"Ladies who Lunch" (and read)
That's a quote from somewhere. Vera thinks it's a TV program. Alice has just interrupted my blog composing, to say it's a song, from a musical. Know all!
Yesterday - Oh dear. This blog comes up with the wrong date and time, most irritating, and I've said I'm in the UK. Well, it's yesterday here.YESTERDAY we went for lunch with a good friend, at a favourite restaurant of theirs. The menu was very enticing indeed.The two of them talked an awful lot. It's a wonder they managed to eat, even though they declared their selection of tapas was very tasty indeed. They talked about holidays: Vera's "Down South" (which you can read about earlier in this blog) and her friend's in Lanzarote. She had a lovely little book of photos her husband had made up and ordered online (what you can do with technology nowadays!) There were some particularly interesting ones of places designed by an artist and architect, César Manrique, including a house partly underground in the cavities made by long-ago volcanic activity.
They talked about books too (they both seem to read an incredible number of novels.) They discussed The Bone People, by Keri Hulme, on which Vera had written up screeds of notes for her Book Group.
She
thought it was brilliant, though very disturbing in parts, with lots of human relationship psychology stuff and symbolism about New Zealand culture. It won the prestigious Booker Prize, too. Then they discussed A S Byatt, whom they agree is a wonderful writer. She's good on human relationships, too. And truly inspired with her descriptive passages and meticulously researched historical detail. They both think The Children's Book (shortlisted for the Booker) is her best.Finally, over the dessert (which Vera really should have refrained from: her "waist" isn't getting any smaller...) they did get round to talking about me. I found that part of the day the most gratifying.
