Ilse’s Reviews > In a Summer Season > Status Update
Ilse
is on page 190 of 259
She refilled the glass and handed it to him, holding it carefully turned one way. He put his hands over hers and twisted the glass round so that he drank from the place her lips had touched.She hoped that he would not sense through her tingling fingers the embarrassment she was feeling, and raked her mind desperately for someting casual to say. Only the weather came to her rescue, as it always does to English people.
— Jul 15, 2026 08:23AM
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Ilse’s Previous Updates
Ilse
is on page 238 of 259
Late that night Kate, on her way to bed, looked into Lou's bedroom. Milky moonlight fell through the open window across the bed. Lou lay on her back with one braceleted arm outside the covers, her upturned toes, her breast, lifted the bedclothes to make a shallow trough between. She looked as touching as Juliet on her tomb. The moonlit drapery was like a drawning by Blake. 'There should be angels', thought Kate.
— Jul 24, 2026 06:20AM
Ilse
is on page 100 of 259
'What do we get out of it, I wonder - being parents?' 'It was great fun when they were little'.It was a memory of a memory by now - the hallmark of happiness, that scene.The sun had shone through the dazzling aigrettes of water and made rainbows, the breeze caught the the children and fanned them out. 'It's a pity about love', she said. 'The pain one pays for it with - children, or one's friends. It can't be helped.'
— Jul 14, 2026 02:31AM
Ilse
is on page 50 of 259
I hate self-made men. They think everyone else should slave as they have done. 'You missed the lot", I'll say to him one day."Grubbing about like that from morning to night, you never lived.What have you got?A great stack of money,a knighthood,the respect of your competitors,and that's about the lot.Not a moment's fun have you had.No one's ever been really pleased to see you and no one will give a damn when you die."
— Jul 08, 2026 11:28PM
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Jan-Maat
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Jul 15, 2026 10:27AM
I don't recall the weather coming to my rescue, apart from maybe once when I was very thirsty in a forest and there was a sudden and unexpected downpour
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Jan-Maat wrote: "I don't recall the weather coming to my rescue, apart from maybe once when I was very thirsty in a forest and there was a sudden and unexpected downpour"You never brought up the weather as a conversation subject just for making contact or not having to talk about something else? I was told British people like to talk about the weather, but such goes anyway for Belgian people - ever changeable the weather is :).
I don't remember, and isnt that the point of talking about the weather?
Jan-Maat wrote: "I don't remember, and isnt that the point of talking about the weather?"It always struck me as a safe subject, in contrast to politics or society and used to annoy me (sneakily humming 'Talk about the weather' , a song from Red Lorry Yellow Lorry in my younger days) but yes, likely that is the point - although it might be not such a 'safe' subject anymore these days, now talking about the heat might also reveal a political opion and heat up conversations and show one's social stance.
😂 true, isn't that great, the safest conversational subject can now be a controversal, even dangerous topic!
Jan-Maat wrote: "😂 true, isn't that great, the safest conversational subject can now be a controversal, even dangerous topic!"Like the weather, all things seem to change :). Imagine, looking up the word 'topping' (in an answer to the question how somebody was doing) as featuring in a novel published in 1977, the first results on tinternet showed that the word is used in quite a different context and meaning nowadays😂
Ilse wrote: "Jan-Maat wrote: "😂 true, isn't that great, the safest conversational subject can now be a controversal, even dangerous topic!"Like the weather, all things seem to change :). Imagine, looking up th..."
Ah, you remind me of a Peter Kay comedy series, I think called "car share", or at least that was the concept. His passengers calls taking a dog for a walk "dogging", which sounds logical...but the meaning of that word is rather different - looking it up on the internet is probably not suitable for work. Anyway he spends the rest of their car journey trying to explain that the word doesn't mean what she thinks it means without being explicit 😃