I love Susan Hill's novels, especially the Ian Serralier crime novels and her early fiction. But most of all, I love the books she wrote about living in the country and the joys of the garden and the kitchen.
In Through the Garden Gate Susan Hill writes of the pleasures of the Autumn garden:
"Finding the last red apple, hanging by a thread from a bare branch.
Berries everywhere, blood-red against the evergreen.
A swag of mistletoe on the orchard bough.
Bonfires at dusk.
Fresh-sawn logs, neatly stacked against the wall.
The smell of frost at dawn.
Lifting the potatoes and slipping them into sacks.
The shed hung about with onion plaits.
Spiders' webs laced over fruit bushes.
The smell of horse manure, newly spread.
The first snowdrop, after the snow.
Viburnum blossom.
No weeding."
Such lyrical writing and so evocative of the Autumn garden.
In Through the Garden Gate Susan Hill writes of the pleasures of the Autumn garden:"Finding the last red apple, hanging by a thread from a bare branch.
Berries everywhere, blood-red against the evergreen.
A swag of mistletoe on the orchard bough.
Bonfires at dusk.
Fresh-sawn logs, neatly stacked against the wall.
The smell of frost at dawn.
Lifting the potatoes and slipping them into sacks.
The shed hung about with onion plaits.
Spiders' webs laced over fruit bushes.
The smell of horse manure, newly spread.
The first snowdrop, after the snow.
Viburnum blossom.
No weeding."
Such lyrical writing and so evocative of the Autumn garden.