’s Fairy Tales are just that. Forget that Disney stuff, the Brothers use allegory and mythology to tell their tales of enchantment. Beautifully crafted.’

Enjoy your classic reads!

Lots of love,

Grace
 

Sharing resources and swapping are growing trends.

For example if you log onto www.swapaskill.com you’ll find lots of folk who want to swap “favours” with each other in “the spirit of community giving and sharing”.

Here is a sample of some of some other sites to surf:

www.freecycle.org describes itself as “an entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (and getting) stuff for free in their own towns and thus keeping good stuff out of landfills”.

www.liftshare.com Need a lift somewhere or want to offer one? Then log onto this free website.

www.bookcrossing.com ‘Release’ tagged books in public places for others to pick up and then chart their progress and the lives they touch. BookCrossing wants to turn the world “into a library”.

www.dublinwaste.ie Pass on or pick up unwanted items for free.

www.swapz.co.uk A website where you can swap anything with anyone.

www.readitswapit.co.uk Surf and swap books.

www.bikebudi.com Helps you to find cycling buddies.

www.letslink.org Find out about Local Exchange Trading Systems or Schemes (L.E.T.S.) which are ‘local community-based mutual aid networks in which people exchange all kinds of goods and services with one another, without the need for money’.

I must admit that I have sometimes felt a deep disappointment about this. There are many mornings when sashaying around my garden in the south of France seems far preferable to less sultry endeavors. But I don’t own a garden in the South of France…not yet anyway. And if I did one of its pleasures would surely be sitting in the sunshine and enjoying a large cup of Earl Grey Tea surrounded by the uplifting aroma of lavender.

The great thing about simple pleasures is that I can at least partially replicate this sensual scenario in wintry Co. Wicklow. I have the Earl Grey Tea and I have the lavender aromatherapy oil. And on a sunny morning golden sunbeams pour through my large kitchen window. Why wait for Provence? Life is here and now. As the Buddhists say ‘wherever you go you are there’.

In thriftier times simple pleasures become even more important. However it’s best not to get too happy clappy about this. Soaking in a seductive bubble bath will not, for example, fool you into thinking you are at a Caribbean health spa even if you surround yourself with scented candles. But a little pampering can go a long way and at least you don’t have to worry about mosquitoes. And curling up in front of an open fire with a good cat can be as delicious as coiffing cocktails in Park Avenue. That deep fortissimo purring is a concerto in itself.

Sometimes simple pleasures can be very small indeed, but no less important. One of my brothers loves Kimberley biscuits, but not the chocolate coated variety. For him to put chocolate on a Kimberley is to dilute the purity of the Kimberley experience. Vienetta has added vavavoom to many a family meal time. …And eating succulent toast smothered in butter and jam in bed has a voluptuous late night night feel about it…especially when it’s accompanied by cocoa.

Love,

Grace

‘This may sound like Bridget Jones territory but Alice is less spikey,
certainly drinks less and makes more effort to make a life for
herself…The writing is full of quirky wit and energy.’ ‘Book of the
Week’ THE EXPRESS (‘Wise Follies’)

‘…..Grace Wynne-Jones has written an entertaining, intelligent and genuinely funny story….this is a great read, especially for commuters…guaranteed to shorten any journey.’ THE IRISH TIMES
(‘The Truth Club’)

Stephen joked about Mark producing an egg. He hoped the offspring would be called after him. They both gazed at this dear and very rare creature with undisguised tenderness. Earlier on they had tramped through deep undergrowth looking for Kiwis. Last week they seemed besotted by newly hatched tiny turtles scampering towards the ocean…they were indeed very adorable. Stephen, it seems, has a big heart. That, combined with his many other attributes, makes him gorgeous. He is also delightfully honest. In one of the programmes he declared his dislike of camping. He missed so many things, including broadband. Even so he was prepared to rootle about in a large array of undergrowth for rare creatures.

When he and Mark were explaining some geographical and ecological matter using their breakfast fayre…toast featured prominently…Stephen drank his tea and apologised for having drunk the Indian Ocean.

One of the things that made this programme so special was that it was a fabulous alternative to the X Factor which would be so much nicer if it had more compassion, humour and warmth.

Lots of love,

Grace

When I arrived there, aged perhaps five or six, I had left another house. Another big rectory in the Irish countryside. I remember scampering excitedly through the new rooms with my brother Vere.. There was a bell in what we came to call the ‘Morning Room’. Had it been used to summon servants? Once we’d settled in its imperious buzzings were used to alert family members that an interesting programme was on the telly. For it was a big house. We could wander far from one another.

When I was little and had to go to bed before the others I sometimes felt I was almost in another country in my bedroom…so distant from the gathering in the Morning Room around the new contraption with its exciting black and white images of elsewhere. Dad kindly checked behind curtains and in the wardrobe. Under the bed too before he left to join the others after we’d said prayers together…he was a Church of Ireland clergyman. At one point a goat was included in my blessings.

