Words are not enough

Yesterday I attended the tenth anniversary of Cambridge Wordfest with my young adult fiction book club – we got together via Forever Young Adult, aka the greatest website for teen fiction aficianados in the world.

Lunch was had at the somewhat odd Fitzbillies near the Fitzwilliam Museum. The menu is kind of rationing-era austere: my friend Anne had a “1938 beef patty” which turned out to be pastry stuffed with unseasoned mince. I had a not-very-good Welsh rarebit; but the prices are eye-watering, even for a Londoner. But I DEVOURED a rum truffle – the cafe redeems itself with its CAKES:

Fitzbillies' famous Chelsea buns

Fo reals, their Chelsea buns are so, like, RENOWNED, that they have a mail-order service just for the buns. Not for the rest of their cakes (which include, hilariously, little fondant frogs), just the killer buns. Amazing.

After a discussion of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (conclusion: we love but also waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah), we headed out for a wander around the lovely city of Cambridge before attending the City Picks: Literary Cambridge talk. I was expecting a discussion of Cambridge’s literary figures, maybe a bit of historical gossip? What we got instead was a wonderful virtual tour of Cambridge via many extracts from literary works describing areas of the city.

I could have lived without the attempts at American accents when reading Sylvia Plath’s letters home and I will confess to having a little snooze (it was a warm room and I had a sugar crash, plus people reading out loud to me is just the nicest most cuddlesome snoozy thing).

Next up was an emergency eyeliner hunt, dinner, lots of red wine and a talk/interview/Q&A whatsit with the marvellous Grace Dent. I think I laughed up a kidney. Returned home about A SQUAGILLION POUNDS poorer and toting many YA books to review here: James Dashner’s Death Cure (third in the Maze Runner trilogy), All These Things I’ve Done by Gabrielle Zevin (author of the lovely Elsewhere), and Strings Attached by Judy Blundell, whose What I Saw and How I Lied is one of my favourite YA novels from the past few years.

Main regret? Not having enough time to check the programme before going and basically leaving my schedule in the hands of others, thus missing out on a talk by my Ultimate Literary Crush, Word God and Fantasy Future Husband, William Fiennes. So much epic sadface I can’t even tell you.

It deepens like a coastal shelf

Let’s kick this thing off with an exploration, an explanation, for the hows, whys and wherefores I am the way I am. I speak, of course, of my parents. And, more specifically, Mama Dukes’s and Papa Dukes’s, um, “unique”, I guess would be the term? way of going about their daily lives.

Here are some pictures from Casa Reuter Hapgood, the current family homestead.

A Dinky toy car and two glass bowls (one filled with all my dad's old pairs of reading spectacles, obviously) atop the booze cupboard.

"Talking in Bed" by Philip Larkin. Just a bit of cheery reading...in the downstairs toilet. (Same room, incidentally, in which I once found a frog that had been living there for a week. True story.)

A Welsh dresser inherited (I believe) from Nanna and Poppa Hapgood. The usual array of nice teacups and crummy mugs got free from garages. But look closer at the top... Yeah, that's a tiny plastic king, a tiny plastic farmer, a gorilla, and a giant spider. Of course.

Oh hey, where do you guys keep your pottery jar full of old wine bottle corks? Ours is next to the small skull on the bookshelves.

But where do you keep your larger skull? Oh, on the OTHER bookshelves. You know, next to the mop. Sigh.

The bath is pretty fucking cool though, eh?

And you'd never be bored in that bathroom, as Papa Dukes has helpfully fitted it out with some reading materials for you! Who fancies The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and who wants to read a dictionary of etymology?

I don't know WHERE those animals think they're parading off to. This isn't Noah's Ark. It's my sister's bedroom door.

Search yourself and leave any contraband here. What a welcome we have in the hallway!

And that’s just a taster of my parents’ decor. Some of it is pretty cool, actually. Maybe there are one or two too many skulls. (Says she, the curater of a Pinterest board called “dead animals”.)

Next post? I will show you Casa Brixton. Some of the interior design will seem strangely familiar…