Thursday 15th June - Books! Tsundoku!

 I am devouring books at the moment.

I don't usually list what I am reading in my Commonplace notebook, but this month I thought I would... inspired by my 'upstairs' book, 'A Book Of Book Lists' by Alex Johnson

full of 'quite interesting' information. Such as, according to 'Dnld Trmp's' website, 

all of the books he personally authored are best sellers. 

Really? Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, My List.

So far I have completed

Ayala's Angels by Anthony Trollope (Victorian light romantic comedy)

A Room With A View by E M Forster (Edwardian light romantic comedy)

Amongst Our Weapons  by Ben Aaronovitch (re-read) (I love the Rivers of London series)

Murder In Province by T A Williams (fills the time well enough - I read the first two so I knew what to expect. But I wish the dog wasn't called Oscar because I kept thinking he was one of the people in the book)

One Enchanted Evening by Anton du Beke (better than I thought)

and I've started 

Sleeping Tiger by Rosamund Pilcher (1960s light romantic comedy)

All of the above books, apart from the Ben Aaronovitch, have been on offer recently, and indeed still may be, on offer with 'Kndl' for 99p. Less than a coffee and a cake! 

Which brings me to a Japanese word I learned recently; 

Tsundoku (積ん読) refers to the phenomenon of acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one's home without reading them. It is also used to refer to books ready for reading later when they are on a bookshelf.

(wikipedia)

At least is they are on the 'kndl' they are not piling up all over the house. This is my current 99p tsundoku library;

The Butterfly Room by Lucinda Riley

Take My Hand by Dolen Perkins Valdez (the book club choice for this month; I am nerving myself up to start in case it is 'searing' or 'heart-breaking' or 'emotional' etc!)

The Bean Tree by Barabara Kingsolver (she has just won a major prize for women's fiction for her latest book 'Demon Copperhead', a reworking of 'David Copperfield, so thought maybe I ought to give her a try)

Sprig Muslin by Georgette Heyer (ever-reliable and fun Regency Romance. I can't remember this one from the title but I will know it as soon as I start. I've read them all - and have a shelf of self-destructing PAN paperbacks dating back to the 1960s which I can no longer read because the pages are so yellowed and friable) 

Sunday 19th February - Book Club date creepeth closer

I shall send an email round the group; our next meeting is in 10 days or so and I need to circulate my suggestions;

Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss - creepy story of historical re-enacters rebuilding an ancient (stone age?) sacrificial construction and getting too involved in the rea-enacting

Ghost Music  by An Yu - bewildering story set in China as pianists life slowly unravels as she discovers more about her husband

Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibbons - much lighter, sharply observed and often hilarious story, about the difficulties for a young woman 'of a certain class' in finding a suitable husband, especially when you are completely financially dependent upon your parents

The Running Hare by John Lewis-Stempel - beautiful nature writing about creating a small traditional wheatfield

and my 'wild card';

I've never read 'The Four Quartets',  four longer poems by T S Eliot.  I wonder if anyone else in the club fancies having a go? I keep tripping across quotations that I have heard before 

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future

And time future contained in time past.

Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless

The river is within us, the sea is all about us

April is the cruellest month

and many more.

I've sent off for a secondhand copy. along some study notes to help ne along

Monday 13th February - decisions, decisions...

I didn't spend three years at university studying maths (and music) for nothing;

I spent a few fruitful minutes with my bag of knitting and the kitchen scales and have come to the conclusion that I might possibly have almost nearly enough wool for both socks. 

That won't be a problem, as I have some similar wool in a contrasting colour.  If I knit the cuffs and heels in the contrast I will have enough to complete the socks,  and hopefully they won't look too weird! 

I have finished the book club book, 'Unsettled Ground' by Clare Fuller. What do I think? I'm not sure... I think I did enjoy it. I can imagine all the people and places from the descriptions; I think it would make a brilliant film.

I've just started reading 'Old Filth' by Jane Gardham. I'm still trying to settle on my recommendations for next month's read as it is my turn to pick. It is making me surprisingly nervous in case nobody likes any of them!

'Old Filth' is the story of a lawyer, nicknamed Old Filth, now widowed and retired in Somerset after a life living and working in Hong Kong. 'Filth' means 'failed in London, try Hong Kong'. 

