Reading Autumn

When October rolled around, I dug out my battered copy of Dracula for its annual reading and settled down for a few days of feeling slightly jumpy and the right side of being scared (you know that side: a rush of goosebumps when the cat knocks over a plant pot outside - even though the Count would never be that clumsy - or a mild jump when your partner leaves his dressing gown hanging somewhere different and you spot it in the half light of an early dusk). That feeling should only last the duration of the book and a couple of days after before vanishing, never to return...until you read it again the following year. 

This year, after putting it down, I gazed across the shelves to decide on my next book. This takes a while as I have about 1000 books, not including N's. He keeps suggesting a 1-in-1-out policy, I keep finding new ways of stacking them so I can pretend I haven't heard that. 

This Autumn, it seems I am in the mood for dense, chewy Victoriana, with a side helping of mild Gothic horror. I want a weighted tangled storyline with complex family feuds and backstories that take entire chapters to retell. I want to hear a metaphorical wind howling outside the window, trees thrashing in protest, as a backdrop to the dark matter in my hand. I want to feel the damp chill of a creeping winter dawn. 

After Dracula, I settled down to get myself lost in the moors and wilds of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Jane Eyre, settling myself into a warm reading nook while N watched foot-the-ball, and letting the descriptions of wide Yorkshire landscapes take me away from all that. The power balances shifted on the page to the backdrop of feet thunking against wet turf. 

Isn't it wonderful how they were able to make the landscape feel so expansive, whilst depicting lives in miniature? And I always find something new when I return to them. Wuthering Heights, for example (read in August). On that reread, I lingered over old Joseph's proselytising, pulpit-raising, style which made me laugh out loud on more than one occasion. 

Wildfell and Jane also both contain a supporting cast whose speeches and asides cut through the tension, providing a small moment of comic relief, the brief capering of a jester at times of high tension. I'm more appreciative of those nowadays, and it seems to be a skill we've lost. Now our epic tomes are relentlessly grim and Loaded With Meaning from start to end. You need that lightness to throw the rest of the plot into contrasting shadow. 

On honeymoon, I took Lady Audley's Secret, having spotted it on the bookshelves, unread for a few years, and remembering that it included Belgium, which it described as "flat, featureless", a statement I can reveal is partly true. It took up a large part of the suitcase but was forgiven as I, once more, found myself rooting for the Lady Audley as she pivoted and twisted against the confines Victorian society imposed on women, ceaselessly seeking a way out until all routes were closed off. 

Back at home, after a couple of misty morning starts, the kind where the air soaks your hair and distant hills appear to be wearing blankets, I reached for Bleak House. It's really the only Dickens I can stand to read without choking on his performative sentimentality and is absolutely perfect for this time of year with its depictions of fog and ceaseless rain, the blackened sooty streets of London. The extraordinary description of the foul Mr. Krook's spontaneous combustion. The icy chill of Lady Deadlock's disdain. Poor confused and persecuted Jo of Tom-all-alone's. 

The complete loss of internet at home was a blessing as it allowed me the rare treat of hours of evening time I could give over to reading. But now it's finished, and Esther is happily married, I find myself restlessly scouring the shelves again. It seems that any post-1900 fiction just isn't satisfying right now; thin, sterile things they seem as the weather hurls itself against the windows of the house. A candle is guttering in a draught that reaches me a few seconds later, causing me to wrap the blanket more tightly around my knees. A mug of tea is steaming next to me and there is hot buttered toast for breakfast. It's no good, I can't stop the hand reaching out, fingers extending, grasping until...there!

The Moonstone it is. 

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

We are halfway through October, my favourite month of the year, and it still feels like our feet haven't touched the ground. Thank-you cards have arrived but remain unwritten. I will tackle them tomorrow and hope we're forgiven a little tardiness. 

A lot of the whirlwind has been around work as mine continues busy and N started university the Monday after the wedding. At the start of the month, I went to see a performance of Much Ado About Nothing at the Birmingham Rep which was beautifully handled, with signing (some of the actors were deaf) and a sensitive treatment of multiple needs. Hero was actually given some autonomy in this performance, instead of remaining a cipher, a pretty mute thing who has no voice but merely accepts the fates dealt by the terrible men around her. It was rather refreshing. 

The last time I'd seen this play, it was a Bollywood version in Stratford, which was a visual feast. I've always loved the sparring between Beatrice and Benedick. 

Last Saturday we went to see Mark Steel, the comedian, at Tenbury Wells Regal, a treat of a little art deco theatre, loving restored and working again. I'm a big fan of his 'In Town' series on Radio 4 and he didn't disappoint. Every joke about a place is said with genuine fondness for its strange customs and quirks, there is no malice. Unless he was talking about the present government, but then he could be forgiven that. Especially as the audience felt much the same. 

We have met up with some of the RHS course crew a few times since it came to an end in May, most recently yesterday. Generally at each other's houses or in a garden centre. Mostly, the talk is not about gardens or gardening careers, but about families and plans and life in general. Children and pets run around. We eat. We chat. We swap cuttings and bulbs. 

Lured in by how much I'd enjoyed the films, we started watching Rings of Power and got 3 episodes in before I declared I did not care for any of the characters, and I did not care for a stroppy Galadriel, and I did not care for meaningful looks where a simple "this is a terrible idea and we shouldn't do it" statement would do. But Ghosts has restarted which makes me joyous, as does the new puppy on Gardener's World, all wriggly legs and ears. Bake Off continues to reach new heights of silliness and I don't care in a good way; it is the icing on the bun on the bake that is unnecessarily complicated but still, somehow, delicious. I think I might be in awe of Noel Fielding's eyeliner. 

The Cheltenham Literary Festival is on. I haven't been to an event there since I saw Audrey Niffenegger speak in 2010. Back then, I was living a different life, writing a different blog. Now I'm living this one and looking forward to seeing Ian Hislop talk about his Desert Island Books tomorrow with N. I've long admired Hislop's intelligence and wit, so this should be interesting. And yes, I do have a list of desert island books of my own, and have already decided that, should I ever be on the Desert Island Discs, I will reject the copy of the bible for the collected novels of the Brontes. 

Speaking of which, I will not be watching the new film, Emily. I'm sure it's a very good film but I feel that all biopics take liberties with the truth and Emily Bronte has suffered enough at the hands of people taking liberties with her truth. 

