I’m quoting Anne of Green Gables again, remembering what my sister Bethie said earlier this year about how she and I quote from Pride and Prejudice so often that it’s almost as if we’re living in the novel. I suppose the same is true of the “Anne” books. “‘Isn’t the sea wonderful?’” Anne asks Marilla. “Down at the base of the cliffs were heaps of surf-worn rocks or little sandy coves inlaid with pebbles as with ocean jewels; beyond lay the sea, shimmering and blue, and over it soared the gulls, their pinions flashing silvery in the sunlight.”

I took these photos on Monday on a walk with my husband and our dog at Second Peninsula Park, near Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. I thought of Anne as we drove out of the park, too, and I stopped to take a picture of “the bend in the road.”

(I took this photo in Fredericton, PEI, several years ago.)

My family and I moved to a new house at the end of the summer—we’re still in the same beloved neighbourhood in Halifax—and as we unpack boxes and settle in, I’ve continued to think about the line from Anne of Green Gables I quoted last week, about how “One can dream so much better in a room where there are pretty things.” I’m grateful for the treasures we’ve acquired over the years, many of them presents from friends and family. Amidst all the chaos of moving, I’ve enjoyed unpacking and reorganizing our books.

My friend Marianne Ward gave me a beautiful beeswax candle the other day as a housewarming present and I took a picture of it next to some of my favourite books, including an edition of Anne of Green Gables that I recovered in brown paper when I was about ten. (I’m not sure why I left out the “M” in L.M. Montgomery’s name when I wrote it on the spine—that might be as bad as leaving out the “e” at the end of Anne’s name! Maybe even worse, since Montgomery hated being called “Lucy.”)

Anna Ruadh is the first Gaelic translation of Anne of Green Gables, published in 2020 by Bradan Press, and next to that is a copy of Anne of Green Gables: The Original Manuscript, edited by Carolyn Strom Collins—and copy-edited by Marianne. Carolyn and Marianne are currently working on an edition of the manuscript of Montgomery’s The Blue Castle, which, like the “Anne” manuscript, will also be published by Nimbus.

In the spirit of L.M. Montgomery’s scrapbooks, and continuing the “blog post as scrapbook” format that I used here earlier this year, here are a few more things I’d like to share with you this week.

If you’re in or near Halifax, you might be interested in tomorrow’s book launch for my friend Jane Doucet’s novel Lost & Found in Lunenburg, in which recently-widowed Rose Ainsworth takes a chance on a new life in the picturesque town of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. I read it earlier this month and loved it. If you like novels about changing careers, rescuing animals, or finding romance after heartbreak, and if you like a healthy dose of laughter right alongside that heartbreak, you’ll enjoy this book, and you’ll probably want to go back and read The Pregnant Pause, Jane’s first novel about Rose. Jane writes “happy endings because there are so many sad endings in real life.” She says, “I write books that I’d like to read myself. I put in heavy themes—motherhood indecision, aging and sex, grief and loss—but I wrap them in a warm ‘humour hug.’”

The launch for Lost & Found in Lunenburg is Saturday, October 14th, at 10:30am, at Open Book Coffee, 3660 Strawberry Hill Street, Halifax.

This week I started reading a new biography, Mary Pratt: A Love Affair with Vision, by Anne Koval, and I was delighted to find a reference to L.M. Montgomery in the opening pages. Koval quotes Pratt: “I always keep Agatha Christie and L.M. Montgomery and a few cookbooks within reach. … The straightforward, blunt, and simple observations and instructions found within these unpretentious books smooth the way for me and allow me to go alone into personal observations.” I’m intrigued by the idea that something about the simplicity and clarity of these books inspired Mary Pratt’s own creative work.

Heidi L.M. Jacobs, author of Molly of the Mall, sent me this lovely photo of the first three “Anne” books, spotted on her travels in Portugal:

Last but not least: Sandra Barry sent me some beautiful photos taken by her sister Brenda in the Historic Gardens in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia:

Sandra says this is “a little tomato we had never seen before, called, of all things: Amethyst Cream—they were shimmery, no less—hard to capture it, but I think you can sort of see it.”