January 2026

Bonne Année

Happy New Year

I hope you have had the loveliest Christmas Day and Boxing Day. I love the Twelve Days of Christmas, carrying us through into the New Year. Each day should be relished and fully enjoyed. I find myself envying Europeans who continue to celebrate Christmas until Candlemas (The Presentation of Our Lord) at the beginning of February.

The crib in the Cathedral of St Pol de Leon, Brittany. It is on display until Candlemas. I particularly love the Ox and Ass, though I think the real star is the Camel.

One highlight from December was a weekend away, with my bookclub, for our Jane Austen 250th Birthday celebrations. We visited her grave in Winchester Cathedral and the home she shared with her mother, her sister Cassandra and their friend Martha Lloyd, in Chawton. It is incredible to see the little table where she sat and wrote, with a quill pen, producing six of the most wonderful and influential novels in the English Language.

Most of the month passed in a blur. Despite having had my Covid and Flu vaccines in October, I still succumbed to two bouts of the Flu during December. I completely understand how the hospitals were filling up, without the vaccination I’m sure I would have been far more poorly and possibly have had to visit the local A & E! I have sipped so much lemon and honey over the last few weeks!

Laetitia in her wonderful Substack ‘Nothing Important’ has written an incredibly useful (and important) guide to keeping coughs and sneezes away. I am definitely going to follow much of her advice!

By Christmas itself I was beginning to feel better, I made a few short cuts to my usual food preparations, for instance I bought a Marks and Spencer Yule Log, rather than making my own Buche de Noel. (A sprinkling of icing sugar, my traditional robin and three mini Colin the Caterpillars, made it absolutely acceptable!)

We had a fabulous couple of days over Christmas. I organised the Nativity at the Vigil Mass on Christmas Eve. The children who participated were wonderful , beautiful clear voices, and despite diminished numbers, we had full representation: The Holy Family, The Angel Gabriel, The Shepherds, A Star and the Three Kings. I was able to sneak my grandsons in as extra, very tiny shepherds. It was a wonderful celebration and our little Church was packed to overflowing.

Christmas Day itself was lovely, with the whole family gathered. Lots of lovely gifts, delicious food and the very best of company!

Due to my on going battles with the flu and the resulting exhaustion, (I’m writing this at mid-day with a hot water bottle, warming cashmere socks and a wrap,) I have revisited my Twentieth Century (middlebrow - with some highbrow and maybe one or two lowbrow) Reading Challenge for next year, I have reduced my list from 60 Twentieth Century Woman Authors, to a (slightly less challenging, more manageable) 46 Female Novelists.

I have chosen 12 novels published by Virago, 12 published by Persephone Books and a further 12 published by Dean Street Press. (Furrowed Middlebrow). I am planning to read one from each publisher per month, allowing time in between for reading my Bookclub books, newly published novels I might see reviewed (in the Newspaper or here on Substack) and really wish to read, and of course some Classics. After a year of reading Jane Austen I thought I might re-read the Brontes, which I last read in my early twenties at university. My daughter gave me a beautiful Penguin Clothbound copy of Jane Eyre for Christmas, I will start with it.

These are the novels I have chosen :

Virago Novels:

Rumer Godden Black Narcissus

Antonia White Frost in May

Winifred Holtby The Crowded Street

Elizabeth Taylor A View of the Harbour

E M Delafield The Diary of a Provincial Lady

Mollie Panter-Downes One Fine Day

Rebecca West Harriet Hume

Jan Struther Mrs Miniver

Rosamond Lehmann The Weather in the Streets

Barbara Pym Excellent Women

Monica Dickens My Turn to Make Tea

Angela Thirkell High Rising

Persephone Books:

Winifred Watson: Miss Pettigrew Lives for A Day

Dorothy Whipple: Someone at a Distance

Lucy H Yates: The Country Housewife’s Book

Kay Smallshaw: How to Run Your Home Without Help

Virginia Woolf: Flush: A Biography

Ruby Ferguson: Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary

Richmal Crompton: Family Roundabout

D E Stevenson: Miss Buncle’s Book

Noel Streatfield: Saplings

Julia Strachey: Cheerful Weather for a Wedding

Lettice Cooper: The New House

F M Mayor: The Rector’s Daughter

Dean Street Press:

Frances Faviell: A Chelsea Concerto

E H Young: Miss Mole

Celia Buckmaster: Village Story

E Nesbit: The Lark

Winifred Peck: Bewildering Cares

Molly Clavering: Mrs Lorimer’s Quiet Summer

Elizabeth Fair: Seaview House

Verily Anderson: Spam Tomorrow

Miss Read: Fresh From the Country

Susan Scarlett: Murder While You Work

Eleanor Farjeon: Miss Granby’s Secret

Ruth Adam: A House in the Country

I’m not sure in which order I will read the books, but for January these are the three I have chosen, Black Narcissus, A Chelsea Concerto and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.

A couple of the Virago books that I have selected, have been sitting on my bookshelves for over forty years. My first job, after university, was Hamper Clerk at Fortnum and Mason. I usually read travelling to work on the train, picked up my book again at lunchtime, (in Green Park if the sun shone, at my desk if not) then again on my journey home. Most books were from my local library, but once in a while I would walk along to Hatchards and buy a book, often a Virago book. Although I leant many to friends, I have hung onto a few and I am looking forward to re- reading them, after all this time!

There are also several well known children’s authors within this list, I am fascinated to read their adult fiction!

Before I start, I am going to re-read Nicola Beauman’s A Very Great Profession. (Originally published by Virago and now by Persephone) it is about mid-20th century women novelists, it is useful back ground to reading these novels, along with Nicola Humble’s The Feminine Middlebrow Novel 1920s to 1950s. Both books are really useful for references which may pass us by, in the second quarter of the Twenty-First Century.

To really set the mood, I am go in to rewatch both Mrs Miniver and Brief Encounter (I will ensure I have a pile of freshly laundered handkerchiefs, as I know both films will reduce me to tears!) Perfect viewing during those quiet few days at the beginning of the New Year!

This month I am looking forward to beautiful Narcissi and Seville Oranges for Marmalade.

Burn’s Night is January 25th. I always celebrate as my parents were from Glasgow, which I think makes me Scottish! We’ll be in Brittany, I think a Haggis might be difficult to find, but we could have something with ‘mashed neeps’ and ‘cranachan’ for pudding. I’ve bought tartan paper napkins from Sainsbury’s to take with me!

A Burn’s Day Gingerbread House that my daughter and I made when she was six! I love the curtains (tartan ribbons) the kilt (also ribbon) and the animals.

Have a wonderful January and do let me know if my 2026 reading list appeals, maybe you would like to read along with me?

Happy New Year!

Judith xx