Mansfield Park

  I have just finished reading Jane Austen's Mansfield Park for the first time. I'm not sure if I properly digested it as a gulped it down while I was sick all last week, but I enjoyed it and am continually reminded of what a great writer Miss Austen really was. She always lets the reader feel and understand the emotions and gestures of her characters without the reader being told about them. They are subtle hints under the main narrative. I watched the 1999 and 2007 versions of the movie with Mum at about the same time. I must say the 1999 version was so much better. In fact I didn't even finish watching the newest version it was that painful.

  To begin with, the actor of Fanny very nice and pretty but so not Jane Austen. She had short hair and wore it down in a loose messy style very attractive in a modern girl but Fanny lived in Regency times and was not a poor peasant who had recently had all her hair cut off because of some illness.

Billie Piper as Fanny Price

 In both movies she is a little too boisterous for a very shy girl of strong principles.But I suppose they knew no other way of making her likable enough! 

 Frances O'Connor as Fanny Price

  I do think Frances did much better as Fanny.

Two actors from Emma as the Edmunds!

Johnny Lee Miller as Edmund Bertram

Mr. Knightly! 

Blake Ritson as Edmund Bertram

And Mr. Elton.....

  No Blake Ritson is too sorrowful looking too much like Mr. Elton to fit the role for me though he's one of the only ones in the movie who has regency style hair.

   So the 1999 version of the movie is definitely my favorite!!  But the book has so much more than both, the movies condensed it and combined some of the events of the book and omitted some others.

C.S. Lewis

   I have been reading a book called C.S.Lewis: Images of his World (Douglas Gilbert/Clyde S. Kilby) It's rather old, first published in 1973. As the title implies it is full of photos of him and the places he went and lived. It has made me interested in him and here are bits and pieces of interest I found on the Internet.

 Clive Staples Lewis 29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963)

His most famous work which we almost all know about before we know of the author .

Links

Letters to an American woman

About Lewis

Allot of information and a forum here

Images

childhood home

House where he lived for a time

C.S. Lewis as a child

As a young man

He was a friend of J.R.R.Tolkien who wrote the Lord of the Rings books

He married relatively late in life to Joy Davidman

Quotes

"Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again." 


"The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only - and that is to support the ultimate career. " 


"You can make anything by writing." 


"Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching." 


"Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, and nothing else." 


"I never exactly made a book. It's rather like taking dictation. I was given things to say. " 

Teach Me

 photo by Judy Minderman

 Teach me the song of the trickling brook  
Bursting her banks, tumbling from her nook

Teach me to sing neath the sigh of the willow
Whose weeping shades the silent meadow

Teach me the rustle of the leafs on an oak
Where birds made their nests as the spring awoke

Teach me to bear the joys and sorrows
As summer greens 'come golden tomorrows

Teach me to trace in the lines of a leaf
The beauty of life's perfect belief

The Royal Couple

   I have always loved having a queen and a royal family. I am so glad we do have a royal family they are so interesting! And there's a big wedding coming up Prince William is marrying Kate Middleton on the 29th of April.

  Just look at her beautiful! I'm not a fan a huge rings but that one is not vulgar and enormous but elegant and just right for a future queen, it is a very flattering shape too.

    I have just been looking up them on the Internet and am surprised at how much there is about them. There are allot of reporters who spend all there time chasing royalty around the country sniffing out stories. But I must say we enjoy benefiting from what they tell us! British Royals is a very up to date site full of all you want to know about the latest in royal lives.

Of course Kate's wedding dress is a big secret that everyone is eagerly waiting to find out about. I'm sure is will be exquisite!

  I have been busy having a cold all last week which is why I have not recently posted. I am well now, though I didn't have such a cute doctor as this girl has! I had always had the notion that it was only people in books who caught a cold from swimming or walking in the rain (you can see what era most of the books I read are in!) or it was something your Mother told you when she didn't want you to do something for some unexplainable grownup reasons! But now I must be growing up because I can quite believe it to be true. I swam in a cold river on a cold windy day and both my friend and I felt sore throats by that night. Anyway here are somethings to look at:

• The Inkpen Aurthoress is hosting a SpringHasSprung poetry contest, be sure to enter.
• If you like Period Drama 
• I'm running out of interesting things so I will resort to my own art . The site Redbubble is a good place to share your artwork, Photography or traditional media.
• I have joined numerous writers websites where you can share and read others poems and stories, but this one is the one I mostly use because it is so simple and clear though it is perhaps less popular.
• I am learning this song on the piano at the moment.

February

Now that February has passed I think about it. 

We all know that February is the second month in the year, and is wintertime for the northern hemisphere.

 And summer time for us in the south:

(Recognize this NZ scene?)

But it looks more like this where I live.

And we all know what day the 14th is.

