Spring and Mrs. Daffodil

 

Every couple of years I reread Gladys Taber's Mrs. Daffodil in March. It's almost wrong to say this is a novel when it reads instead as Gladys Taber's autobiography, with names changed. 

For example, Gladys' bosom friend Faith Baldwin (see the illustration of Faith Baldwin at the top of every blog post of Dewena's Window) is named Hope Alden in Mrs. Daffodil. During their annual week's visits, they read each others' manuscripts--that's true trust--settle the problems of the world, and go antique shopping together.

I always laugh with Mrs. Daffodil as she recounts the various hired help she and her lifelong friend and housemate Kay (Jill) employ over the years whose ineptitude causes the two women to work even harder than usual. This also brings to mind the five years I had the most wonderful helper named Pam and what I wouldn't give for her now. 

And I cry for Mrs. Daffodil at the end of the book when she says of her husband, someone Gladys rarely mentions in her books, the sentences that tell so much.

She remembered Henry, but pushed the memory aside. Henry was an upright man, but life with him had been anything but one of those partnerships she read about. The truth was, she reflected sadly, that she and Henry had been entirely unsuited. They had just rocked along.

She said a little prayer for Henry.

I read Mrs. Daffodil before falling asleep at night through the first spring like warm days of March when the daffodils bloomed behind the barn, those in the wild area that looked as if some former resident had forked up mounds of dirt where daffodil bulbs had been tossed.

 

So warm were the days that James Mason and BreeBree went to the groomer for a short haircut.

 

And I read Mrs. Daffodil when March became her true chilly self.

 

I lit candles at night as the temperatures fell, especially this pretty one from Court that was a Christmas gift and smells divine.

 I finished Mrs. Daffodil and went back to some old Peter Shandy mysteries, and in the daytime I listened to biography audiobooks while doing some spring chores. I listened to this one in honor of my Star Trek trekki sons and found it to be a fascinating account of a complex man--both Leonard Nimoy and Mr. Spoke. [Sorry, typo--Mr. Spock!]

I hung some spring tea towels in the kitchen...

 Cleaned out some kitchen drawers...

And up went a few little sweet things on the kitchen shelves--the Peter Rabbit cutout saved from Christy's childhood.

 I mixed up some buttermilk waffle batter one day for a special waffle breakfast with Tennessee country sausage, hashbrown casserole and eggs. Melted butter and hot maple syrup.

Attended by our guests, Christy home for the weekend and her big brother who dashed over to see her. If only I had managed to get her whole beautiful face in the picture!

And RH and I will be getting another visit from family Easter weekend, our granddaughters and their parents!

Can you guess where they were one day on spring break?

Now that's way too easy, isn't it? And I know you can guess how much I enjoy visits from family, even quick weekend ones. 

For such is the stuff of bliss, isn't it, dear readers? And Mrs. Daffodil?