So far the books on my list are

Nightingale Wood - Stella Gibbons

Ghost Music - An Yu

One Fine Day - Mollie Panter-Downes

The Running Hare - John Lewis-Stempel (not quite finished this one)

The Art of Invisible Detection - Robert Goddard

Ghost Wall - Sarah Moss

Wintering - Katherine May

I may add 'Old Filth' as well...

From which I need to select 3 or 4.

I have read them all; but I do want to read them again anyway.

I'll post more about them tomorrow. 

Tuesday 24th January - what happened yesterday?

 Well, when we had reached the end of the scheduled events for Monday at around 7pm, we sat down and did nothing. Until the book club meeting at 7.30. 

A couple of us joined by zoom, and the book under discussion was The Twyford  Chronicle, by Janice Hallett. It is a thriller (with quite a bit crime), and so many twists in the narrative and plot that I almost gave up. I finished it this morning over breakfast and I think I've vaguely worked out what happened...

We are now reading 'Unsettled Ground' by Clare Fuller. 

It's going to be my turn to choose; we have moved to a system where we take turns to suggest three or books before the next meeting and people suggest, comment, and choose which they prefer. Scary... some of the group like more 'challenging' books  whereas I make a point of avoiding anything with the words 'searing', 'tragic', 'heart-rending' 'terrifying' or similar in the blurb.

(Blurbs for 'Unsettled Ground' use words like 'powerful,searing...' oh me oh my)

Which reminds me, 'blurb' was a solution to Wordle the other day. Is 'blurb' a proper word these days?

Here's a really terrifying sight;

Look at the size of this! The stitching area will be 19.5 inches by 9.5 inches. Ang bought the fabric, 11-count Aida, and I am working out the overall design;

Measure twice, sew once? Once it has been divided into smaller spaces it might look less daunting.

Wednesday 21st December - Midwinter books

I finished two of my 'Winter reads' yesterday; 'The Woods in Winter' by Stella Gibbons, of 'Cold Comfort Farm' fame, and also 'The Secret Garden' by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Both now are problematic for modern-day readers including the language used to refer to people - how can I put this delicately - in different social worlds. 

'The Secret Garden' was published in 1911, and the language used to describe the servants of the British in India, and later, when describing the local people living on the moor near the big house, shocked me the last time I reread the book, a couple of years ago. This time around, I was struck by how little thought was given to the emotional needs of the children at the big house, compared to the warm loving cottage home of Diccon. 

Ultimately the message of hope, rebirth and recovery was just perfect for a cold December approaching the shortest days of the year.

'The Woods in Winter' is a wickedly subversive comedy of semi-feudal country life in the 1930s, at a time when everything was changing. Interestingly, it was one of the last books by Stella Gibbons, written in 1970, so viewing these intricate social relationships from a distance of 40 years.

I've embarked upon 'The Twyford Chronicles' by Janice Hallett for the book club, and also Rosamund Pilcher's 'Winter Solstice' as a lighter Winter read. It's a good deal less demanding than 'The Twyford Chronicles ' or last week's book club choice 'The Elegance of the Hedgehog', which I am still only partway through.

Guess which one I am reading most at the moment! 

Friday 16th December - energy slump

I'm supposed to be joining our book club zoom tonight; it's a 'mixed meeting' in the sense that some meet together as we all used to, each bringing a plate of something halfway between party food and supper food. We would graze on a mixture of bread and unusual cheeses, olives, marinated prawns, sliced cold meats, salads and savoury snacks, followed by a mix of fruit and dessert. Luckily we all have reasonably robust digestions.

Now we are a mix of face2face and zoom members. This is a curious situation; the conversational conventions for zoom and in person mmeetings are very different. Also, we zoomers can hear, but not see all of the face2facers. We watch, it's a bit like watching a TV programme,  and listen, and a disembodied hand will appear passing a plate of quiche or bowl of salad. There will be a conversation round the table, and a conversation using chat between the zoomers, commenting on the 'programme' that we are 'watching'. 

Later, when the food has been consumed (we zoomers have usually got a drink - wine, sherry, tea, water - and some kind of snack - crisps, cake, biscuits - too.

Tonight the book club is discussing 'The Elegance of the Hedgehog' by Muriel Barbery and then deciding between 'Slow Horses', 'The Twyford Chronicles', 'Outliers', and 'The Nickel Boys', if I have remembered correctly.  I've said my prefernce is for any except 'The Nickel Boys' which sounds a bit of a tough read.

I'm not joining in; the events of December have caught up with me, ending with with that slippery descent at the beginning of the week

(Not surprised that Tuesday was a day of doing nothing! I'm improving day by day)

And the usual end-of-term energy slump has landed. I shall be asleep in bed before they start on dessert.

