{"id":9170,"date":"2009-03-18T12:27:19","date_gmt":"2009-03-18T16:27:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9170"},"modified":"2015-06-13T07:53:19","modified_gmt":"2015-06-13T11:53:19","slug":"reunited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9170","title":{"rendered":"Reunited With a Long-Lost Book"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=1840020970&#038;asins=1840020970&#038;linkId=PLGSUU6TPCFH6GJ7&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nOpening couple of paragraphs of a certain book I just received in the mail.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It had rained every day since Grandma arrived in London.  Every single day.  Not the nice fat sort of rain that makes gentle plopping noises on your rainhat, or umbrella if you happened to have one, which Grandma hadn&#8217;t as she&#8217;d left it on the overnight bus from Yorkshire, but the nasty thin sort of rain that runs down your nose and the tops of your Wellington boots and makes your hair stick out all over the place, especially if it&#8217;s curly, which Grandma&#8217;s was.<\/p>\n<p>In fact it was the sort of weather you wouldn&#8217;t turn a dog out in, if you liked dogs that is, which Grandma didn&#8217;t anyway.<\/p>\n<p>Grandma sighed deeply as she gazed out of the window.  &#8220;Just think,&#8221; she said gloomily, &#8220;if I hadn&#8217;t done my ankle in at the Over 60&#8217;s do, I would be visiting strange new places on the Cook&#8217;s Coach and Paddle Boat Mystery Tour, instead of sitting here staring at this awful rain.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She handed a curler to Mother, who was trying to set Grandma&#8217;s hair, which Father said stuck up like steel wool after Mother had cleaned the inside of the oven with it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And if daft Betty from the shop hadn&#8217;t shoved half a box of soap flakes all over the dance floor, I wouldn&#8217;t have slipped in the first place.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Or if she&#8217;d kept you off the vicar&#8217;s homemade wine,&#8221; Father murmured.<\/p>\n<p>Grandma ignored him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve followed along on my site, you will recognize &#8211; from a few of the plot points &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1840020970?ie=UTF8&#038;tag=thesheivari-20&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=390957&#038;creativeASIN=1840020970\">what book this is<\/a><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=thesheivari-20&#038;l=as2&#038;o=1&#038;a=1840020970\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" \/>.<\/p>\n<p>I have not read it since I was probably 10 years old, but I remembered that opening paragraph almost word for word. I used to love to read it out loud because obviously I understood it but there was enough about it that was different from my own life (&#8220;soap flakes&#8221;, &#8220;vicar&#8221;) that made it seem delightfully British, and I adored that.  I have been looking through the book at the illustrations and most of them I remember well.  Illustrations by Laurence Hutchins.  Very funny caricaturish drawings &#8211; almost like Doonesbury.<\/p>\n<p>Who knows why I get separation anxiety when I realize I do not have a certain book from my childhood in my possession, but I do, and thanks to Amazon, I can get these books for a penny a pop.  It&#8217;s brill.  It&#8217;s hardcover too &#8211; with the same cover I remember as a kid.  Even better.<\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe style=\"width:120px;height:240px;\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&#038;OneJS=1&#038;Operation=GetAdHtml&#038;MarketPlace=US&#038;source=ac&#038;ref=tf_til&#038;ad_type=product_link&#038;tracking_id=thesheivari-20&#038;marketplace=amazon&#038;region=US&#038;placement=1840020970&#038;asins=1840020970&#038;linkId=PLGSUU6TPCFH6GJ7&#038;show_border=true&#038;link_opens_in_new_window=true\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Opening couple of paragraphs of a certain book I just received in the mail. It had rained every day since Grandma arrived in London. Every single day. Not the nice fat sort of rain that makes gentle plopping noises on &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9170\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9170"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9170"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103775,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9170\/revisions\/103775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}