Description
Several years ago Diana Athill moved to a retirement home in Highgate. Athill reflects on what it feels like to be very old, and on the moments in her long life that have risen to the surface and which sustain her in these last years. As she approaches her 100th year, Athill recalls in sparkling, precise detail the exact layout of the garden of her childhood; relates with humour, clarity and honesty her experiences of the First and Second World Wars; and describes her pregnancy at the age of forty-three, losing the baby and almost losing her life - and her gratitude and joy on discovering that she had survived.