all change

Top of the World, The Carpenters

Anna Valenn, Le Blog

'If I shut my eyes, I could still tell you the detail of any room, and outside, the orchard and the fields and the wood with the stream running through it. I could walk blindfold and still tell you where we were. What I'm trying to say is that this is the same for all of us. This house is inside us and we shall never forget it. I think we're lucky to have somewhere so dear to remember in our hearts.'

All Change (vol. 5/5 of  The Cazalet Chronicles), Elizabeth Jane Howard  - Si vous avez aimé la série Downton Abbey, vous allez adorer la saga de la famille Cazalet, famille bien anglaise, bourgeoise et généreuse et ouverte et unie, qui démarre l'été 1937 (tome 1) et s'achève fin des années 50 (tome 5). C'est récréatif et éducatif, et addictif. 

She turned to Jemima. 'Are you a gardener?'

'Not really. I try to keep our little patch at the back tidy, but I don't seem to have much time for more. Although,' she added, 'I suppose if I loved it I would find the time. It's a bit like people saying they don't have time to read. When, really, they simply don't want to.'

casting off

Top of the World, The Carpenters

Anna Valenn, Le Blog

 'Don't let me ever hear you say that. If you're going to make writing your life, you've got to start depending on your own judgement. You may take notice of other people, but ultimately, it's what you think is right that's right.'

'You often ask me what I think of your painting.'

'Yes, but I'd still go on doing it whatever you said.'

Casting Off (vol. 4/5 of  The Cazalet Chronicles), Elizabeth Jane Howard  Si vous avez aimé la série Downton Abbey, vous allez adorer la saga de la famille Cazalet, famille bien anglaise, bourgeoise et généreuse et ouverte et unie, qui démarre l'été 1937 (tome 1) et s'achève fin des années 50 (tome 5). C'est récréatif et éducatif, et addictif.

The state of London appalled him. Sandbags, boarded-up windows, dirty buildings, blistering paint - there was a general feeling of dinginess and exhaustion. People in the streets looked grey and shabby, tired as they stood patiently at bus stops in straggling queues. The conductors were women, dressed in stiff dark blue serge trouser suits. The queues daunted him - he decided not to take a bus. Every now and then there was another of the posters he had seen at the railway station, 'Is Your Journey Really Necessary?', and another that said, 'Careless Talk Costs Lives', and a third one that simply said, 'Dig For Victory' - all a bit out of date now, he should have thought.

confusion

Top of the World, The Carpenters

Anna Valenn, Le Blog

'So what are you going to do ? I mean besides embracing new ideas?'

'I don't know. Find some sort of other boring job, I suppose.'

'Why can't you find a job and write ?' 

'I don't know what to write any more.'

'What about the journal?' He knew about that, although she had never shown it to him.

'I've sort of stopped it.' She knew he knew that she had been writing it for her father.

After a pause, he said, 'Well, one of the points of a journal is that it should go on, be complete. You might as well do the whole war.'

'I don't feel like it.'

'Ha! Well, in case you don't know, one of the differences between being an amateur and a professional is that amateurs only work when they feel like it, and professionals work whatever they are feeling.'

Confusion (vol. 3/5 of The Cazalet Chronicles), Elizabeth Jane Howard - Si vous avez aimé la série Downton Abbey, vous allez adorer la saga de la famille Cazalet, famille bien anglaise, bourgeoise et généreuse et ouverte et unie, qui démarre l'été 1937 (tome 1) et s'achève fin des années 50 (tome 5). C'est récréatif et éducatif, et addictif. 

à rude épreuve / marking time

Top of the World, The Carpenters

Anna Valenn, Le Blog

I see what you mean. There's a sort of trap, isn't there? You don't tell people things out of love. But actually, I think, the more you love people, the more you should tell them - even the difficult things. I think it is the best sign of love to tell them.' She put her arms round Polly. 'You're never to bear things by yourself. Promise!' 'OK. You promise as well,' said Polly.

'I do. Any no telling is a sign of not love.'

And Polly answered in the Duchy's voice 'I do agree, my dear.' 

