I spend lots of my time travelling around the country visiting various Bibby offices. In fact, I’ve noticed that I usually spend more time on my journeys than I do at my destinations, which can be quite unsettling. It’s also tedious and surprisingly tiring. Recently though, my journeys have been illuminated by a special sort [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘Roaming Reader’
February 5, 2009
Literature, love, life
Today, the 4th February, there are ten days left until St Valentine’s Day. You may be looking to the 14th February with nothing more than cynicism or irritation, but there is no doubt that this particular celebration is now firmly embedded into our cultural calendar. Wandering through high streets up and down the country, there [...]
January 28, 2009
Roaming Reader: It’s A Beautiful Day
As my train whooshes into Liverpool Lime Street Train Station on this sparkling sunny day, I realise how much I love the Liverpool skyline. At this hour, the city lies sleeping tranquilly under a vast azure sky. The Anglican Cathedral and the Metropolitan Cathedral stand proud above the throng of terraced houses, twin guardians of [...]
January 22, 2009
The Eve of St Agnes
I first read John Keats’ poetry aged 14, after a beloved English teacher told me that Ode on a Grecian Urn was her favourite poem. Although I appreciated the beauty of the words, its ‘meaning’ seemed way above the limits of my intelligence. The famous closing lines ‘Beauty is truth, and truth beauty, – that [...]
December 19, 2008
This Christmas…
The book I will be reading….
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Although I love Pride and Prejudice for Elizabeth Bennett’s dancing wit, Sense and Sensibility for Marianne Dashwood’s passionate romanticism, it is Persuasion’s Anne Elliot whom I most admire. As a girl she is convinced to throw away her own happiness; as a young woman, in spite of [...]
November 28, 2008
(A previously ambivalent) Ella Jolly encounters royalty
Yesterday, whilst dashing from Banbury train station to Marks and Spencer to buy some delicious treats for BLG reading groups (the cakes alone are a good reason to come to a reading group!), I stumbled across the Queen.
The white-haired lady, immaculate in scarlet coat and hat, walked elegantly through an enthusiastic, flag-waving crowd. She [...]
November 26, 2008
On work and winter
After a considerable absence from work, I feel as if I have been in hibernation for the last two weeks. Stumbling, bleary-eyed and clumsy, onto an early (very early) morning train, I curl up with my hot chocolate and books of poems and survey the frosted landscape. This morning, 26th November, winter is here.
Up [...]
October 23, 2008
Where does all the good news go?
Yesterday, whilst on a train rolling frustratingly leisurely to Liverpool, the lady sitting opposite me discarded her newspaper with a big old sigh and offered me a warning: “The news today is particularly depressing. Don’t bother reading it!”
We shared the joke for a few minutes, laughing grimly about the total lack of ‘happy’ news, [...]
October 22, 2008
Building a Reading Revolution
Over the summer I was thrilled to meet all the lovely people in the Scottish Poetry Library (SPL) who work tirelessly to spread the message of reading revolution across Scotland. So when Juliet Rees, the Education Officer for the SPL, proposed a joint venture, I eagerly agreed BLG’s involvement. With funding from the Scottish Arts [...]
October 9, 2008
Ella Jolly doesn’t quite make it offshore…
At every stage of the planning for our trip to the North Sea, Caroline Swailes (Community Programme Co-ordinator at Bibby Line Group) and I were warned that, at a moment’s notice, it could all be cancelled. The weather, the sea, and the operation itself are all volatile in nature, and of course, safety is paramount. [...]
