A Millstone Round My Neck

Norman Thelwell, cartoonist and landscape painter, celebrated for his cartoons of sporting pursuits and ponies, has always been fascinated in private life by both water and the countryside. In his first autobiographical book, A Plank Bridge by a Pool,, he described the making of the garden where he now lives. In A Millstone Round My Neck Norman Thelwell describes the joys and sorrows of buying and restoring a Cornish water-mill.. When he first discovered Penruin, an ancient Cornish water-mill in a beautiful and remote setting, not far from the Moor, he was unable to resist its charm - or that of its trout-filled mill-stream. Gradually he turned what had been a derelict structure into a pleasant country retreat. It proved to be an uphill task. This book, illustrated with his own drawings, tells of his experiences with the mill in foul weather and fair; perverse local builders; sea-trout that refused to be caught; wandering livestock; and many happy weekends painting or fishing in Cornwall.. This is a book to delight all those who have ever fallen in love with or converted a country cottage - and all those who have ever dreamed of doing so. Norman Thelwell relates the small adventures of life with all the charm of a born storyteller. In addition, he has the gift for capturing a potent sense of place in both his words and his drawings. A Millstone Round My Neck evokes not only the experiences of a painter and a fisherman in love with the countryside but also the brooding presence and working past of the stone mill and the atmosphere of the Cornish landscape beyond its walls.