Hello bookish friends – it’s me – Briar!
How have you been? How are your dogs and cats?
Tonight I am bringing you the news about things that are changing round here. There are three stories, and in the collage below you will see a pair of photographs to illustrate each story.
My first story is on the bottom left and it is very exciting. My promenade has been fixed. It took months and months but now it is done. We can walk along again, and I can go down the steps to play on the beach and go swimming.
Hooray!!!
It wasn’t done until the tourist season began and the beach ban for dogs kicked in, but I am only banned in the daytime and I am allowed on the beach in the evening. I am going down there as much as I can. I always pull on the lead to go that way when we go out and sometimes she agrees with me and sometimes she doesn’t ….
My second story is on the bottom left and it is a knitting story.
Six years ago Jane knitted the man of the house a hat. It was a simple hat but it was interesting because it was made of Noro Kureyon yarn which keeps changing colour. I wish I could do that.
He liked the hat and he wore it lots and lots. Even when it lost its shape he went on wearing it, because it was his favourite hat. So Jane offered to knit him and new one. It’s just the same but the colours are a little bit different.
He likes it and I like it too.
That leave my third story, which is in the two pictures at the very top.
I expect you have noticed that I have a new bed. it doesn’t match the Virago modern Classics like the old one, but it is bigger so that I can stretch out much more and it is very comfortable,
But that isn’t the main story. The main story is that we have a new bookcase and books are on the move.
We used to have three bamboo bookcases of various sizes and now we have four. The man of the house spotted one on sale and he snapped it up and brought it home. It is bigger than two of the ones we had but not as big as the third. we haven’t quite finished yet, but here is what is happening;
- The three biggest bookcases are staying downstairs.
- The biggest one is still the Virago bookcase; the second one has paperback fiction; the third one has paperback non-fiction.
- The littlest one that used to be the Persephone bookcase is going to live upstairs on the landing.
- The Persephone books have moved out into another bookcase because they outgrew their old home.
- Some older hardback fiction by lady writers lives in the wicker bookcase now.
This is still a work in progress, and we could still do with another bookcase or two.
I expect Jane will take you on a proper tour of her bookcase when she has finished moving things.
She has a grand plan, not just for books, for the whole house!
We went to see mother this afternoon, and she was quite well. I have lots of friends in her nursing home now.
Tomorrow we are going to the woods. I like the woods. It’s shady, there is a stream, and there are lots of things for me to see and do.
And in the evening I expect Jane will be here again, to tell you about a book ….
Fleur in her World 
Briar looks very fetching in his multi coloured hat!
Dear Mary,
Thank you. Hats make my head hot but I like to help out with a little modelling from time to time.
Love Briar X
Lovely to hear from your Briar, and the new bed is lovely. The hat is lovely too, and I’m very interested in the bookish news from Jane – I love to hear all about people’s book reshuffles and shelving! Enjoy the beach!
Dear Kaggsy,
I’m very pleased with my bed, and it fits very well between the bookcases. I will make sure Jane writes a post about them soon.
Love Briar x
What a really lovely post Briar. I often read jane’s blog but I’ve not commented before. You are very good at painting a verbal picture & I enjoyed reading about your news. I’ll try to keep up from now on 🙂 I used to have a retriever who loved the sea so much he could smell it from miles away. We still miss him very much. Thanks again for your post, Rosemary in Edinburgh.
Dear Rosemary,
It’s lovely to meet you. Retrievers are lovely dogs. I used to play with two called Ben and Brodie in the park until they moved house and I understand you must miss your retriever friend.
Love Briar x
Lovely to see you posting again! The new bed does look very comfortable. Now that the warm weather is here my cats prefer stretching out on the cool floor boards.
I’m glad to hear that the promenade is finally open again, and envious to hear about new book cases. I look forward to more pictures of both 🙂
Dear Lisa,
It’s lovely to see you again too. Cool floor boards sound like just the thing for hot weather. We don’t have any but I like to go out in the garden and lie in the cool earth in the shade under our tamarisk bush.
Love Briar x
Briar, when we are able to add a new bookcase, I just fill it with as many books as I can get up off the floor! Maybe you like having books on the floor where you can easily see and smell them. Jane is very organised to rearrange her books so well. I look forward to more photos in the future as she promised. Have a nice sleep on your lovely new dog bed! 🙂
Dear Lucy,
We still have books on the floor, but Jane says that one day they will all have shelves. I don’t really understand books, but I can see that you humans really like them. I prefer rope toys and tennis balls.
Love Briar x
Briar, I am so pleased you can go on the beach again, and I’m glad Jane has new bookcases – my Man Of The House says we have no room for new bookcases, and I can’t have any more new books unless I get rid of some of the old ones.
Dear Christine,
We don’t have that problem, because our man of the house is bookish too. That means the house is pretty full, but the humans seem to like it. And they have taken me for some lovely walks on the beach and in the woods, so we’re all happy.
Love Briar x
Miaow and hello, Briar, Liz’ big fat ginger cat, Morgan, here. I find that a run of 8-foot high bookcases can be used to great effect by waiting until the people in the house are watching something quite noisy on the box with the little people in it, then climbing up and up and up and RUNNING along the top of the bookcases and SHOUTING all of a sudden. This will make your people start moving furniture around, climbing on it and trying to get you down. When you panic because you don’t KNOW the way down, this can help quite a lot. I know the papery things they put on the bookcases are good to rub against but I’m not very good at reading yet …
On another topic, I might be bigger than you, because I’m a BIG cat, but I find “a people bed” is a better thing for resting on than “a cat bed” and think the same may be true for dogs.
Friendly miaows, Morgan.
Dear Morgan,
That does sound exciting, but as you probably know us dogs aren’t climbing animals. I wish we were so that I could chase those pesky squirrels up trees. But of course we do things you cats don’t – I saw a cat on the promenade one but I’ve never ever seen one on the beach.
I do often sleep upstairs on a ‘people bed’ at night, but I like to have proper arrangements for sitting and sleeping in every room of the house. And my new bed has a good view of the aga so I can see if the humans are cooking anything interesting.
Love Briar x
Briar dear, I do like when you take over the reins every now and then. I’m so glad your promenade has been fixed. New bookcases are exciting things to we bookish humans, so I hope Jane is happy about this. You are a dear to visit your grandma and cheer everyone up. We can’t walk in the woods right now because the mosquitoes are nightmarish–even the fields are bad. I wish we had an ocean like you. And although I know you don’t really like them, you do look very fine in those hats.