Marking Time (vol. 2/5 of The Cazalet Chronicles), Elizabeth Jane Howard. A rude épreuve, traduction Cécile Arnaud pour les éditions de la Table Ronde -  Si vous avez aimé la série Downton Abbey, vous allez adorer la saga de la famille Cazalet, famille, bien anglaise, bourgeoise et généreuse et ouverte et unie, qui démarre l'été 1937 (tome 1) et s'achève fin des années 50 (tome 5). C'est récréatif et éducatif, et addictif. 

‘I’ll carry your mask if you want to take your writing,’ Polly said while they hunted in their bedroom for the cardboard boxes that contained their masks. ‘Damn! Where did we put them?’ They were still hunting when the siren went again, not wailing up and down this time, just a steady howl. ‘All Clear!’ someone shouted from the hall.

‘Must have been a false alarm,’ Teddy said; he sounded disappointed.

 ‘Although we wouldn’t have seen a thing buried in that awful old shelter,’ said Neville. ‘And I suppose you’ve heard, they’re using the war as an excuse not to go to the beach, which seems to me about the most unfair thing I’ve ever heard in my life.’

 ‘Don’t be so stupid, Neville!’ Lydia said crushingly. ‘People don’t go to beaches in wartime.’

 There was a generally quarrelsome feeling in the air, Polly thought, although outside it was a mellow September Sunday morning, with a smell of burning leaves from McAlpine’s bonfire, and everything looked the same. The children had all been sent away from the drawing room: the grown-ups wanted to have a talk and, naturally, everyone not classed as one resented this. ‘It isn’t as though when we’re there they make funny jokes all the time and scream with laughter,’ Neville said as they trooped into the hall. Before anyone could back him up or squash him, Uncle Rupert put his head round the drawing-room door and said, ‘Everyone who couldn’t find their masks bloody well go and find them, and in future they’re to be kept in the gun room. Chop chop.’

do you know what i love about you best? (étés anglais / the light years)

Top of the World, The Carpenters

'Well,' he said, ‘I think if you say every night that you wish you believed in God, and there is one, he’ll hear you.'

‘I don’t wish I believed.’

‘Well, then, you could say you wish you wanted to believe. I don’t see how you can do more.’‘And the rest of the time carry on as usual?’

Anna Valenn, Le Blog

‘Yes.’

‘OK,’ she said. ‘That’s what ordinary life is, isn’t it? Carrying on as usual.’

‘Does that sound boring to you?’

‘It sounds it, but when you’re in it, it isn’t.’

When he kissed her she said, ‘Dad! Do you know what I love about you best? Your doubtfulness. All the things you don’t know.’ As he reached the door she called, 'It really makes me admire you.'

The Light Years (vol. 1/5 of The Cazalet Chronicles), Elizabeth Jane Howard / « Etés anglais. La saga des Cazalet I »  576 pages traduites de l’anglais par Anouk Neuhoff, aux éditions de la Table Ronde - Si vous avez aimé la série Downton Abbey, vous allez adorer la saga de la famille Cazalet, famille bien anglaise, bourgeoise et généreuse et ouverte et unie, qui démarre l'été 1937 (tome 1) et s'achève fin des années 50 (tome 5). C'est récréatif et éducatif, et addictif. 

Anna Valenn, Le Blog

Villy never mentioned her dancing days again, continued in her role of wife and, subsequently, mother of Louise and then Teddy and Lydia as though it had never happened. But Sybil had observed her restless energy, which, like water, streamed out in any direction it could find. She got a loom and wove linen and silk. She learned to play the zither and the flute. She learned to ride, and was soon exercising horses for the Life Guards – one of the two women in London allowed to do so. She worked for the Red Cross, took blind children to the seaside. She sailed a dinghy in small boat races. She taught herself Russian; for a short time she joined a Gjieff sect (Sybil only found out about this because Villy tried to make her join it too). Some of the crazes – like the sect – did not last long. Resisting a sudden urge to say, ‘Are you happy?’ she said, ‘I suppose the shops in Battle may be shut.’