I loved that home before I had given a name to love. When I was not versed in its arithmetic, though now the numbers seem more like stanzas. I was not always happy there. I remember sitting under a large writing desk and gazing solemnly out a window as I listened to a grown up argument…worrying about the shape of the words, their angles and velocity. I probably worried a great deal more than I remember. When my parents disagreed with each other it could become quite operatic. I didn’t understand the passion of it. The small histories. The infuriating compromises. I was young. And the house understood that. It asked nothing of me but to simply live there. To know its rooms and its eccentricities. Its spacious lush grounds. Its tall sheltering trees.

I have written about the house before, but not in this way. Not with with a wish to stop writing. To flee. And yet writing from the heart sometimes requires you to do this. To sit with the discomfort. To find out what needs to be known. To grieve. To reconstruct. To love again what seems to have been lost.

The house had a blue front door at the side of the building. I don’t remember how many stone steps…perhaps eight. The yale key was usually in the lock during daytime. There was a time when I had to stand on tip-toe to reach it. The house was surrounded by woodland. There was a gate at the top of the long driveway which was straight when seen from the road but curved and branched out closer to the house. During winter, when the trees were bare, only the rooftop could be glimpsed from the top gate. The white gate marked the inner territory of the house’s ‘grounds’. I sometimes used to swing on it, back and forth. It creaked companionably.

There was a walled garden which was largely overgrown, but still contained many apple trees. gooseberries, raspberries, blackcurrants and redcurrants. A golden pheasant lived there in a large aviary type cage accompanied by less flamboyant members of his species.We had hens and bantams too kept overnight in various outhouses. I became acquainted with the smell of the fox and the need to rush out and shoo him away when the hens squawked for assistance.

My father kept bees even though he was frightened of them. Anytime he visited them he tended to sprint across the lawn shortly afterwards because a bee had found its way into his astronaut type headgear. It wasn’t one step for man. And it was many steps for my father. But we got nice honeycombs. Usually not the type you buy in shops. Partly filled but very satisfactory.

I loved the Morning Star river that flowed nearby. I spent a great deal of time paddling. Exploring. I remember constructing small dams in it with my brother Vere. Completely absorbed in our constructions like little beavers. He was the youngest of my four older brothers. Our raft never floated on the surface but was partially submerged…up to the ankles. I think it had once been a large wooden door. We enjoyed watching the river’s creatures. I was particularly impressed by the blue flash of the kingfisher.

These notes are so different in tone to the perky little messages I sometimes place in my blog. Notes about novels. Interesting websites. Cappuccinos savoured in cafes with a friend. Life seems to require a certain elasticity of us. Just now I am tempted to write that this is the true Grace sharing these words with you because they come from a deeper, dappled almost raw place…and yet we are all many selves. A writer soon discovers that. In many ways we are like music with its low, high and medium notes…our moderattos, flippancies and necessary spaces.

Even as a little girl in love with the old rectory and its lands, I began to dream of living abroad. I perused the Readers Digest and the National Geographic. Time magazine also found its way to us. It was, it seemed, a very big world. We had watched the moon landing in the Morning Room. One day I brought my pony Merrylegs in to watch a bit of telly too. Perhaps he might also want to know about the larger world. He was a black and white beauty given to me free gratis. I’m glad I didn’t know about his colourful past. He was a gentleman with me.

I left for boarding school at twelve and my pony was given back to his owner. Shortly afterwards he was put down. This was because he had Laminitis and could not be left out at grass for long periods. I mourned him and the rectory felt different. I was only there sometimes. There was much packing and leaving. Adjustments. The rhythm of belonging had altered. I did not want to miss the rectory too much. I did not want to love it anymore. I used hint of a tint shampoo and Badedas.. I was very keen on blue eyeshadow and the ads for Martini. I was an au pair in Switzerland one long hot sultry summer and had a romance, in French, with a young man called Serge.

When I said my goodbyes to the house before my parents left it I was living in London and in love. The house was sold and not long after that burned down. If you visited the place today you would never guess it had been there. There is no woodland, not a trace..the house has gone and the driveway. The top gate is still there leading to a field. I seem to recall the stable is still there. Has the walled garden gone too? I don’t remember. I revisited it briefly. But of course the river is still there. Flowing onwards as before.

What do we do with loss….where do we place it? Sometimes it is tempting to feel it will go away if we ignore it. If we arm ourselves with projects and plans. Lists. Workshops. Service. The world is a big place. Love is a huge word. This moment is where we live. And yet what we have loved and still love sometimes calls to us. The need to honour that tenderness. The habits of the heart.

My parents died some years ago. And the boy I played with, Vere, died in 2006. We shared a house together once. A home. We watched Wimbledon in the Morning Room.. He really liked Nastase. He sometimes listened to Top of the Pops on the transistor…walking through the fields with it.. And when I was a little girl he held my hand during a thunderstorm…he told me it was the angels singing.

