Classics

This week I have read Stella Gibbons Cold Comfort Farm. Everyone has been telling me for years that it is good but I never got around to reading it. I love Flora Poste - she's an absolute gem of a fictional character as is Aunt Ada Doom - 'something nasty in the woodshed'. The names for the characters are pretty good as well; the cows, Graceless, Aimless,Feckless and Pointless and the bull Big Business not to speak of Seth and Reuben - the sons and Amos- the father - the hell fire and damnation preacher. How Flora manages to change everything on the farm and many of the people is brilliant. If you haven't read it then you're in for a treat.

I've also read George and Weedon Grossmith's Diary of a Nobody and I love Mr Pooter. His staunch principles, his loyalty to his employer and his love for his wife and son even when they annoy him are marvellous. Yes he gets irritated by some not very important things but often he tears up his letters of complaint and doesn't post them. When given more compensation for his ruined handkerchiefs than the handkerchiefs cost new he is scrupulous about returning the amount he isn't entitled to - which to me sums him up. An absolutely marvellous book and I really should have read it years ago.