Brockham WI and Peaslake Book Group…

On Monday last week I went to Brockham in Surrey to talk to their Evevning WI and on Thursday to Peaslake to celebrate the 10th anniversary of a Book Group and set them off reading Soft Voices Whispering.  I was already exhausted when I left home on Monday to find Brockham.

They say ‘a change is as good as a rest’.  Isn’t  it lovely when things said are true?

Brockham turned out to be a gorgeous village, spread along both sides of green spaces with the hall in which I was speaking at the far end.  The ladies were lively, friendly and so welcoming that I didn’t bother with notes and just stood and talked.  Afterwards, two explained that they’d lived in the village all their lives and had their families there.   I left feeling buoyant and more than a little envious.

Peaslake is another rural village but this time, one hidden behind high hedges.  The house was along a lane that appeared to be leading nowhere.  Eventually I found it and a group of women who lifted my spirits.  Maybe it’s that I’m interested in people anyway but it seems that recently, the ones I’ve met leave me feeling vindicated in a long held belief that women are beautiful by virtue of what they possess and not what they lack.

The sort of vacuous polished faces that pout from the covers of weekly glossies leave me cold – It is in the vibrant, life-filled faces of the women I have met recently that real beauty exists.