But I have reread the book recently, and Jane Eyre, and Dracula. This month always calls for Victorian novels, I feel, and I've got a copy of Lady Audley's Secret to hand, a blanket to curl up under and Nordic socks to wear to keep my feet warm. These socks are simply amazing. Warm enough to keep my toes from feeling froze, even without slippers or within wellies, whilst not keeping them so warm I end up with unpleasantly sweaty feet. Consider this a wholehearted recommendation. 

Some mornings, I've got myself out of the house for a walk along the canal just as the sun breaches the trees. The air has that autumn smell of woodsmoke, fog, damp bark and earth that is so wonderful. The colours make my smile wider and my step springier. I'm enjoying Mabel's fluffier coat, the return of soup to our lives, the shine of conkers against the paths, the moon rising a little higher and brighter against the darker skies. 

Once we return from Bruges, a proper hunkering down will begin. Fewer excursions, a retreat to warmth and light behind our doors. I love the whole process of Wintering, when my overstimulated brain is allowed to rest, when I naturally wake later and don't feel that surge of 'must do' that comes from the lighter half of the year. I am a natural hibernator. 

Autumn, I've been waiting for you. 

Midsummer Changes

The end of June already! When I was naught but a wee sapling of a lass, sighing my way through long summer days, victim to the kind of ennui that left me draped and sighing over kitchen counters, repeatedly telling the uncaring world that I was bored, as only young people can do, I used to think that my parents were mocking me when they spiritedly replied that the days weren't long, time moved swiftly and I needed to catch it. 

"Time speeds up as you get older," they'd say. 

To which I would give the kind of scorning snort that, again, only young people can do, and remove myself, with all the appearance of carrying the weight of the world, to drape and sigh over the sofa, dreaming of the day when I would escape the small town/village (whatever it was we were living in at the time) and LIFE would be slow but interesting and full and I would squeeze every last drop from it. 

Frankly, how my parents refrained from smacking some sense into me or, at the very least, sending me up some chimneys to earn a living and count my blessings, I do not know. 

Of course, we all know how this story ends. The drooping youngster grows up, leaves home and discovers that her days are a little too full and what she wouldn't give for some draping and sighing right now (she'd give even more to be that size 10 again, but that's a story for another day, or another therapist). 

This is the long winded way of saying that I've been busy once again this month. Not so many trips here-there-and-back-again, but with deadlines and meetings and training courses to run and funding bids to write. But it seemed less interesting to just write "gosh, hasn't time flown!" when we all know that it has. To any teenagers reading this, dally your way through these days my friends, savour them. 

N was officially redundanted (no spellcheck, I will not correct that - I like the sound of it) and is now spending his days pottering around the garden, planting plants, taking cuttings, potting up more plants, staking beans and generally enjoying his time. Sometimes he takes a pad of graph paper and pencils and practises his landscape drawing in preparation for his MA in September. Every night he cooks. I could get used to this house-husband business. 

The Kid has been over several times, staying with us between shifts and for birthday celebrations. He is restful company. Calmer after the trauma of last year recedes and its teeth are less sharp in his memory. He also wants to go back to uni, but not until next year, to study anthropology. It's fair to say the care sector has knocked the stuffing out of him and where once he really wanted to change the system, make it better, he now can't wait to be out for his own sanity. Job searches are ongoing. 

I celebrated Midsummer and the New Moon quietly. The Moon has moved into Cancer so we are officially in my birthday month. I'm taking my foot off the pedal just a little so I have time to savour this one as I move closer to 50 than 40 and wonder what, if anything, this ageing business means. 

I suspect we are being made to feel as though it should mean a bigger deal than it actually does. Yes, the hair greys, the skin creases like velvet and new bits ache where they didn't ache before, but those aren't the important bits. The important bits are the wisdom that we pick up, polish and store about our person, small gold coins of experience and knowledge that we use to pay our way forward. They don't make us infallible, but they help us find a centre in this world. 

There are plans to meet with friends this weekend and the other week, I caught up with an old colleague and friend to catch up, show off the garden and allotment, and generally have a gossip so long and joyous, my jaw fairly ached by the end of it. The joy of good friends is something to savour too. 

A couple of times I've taken myself off to the library to work: there is something soothing about the sound of tea spoons against coffee cups and the low murmur of voices that don't require an answer from me. On my first visit, a disgruntled foursome were milling around a table. 

"All she said was the room was taken."
"We can't go downstairs, there are children. They will make a noise."
"I'll ask this nice man."

There is a pause and much sotto voce grumbling from the remaining 3, who cling to the backs of their chairs as though they fear a fight to keep them. I'm aware without looking up that the occasional dark glance is aimed in my direction.

"But will she complain?"
"Hush Geoffrey."
"It's alright everyone. This nice young man [I can feel the heat of his blush from over at my table] has said we can!"

There is a chorus of "splendid!" and "oh well done!" and as the first sounds start coming from their antiquated laptop, I realise that what they fear I'll complain about is their conducting a very loud German lesson 2 tables away from me. So I shot them a dark look in the best British passive-aggressive fashion and put my ear phones in.  

Obviously, while I was there, I grabbed a couple of books to read once I got home. The superlative Mrs Death Misses Death and the utterly moving 10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in this Strange World. I picked them up and read them from cover to cover, moving from bed to sofa to bath to sofa to bed without pause, eating one handed and putting a post-it note on my head that read "can't talk, reading." Both books have stayed with me for a long time afterwards, the threads of the stories running through my days like a child's streamer, bright and commanding attention. Of course, I've now got my own copies so I can return to them again and again. These are books to return to. 

Tomorrow, I am in Birmingham for a meeting, fitting in a visit to the Ikon gallery before coming back for another meeting. In the evening, I shall take a long New Moon bath and let my slide towards the weekend commence. 

How was your June?

Inhale Deeply

Hello! Well, it has been so long since I last blogged that, coming back to it this morning, I couldn’t remember what I’d last written and consequently lost myself for an hour this morning, rereading, following back, plunging into that memory pool, occasionally asking myself if I’d really meant to write that. 

Generally yes. What I mean to write, I write. 

April and the 1st week in May were…bonkers. So much so that I’ve reached 7th May and fallen at its feet, kissing the ground with gratitude. I think I will lie here for a little bit and recover. 

treated myself to some freesias because why not?

Truth is, I did something I’d promised myself not to do since going freelance, and I’d over committed. In order to fit it all in, I worked over the bank holidays and weekends, push-push-pushing words into those coherent sentences that funders like.  

So. Many. Damn. Zoom. Meetings. Daily, twice daily, thrice daily. Finally, at the suggestion “we catch up via a quick Zoom”, I snapped and demanded an old fashioned phone call instead, unable to face another disjointed conversation full of “oh you’re frozen again” or “hang on while I share my screen.”

