18 February 2014

Things to blog about...

Croila invited us from the Blogging from the Heart FB group to pair up, and post about one of



from this list from Chantelle.

I was paired up with SmoochDog, and we both chose no. 11 - Your celebrity dinner party. Who would you invite?

Now, I hope it's OK to tweak with the topic a tad, as nowadays cooking/hostessing is a challenge, and to be honest the only 'celebrities' I would want to spend any time with are those fortunate enough to be guests of one of the 20th century's greatest hostesses, Lady Ottoline Morrell...


Her weekend parties at Garsington Manor were legendary, and I would give anything to be one of the guests... 
I have this book...


which is full of snapshots of Virginia and Leonard Woolf, Vanessa and Clive Bell, Duncan Grant, Wyndam Lewis, T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, Lytton Strachey, John Maynard Keynes, Thomas Hardy, Bertrand and Dora Russell, W.H. Auden, Mark Gertler, Siegfried Sassoon, Ian Fleming, the Sackville-Wests...

Some of the greatest minds of the time all milling around these gardens, enjoying each others' company and conversation...


Truly, I cannot imagine a better way to spend a weekend!!

Here are some of the photos from her album - enjoy!

Lytton Strachey and Virginia Woolf

Walter de la Mare, W.B. Yeats and Bertha Yeats and unknown woman

T.S. Eliot

Aldous Huxley

T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf

Lytton Strachey, Duncan Grant, Clive Bell (Vanessa Bell took the photo)





7 comments:

  1. What a beautiful garden - I imagine those weekend parties were splendid...let's time travel!

    And I love how you tweaked the topic!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Haha, funny Claire - in those days you weren't supposed to cook, because you would HAVE a cook, to do it for you.

    So you can invite them all!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're right, of course! Though, even with a cook, we couldn't compete with the manor and the gardens :D Truly, I was born in the wrong time and to the wrong class...

      Delete
  3. This is lovely! Wow, what a twist on the question, I LOVE it! So ... You'd have the whole Bloomsbury Set round not just for tea but for the whole weekend :-D You have style in abundance :-D :-D

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Claire
    Thanks for your e-mail and lovely to have found you and to be your latest follower. I have enjoyed your posts and will be back soon, especially if I can come to dinner? :)
    Wren x

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hello I found your blog on WWOYW, and I am very happy I did! Great post and I love the pictures!! What a treat!
    I'll have to come back with coffee and more time! I did join your blog also! Thanks so much!
    Ginny M in snowyyyyy MA

    ReplyDelete
  6. Gosh that photo of Elliot looks so similar to my big brother I did a double take!!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for taking the time to comment - I really appreciate it!
It's good to know I'm not alone :)