The festive season?

’Tis (almost) the season to be jolly, and it is certainly cheering to seeing all of the festivities, with the lights twinkling like stars along the streets, and the trees shining gold and red in every square and peeping out of many a window.

But with all the build up to the holidays, the period can also be one of pressure and stress, and for some it can mean sadness or even tragedy if loved ones become ill, or they find themselves caught up in a situation or crisis way beyond their control. For them, all the gaiety and cheer can ring a little hollow, and strike a ironic or even cynical note.

At this time of year, I of course look forward to celebrating with friends and loved ones, and relish the opportunity to focus on all that is good in life. But I also think of those who are suffering or lonely, or who are driven from their family or those closest to them by division and anger, regardless of its origin.

Christmas, and any season of celebration, could and perhaps should be as much about reconciliation as it is about giving gifts and generous tables groaning with food. And I don’t just mean reconciliation with others but also with ourselves. After all, acceptance of what we are, in all our complexity, is surely the basis of accepting the human in others.

With that comes a certain sense of humility, and when we wish to help others to overcome their difficulties and so experience some Christmas joy and light, it is above all humbleness, with the corresponding ability to put our own needs to one side, that allows us to achieve that.

These are the kinds of themes that run through a film adaptation I returned to recently, after a period of more than 20 years since it was first shown on television (which was often the only way that I encountered movies in my youth, as we so rarely went to the cinema).

I am talking about Mike Newell’s 1992 film of The Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Armin’s classic 1922 novel of love, understanding, reconcilement and the transformative power of Italy.

This beautiful film, with its gentle pacing and muted, pastel palette, is a classic example of why it can be a good idea to read a book after watching the movie version. In my happy ignorance, I arrived to it with no preconceptions about how it should be realised, and was utterly charmed by the performances, particularly those of Miranda Richardson and Joan Plowright, but also by Polly Walker, Alfred Molina and Michael Kitchen.

To me at the time, and again watching it now, I found it utterly fresh and possessing of a flair that I subsequently recognised as being characteristic of Newell’s best work; one that sets it apart from the equally excellent Merchant Ivory adaptations of literature from the same period, films that perhaps conform a little more closely to the classic rhythms of Hollywood movie-making.

After watching Enchanted April a couple of times as a teenager, my curiosity led me to seek out the book on which it was based, and I was drawn into a linguistic world that plays with notions of reserve and subsequent emotional release (and with a love of all things Italian) in a way that is reminiscent of E.M. Forster but in a far more delicate and refined manner.

What charms with Forster is the sense that the characters are holding back an ocean of passion, and all it will take is the right (or wrong) trigger to cause it to flood not only their lives but those of the people around them.

With von Arnim, the forces at work are not quite so earth-shaking and the transformations are not quite so absolute. Consequently, her stories may be less dramatic and crisis-led but are all-the-more relatable, and the reader feels as if, yes, this could happen to them. They too could achieve happiness by slowing down, taking stock and seeing what is beautiful in all that surrounds them, and so grow to love and cherish what they have already rather than reaching elsewhere for uncertain pleasures.

No one dies in von Arnim’s world; no one strips naked to the waist; no one rolls around on a bed, alone or otherwise. Any passion is implied and the pleasures are simple, but they are no less powerful for it, sometimes even more so, just as the unfolding of a flower in the morning sun can seem more grand and more profound than the churning rage of a waterfall.

On top of which, von Arnim’s love of gardening, which is apparent in all her writing, helps to create a sense of the here and now, and the need to appreciate what lies all around us, where there is abundant joy in the simplicity and gift of nature.

All this I recalled when I found the DVD of the film in a charity shop and rescued it from an uncertain future. But in coming back this jewel after so many years, I wondered whether my more experienced, and cynical, eye would allow me to see what I saw in my late teens, when I was a hopelessly romantic youth who longed above all to be swept up by love and transported to a life of which I could only dream.

I am happy to say, reader, that I did, and by the time the characters take their leave and the credits rolls I was convinced more than ever that Elizabeth von Arnim deserves an audience in today’s world, not least as a salve and retreat in these troubled times.

These last couple of weeks may not have seen me add a column to the site, but it does not mean that I have not been busy, or there haven’t been new additions to enjoy.

After much deliberation and hesitation, I finally took the plunge and published my recipe for cooking perfect boiled rice.

It initially seemed like a gross impertinence that I should put my method out there and dress it up as if it was some sort of last word on the preparation of this simple food, and staple in so many parts of the world.

But then I looked around online and saw many suggestions for preparing boiled rice that were either too finicky for practical everyday life, or I knew for a fact would not produce good results. On top of that, I reflected that, given how rice was pretty much all we ate as an accompaniment to our main meals in the family home when I was a child, and has remained a go-to and a comfort food all my adult life, perhaps I am just as qualified as the next person to put in my two penn’orth.

So here it is, my simple but effective recipe for cooking perfect boiled rice, every time. I hope you enjoy it!

Finally, I have been getting around to adding more image collections on here, this time focusing on two European capitals that I have visited perhaps more than any other over the past few decades.

Both Brussels and Berlin, for different reasons, have occupied an important place in my life, and I have taken many, many photographs of these sometimes majestic, occasionally beautiful and always charming cities.

Here, I have focused on one trip to each, one in 2010 and the other in 2011, picking just a handful of pictures I shot at the time, one group on 35 mm film and the taken other with a medium format camera. In both, I hope I get across something of what my eye saw as singular aspects of undeniably singular places.