And I physically zoomed too: one 7 day stretch saw me dash between Birmingham (again), London and Gloucester. I have seen more train interiors this month than I have in the past 2 years. I have driven to Ely. 

But. Now May is here and the deadlines have been met. I have felt the weight of them fall from my shoulders like a heavy overcoat. 

sweet peas planted out in April

N is cantering through his last month of work. In September he starts a Masters in landscape architecture. No one chooses to be made redundant but there is no denying the freedom, once the period of adjustment and mourning has been got through, to go in a completely different direction that it gives you. 

Speaking of which, never have I ever heard so many tone-deaf comments as I did when the news was first announced. Redundancy is up there in the list of the Big Life Stressors (bereavement, moving, illness, divorce, redundancy, etc) and yet his shoulder rang with the metaphorical thumps of people saying “think of all that free time!”, “wish I could be made redundant!” and “it happened to me and I was over the moon!” 

The problem with comments like that, as well meant as they may be, is they diminish how the person actually feels. That period of mourning and adjustment as you realise the future you thought was secure has just been snatched away, that the small work ‘family’ you’d been part of will soon all be moving on without you, is necessary. Trying to cheer someone out of it just makes them feel worse. 

And now he's through that - jubilant to be leaving a work environment that had steadily grown more toxic over the past 2 years, coming out of meetings with deep sighs, shakes of the head and a wondering "I don't have to worry about that any more". There are plans for the future, university in September and then the wedding at the end of the month. We’re in a good place. 

Shelves at the Coffin Works. One of the helter-skelter visits I did. 

My poor allotment. I managed 1 trip up there, nearly 2 weeks ago. To be fair, the ground was so dry, it needed a mattock to break it up (it's a clay soil so when it's dry, it's solid). It needed the recent drenching. Tomorrow, recently nadgered ankle withstanding*, I'm planning a few hours up there, taking my sandwiches and my time over the jobs to do. There are seedlings ready to go in, another brick path to be built and, no doubt, strimming to be done. I love No Mow May but if I went with that at my plot, I'd never recover the ground. 

I have alpines to plant on the tricky dry bed, cornus cuttings that have rooted and need a place to be, a couple of achillea that 'fell' into my basket and a honeyberry (lonicera caerulea) which I also failed to resist. 

May is full of green and so beautiful that, now I have the time, I'm standing to stare. Trips to garden centres that are bursting with lushness. Going to see friends one evening, the lanes were so soft with new growth, bluebells shyly scattering the grass, that I had to stop the car to stare properly. I'm going to do that more, not just now, but this year in general. 

Things I have read and seen:

• Earthed by Rebecca Schiller, Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym, Unreliable Memoirs by Clive James and South Riding by Winifred Holtby, which stayed with me for days afterwards and I'm recommending all over the shop. 
• Dinosaurs: the Final Day with David Attenborough. Just mind-blowing. Astonishing finds and research pinpointing the moment of asteroid impact that did for the dinosaurs. And continuing the asteroid theme, Don't Look Up. Funny and poignant, Meryl Streep acting it up a storm. An allegory for our environmentally-stricken times that can also make you laugh. 

There are 3 more weeks of May left before we tilt into the birthday pell-mell of June and July (our families seem to cluster around here and November-December for birthdays) and I can allow myself the luxury of Days Off. Things I will do in May:

• Eat asparagus in a variety of ways. 
• Ditto new potatoes
• Make elderflower cordial
• Inhale deeply when I'm around flowers
• Admire the wisteria at the allotments
• Watch butterflies
• Quit Twitter because, ugh**
• Yoga
• Write

What does May hold for you?

*the arthritis means that when I've been too much on my feet, I get unsteady, leading to Undignified Trips and, in this case, Falls. I've been resting this thing since Wednesday. Lots of ice etc. 

** Done!

PS If I've missed any of your posts and/or comments, I'm sorry. Slowly getting myself back into order. 

Hither and Thither

I have been caught up in a maelstrom of hither and thither recently. So much so that a day out to Nottingham had to be cancelled. "Sincerest regrets, deadlines, busyness etc, enjoy without me!", virtually waving off the friends I had been planning to spend the day with. Instead I took myself off to the library and worked in the little cafe there (lattes £1, if you please), letting the change of scene work wonders on my bid writing skills. 

Which it did. This recent commission has a tight deadline so gallivanting was out of the question really, and I'd already lost a day in Brum the previous week. 

A friend most generously donated her time so we could spend the traipsing the Rag Market and assorted nearby fabric shops to find THE right fabric for the wedding dress. Which is not a wedding dress in the traditional sense of the word. Having been on this particular merry-go-round before, I have no interest in wearing white (or cream or champagne or ecru or whatever fancy name the designers give it). I wanted something vibrant and dramatic, and found it in a beautiful Dupion silk in emerald green. Of course, the making may be trickier now Mum has had a meltdown and refused to do it ("Silk? I thought you were getting jersey! I can't work with silk!") but someone with the requisite sewing skills will turn up. 

After, we hauled our aching feet to a greasy spoon to refresh ourselves with chips and builders tea before making our way to the Library where we combined work (we're evaluating a project there together) and pleasure (there was another exhibition which was splendid), and then rounded off the whole successful day with wine and, in my case, a bag of Percy Pigs. 

The plot moves on as slowly as I do, and that's okay. At the weekend, with the Kid over for a couple of days, I put him in charge of the incinerator to burn away all the non-compostable woody bits while I strimmed the grass and weeded some more of the wineberry bed. He had fun, I got jobs done, we both got back smelling of bonfires and spent the evening watching Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with N (who was in mourning over an Arsenal loss) as we continue his education in films from the 80s. 

We've been busy socially than I've been used to in recent years: tapas in the Cotswolds (get us being all fancy although tapas is not food, in my opinion - £9 for 5 pieces of calamari!! - it is naught but shenanigans. Expensive shenanigans.), birthday night out for a friend, another's 50th celebrations of a kind that was exactly right for her, and a gallery opening show of Japanese prints (so beautiful) that touted the worst red wine I have ever heard talked about in glowing terms ("we were so excited about having wine, we brought loads of a really nice one!" Did you? Did you really?). 

I have been reading Thin Places which was breath taking. If you know nothing - or only a little - of what it was like to live as a child in Derry during the 80s, this is the book you need to pick up. The collective trauma of that generation is so easily dismissed and yet it damaged them all. It is horrendous and yet she writes with a lightness, an uplift, as she tries to work that damage out of her system.

