Review
'This book is a huge celebration of life and how we can in simple ways enrich our days ... I recommend it to anyone who wants to feel happier, more fulfilled and increasingly to enjoy the world around them.' Jilly Cooper
'A beautiful collection of short essays which act as a spiritual and emotional first-aid kit. The Guardian
'Lesley Garner has produced the perfect bedside book for those nights when you can't sleep and it's too late to call a friend... You magazine
'She writes like a dream....she is always wise, perceptive and utterly original Daily Mail
Superb' The Independent
'A beautiful collection of short essays which act as a spiritual and emotional first-aid kit. The Guardian
'Lesley Garner has produced the perfect bedside book for those nights when you can't sleep and it's too late to call a friend... You magazine
'She writes like a dream....she is always wise, perceptive and utterly original Daily Mail
Superb' The Independent
Product Description
This beautiful collection of short essays by renowned journalist Lesley Garner acts as spiritual and emotional first-aid kit. Lesley explains, 'I wrote this book because I think I know what to do and then life bowls me over again and I forget. I decided to get my experience down on paper so that I could turn to it in an emergency, like a friend.' The book contains things that work in darkness and things that work in daylight. There are techniques that will help you plan your journey and techniques that will light the next inch of the path when you've lost your way. They'll give comfort in a crisis but they'll also inspire you to lead a deeper, richer life. Practical, insightful and moving, this book is the perfect gift for those looking for inspiration.
About the Author
Lesley Garner has been taking notes all her life. Her thoughts and observations have been published as magazine features, profiles and newspaper columns for many different titles, including the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and London Evening Standard. She has been an art critic, book and film reviewer and when she's not writing, she loves to get out and sing choral music. She has travelled widely, lived in Ethiopia and Afghanistan, and currently lives in London.
Excerpted from Everything I've Ever Done That Worked by Lesley Garner. Copyright © 2004. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
West Cork Time
West Cork does it for me. It’s a magical corner of south-west Ireland where landscape is weatherscape. It’s both timeless and in constant motion. Clouds drift perpetually overhead from the vast spaces of the Atlantic. The tide constantly flows and ebbs on almost empty beaches, leaving its rippling signature on the sand. You can sit on clifftops, rocky promontories, in ancient stone circles, and feel suspended in time, en-tranced. Landscape and skyscape are the narcotics that soothe all your worries away.
I once spent two weeks in West Cork, endlessly paddling in clear water and lying on my back looking at the sailing clouds until I felt the world reverse and that I was hovering in a green sky looking down on the blue. When I returned to the city I felt wonderfully calm and optimistic until the city began to rush in at me in all its panic and urgency.
But this time I had a mantra. ‘West Cork Time,’ I’d say to myself and the urgency would creep back like an ebbing tide. Instantly my eyes would look skywards from a crowded pavement and find the clouds that float over cities too. My heart rate would slow and my blood pressure fall. Inside myself I tuned into timelessness, and the pressure of the city sighed and deflated.
Of course, if you live in a city, its insistent rhythms and human conflicts will demand that you respond to them on their terms sooner or later. But West Cork Time never goes away. It’s always there as a resource. Maybe for you it’s Caribbean Time or Kerala Time or Aegean Time. You know what I mean. It’s time that’s too big to be measured on clocks and it never runs out.
West Cork does it for me. It’s a magical corner of south-west Ireland where landscape is weatherscape. It’s both timeless and in constant motion. Clouds drift perpetually overhead from the vast spaces of the Atlantic. The tide constantly flows and ebbs on almost empty beaches, leaving its rippling signature on the sand. You can sit on clifftops, rocky promontories, in ancient stone circles, and feel suspended in time, en-tranced. Landscape and skyscape are the narcotics that soothe all your worries away.
I once spent two weeks in West Cork, endlessly paddling in clear water and lying on my back looking at the sailing clouds until I felt the world reverse and that I was hovering in a green sky looking down on the blue. When I returned to the city I felt wonderfully calm and optimistic until the city began to rush in at me in all its panic and urgency.
But this time I had a mantra. ‘West Cork Time,’ I’d say to myself and the urgency would creep back like an ebbing tide. Instantly my eyes would look skywards from a crowded pavement and find the clouds that float over cities too. My heart rate would slow and my blood pressure fall. Inside myself I tuned into timelessness, and the pressure of the city sighed and deflated.
Of course, if you live in a city, its insistent rhythms and human conflicts will demand that you respond to them on their terms sooner or later. But West Cork Time never goes away. It’s always there as a resource. Maybe for you it’s Caribbean Time or Kerala Time or Aegean Time. You know what I mean. It’s time that’s too big to be measured on clocks and it never runs out.