However we have created a decent looking stack of mostly Christmas presents and stuff to take to our halfway meeting point with our children tomorrow.

Wednesday November 9th - No one is talking about this - Patrica Lockwood

 This was the last book club choice, after much dithering...

I'm still thinking about it. The oldest member of the group who is in her 80s and a voracious reader had finished it within a day or so of the meeting, and whatsapp'ed the group with her opinion that it was terrible and we should choose something else. But while we were all dithering and discussing she whatsapped up again to say on reflection it was worth reading. 

One by one we embarked upon the journey.

It is like nothing that I have read before; the main character lives her life entirely through the internet and social media, and the book is written in snippets and paragraphs, sometimes as much a a whole page, but all disjointed and incoherent and - I have no words to describe it.

Here's an extract; see what you make of it...

I do/did spend a lot of my time on the internet - I don't go on facebook so much these days, maybe every week or so. But I blog, and read blogs, and use twitter a little bit. I shuffle through youtube for videos on this that and the other, surf the net for information and ideas, recipes, how to prune clematis, sew such and such a stitch, knit using 'magic loop', or whatever.

I never made it through the whole of the book, reading just a couple of pages each night I was just about to give up (there's no rule that says you HAVE to finish every book!) and whatsapped the group for their views.

'Is it going to be like this for the whole book?'

'No, stick with it - it changes in part 2'. So I skipped to part 2, and was pleased that I read to the very end.

It's not for everyone, and the second half is very different in content although similar in style, and I have been left thinking since I finished.

Would I recommend it? Depends who I am speaking to....        

This month we are reading 'The Elegance of the Hedgehog' by Muriel Barbery. I don't think it is going to be about hedgehogs, though.

(The great thing about using kindle is that you can download a sample before you buy.) 

Tuesday 1st March - Looking forward to Lent

I really am looking forward to Lent. Seriously. 

I have bought myself a 'Lent Calendar', like an Advent Calendar, but of course no chocolates, and I will get to open the first window tomorrow;

The booklet to the side has the Bible reading for the day. I think it will have to do with the animal revealed behind each window.

The lack of chocolates won't be a problem; no way am I giving up chocolate for Lent! In fact I have recently stocked up the 'chocolate stash box' with mini Fair Trade chocolate eggs from Divine. No more than one egg per day, though, to make them last.

I shall be following the course that the Rev Andrew Dotchin creates every year. This year the title is 'With a song in my heart', and you will be able to follow it here. It started today and promises to be as excellent a read as ever.

 So am I giving up anything for Lent? Yes, I am not going to buy or download any books. I must admit I hastily ordered my book club choice yesterday, as it would have been very difficult to join in the next meeting if I hadn't. It is 'The Valley at the Centre of the World' by Malachy Tallack. I have also chosen it for my Audible purchase as I had a credit, for hearing the regional accents and language.

 Our previous choice was 'The Mayor of Casterbridge', by Thomas Hardy. I haven't ready any of his books before, and I was surprised how much I enjoyed this. If you have an Audible subscription you can listen to Tony Britton reading it, very well indeed, as one of the free books.  

I'm not going to go short of reading matter... there must be hundreds of books in the house, plus ones that are waiting for me to read or finish on my kindle.

And I am going to give up wasting far too much time playing the various solitaire games on the computer. That will be very hard, much harder than giving up chocolate. 

What am I taking on for Lent? Letter writing; I will be printing off and sending copies of the Lent course to two friends who don't use computers at all. I reckon that's a reasonable commitment. I'm also aiming to try and do some form of exercise every day to improve my fitness levels. I do them while I am listening to the songs in the Lent course.

Let's see how long this lasts... 

Saturday 8th January - One week into the year

 Good morning everyone.

So, what have we accomplished this week?

I finished a mitten, and then ripped it out - it was the size of an oven glove, and the texture was far too open. Every little breeze would have gone through the fabric with barely a check. So I am nearly two inches along the ribbing of mitten number 1. By hook or by crook, I will finish a pair of mittens this month whether I want them or no.

I haven't taken a picture - two inches of ribbing on 4mm needles looks much the same as 2 inches of ribbing on 5mm needles after all.

One thing the last year has taught me, is that it is the process of  knitting that I enjoy, almost more than the product. Rather like growing vegetables.

