The Marmalade Diaries: The True Story of an Odd Couple

Product Information

Out of the most inauspicious of soils – and from the author of The Gran Tour – comes a book about grief, family, friendship, loneliness, life, love, lockdown and marmalade. If you’d like a copy of this book, please use my affiliate link below – thanks for supporting my blog with any purchases. I loved the way Ben just went along and put himself where most lads his age would never dream, he just embraced it!

Das Arrangement sollte eigentlich nur günstigen Wohnraum im Austausch gegen Unterstützung im Haushalt beinhalten, aber als erneut der Lockdown verhangen wird, verbringen Ben und Winnie mehr Zeit miteinander als gedacht. After “blagging” his A levels, he applied to Oxford University on a whim, and received a reply suggesting he consider vocational courses at Swansea or Bradford instead.Charting both their time together, and the details of Winnie's life that are shared with Ben in fragments, The Marmalade Diaries, from the author of The Gran Tour, is a very human exploration of home, of the passage time, of the growing relationship between an odd couple, told with warmth, wit and candour. I loved it, best book I have read set in the lockdown times, I am getting his previous book now as I must read it. With the lockdown in place and their travels outside the house limited, television became a close friend, as often there was debate over what to watch. Aitken was up for the “unconventional” arrangement; he had previously worked as a carer, and has written a book about travelling with older people ( The Gran Tour ) which had convinced him an over 80 year-old was “just as likely to be as enjoyable, pleasant or demonic as someone in their twenties”.

It is funny and moving and will certainly encourage me to be more patient when my father repeats his stories over and over. I'll admit that I wasn't coming to this book cold - I have already read and enjoyed some of Aitken's previous books and had high hopes for more of his gentle humour and observations on life. Since then he has secured a two-book contract with Icon, which has given him “a modicum of security”. Donor incentives included promising to get a tattoo saying ‘I love Bill’ (he did, left arm), and reading to people in the bath.What follows is a delightful up-close study of two (apparently) very different characters who find they have more in common than might seem apparent, and a developing and substantial respect, verging on love, for each other. I want to pass on what I’ve learnt, I suppose - a lot of key lessons enter through the side door really, don’t they”. There's no recipes, no moaning about how unfair and oppressive everything is, no tales of death an destruction.

She needed a helping hand round the house, he needed a cheapish room to rent – but neither of them then needed a period of national shutdown to be announced that threw these unlikely housemates together even more intensely! I’d recommend reading this, but I think would advise that if you have an elderly relative in a similar situation then you might want to have a box of tissues handy for some of the more touching moments. This is a charming and funny book about an unusual friendship forged over shared breakfasts - Winnie is absolutely proprietorial over the good marmalade! Ultimately Winnie has a very quick wit and really steals the show from Ben but the ‘odd couple’ appeal and interactions between them are a bit of soul food for the pandemic age.So starting this book, in which Aitken house-shares with the recently widowed 84-year-old Winnie, I was terrified that it couldn’t possibly live up to the previous one. Ben erkennt, dass einige Dinge einfach getan werden müssen, weil Winnie sie schon immer tat – und weil sie sich ihr Leben lang schuldig daran gefühlt hat, dass Arthur (circa 1960) mit einer Cerebral-Lähmung zur Welt kam. Ben responded to an advert to house share with an older lady and found and ended up being chosen to move in with her, just before lockdown! Der junge Aitken steht der überaus nüchtern argumentierenden Winnie an britischer Verschrobenheit nicht nach, beiden Persönlichkeiten gibt der Übersetzer Werner Löcher-Lawrence in der deutschen Ausgabe eine glaubwürdige Stimme.

Perhaps it’s my own shortened attention span during these Covid years, but I find the diary entries dull. Like its predecessor, the book displays a keen eye for the humour of everyday life, be it a newspaper headline (‘Circus in trouble over Nazi goats’) or something overheard in the park: ‘But one can’t understand Sussex without an acquaintance with Kent. Der Autor schreibt emphatisch und gefühlvoll, aber ohne Kitsch und erweckt eine Hauptfigur zum Leben, die Ecken und Kanten hat und sehr lebendig wirkt.I felt sure I should like it: a whimsical, heartfelt story about a 30-something man learning how to live with an 85-year-old woman during the Covid lockdown in London.