I’ve now read The Blue Cupboard, initially in short gulps and then in one long chunk.   I recommend it.   It’s very beautifully written, poignant in places, particularly good on the experience of nature whether in the Worcestershire copses or the paintings of Patrick George.   It’s not surprising that she made friends with W.G. Sebald by correspondence and provided the illustrations for his book of poems For Years Now.   I particularly like the chapter in which she describes staying in The Grand Hôtel Villa de France in Tangiers in order to experience looking out of the same window as Matisse and it is only when she is leaving that she realises it is a brothel.

The other book launch I went to last night was for Tess Jaray’s The Blue Cupboard, a wonderfully observant volume about her childhood, her mother and more recent memories together with deliberately miscellaneous chapters, some about the work of fellow artists.   An emigré with her parents from Vienna just before the second world war, they settled in a cottage in Worcestershire.   She writes precisely and pithily about her experiences.