The Rites of Spring
Because it’s finally light again
Pull Up A Chair is a weekly newsletter containing all the things I’d like to be chatting about if we could hang out together in real life.
📚 Astonish Me by Maggie Shipstead. Gang. This book was SO good. It’s like Shipstead looked at me and said ‘right, this gal grew up reading books about young women dancing at Sadler’s Wells, and now loves a bit of Cold War intrigue and to hear about flawed people behaving badly…’ and mixed all of that into this one book. It starts in the ballet world in the early 70s, with a dual timeline, lots of clues in an incredibly tightly woven narrative, and some international intrigue. I absolutely loved it. (Amazon affiliate link - ad)
🎧 Just A Minute: Another Classic Collection. I’ve not been sleeping super well lately, and one of the things I like to do instead of staring at the ceiling or the time on my alarm clock is cue up something on audio that I can just have going in the background and distract me. I grew up with BBC Radio 4 in the background, and the panel shoes and topical comedy especially really shaped my sense of humour. So it was a joy to discover that I could spend my Audible credits on a compilation of classic episodes from way back when. It’s a joy to listen to the late, great, Nicholas Parsons and company - although a bit of a shock when you listen to a vintage episode and realise that everyone on it (except for the marvellous Sheila Hancock) is no longer with us. (Penguin | Amazon affiliate link - ad)
🥗 Big-Ass Salads. You know I love a hearty salad; and I adored this Grub Street piece on salad-as-main-course, written by Tammie Teclemariam. Her title is ‘Underground Gourmet columnist’, which might be the coolest thing ever (via this week’s Ann Friedman Weekly). This week’s big-ass salad was a Spring Roll salad, inspired by this recipe video Instagram served me on my Discover page.
And now, we are in April. April. How did that happen? Like every other bitch on the internet, now the days are slightly longer and the weather has stopped being so unremittingly bleak, I’m full of the joys of life again - or at least a little bit closer to it. It’s still light in the evening now, not just when I’m walking to the gym or to ballet, but sometimes when I’m walking home afterwards too! I have - and this will be sickening for those of you who live in bigger cities than me - woken up to the sound of birdsong twice in the last week. Who am I, a Disney princess?
After two solid months in which I haven’t left Edinburgh, I’ve got a bunch of travel lined up in the next couple of months. If you have any idea what one wears to a Eurovision show, please tell me! I have a ticket for one of the semi-final jury shows and I can’t wait. And if you happen to know of a Eurovision finals party happening in Oxford on the night itself that I could gatecrash… I’d be eternally grateful. Excitingly, too, I have three weddings of school friends in the diary, the first one coming up in the middle of April.
As a writer and reader of love stories, it won’t surprise you to know that I’m a hopeless romantic. A friend once said ‘thank goodness, now the boring bit’s over’ after a wedding ceremony, and I was stunned. I love hearing the vows and watching the traditions people have chosen to incorporate - seeing handfasting done for the first time was incredible. I love hearing how couples met and decided to place their trust in each other. I just love love. Also I love an excuse to buy a dress; every time I have a successful second date, one of my friends asks me if she should be buying a hat, and while she hasn’t needed to yet, I adore that energy. There’s so much bad stuff going on in the world, I will take any excuse to celebrate. And not just celebrating, but celebrating in a group. Also, I haven’t been to an English wedding since 2017, so I’m intrigued to see what happens instead of a ceilidh (is this… reverse culture shock?!).
Talking of celebrations, there is a very important cultural event happening at the end of April that we shouldn’t forget: Ed Balls Day. I’m going to a party to mark the occasion and trying to decide what an appropriate party snack to make and take might be.
A final note: I have seen a lot of people describing Gwyneth Paltrow’s ski crash trial as the trial of the century. For those people, I have two words: Wagatha Christie.
Speak soon,
Lily
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I always cry at weddings. Even if I think the marriage is ill advised, i blub like a baby. I haven’t been to very many weddings though, I was abroad when school friends started marrying off, and academics tend to be marriage shy. We got married at the botanics, so it’s always sentimental for me.
Down in Liverpool the first half of the week, and then to York, and it was beautiful today! I’m going to skive off from this conference if the weather keeps up.