crocus watch

We had a surprisingly sunny day yesterday. It was very warm, with severe weather on the horizon. My husband and our two youngest girls packed a picnic, and walked to the lake...

 looking for blooms along the way...

While, my two oldest daughters, my mom, and I...

went to see Jane Eyre.

We loved it... 

All these relics gave... Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a shrine to memory. I liked the hush, the gloom, the quaintness of these retreats in the day; but I by no means coveted a night's repose on one of those wide and heavy beds: shut in, some of them, with doors of oak; shaded, others, with wrought old-English hangings crusted with thick work, portraying effigies of strange flowers, and stranger birds, and strangest human beings, — all which would have looked strange, indeed, by the pallid gleam of moonlight.

~Charlotte Bronte,  Jane Eyre

Have you seen it yet? It's definitely darker and a lot more 'gothic' than, say, a Jane Austen film. We loved the scenery, costumes and styling. It's always interesting to see what the filmakers choose to include from the book, and what they elect to edit for the sake of brevity.

Have you read Jean Rhys' The Wide Sargasso Sea? It's a prequel of sorts, beautifully telling the sad tale of the first Mrs. Rochester. I remember liking it, a lot.