I have rarely written about him in recent times. Not typed recollections anyway. I didn’t know what words to use. Instead I sometimes lit candles and stared at them. A little ritual that helped. For a while I almost forgot that I am a writer. And writing is a kind of home too. A place where you can take your sorrow and joy, your memories. And make something of them, like a builder.

I wonder who built our old home. The rectory. Who carefully placed those bricks and that mortar. The plasterwork. The floorboards. Who installed the huge windows with their wooden shutters. Thank you for the blue front door and its key. In memory it seems as real as it used to be. I can almost smell the baking in the kitchen. A dog curling itself affectionately around my legs. The gumboots near the door. The country coats on the stand. My father at his typewriter…tap tap tap…intent. His words somehow sailing forth to dance with these ones. In love…and with gratitude. In a place where all cherished things remain.

Got a lovely comment from a reader recently who said that ‘Wise Follies’ had really cheered her up and made her felt understood…I’m so glad the book felt like a friend. I got a number of letters from readers of ‘Ordinary Miracles’ saying that they felt I had been spying on their marriages (in a nice way of course). Someone once described it as ‘Victoria Wood meets Shirley Valentine’.

You can read summaries of my books and some lovely reviews on the thingys at the top of this page.

Some quick advice for new authors seeking publicity in papers, on radio and the like. I’ve found that the fact that one has written a novel often simply isn’t enough to send a journalist scampering off to interview you. I’m also a freelance journalist myself. Those features editors really like their ‘hot’ angles. If your book is about something unusual, or you wrote it on a desert island or are currently dating a well-known footballer etc then there’ll be lots of interest. Another way to gain interest is to have something else to talk about. For example when I wrote a big article about women and cats for The Irish Times various radio stations contacted me to discuss it…and I naturally mentioned the new book and said that intriguing animals frequently appear in my novels. A highly personal article about self-esteem led to an interview on one of Ireland’s most popular radio shows (yes I bought a bottle of Rescue Remedy). There are many other examples I could cite. For example an article about ‘BookCrossing’…do look it up on Google…also led to radio interviews.

And if you want a boost Google ‘Elizabeth Gilbert Ted Talks’. Bracing words!

Lots of love,

Grace

Lots of love,

Grace

P.S.
From R. Griffith on Amazon called ‘Chick Lit With Depth’: ‘I have now read all of GWJ’s books and have been utterly impressed by every single one. I had never heard of her before I spotted one in my local market town shop and bought it on impulse. As with all chick lit (and all genres, let’s face it) there is always a formula somewhere but she writes with such feeling and insight…Certain elements crop up in all her books (windsurfing, budgies, biscuits and hands being just a few) but they flow beautifully, the settings are eloquent and the characters richly realised. Relationships are explored with genuine depth and humour and even if you’re not a fan of love winning out in the end you really wish you were….These will remain on my book shelf and I will send them to others as newly purchased presents. Beautiful and more please. ‘

Have joined Twitter. Didn’t think I would but I want to find out more about social media since it is clearly…well…very modern and that sort of thing.

Spent the weekend in a lovely old country house. I was on a Shamanic training course. The house reminded me of my childhood home. I often really miss the leafy eager secluded days I spent as a little girl in a rambling rectory with big grounds in County Limerick. The river and big lush fields that became as familiar to me as friends. I remember staring at a part of the river where stones gathered and formed a sweet small waterfall…sitting by it…putting my feet in the water…the cold clean splashy feel of it. Memorising the shapes and textures of the day. Wonder if I would have known that river as well if I had owned a laptop and had broadband.

Heard a wonderful interview with Leonard Cohen on the radio this morning….such wise delicious words.

Lots of love,

Grace

Many years ago, when I worked in a publishing house in London, I sometimes used to hear Hockney’s voice as I climbed the building’s many stairs. He had done a very long interview for a book and someone in the building was transcribing the tape recording. Since I was often a bit late for work back then…the building was in Bloomsbury and I lived near Wimbledon tennis courts…I didn’t dally to hear what he was saying.

I have one of his large books in my bookcase. He reminds me that I want to do more painting. I adore colour. His portraits contain deep affection and knowing. And his paintings of dachshunds are adorable. He finds great inspiration in nature. Thank you BBC for a great programme!

Lots of love,

Grace

My duvet is out in the sunshine getting an airing. When I was an au pair in Switzerland many years ago we hung our duvets out the window every day to sweeten in the sun. Last Saturday at a frolicsome little Italian shop/cafe in Bray one of the patrons…a chef from another Italian restaurant…let me sample one of the deeply delicious biscuits he was clearly savouring. When they are back in stock I want to buy them. They are a ‘find’. And so was the pink jumper, and soft cardigan I found in a charity shop yesterday. Two for the price of one! A bargain.

I loved a documentary on BBC television last night. In it Sheila Hancock shared some of poems she loves. I particularly loved
‘Try To Praise The Mutilated World’ by Adam Zagajewski

It includes the lines

You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the grey feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.

(From Without End, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Lots of love,

Grace