Fans of Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons's satire of the overly grim and sensual fiction of the early 20th century, will remember how the elderly farmer Adam Lambsbreath used a thorn twig to wash or "cletter" the dishes until his cousin Flora, our sensible, modern heroine, bought him a little mop with a handle. Adam became passionately attached to his new mop and refused to let it near the dirty dishes: "Tis prettier than apple bloom, my little mop..."
I saw these peculiar-looking mops at Shaw's today and realized they were probably the sort of thing that Flora gave to Adam, although his had a white wooden handle and a red string, not yellow.
These are supposed to be basting tools, but take a moment to consider just how unhygienic it would be to reuse this cotton mop on, say, your weekly roasted suckling piglet. Better to use a thorn twig. These little mops are definitely more suited to dish-clettering, as performed by a moony, melodramatic old farmer.
Life has been a bit grim lately for this Robert Post's Child, so I'm thinking that a reread of Cold Comfort Farm might be salutary after I finish my current book about Venice (a cheering topic, but evidently not cheering enough).
Better yet, I own, but have not yet read Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm, the sequel. I've been saving it for December, but what the heck? Last fall, I received a substantial Stella Gibbons paperback collection from a dear friend who brought it all back from London. And so I have plenty of entertainment ahead.
1 comment:
I love getting your book recommendations - just requested Cold Comfort Farm from my library. The one copy in the whole system is checked out - quelle surprise. I like the look of that mop, but think I would use it as a cat toy instead. Hope your day gets better.
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