The Loveliness

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

The sky is the colour of old doves and the rain has been falling sulkily all day. It should be demoralising, and yet somehow it is not. With each drop it seems that the green things look greener, from moment to moment, as if drinking it all up in gratitude. I sometimes feel insanely lucky to live in this temperate climate, so that I do not have to look out over arid wastes. Also, my melancholy northern streak, no doubt inherited from my possibly made-up Danish blood, rather likes a bit of dreich. I find blazing sunshine slightly vulgar and unsettling.

And how could I feel anything but delighted when I come round the corner and find the younger niece, in her special vintage fur hat? You will be glad to hear that even in June there is enough of a chill in the air to call for serious headgear:

How did she get so grown-up? It seems like only yesterday that she was six years old and I was making her listen to Frank Sinatra singing One for my Baby so that she would grow up knowing there was more to music than boy bands.

Just regard the loveliness:

It makes me think of Julie Christie in Darling.

And in case you thought the delight ended there:

Don't they look absurdly elegant in sepia? (The intense staring eyes are because I have just said the word 'rabbits'.)

And, out in the good old Scottish rain, here is the bravest of the peonies, very slowly starting to unfurl its sodden petals:

On top of which, I managed to bash out 1300 words, some of which will survive into the final draft. My older brother is up from the south, and has already driven out at seven in the morning to go to Glenn Muick before there was another person in it:

(Photograph by Nigel Corby.)

I had a long conversation with my dear old mum about the astonishingly talented Workforce winning The Derby in record time:

(Photograph by Getty Images.)

So even though I have not been sleeping well, and I am ravaged with doubt about this whole new book, and I fret about the pelicans, I think that this adds up to A Good Day. When I am feeling a bit cornball and folksy, I say to myself: never take a good day for granted. It's sort of goofy, but it's true.

A brief visual interlude

Posted by Tania Kindersley.

Still ill. My nieces say: four days. They come and see me, making cooing noises, take the dogs out, and whirl away again. I adore them.

Seem to have lost the ability to type, but you know I like to give you something, so here is a little visual treat. Lartigue is one of my favourite photographers in the world. When I very first began collecting, I bought two pictures, without quite meaning to (I had wandered into The Photographers' Gallery, in those days in Great Newport Street, quite by mistake): one by Lee Miller and one by Lartigue. In those days, no one had ever heard of him and he was dirt cheap. Now he is no longer a little fishing village but a global conurbation and you must hock your diamonds to get an original. But in the meantime, feast your eyes on his lovely muse, Renée. And tomorrow I shall have retrieved my facility for bashing away at a keyboard.