I also read a book about Edward I's daughters - as you do - which was fascinating, Clive James's Unreliable Memoir, Carol Shields's The Stone Diaries and I've just started Winifred Holtby's South Riding which I'd tried to read 10 years or more ago but couldn't get on with it. This time, I'm enjoying the characterisations more, so I'll carry on despite it's considerable heft means I'm risking a broken nose if I fall asleep whilst reading and it donks me. 

I've been listening to: Jill Scott, Laura Marling, Nina Simone. An antidote to the Beatles' White Album that N would have on repeat if I let him. While My Guitar Gently Weeps is making my ears gently bleed after the 100th listening. 

This weekend, I'm planning to work a little every day (that deadline loomeths) but mostly potter on the plot, read, cook and relax before the whirlwind of next week hits as I juggle dog-sitting for my Mum, a trip to London for a meeting but also fitting in the British Museum Stonehenge exhibition (London at Easter! What was I thinking?) and a trip to Gloucester to meet up with a client. I may try to fit in a visit to the Cathedral afterwards because it's a beautiful building. 

By the way, whilst I write, I'm listening to The Reunion on BBC Radio 4 - always a treat of a programme. Did you know a young Keir Starmer, at the very start of his career, gave the McLibel 2 free legal advice a number of times when they were preparing to fight McD's? That man is thoroughly decent. Where are the barricades we need to man to get him into the prime minister role?

And that's as far into politics as I'll go here because... Well. We have a criminal as a prime minister, who is paying the Rwandan government millions to take refugees. Good grief. Send help. 

Happy Easter/Ostara/Spring bank holiday!

Writing Wednesday

Well hello there! I woke up this morning, at the reasonable hour of 6am and decided that today is a day I write. This is the most joyful thing about working for myself: I can make that decision. And, as I put in some hours at my desk on Sunday while the football was on, I can do that with a clear conscience. 

This morning I had time to do a quick Spanish lesson, followed by a Scottish Gaelic one. Five minutes of each, via Duolingo. I've been doing the Spanish, on and off, for about 2 years or so but the Gaelic is new and I'm doing it simply because I like the idea of it. So far my favourite word has to be 'snog'. Pronounced snok it actually means 'nice'. Which snogging is, so it all works out. 

My favourite word in Spanish? Esta aqui. Which means 'is here' and feels very grounding. I also like that the 2 can be smashed together: esta aqui snog. Here is nice. 

Which it is. 

Also nice? Narcissi purchased on a whim. 

I've also started doing some exercises I found on the Versus Arthritis website. These are stretches and there are ones for specific areas of the body but I tend to stick to the morning, day and evening sessions. 15-20 minutes, whatever time of day I chose, to keep things moving, muscles supple and joints lubricated (isn't lubricated a dreadful word?). Today, I did the morning ones and then headed for the kitchen feeling in the mood for muesli. 

This I make myself: oats, seeds from pumpkins, sunflowers and poppies, raisins, ginger (good for inflammation caused by arthritis), topped with grated apple and zapped in the microwave for 30 seconds because I don't like cold milk. Do I feel impossibly smug about my virtuous breakfast? Why yes. Yes I do. And should the rest of the day go to pot and I finish it by eating nothing but toast, no matter. I'm ahead of myself. 

Mornings and evenings also involve a dose of swamp juice as prescribed by the no-nonsense acupuncturist. Bless her, she describes it as a little bitter. A better description would be "the cocktail I'll be served when I'm in hell". I follow it with a peanut butter chaser to try and neutralise it. 

Nice too? The first hot cross bun of the year. 

Last night, we finally managed to catch up with the latest Stanley Tucci episode. Oh my. The urbane coolness, the suavity and understated sexiness of the man. And Italy, although Italy's sexiness is more one that flaunts itself with deep eyes, lowered husky voice and suggestive finger running up your forearm. Oof. 

They are a TREAT and I'm spinning out the series for as long as possible. One episode a week least I binge and wake one morning to find myself miraculously conceiving a small child with serious glasses, crisply pressed shirts and a knack with a negroni. 

If you haven't seen them yet, do. But have something delicious to eat at the ready because you will get hungry. 

Always late to a party, I finally got round to reading Normal People at the weekend, having avoided it for a long time on the grounds it was about Young People being young and sexy and I couldn't muster the energy for it, let alone feel like it had anything to offer me. 

Except that it did, of course. Rooney lingers with exquisite precision over the tiniest of details, the cup being placed back on its saucer, the strand of hair, the muted clap of a laptop shutting. Everything is understated but positioned Just So, each word placed carefully. But that's not to say it isn't compelling or that the pace is too slow. She moves it forward, keeps us moving and growing with Marianne and Connell and leaves them at just the right moment. Not perfect, but as near dammit as I've read this year.

Brace yourself for my hot take on a different bestseller from 6 years ago next time.  

And surprisingly nice? A 'virgin' pina colada at a fancy-pants night out for 

International Women's Day last week. It was like a pudding in a glass.  

The wedding invitations are finally complete and at the printers as I type. There has been the usual faff around timings and what to put on the insert and who, of the extensive guest list, we can actually fit into the registry office. I have come down hard against inviting random old friends of N's parents who he hasn't seen for over a decade just because they were at his brother's wedding. And he has come down hard against my nonsense about time and need to be everywhere FIVE minutes before the start. 

Mum is fighting against children being invited (I think she had a bad experience at her own wedding), but we have so many friends with kids, that it seems a shame to ban them and aren't weddings all about family anyway? Besides, parents I know with kids will be overjoyed to have a legitimate reason for a night off and will be unlikely to bring the little treasures along with them. Mum and I are taking a trip to Brum Rag Market in April to buy the fabric for the dress, which will be a relaxed experience in no way ending in a row. 

It will totally end in a row. 

N and I have both come down hard on the subject of presents. A plus of marrying at this advanced age is that we have enough of everything. We have no need for matching etched wine glasses, plates, bed linen or matching dressing gowns. We have enough cutlery, mugs and cushions to see us through to the next world. Anyone buying us a "Live Laugh Love" sign will be banished to the cold outer edges of our circle and then get it gifted back to them at Christmas. So we've opted for donations instead, splitting it between the MS Society and Medecins Sans Frontiere. 

As I type, the utterly, breathtakingly, wonderful news that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is at Tehran's airport, allowed to fly back to Britain, has come up on the news. After so many years, this is an incredible piece of good news and a true ray of light on a very dull and rainy day. 

