The Shell Seekers

Happiness is making the most of what you have, and riches is making the most of what you’ve got.

She longed for the light. It came at last. She watched it come and was calmed. She dozed once more, then opened her eyes. Saw the first low shafts of sunlight, a pale sky clear of cloud; she heard the birds, calling and answering. And then the thrush from the chestnut tree. The night was, thankfully, over. At seven, unrested, more strangely tired t

Now, there was nothing more to be done. She discovered that she was very tired, but it was a gentle tiredness, assuaged and comforted by her surroundings, as though her house were a kindly person, and she was being embraced by loving arms. In

I’ll bring you grapes and eat them all myself.”

He stooped to kiss her. His height was one of her pleasures, because it made her feel vulnerable and helpless.

People were always talking about the loneliness of old age, but Penelope relished her solitude. She had never lived alone before, and at first had found it strange, but gradually had learned to accept it as a blessing and to indulge herself in all sorts of reprehensible ways, like getting up when she felt like it, scratching herself if she itched,

How does it feel to be seventy? they had asked him. Not too bad, he had replied. When you consider the alternative.

“They seem nice fellers.” The General’s eye, hostly, strayed. “I’m going to rescue Mellaby. He’s had ten minutes of undiluted Trubshot, and that’s enough for any man.”

When I sold Oakley Street, I had plans to return to Cornwall. To buy a little granite cottage with a palm tree in the garden. But my children intervened and talked me out of it and finally my son-in-law found Podmore’s Thatch, and so, after all, I shall spend the twilight of my years in Gloucestershire, and not within sight and sound of the sea.”