A CATALOGUE OF PLEASURES

Evening Star, Issue 22975, 4 June 1938, Page 30

A CATALOGUE OF PLEASURES

LEISURELY ASSORTMENT My pleasures are of a leisurely and. ramshackle, kind (writes Margaret Eaue in the ‘ Daily Mail ’). There are a great many of them, and none requires very much skill. The one thing essential to all of them is plenty of time. _ _ ' / Exploration of various kinds covers a scattered group of favourite pleasures. Exploration of rock pools at low tide, preferably those deep, limpid, mysterious rock pools on the west coast of Ireland, where seaweed and sea anemones, fish, crabs, and strange swimming creatures that have not yet been ravished and torn away by the hand of holidaymakers. A kindred pleasure of fascinated anticipation draws me to the window of every curio shop 1 see, peering to find the great bargain sent into the world to tempt me, the tortoiseshell tea caddy, glass paperweight, or Pinchbeck earrings designed by a kindly Providence to brighten my days. The exploring of empty houses is another pleasure never to be resisted. I will apply for the key to see over the most preposterous mansion, the most unlikely villa or Gothic vicarage if I get half a chance; the mere shell of a house where people have lived, the echo of the hack stairs, the damp air in the larder, exercise a curious spell over my imagination for which I am at a loss to account. Hot baths come high in the catalogue of subtle pleasures; hot baths lengthv and unhurried, late at night, of soft, peaty water as hot as one can bear, with the hot tap trickling in with scalding gentleness by one’s left foot. Paddling, too, in sea or river, is a pleasure to survive childhood; the lazy sort of paddling that asks only a smooth rock to sit on and cool weedy denths to dangle one’s feet in. Punting or paddling upstream, between sedgy hanks. looking for a place to swim; examining the detail of a rocky coast (again Ireland is host!, creeping bv boat round barnacled headlands, venturing on to empty islands and into strange caves. Reing alone in the house when it is neat. tidv. and emptv. and yet alive, like the watercolour interiors in Reatvix Pi.lter’s children’s hooks—the fi"e bright in the "rate, the kettle hee : n ning to sing, the geranium on the sill,

the clock ticking on the shelf—everything friendly and orderly and doing its job, and , I with peace and leisure to do mine. Anything that I can do with my hands, achieving tangible results —sewing a neat hem, mending a footstool, patching a coat, baking a sponge cake, weaving a Border, picking flowers. Smell is a sense which many people neglect. 1 have an appraising nose which gives me much pleasure. The seven most thrilling smells to me are peat smoke, apples in a loft, heliotrope, Russian leather, a clean stable, double stocks, and bacon frying in the open air. The subtle pleasures of eating and ;, drinking are a subject to themselves, but I must confess to a special love of picnics or hot food out of doors on cooj days with one other person; of pouring thick cream in black coffee and not stirring it, so that the cold cream and the hot coffee are tasted at the same time; of eating honey- ■ comb with apples, as other people eat, butter on bread. _ I now realise with inner humiliation that none of these favourite pleasures is 'spiritual, intellectual, or even particularly refined. This seems a pity, but it’s too late to do anything about my character now. I may as well admit at once that one of the subtlest pleasures of my life is overbearing other people’s conversations,