Which is a good note to end this post on. May your Wednesdays have rays of light too. 

And a nice surprise at a client meeting. 

Before the coffee gets cold

 It's been a while since I did a book post. Specifically, apart from a Christmas book special, I haven't really written a dedicated book post since October, when I rather grandly announced my intention to stop recording what I read. 

Not keeping a record has been quite freeing in many ways but this book, which I finished on Monday, resonated in ways that no book has for some time. So it gets a post of its own. 

Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Tales from the Cafe by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. 

The premise of the book is the most beautiful simplicity. You visit the cafe, sit in a particular chair, order a coffee and travel back or forward in time. And yet, it is also the most beautiful complication. 

This is no deep lengthy delve into magical realism. In fact, it is so sparely written, I'm not sure the word 'magical' could be successfully applied to it. If it were, the word might shuffle off, embarrassed at being in so obviously the wrong place. 

Each character is described in so sparse a way, it's as if he's drawn them. Calm, serious Kazu. Mischievous Miki. Exasperated, worried Nagare. With as few brushstrokes as it takes to form a Japanese character, he has them there, on the page, waiting for you to read on and make them move. 

Welcome to the cafe. Wait for the woman to leave the chair. Order a coffee and have the rules explained. Take a sip and travel back. Do not leave the seat. Do not let the coffee get cold. Who is it that you really want to talk to? What would you say?

I suppose this book resonated because of the time of year. The anniversary of Dad's death is coming up in a couple of weeks. It has been a year and it has been a lifetime and it has been yesterday. 

It was this piece that made me pause in my reading: 

"'But if you try to find happiness after this, then this child will have put those seventy days towards making you happy. In that case, its life has meaning. You are the one who is able to create meaning for why that child was granted life. Therefore you absolutely must try to be happy. The one person who would want that for you the most is that child.'"

Beautifully simple and complicated. 

When a person dies suddenly, you are left with questions that burn your mind in the middle of the night. There are so many questions I have for him, about his childhood, his family, his youth, marriage and old age. But, I think, if sat in that cafe, with a coffee cooling on the table between us, I would simply tell him how proud I was of him. That he had meaning. That, when grief uncurled enough to let me breathe, I would be happy.

January Blathering

 A truly wondrous thing happened yesterday…brace yourselves…we opened the attic hatch!

I know. Extremely brave of us. And I say ‘us’ loosely because it was just N up the ladder. I don’t do ladders. 

Anyway, when we brought the house back in 2019, we’d been completely stymied about how to open the hatch (don’t laugh). Then my neighbour had given dire warnings about the depth of the insulation and how he’d had to have it boarded over before he could use it. So we pretended it didn’t exist until this year when I had a small, totally reasonable, meltdown about how much I hated tripping over the boxes of Christmas decorations in July and other assorted detritus of life that were better placed in an attic out of sight and reach of toes. 

This then prompted an overdue January clear out of things upstairs. So many things that a black bin back was required for the first time in about a year (I really do try to keep our general rubbish levels down). Do you do a Big January Clearout? It's incredibly cathartic, almost a meditative act if you don't go at it like a bull in a china shop, which only results in more, broken, stuff being thrown away. 

Tiny Wee Mabel giving the world her best side-eye as she's

cross about the cold turn the weather has taken

I'm no Marie Kondo (gods forbid) but I do like the process of opening a corner/cupboard/drawer/box and working through the contents one by one. Looking at them and recognising that, if they've been in there 5 years and never looked at, it's time for them to go. In my case yesterday, that was scraps of fabric, a box of rusty pins, varying lengths and tangles of embroidery threads, remnants of wool not long enough to make anything with, wrapping paper that was too creased and crumped and sellotape-marked to reuse, broken buttons and knitting needles, and other random items that I'd once thought would have a purpose but turned out not to have. 

Where once there was an overspill of chaos and failed projects, there is now a contained order in labelled boxes on neat and clean shelves. It won't last but while it does, I go and stand in front of them every now and then just to appreciate the scene. 

It's representative of the more ordered me I like to tap into every now and then. She doesn't make an appearance very often. 

Just a happy Boo in his box. 

Also on the agenda at the weekend was a visit to the wedding venue. After a false start with a place that looked enchantingly like an Ewok village but had no wheelchair access or facilities beyond some basic toilets, we finally hit upon a place that has enough of a Wild Place look about it for us to be happy. 

As you can be sure there will be a lot more of that in the months to come, I'll leave it for the time being. Once we've got the Great Guest List Row out of the way. 

Last night I started crocheting myself a hat. I've been at a bit of a loose crafty end since finishing the last Attic 24 CAL in time for my Mum's birthday back in December. I've taken the time to do some repairs (pockets in jeans, buttons on shirts etc) but my next crochet project (which I can't mention here in case they read about it) won't start for another couple of weeks. I'm not doing the CAL this year as I feel I need to use up the wool I already have rather than buy another big bag of more. 

Glowering skies over the allotment

Plus my ears were really really cold when we were doing root cuttings at college last week. A fascinating process and I'm really hoping the phlox I used actually take. The soft-wood cuttings we did a few weeks back did very well until they did too well and I didn't pot them on in time, so they died. The leaf cuttings are just sitting there as if to say "What?", practically shrugging at me. I love the process of taking cuttings but I'm not convinced the plants are so keen. 

Anyway, my ears were cold and I don't have a hat, so I'm making myself one out of fetching dark red wool that's quite fluffy and has a wee bit of sparkle in it. I was given the wool years ago, so it's nice to finally have a purpose for it. 

In other news, I'm unofficially doing Dry January, alcohol being one of those inflammatory things that I'm trying to avoid, as well as Buy Nothing January, which is not something being marketed far and wide as A Thing, but the result of noticing that, really, I have everything I need, so why buy more? Honestly, I'm feeling very virtuous and smug about it all. Veering dangerously onto the path of Puritanism? Nah. Too many rules. Just an attempt to live more lightly on the planet. 

Took a walk in the park and successfully identified a 

Prunus serrula (Tibetan Cherry) by it's bark. 

I signed up for the George Saunders newsletter. Heard of him? He wrote one of my favourite books, Lincoln in the Bardo, a few years back and I've got his latest, A Swim in the Pond in the Rain, on order at the library. He releases an e-newsletter every week or so (if you're on the free list, which I am) and he set an intriguing writing exercise yesterday, involving a word and time limit. I may try it later this week. 

