Early Love, Late Love

I can't remember how old I was when I first read The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, but expect I was about age 10. This is my favorite illustration from the copy I own, which has color plates and line drawings by Tasha Tudor -- I love this image, when Mary Lennox first meets Dickon, and her life is about to change. I've read the book countless times, and expect to read it many more.

It is through The Secret Garden that I first fell in love with Yorkshire, long before I set foot in it for the first time in 1975. I've been back several times since, most recently with my son and Phil in 1998, as part of a vacation in England and Wales. We enjoyed stays at a farm B&B in Embsay, near Skipton; a B&B in Askrigg; and a third, overlooking the water splash from the BBC series "All Creatures Great and Small," in Arkengarthdale.

My Yorkshire Blip friend ValC, in commenting on my Jan. 1 blip, asked if I'd bought any books for myself at the Village Books sale. Yes, I did -- and I was thinking of Val and the other Yorkshire blippers whose journals I enjoy so much when I made this purchase.

I'm looking forward to learning about Frances Hodgson Burnett's life and beliefs, and relishing the variety of illustrations from a number of editions, as well as the editor's interesting annotations -- and I'm sure that my desire to visit Yorkshire one more time will grow even stronger.

That's the "late love" in my title. I won't be coming this year, but sometime in the next few years, I'm looking forward to a Blipmeet (Bradford City Park?) and meeting in person many of the friends I've come to know here!