Changing
Lives
Janice Marriott and
Virginia Pawsey
David Bateman - Hardback - RRP $39.99
After 30 years apart, award-winning
author Janice Marriott and Virginia Pawsey reconnected at their Gisborne Girls’
High School reunion and promised to write to each other. They kept their
promises and their warm and witty letters about their completely different
lives led to three published books: Common Ground, Common Table,
and Common Lives.
Corresponding
since 1998, the two friends’ passion for gardening, cooking and their homes is
evident, and in their last book they assured each other that they could never
leave their homes. However, shortly after publication, they both unpredictably
and radically changed their lifestyles.
Changing
Lives is their story of
the huge upheaval they both faced, of how their lives changed dramatically, and
how it affected them both personally and philosophically.
For 15 years
Janice Marriott had created a sanctuary in inner-city Wellington with her wild
cottage garden filled with flowers, fruits and vegetables. Then she became a
grandmother and made the bold decision to leave her home and move up to
bustling Auckland to be with her grandson.
The Canterbury
farm Double Tops had been in Virginia Pawsey’s husband’s family since 1897 and,
for many years, Virginia fed shearers and farm workers there from her country
garden. Recently, though, Virginia and her husband made the difficult decision
to sell the hill country farm to move to a 300 acre ‘lifestyle’ block.
Janice’s warm
anecdotes and Virginia’s dry humour and sharp wit work harmoniously in these
charming, honest and beautifully written letters. Their perceptive exchanges on
common life events will resonate with both city-dwellers and country lovers
alike as they talk about motherhood, family, love and loss, the work–life
balance, the meaning of life, and food and gardens.
About the
authors
Janice Marriott
lives in Auckland, where she works as a writer and spends many happy hours with
her grandson. Virginia Pawsey lives and works in North Canterbury.
Together, Janice
and Virginia write a monthly column in NZ House & Garden magazine.
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