On the subject of books, I read John le Carre's Call for the Dead yesterday, which was slim but excellent. It's interesting that as uninterested in the Cold War as I am, he can still draw me in and I'm a little in love with the shambling Smiley. And I'm also ploughing through Pandora's Jar, despite not being particularly interested in Greek mythology. But Natalie Haynes is a chatty writer and entertaining to boot, so it doesn't feel like a slog. 

And here I shall leave you to return to some proper work. As much as I enjoy letting free a long stream of blather, there are things to attend to. As we plunge into the dark and rainy second week of January, I wish you all a good one. Hope it's full of warming meals, warming fires and warm toes. I'm off to throw a jacket potato in the oven. 

Ditto this Cornus alba 'Sibirica'. 

Seasons Readings

 

Because there are certain books that can only be read at this time of year. I’ve tried to read The Box is Delights in summer, The Dark is Rising in spring. It doesn’t work, they don't fit and trying to read about snow so deep you could lose livestock in it, or dark forces abroad under a wintry moon, whilst it's 30 degrees out and your toes are sweating, just means you lose something of the magic of them. 

You need the cold nipping at your toes, frost etching the skeletal bones of trees and the promise of a hearty stew on the hob for them to work.

Delights and Rising are, obviously and very definitely, Christmas Books. Or rather, they are midwinter solstice books, conjuring pagan worlds beyond our reach but tantalisingly glimpsed. A world of fires and snow, old gods and wolves, and should only ever be read in the run up to the solstice. 

My favourite, and never bettered, author, Terry Pratchett wrote Hogfather and Wintersmith in his Discworld series that are very definitely Christmas and winter themed. The former is hilarious and yet serious in its exploration of why humans need myths, why humans persist in irrational thinking, why we just need some bloody...magic. 

" WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HADN'T SAVED HIM?

'Yes! The sun would have risen just the same, yes?' 

NO

'Oh, come on. You can't expect me to believe that. It's an astronomical fact.'

THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN...A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD. 

'All right,' said Susan. 'I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need...fantasies to make life bearable.' 

...NO. HUMAN NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE." 

There are some books that I save for winter reading, just because they have passages that capture it perfectly, I only ever reread Wind in the Willows during this season. It’s invocation of home and longing taking hold in snow blown trudges is so breathtakingly perfect, it’s forever a winter book for me. Laurie Lee’s Cider with Rosie, while it might linger over hay-strewn, cider-sparked Midsummer dalliances, contains some of the best winter passages you could hope for. The childhood joy of snow and how it transforms your familiar world is so beautifully realised, you’ll want to be 8 years old, stout in many scarves, setting off carolling with a tin can full of smouldering rags.

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is a splendid read, but I tend to save for deep winter. January, when the cold has an iron grip on the ground outside, and the tree branches are stern lines in a glowering sky. That’s when I can hear the wolves* howling in the hills. 

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey will make you shiver, feel the cold deep in your bones as she perfectly captures what it just be like in the long hard winters of the deep north. The worry of ice creeping into the house with long scratchy fingers, of falling through frozen rivers, of just being damn cold All Day Long. Read with a hot chocolate, under a blanket. 

It goes without saying that now is the time to bring out the Gothic. Oh, not Dracula or Frankenstein (October and November only). No, I mean Bleak House, Wuthering Heights. Let long descriptions of fog, howling storms, snow deep enough to swallow roads, flow past you and make your duvet feel all the warmer for it. 

Of course, there is the greatest of them all, the Christmas Carol, but I actually prefer to watch that. Be it Patrick Stewart, Michael Caine or Bill Murray in the Scrooge role, I prefer those to the book. 

Writers of detective stories have always pulled out all the stops for Christmas. Agatha Christie, Nicholas Blake, Mary Kelly and more, bring out all the trimmings: evil domestic tyrants, dysfunctional families, chippy young gels who can be trusted to be ever so clever and neat at finding clues. There will be a feast, missing treasures, strange family traditions that no one understands, long held resentments, dastardly people getting their comeuppance. Snow will scatter, misunderstandings will occur, mild romance may even take place. If you are very lucky, your detective will be faintly comedic, entirely at sea in terms of manners and traditions. But good will always triumph and chippy young gels will go orff to do splendid things. 

Unless it's le Carre's Murder of Quality where there is not a jot of redemption for anyone, not even the heartbreakingly poignant George Smiley. Still, winter book.

I don’t really venture out of my comfort zone for Christmas reading. It’s a time for cracking open pages and welcoming old friends back in. For knowing what’s going to happen but still feeling gripped by it. This is nostalgia at its best - no false remembering of the past, but a revisiting. Turn the page and, oh hey, there you are! So good to see you again, come and tell me everything. 

Come and let me stay with you a while. Watch you eat the plum pudding, sing carols to the squire, defeat the villain and celebrate with a glass of something warming with your restored or newly created family. Let me feel the sneaking chill while safe under my own roof. Let me feel like a child for a moment before my own tumbles through the door, fresh from a long train journey back south. Let me remember what it was like to wake to a full stocking at the end of the bed and a tree that sent magic to every corner of the house. 

The best Christmas reading transports you to the before times. Before life admin, before work, before grief. It reminds you that danger lurks but comforts you with happy endings. 

" OH, THERE HAS TO BE SOMETHING IN THE STOCKING THAT MAKES A NOISE, said Death, OTHERWISE WHAT IS 4:30 A.M. FOR?"

What are your season's readings?

*Disclaimer - I LOVE wolves and will continue to do so until I inexplicably become a 19th century homesteader with chickens and sheep to protect

Edit: I forgot the Moomins! How on earth could I forget the Moomins, the greatest wintery creations ever to venture forth with a sensible handbag?? I blame the fact that I currently don’t have any copies on my shelves. Mine are missing, I don’t know where, and have been for a while. I shall be buying myself some replacement copies. This absence will not do. 
 

What Happened to all the Books?

 

Asked nobody. 

But as there hasn't been a book update since...yikes...June, you're getting a sort-of-one anyway. 

You see, I am still reading - lots - I'm just not recording it anywhere. For the first time since 2014, I've stopped keeping my book diary. I rarely Instagram (when did that become a verb?) what I'm reading and I don't often mention it to anyone. 

It's not that what I've been reading has been unmentionable! More that I was beset with a whats-the-point feeling. What is it I'm trying to do with the diary? I don't mind re-reading books, in fact I've been known to actively seek out books I've already read just to enjoy them again. 

Nor am I embarassed by what I read. It's not like I've got all the works by EL James or Jeffrey Archer on the shelves (although I would ditch the Game of Thrones series if they were mine or I thought N wouldn't notice - I have tried covering them with Armistead Maupin instead) hiding on the shelves.

