Zetta Florence

Living in the country is the best. I especially love that going to the shops, even the big shops in town, is not a huge ordeal of parking and crowds. That said, we like nothing better, when in Sydney or Melbourne, than a good few hours wandering about in a properly huge shopping centre. When in Sydney, we go up to Hornsby, which is has lots of good shops and a cinema. When in Melbourne, however, poor old Hornsby looks pretty sad in comparison to Chadstone.

On the Saturday afternoon we were in Melbourne, Phil took Charlotte, Bethany and the twins home and the rest of us went to Chadstone. We had only walked a few meters inside when I discovered, for the first time, my second favourite shop ever! Zetta Florence is known to me because we buy archival material for the library from them but I didn't know they had shops with beautiful paper!

I didn't get these boxes, though I would very much love to have them. I could have bought everything! I did buy a lovely bin to put on the table when I have stamping nights - perfect for all the paper scraps.

 I also bought several of these decorative papers to frame for our new house. Andrew and the kids enjoyed it too and Andrew bought some book plates, only for music... you know, you stick it on your book/music to say that it belongs to you. I had only been into one shop and could have gone home very happy!

We had lunch and kept wandering. At one point, the kids went off with Andrew to find EB Games, which is not a place for me, and Kristin went somewhere else too so I was able to slowly browse on my way round to meet up with everyone. That is when I saw my number one favourite shop ever. The ABC Shop! It's my favourite because that's where I find all the lovely BBC adaptations of the books that I love, as well as lots of fabulous television series like Life on Mars. I always find DVDs I long to watch so I simply put in a request at my library (so should you!). I saw The Camomile Lawn there but I won't pay $40 for a DVD I don't know is any good, it's best the library buys it first. Then I saw my beloved Jane Eyre, the 2006 version with Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson, the best BBC version of anything, ever. I am a sharer of the things I love and at some point, several years ago, lent my copy of the DVD to someone and didn't get it back. The Chadstone ABC Shop had it for $19.95!

Needless to say it came home with me and I left the shops a very happy woman. We spent the afternoon and evening watching it and Phil and I giggled most irreverently at Ruth Wilson's upper lip. I adore her and think she is the best Jane but her upper lip does, indeed, look like a duck's bill. Whenever he noticed it especially, Phil would quack and then, at the end, when Mr Rochester is blind and can't believe Jane has come back to him, he puts his hand onto her face to make sure, going directly to the distinctive lip for confirmation! Ah, the hilarity.

I finally saw, thanks to Cootamundra Library's collection, the 1996 version with William Hurt as Mr Rochester. It also had Elle Macpherson as Blanche Ingram! It was wrong, all wrong. Elle didn't disgrace herself, she only had around 20 words to say, but William Hurt was not at all right. Not just because he is fair haired (though really, how hard is it to dye his hair? Toby Stephens is a red head and they dyed his!) but he wasn't gruff in the right places and pulled funny, dopey faces. The proposal scene was strangely emotionless and they left so much out that there was no time to become attached to anyone. (Hey Phil, the actress playing Jane was pretty good but she had an underbite!) I watched it twice to make sure - not about the underbite, about whether it was a decent adaptation. It is possible I have a little Jane Eyre problem....

On the library's facebook page we have been having lots of fun making picture clues for people to guess the book title. Carol came up with this one today and, obviously, I have to include it in this post. Like Wagga City Library on facebook if you want to see all the others - they aren't all my favourite books.