And who doesn't remember learning to spell it, 'But it sounds like Feb-u-ary!' 'No, Feb-ru-ary!'

http://www.capodimonte-ltd.com/comments.htm

February is the shortest month and has an extra day every four years.

That will be next year!

But did you know....

February starts on the same day of the week as March and November in common years, and on the same day of the week as August in leap years. 

And ...

February ends on the same day of the week as October every year and January in common years only.

Also it is the only month that can pass without a full moon.

February is Black History Month when people in America and Canada remember the events in the history of negro people.

The Chinese New Year is on the 3rd.

Waitangi Day in New Zealand is on the 6th. That is the day the white settlers and the Maori made a treaty.

It is the month my mother and my sister were born in.

Charles Dickens was born on the 7th and so was Sir Thomas Moore and so was Mum!

International Mother Language Day is on the 21st.

It is amazing how much you learn when you write a blog post! 

Here are some Februarian quotes:

'If February give much snow

A fine summer it doth foreshow' (English proverb)

"February - what weather!
Gales, glorious sunshine,
Gouts of rain,
Widespread floods
And rainbows
Over shining hilltops
Against black clouds edged with silver"
(C Smith, February Poem 1990)

“February is merely as long as is needed to pass the time until March.” (Dr J R Stockton)

Tuesdays Links

• I have just made a paper envelope while watching this how to video, my pen friend will be receiving like it in the mail. 
• I heard this song for the first time today. Thank you for recommending, Rachel. It is beautiful, almost hauntingly. I want to see the movie now.
• Perhaps you have heard of the earthquake here in New Zealand? We read in the paper today of a man who with superhuman strength helped save lives just after the quake struck. It is a miracle how he lifted those huge bricks. Our prayers are with them all.
• I came across this blog today while looking for stationary ideas. Have a look if you like vintage and crafts. (I'm sure it's not just me, has the fashion gone vintage?)
• I have just this moment got an idea for my next blog post from this blog. 
• And to finish off here is  True Feminity one of the very first blogs I ever followed.
• Not quite, this lovely girl is my latest follower. Thank you! :D

Interesting Links

  Several blogs I follow regularly post interesting links to whatever has interested them specially that week or so.  Those are some of my favorite blog posts, so I decided to do the same here on my blog. Hopefully this will make me blog more. It is discouraging when you don't have many followers to read posts but they say views increase if you keep you blog active. I guess that is true.

   I'll begin with some of my favorite blogs which I follow:

• This blog is very interesting, full of photos of vintage clothes and very inspiring. I spent hours looking through all her posts when I first found this blog: Vixen Vintage 

• If you like Jane Austen and want to here about current Austen news this will interest you as it does me. Jane Austen Today

• I love books, and have recently become more interested in illustrations of children's stories since reading about Beatrix Potter: Books

• The Seamstress from Texas has recently attended a retro country dance. (looks like so much fun!!) 

• My favorite movie song at the moment: When You Tought Me how to Dance  and on piano 

• Recently I have become interested in making paper books. My and my mun have been having allot of fun and we want to make our own paper too. One Sheet Book   and Squash Book  are You Tube vidios of how to make paper books.
• This is a good idea if you like art.

Squash book

Yesterday I spent all afternoon making these..

 It was very fun creating new books. I think I will make some more sometime, maybe a different kind. They are called star books or squash books.

At the same time we heard about the new earthquake in Christchurch down in the South Island.

I am watching the news (which  has been on all day) on the TV with family now. We are praying for those poor people who have to cope again with disaster, and worse this time.

Christchurch Earthquake

The intriguing Miss Potter

Beatrix Potter with Peter Rabbet 

I have always loved Beatrix Potters stories since I was a little girl. My favorites were Jemima Paddleduck and  Miss Tiggy-winkle

I have seen the movie Miss Potter several times and It's now among my favorites. It's so charming and inspiring and just delightful!

 

Renee Zellweger is the perfect Miss Potter, she is so cute!

  One of my favorite scenes from the movie is this. I love the song so and have learned it on my violin.

I am reading at the moment an biography of Beatrix Potter's life by Linder Lear. 

I is really interesting and detailed telling of her many years of studying nature...

especially fungi which she drew and painted with perfect accuracy. 

 

She wrote a paper on her theory of fungi reproduction but it was not accepted by botanical scientists as she was an amateur and a woman. Her theory was proven correct many years afterward.

One thing that has helped to mark her in my mind is her diary which she wrote in her own secret code. It took fifteen years after her death in 1943 to decipher. I want to read it as soon as I can find a copy.

 But Beatrix Potter, whose real first name was Helen, is best remembered for her tales of animals. Peter Rabbit especially.

There is something special inspiring and intriguing about Miss Potter...

Barefoot And Bridleless (bitless jumping)

One Word

 

My word this year is DO!

I always have things that need to be done, and I don't do them. I have ideas to act on and I often don't finish them!