Do I think the Kid or any descendents of mine will be interested? No. And knowing the Kid, descendents are very unlikely, apart from my niece and nephew who surely won't care what Mad 'Burn the Patriarchy!' Aunty T read back in May 2017. 

I had to face the fact that I was probably really only keeping it to, well, show off. Mostly to myself, some to anyone lovely enough to stop by here and read stuff. A little to those mythical descendents who I imaged saying (in binary because all language will be obsolete by then and we'll just be brains in carbonite structures with electrical impulses for senses) "Gosh, look how well read our illustrious ancestor, Mad 'Burn the Patriarchy' Aunty T was! And she was right to burn it all down. May we forever deify her with this digital, virtual structure of a tree because there are no real trees now."

Maybe I should write dystopian fiction?

Anyway, the point of this is that the diary has been ditched and I am a much freer reader for it. There is an absence of pressure, a reduction of ego, a lack of assumed judgement at reading 4 Allinghams in a row. 

But what about the promise I made myself last August, when the world was breaking into tiny angry pieces and this small something became the tiniest raft of hope? I must confess that events of early this year derailed me for a little while, but I'm back on it and see no reason to stop. It has brought open new worlds for me and, I tentatively think, new thinking. I'll keep going.

Just finished: 

• The Bronte Myth by Lucasta Miller - cutting through the sentimental nonsense that surrounds the Brontes, although there's a huge gap where Anne should be.
  
•  Bessie Smith by Jackie Kay - enjoyable psychobiography rather than conventional biography.
  
• Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham - because she's aces and I'm in love with Albert Campion
  

Ditched: the Patrick Melrose books because, fucking hell, who needs that toxicity in their lives?

 Top image of the Shakespeare & Co bookshop, Paris. Courtesy of The Guardian. Support independent bookshops! And burn the patriarchy!

Be More Mabel

This morning, the Retreat (aka the spare room from which I read, write, work and occasionally yoga) is filled with the dulcet tones of large vehicles reversing and the fragrant smell of hot tarmac that not even the last of the allotment sweet peas can overcome. 

Of course, the noise and fumes would be greatly reduced if I closed the window but then I'd miss out on the breeze that is making this quite humid day bearable. So I'll deal with it for now. Oh no, an angle grinder has started up. Okay, I give in, the window is getting closed. 

There. Better. 

 

Mabel (left) leaping to catch and bring down her mortal enemy - the fearsome Piece of Long Grass

Over the roofs of the houses opposite, the skies are quite low and grey, threatening a rain that might or might not deign to fall on us. The vegetables at the allotment will be grateful if it does. I'm switching to a system of one long watering a week in order to encourage roots and healthier crops, and to reduce water consumption. We have 2 water butts: 1 at home and the other at the plot, but we want to get a second for each. It's likely I'll need 3 or 4 for the plot eventually. 

I like big (water) butts and I cannot lie. 

This week I had the immense pleasure and relief of being pain free in my left shoulder for an afternoon. Such bliss! It seems I managed to tear the muscle somehow and, after my 3rd session of sports massage (during which I'm torn between crying at the pain and whimpering with pleasure because she's unknotting knots that I've carried around for YEARS), I was filled with a flush of happy daydreamy endorphins. Readers, I chatted away merrily, laughed, did silly voices, made jokes, sang made up songs to the tunes of other legitimate songs. 

 And that was all in the car coming home.

It was marvellous and I cannot wait for the next session. It was the most blissed out I've felt for a long time. In fact, it reminded me that I haven't properly laughed for a long time. This year has felt too heavy to allow it, and I don't think I'm the only person to feel that. Emails are full of people saying how worn to the nub they are. 

Sod all this "back to normal" nonsense spouted by politicians. I say we all need a 2 week long holiday from reality. If we did it in shifts, it could be managed for everyone, even those couples with kids. Nothing fancy, just 2 weeks in a cabin in the woods or by the sea, no mobile reception, no work but lots of nourishing food, splendid reads (or things to watch if reading is not your thing), drawing materials and views to feast your tired eyes on. 

 Chonky Thor has a go - he has less leaping energy but does make

better noises

And it has to be on your own because other people, even the ones we love, have needs that must be accommodated and that means compromising on your own needs. 

Think how restored we'd all be as a nation if that were allowed. Start lobbying your politicians now!

Until the happy day that becomes enshrined in law, I am encouraging myself to Be More Mabel. Her intense Mabelness means that her life is largely stress free - barring the occasional run in with the Evil Tabby. Whether it is lounging on a comfortable surface, eating, going about the serious business of chasing things, or keeping tabs on the garden, she devotes her attention entirely to it for a brief period and then wanders off when it all becomes too much or something more interesting comes along.

Such as a particularly enticing butterfly. 

 Certainly this ability to be endlessly curious whilst at the same time attuned to her own needs (bees in the lavender may be irrestible to chase but nothing must get in the way of lunch) is an enviable one to cultivate. She cares not about things that are beyond her sphere of influence but focuses entirely on those that are, such as making sure I know it's time for her lunch. She has actually taken to patting my leg with her paw if I'm not quick enough off the mark. 

Mabel meets the garden wizard (aka the gnome my sister got me. 

It is the only gnome here before you start to get worried).  

And at a time when global news has our attentions and worries scattered like so many marbles dropped en masse from a great height, that is probably the only sane way to keep going. 

Last night we finally gathered ourselves enough to go and see Black Widow at the local cinema before it closed. Gosh, that was a great film. Funny, clever, brilliantly choreographed fight scenes, enough action and bangs to make me jump, a thoughtful arc about family and memory and the connections we build through circumstance. Loved it. Florence Pugh is fast becoming my favourite actress, and I'd watch Rachel Weiss read the newspaper. 

It's a shame that will be the last Black Widow outing. I really feel the character was only allowed the freedom to develop in the last couple of Avengers films, prior to that she'd been supporting the Big Strong Idiot Men. Think how much more we could have explored her character with more films. Opportunity missed again.

Ah, here comes the rain. Good. 

Right then, my hour's blogging time is nearly at an end (I time it by the length of a Backlisted podcast) and my empty coffee mug suggests it's time for a refill. This week I've been mostly reading The Morville Year, The Garden Jungle and working slowly through All the Devil's Are Here, which I'm not entirely sure I like, even though I'm quite partial to a rundown seaside town. Maybe psycho-geography is not my thing?

 

Ubiquitous allotment pic. Because if you haven't seen one, have I even blogged?

