Mrs Minerva writes...
The art of
READING Passionate about quintessential English customs, our incognito columnist reminds us to do the best things in life in the most elegant fashion, always with a twinkle in her eye
BELOW Books are beautiful objects in their own right and I have long admired a trick of interior designers, which is to remove their jackets and file them by colour to create a pleasing display on a bookshelf.
O
ne of the most important things when creating a home is to carve out space just for oneself. Mr M and I are in complete agreement that we both need areas of the house we can call our own. I would not dream of entering his study uninvited. Even when he has calls for my presence, I enter with trepidation – and not just because I find the taxidermy a little intimidating. It simply feels a little wrong to be in his inner sanctum. The place where he does… well, whatever it is he does. Mr M’s study in our new home is a smaller replica of the one he had at Minerva Towers. The same toffee wrappers littering the desk, the same fly-fishing books littering the floor, and the same damp spaniel smell. It’s how he wanted it. This time round, I wanted my space to be rather different to how it was at the old place. Instead of a study, I wanted a reading room. Somewhere I could retreat from the world and indulge my love of literature. I wanted it to be unashamedly feminine, with gorgeous Cabbages & Roses curtains and cushions, a comfy chair and a Victorian fainting couch. The last of these is for the aesthetic rather than need, although living with Mr M can often bring about an attack of the vapours. I wanted very much to have floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, complete with a ladder that went around the room. It has been a dream of mine since childhood, but had somehow never quite happened. I am thrilled to say
it has now. Mr M almost needed the fainting couch himself when he saw the quote from our lovely local carpenter but, as the cushion I bought him for his new study says, ‘happy wife, happy life’, and so he conceded whilst muttering something about needing to sell a Stubbs. Mr M has an eye for a bargain and is often on the village forum. Only last week he saw a pair of vintage, mid-century Ercol chairs for £30. Apparently they had been in the primary school staff room since new, much like the headmaster, who only recently agreed to retire. This came as something of a relief all round, I hear, as some at the school feared they might have to evict him or launch a coup d’état. Mr M immediately telephoned the number shown online only to be told a woman was coming to have a look at them. “A look,” he boomed, before trying to gazump his rival by offering double if they agreed to put her off. The school secretary became a little flustered; there has not been this much excitement in the village since a donkey escaped from the school fete and was apprehended two hours later frenziedly munching carrots in the Co-op. As I write, I do not know the fate of the Ercol chairs and whether they will find a home in Mr M’s study. He is unhappy about this, not least because the advert insisted they were ‘in full working order’, whatever that means for a chair. Whilst he fumes, I am concentrating on enjoying my new reading room. My love of books has been reignited by my gorgeous shelves. So much so, I have taken on the role of chair of the village book group. I intend to transform it, but sadly due to this wretched (but necessary) lockdown it has been held exclusively over Zoom thus far. When debating the merits of a literary masterpiece, the technology can THE ENGLISH HOME 111
