One of my favorite activities has always been sitting outside in the garden with a cup of tea and a book. This is an especially wonderful thing to do early in the morning when the air is fresh and the day is full of possibilities. During the school year I generally get Lily up and off to school, so my early morning reading has fallen by the wayside.
But not this week. I have gone on a major reading jag this past week, excessive even by my usual standards, and my early morning reading has come back into play. Yesterday morning I started Leila Meacham’s Somerset, and today by mid-morning (607 pages later) I had finished it. There is something so splendid about a multi-generational historical romance that just pulls me in and won’t let me go until the end. (Tomorrow I’m off to the library to find Roses, the sequel.)
Olivia encourages my reading outdoors. She loves it when I sit outside on the patio while she swings or plays in the dirt. When I’m hanging clothes out to dry, she will often say wistfully, “When you are done, Grammy, will you please go in and get a book and tea and sit outside with me and read?”
Now to find a chair more comfortable than the folding wooden one I have now. One with piles of cushions. And maybe a footstool!