What is my thing is the definite tint of Autumn that's appeared in the early mornings. Just enough to brush your fingers gently as you walk alongside the canal, and to mean the duvet is required again. Splendid. 

As a treat, I'll leave you with this clip of Jeremy Hardy singing Hallelujah  in the style of George Formby, a clip to provoke laughter in anyone. I still miss Jeremy Hardy - he was an absolute genius and all round decent chap. We were lucky to have had him on the planet.

June Reading

A little while ago, when recording a podcast epidsode, one of the regular contributors said that they had started reading The Mirror and the Light. I admitted that I couldn't face it because I knew what was coming. 

As does anyone with the merest smattering, a thin Marmite spread if you will, of Tudor history knowledge. It's not spoiling the book to say that Cromwell dies at the end of it. I'm not sentimental about what sort of man he was - but having been drawn into being invested in him for 2 massive tomes, plus Mark Rylance's performance in the BBC adaptation, I was not keen to bear witness to his fall from grace. 

And what a fall from grace it was. Merely weeks after being made an earl, he was arrested on charges of treason, facing the worst form of execution, friends melting away like butter on a hot day and enemies churning the water relentlessly. It was a life bookended by ignominious circumstances and told in exacting detail.

 

Anyway, after being lulled into buying it by the wonderful tones of Anton Lesser reading it out (also BBC - radio this time), I took my sweet time about reading it. A couple of pages a day, a paragraph here, a sentence there. Nibbling my way to the end. Which I finally reached a week ago. 

It really is an incredible piece of work, regardless of how you feel about the Tudors, Cromwell or Mantel. The level of detail is extraordinary and I do wish I'd had it at the time of my A Levels - the machinations of Henry's court is so much more clearly explained here than I remember it being from set texts. 

Obviously, there has to be the disclaimer that this is a work of fiction and Mantel imbues him with a sensibility we will never know if he really had or not. But it probably would have been a better source than Blackadder Series II, which at least one friend used as a reference point. 

All that said, and due reverence paid to Mantel and her diligent research, would I read this again? Probably not. 

Unlike Take Courage, which I've read twice before. Don't know much about Anne Bronte? This is a good place to start. She's been underrated for too long and this is a step to redressing that balance. She is my favourite Bronte sister and the only one who tells life like it is, with a clarity and spareness that's a shock after the overblown Gothic drama of the others. She's the cool drink of water amongst the flaming brandy glasses. 

 

Braiding Sweetgrass was another I'd avoided for a while, having seen it toted once too often on Instagram as the book du jour by others. I am ever one for swimming against the crowd but this time I'd denied myself a treat and shame on my inverted snobbery. Lesson learned. 

 

I had an almost emotional reaction to parts of her book, for reasons I haven't yet deciphered. I'm still thinking about it, about the suggestion that there could be "a different relationship, in which people and land are good medicine for each other." This is the week where the sea was turned into a literal boiling hell thanks to people. 

A week in which I contracted the cirus that's laid waste to so many, and which makes the final sentences so very relevant: 

"Gifts of mind, hands, heart, voice, and vision all offrered up on behalf of the earth. Whatever our gift, we are called to give it and to dance for the renewal of the world. 

In return for the privilege of breath."

May Reading

Calloo calay, oh ball-free day! It was a happy moment when I realised that all but the Europa Football league had drawn to a close and the telly need no longer be slave to FIFA timetables. Or whoever the hell it is has the job of setting the timetable. We have enjoyed nearly a week free of "YESSS!" or "what were you thinking?" or "call that offside?" and, my favourite, "bloody bloody VAR, goddamn it, I don't, but, arrgh, hmp *insert sound of stamping*"

Given that N's team had been knocked out of the aforementioned Europa, he has no interest in watching it, so we have had blissful evenings where we knock off work, grab a drink together and then sit, in silence, reading. I've been feeling over-noised just recently, so it's been nice to have no screen, no external noise just the sound of pages turning and, on a series of evenings, me snorting with laughter. 

David Sedaris is the cause of the laughter. Have you read his books? I cannot recommend another author so highly adept at making you snort, draw in breath, tear up a little and then snort again, all in the space of a page. I tore through the 3 I have and added his back catalogue to my birthday list. 

I finally tackled Hamnet after putting it off for a couple of months. I was too raw to deal with more grief until last Monday when I screwed my courage to the sticking place and opened the cover. 

Well, it is entirely worth the plaudits it gained and the only surprise is that it didn't win more awards. This is Maggie O'Farrell's masterpiece, a work that brings a hidden woman to light, gives her autonomy and balance in a misunderstood relationship, gives grief and love centre stage, all the while weaving a world so removed from ours, it could be another place entirely. And yet those themes are so universal and endless, so familiar to every one of us, that the 16th Century past blurs with our own world. Nothing jars. Every word, every comma is perfectly placed and it is breathtaking. 

"Her husband takes her arm as they reach the gate; she turns to look at him and it is as if she has never seen him before, so odd and distorted and old do his features seem. Is it their long separation, is it grief, is it all the tears? she wonders, as she regards him. Who is this person next to her, claiming her arm, holding it to him? ...

She is hollowed out, her edges blurred and insubstantial. She might disintergrate, break apart like a raindrop hitting a leaf. She cannot leave this place, she cannot pass thorugh this gate. She cannot leave him here."

 I was glad I'd read Sedaris after her, and Gilead before. Gilead is always an exercise in slow reading. You simply cannot let your eyes race ahead, but allow them to linger over the page, slowing you down and settling into this exercise in a life lived quietly. It's wonderful. 

Susan Hill and I disagreed on a lot of her thoughts on books, but the name-dropping alone was worth it, even if her non-alphabetizing of books makes me tense. Osman's Thursday Murder Club was great, a lot of fun to read with characters that made me grin. MacCarthy's Bar an entertaining blunder around Irish bars in search of roots I think a lot of us wish we had. 

The Lost Garden's of Heligan...umm...not the best bit of writing I picked up in May but I did enjoy the development of this tourism megalith, now only overshadowed by the Eden Project. Say what you like about Smit (and I imagine many have), the guy has vision. And brass neck by the yard.

All in all, that was a greater number of books than I suspected. My concentration still wanders very easily and I'm more likely to put one aside after only a handful of pages. I read more magazines than I did as they have short articles that I can be done with in 2 minutes. As with all things, it's a case of the right book unlocking you, drawing you in and insisting you Pay Attention or you'll miss something extraordinary. 

So for that, Robinson, O'Farrell and Sedaris, I salute you.