Two different blurbs from the book.
1.
Recently widowed, Winnie, 84, was in need of some companionship. Someone to help with the weekly food shop and offer tips on the crossword. Ben, 34, was looking for a new housemate.
As the UK was locked down in 2020, Ben and Winnie's lives interwove, forming an unlikely friendship, where lessons were learnt (heat the red wine in the oven with the plates, preserve or pickle whatever you can, never throw anything away) and grief, both personal and that of a nation, was explored.
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.
2.
ONE HOUSE. TWO HOUSEMATES. THREE REASONS TO WORRY: WINNIE AND BEN ARE SEPARATED BY 50 YEARS, A GULF IN CLASS, AND MAJOR DIFFERENCES OF OPINION.
When hunting for a room in London, Ben Aitken came across one for a great price in a lovely part of town. There had to be a catch. And there was. The catch was Winnie: an 85-year-old widow who doesn't suffer fools.
Full of warmth, wit and candour, The Marmalade Diaries tells the story of an unlikely friendship during an unlikely time. Imagine an intergenerational version of Big Brother, but with only two contestants. One of the pair a grieving and inflexible former aristocrat in her mid-eighties. The other a working-class millennial snowflake. What could possibly go wrong? What could possibly go right?
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.
What I’ve read so far encouraged me to download it from BorrowBox.
You can read the first two chapters on Amazon if you look it up as a Kindle and choose “read a sample”