I get all excited at the sight of little shoots appearing through the earth, but I am a good deal more 'take it or leave it' about actually eating the produce. I have ordered my broad bean seeds, and also a packet of spaghetti squash seeds - just 8 in that packet, but then, how many spaghetti squashes can one eat. They are very exciting - forget all that spiralizing stuff - these are 'ready-spiralized'.

 I can't remember which brand of seeds I ordered, so I am not endorsing Mr Fothergill's seeds.. But the picture shows you the general idea - when you open up the squash, you find delicious spaghetti-like strands inside. Yum yum. I am excited about these.

I've also ordered half a dozen seed potatoes for 'chitting', various other seeds, and also several little pots of tete-a-tete daffodils to brighten things up.

Our Polish neighbours who moved in last year are very enthusiastic gardeners, but have a different view of vegetable gardening; his parents, back in Poland, grow masses of vegetables as a matter of course. When I said I grew just a few large pots of this and that 'for fun' he paused, looking at me carefully, obviously revising his thoughts about vegetable gardening. I had meant to grow potatoes last year, but left it late.

'Potatoes are such hard work', he said.

'Not if you grow them in potato bags or large pots.' I explained about how you just cover the growing shoots with more earth until the pot is full and then tip them all when they are ready to be harvested.

'How many potatoes do you get?'

'Enough for a couple of meals'.

I think his idea of  a reasonable amount of potatoes is a cellar-full.

I'm planning to be guided by Huw Richards this year, 

   recommended by Ang in her blog 'Tracing Rainbows'. I don't have a 4 foot wide, 10 foot long raised bed, just an arrangement of 10 very large patio pots, each about 1 cubic foot in size, arranged on a moderately sunny patch of concrete where a shed once stood. I reckon I can adapt his plans

I bought the book too late last year; his detailed month-by-month instructions for December, January and February mostly consist of telling you what to harvest when - but I have nothing to harvest. I did just manage to plan garlic cloves in one tub within the deadline.

Meanwhile, I read the book, and other books (currently 'Miss Bunting' by Angela Thirkell, and listening to 'Over Sea. Under Stone' by Susan Cooper on audible), knit, and mooch about watching the rain.

The current bookclub 'read' is a podcast series on BBC sounds called 'Things Fall Apart' - all about how various movements suddenly sweep across social media - how, and why they started. Fascinating, and rather disturbing.  

Monday 4th January - more walking, this and that,

 I don't think I've done so many walks in a row for, since, oh I don't know.

We only went out for a short while this morning as it was dripping when we went out, and it turned to rain quite soon.

The next few paragraphs are all about walking so ignore if you like... 

About 12 minutes, give or take, and 750m, approximately. I know this because I did two 6 minute walk tests almost in quick succession. This test is what I used to do every time I went for cardiology or rheumatology tests at the clinics in London, in the days of yore. Such a simple test; they check blood pressure and oxygen sats, then I walk up and down a 30m length of corridor for six minutes, they work out how far I have travelled (back in 2019 it used to be around 400m) and check blood pressure (crazy high) and oxygen sats (alarmingly low) again.

I don't drag the blood pressure stuff around, and there's no point trying to gt oxygen sats reading when my hands are cold, but I can see how far I can go in six minutes. It's down to 300m, give or take, and even more inaccurate because every way from our door is up - be it slope or gradient -  and that really slows me down.

Yesterday I did a longer loop; a total of 1300m wit the portable oxygen concentrator set to 2 litres per minute (pulse). Today we set it to 3 litres per minute (pulse). I would have been happy to do at least the same loop as yesterday, or maybe further, but rain and portable oxygen concentrator seemed a bad mix so we turned back after the first walk test.

The next plan is to see what happens if I load a bag with about 2-3kg of books and try the loop with the machine set to 2 or 3 litres per minute. The lighter weight machines come in at around that kind of weight, depending on which one you choose. 

All these experimentations are showing one thing for certain - using oxygen when I am out does make a huge difference to what I can manage, and staying even-tempered, even uphill. I can even talk, rather than grunt! 

We are in the data collection phase as the moment...

While we were walking I had brain space to notice things as well, such as the big fat buds on magnolias, wrapped tight in their furry blankets, and a camellia covered in right red flowers. This is all good stuff!

I've started reading some of the books I was given for Christmas. This one was on my 'wantables' list for some time - I resisted buying it for maybe a year or so. I love Ravilious prints and paintings and now I have 54 in one book, along with rather dark little verses. If I can consume them slowly, like rich chocolates, I will be able to make them last a while.

