Strictly Books; Villette by Charlotte Brontë 🥀

Send us Fan MailGood evening and thank you so very much for joining me.  Without you I really wouldn’t do this, and it’s a blessed existence, living, enfin, as I actually wish to live: rooted in a warm home, but wandering about learning, absorbing and reading.  There is no greater pleasure for me than learning things: new nuggets of deliciousness of etymology, of history, of language, art or music.  Everything, truly, can be interesting and I finally have the space in my life to wander, like a minstrel of old, from church to church, city to city, meeting lovely and inspiring people, and experiencing new things.  All I don’t have is my mother, my sister and brother in my life; all else is well.  Key to my happiness, which has bloomed over the course of these past few months, is the warm support many of you have sent my way.  I feel snugly settled into a niche of time’s making.  The suffering and soreness of grief, bewilderment and loss, to the gentle appreciation of the world about me.  The birds, our pets, my family, my garden and this beautiful world, are all about me.  Losses are to be borne, for it would be surprising were a woman in her fifties not to have sorrowful cupboards in her life, which contain stark facts that cannot be moulded to my liking.  So if you are suffering, or lonely, or bear a cross that weighs miserably upon you, reach out to this podcast, or make contact, if you can possibly bear it, with groups or organisations that care and will respond.  The great benefit of modern technology is the ability to connect with other human beings.  Let the deriders cast their derision: face to face connections are not always possible, or not always wanted.  A very good night from me to you.  Love Gretel x🌖 Support the showGretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time.  She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.  We’ve reached 73,000 downloads.  Thank you!! Historian Tom Holland is the Honorary Patron of this podcast.  Thank you Tom🙏 Gretel invites you to accompany her as she navigates the world a day at a time;  the podcast is unscripted, it’s ad-free.Gretel loves the world and history, architecture, literature and people. And so is determined to walk this path with light footsteps and with humour and warmth.  Let’s gather up the beautiful things and ponder them in our hearts.Top 10 in Global Rankings according to Listen Notes.  I would be so grateful if you would spare the time to give me a kind review ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 😬☺️🥴Previous guests include  historian Tom Holland; Sir Richard Eyre; Actors Guy Henry and Enzo Cilenti; Art historian Philip Mould; Writer David Willem; Author Nicola Cornick; Composer Matthew Coleridge; Vicar Angela Tilby; Aerial photographer Hedley Thorne; Author Bijan Omrani; Journalist and Historian Sir Simon Jenkins; Dorset garden hedgehog family, the Venerable Bede and other guests.  Unpolished and unscripted but no ads and no requests for anything but your company.  Trying to make the world a gentler place with literature, history and nature.  Please...