Like many girls, and particularly girls who were avid readers, and even more particularly girls who grew up to like historical clothing,  I love Anne of Green Gables and L.M. Montgomery. I either owned or had the Anne books on constant loan from the library, and I read, and re-read them, until I knew every detail of Anne’s life, and that of her children. Then I availed myself of Hawaii’s wonderful state public library system, which allowed you to order books from any library in the state, and moved on to Anne’s other heroines. I got to know Pat (whose devotion to cats I shared, but whose devotion to a house seemed a tiny bit excessive), Jane (who I admired for her kind heart), Marigold (too young, but loads of fun), Emily (who, to be perfectly honest, I thought needed a good slap, and who I still have trouble reading about without rolling my eyes and thinking “seriously girl, just get over yourself”, but who is probably responsible for my tendency to over-use italics), the …

And I’m back!  Apologies for mostly disappearing from the blog for the last couple of weeks: I’ve been knee deep in The Project and simply haven’t had time to write posts.  I’m over the biggest hurdle of The Project (and it’s amazing) but it will still be a couple of weeks before I can show you.  In the meantime, I’ll be back to entertaining you with sewing and cats and travel and pogey bait on a regular-ish basis. Today: literary pogey bait! I have had the most fabulous luck with books in the last few months.  Between op-shops, online auctions and generous friends I have accumulated a stack of delicious examples of the written word: from reference books to novels. Starting at the top, Etiquette for Ladies (found at a local op-shop for $5) from the between-the-wars period gives advice on how to behave when being presented at court to Queen Mary, what to give as gifts for people going away to live in the Dominions (light coloured parasols and riding crops being good choices), …