I'm quite glad to have finished the Advent book 'Frequencies of God, reflections on poems by R S Thomas' written by Carys Walsh. A whole five weeks of R S Thomas was quite a workout for this brain - not many of the poems were what one might call 'accessible' and by the New Year I was feeling like elastic which has lost its stretch. 

I'm looking forward to reading 'A Word in the Wilderness' in Lent this year, another Christmas present;

he has chosen different poets so there should be a good mixture and hopefully not all as densely packed as R S Thomas.

Then there is this, also on my 'wantables' list, an a surprisingly heavy little book;

To begin with I just want to make a drawing of the cover picture!

I've made a start on this book (a bit of a cheat to include this as it is a book I ordered for myself and then handed over to be wrapped up)

 The little squares for drawing in are only about an inch and a bit square - I'm enjoying doodling when the advertisements come on. If I see that Go Compare man once more, that will be one time too many, but I think we are stuck with him. Oh well, at least he's got a job...!

  

    

Tuesday 5th November - 'Do not be dismayed'

Several years ago I came upon this at a tiny church, too small, too isolated to have electricity even;

Isaiah 41:10

SUNDAY               Do not fear
MONDAY             I am with you
TUESDAY            Do not be dismayed
WEDNESDAY     I will strengthen you
THURSDAY         I will help you
FRIDAY               I will uphold you
SATURDAY         I am your God


Every so often I refer back to these 'weekly words' and now may be a good time to have them close to hand again.

I phoned my godmother this evening and she's not feeling that great - aches and pains and finding swallowing is becoming difficult. I've cancelled all my teaching so I can get over tomorrow and see how she is and what's to be done. 'Do not be dismayed'. Well, I am, rather.  Tomorrow's words, 'I will strengthen you' sound promising. I'll hang on to them.

Meanwhile there isn't a lot I can do.

***********************************

Last night was Book Club;  discussing 'Educated' by Tara Westover. And how much is 'true', and who's truth was it anyway. My Canadian friend has mentioned a film called 'Vantage Point;, where the same story is retold from different view points, and I have a faint memory of a sit com, was it called 'Couplings'?, where in each episode they replayed the event from different viewpoints...

I'm a bit nervous because the club decided to go with my suggestion for this month; 'Rivers of London', the first in the series by Ben Aaaronavitch. Fairly ridiculous procedural police crime thriller meets Terry Pratchett might be a description. Rather different from the other books put forward; 'what about the Booker Prizewinners, or are they not out in paperback yet?'. I joined the bookclub to raise my reading standards, not to lower everyone else's. I'm delighted to discover I can listen to the 'Rivers of London' audiobook on youtube. Which is what I'm about to do now.

Tuesday 16th April - Random Observations

As yesterday and today progressed, I can inform you that

Deep cleaning someone else's house is somehow a more acceptable occupation than deep cleaning your own. But once you start, it's hard to stop. I'll need to go back to finish off half the kitchen and scrub the floor; and with any luck the threat of my return will be enough to persuade the householder to get a cleaner and save me from myself. However there is still a lot of outstanding cleaning and hoovering and washing down of surfaces and floors and dusting to be done in our hose - but it lacks the same sense of satisfaction.


There is an unexplained door in a wall in Bramley, half-hidden behind ivy, and several feet above the road level.

more practice for the projected holiday sketchbook later this year

Crochet makes time pass pleasantly when waiting for someone. Or something.

Taking knitting along to the book club 'film evening' (apparently we watch films! I've only recently joined this book club) makes it easily possible to look away during distasteful scenes - I'm thinking of the bit when Fermin is demonstrating his martial arts skills to his girlfriend Cleo, but unfortunately without wearing any clothes - Not a pretty sight. We were watching 'Roma'; a black-and-white film set in 1971 Mexico. I don't think I am giving too much away to say it's a bit like a Barabara Pym novel, updated from 1930s London; at the end, most of the same characters are still living in mostly the same place and mostly the same way in spite of everything. 'Someone remind me why we wanted to watch this film', said one of us (not me). 'Well, that was a good film', remarked another (not me).

Ripping out rows and rows of knitting and then picking up the stitches is a real hassle when one discovers a mistake about ten rows back. (About the time of the martial arts demo, I reckon).

Too much housework, and too many late nights are making me a bit grumpy. Let's see what tomorrow brings. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bring_Me_Sunshine