Deep Rest

How exactly does one rest?

As I have had occasion to mention before (here and here), the Caped Gooseberry and I have different ways of relaxing, and this was something we were advised to address in our pre-marriage counselling. (Counselling: not necessarily because you have problems, but because you want to avoid having problems.)

potatoes with faces on tiny couch

The Caped Gooseberry finds strategy games relaxing. His hobby: thinking about stuff. (Makes him very hard to buy presents for, let me tell you.) I, on the other hand, find strategy games about as relaxing as running for a bus. In the rain. In badly fitting shoes. But I do like watching DVDs (not restful at all for the Caped Gooseberry) and reading (silently, to myself). All about the stories, me.

Except…

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Classic Pleasures: The Gardening Catalogue

It was Agatha Christie who first introduced me to the gardening catalogue. Being Agatha Christie, she naturally made it a harbinger of sudden and mysterious death (you’ll have to read The Thirteen Problems to find out how).

Of course, gardening catalogues were nothing new in 1932, when the book came out. The first ever was, according to Wikipedia, produced by an Englishman in 1667, back when Charles II was ruling Britain, Louis “l’etat c’est moi” XIV ruling France, and the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (son of Mumtaz Mahal, as in Taj Mahal) ruling the Indian subcontinent.

Sweerts florilegium
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