Sunday 18th February - Lent Book

Last year, I read "The Wind in the Willows" as my Lent Book.

This year, I have decided upon the whimsical Brambly Hedge Series written and illustrated by Jill Barklem. A friend has lent them to me; I'm not sure what started the topic of conversation as we ate cake and drank tea, but the result was

"Have you NEVER read any of the Brambly Hedge Books? Here, let me lend you mine!"

This week I read the first in the series, Spring Story. I think this may be my favourite illustration;


How idyllic! It is Mr and Mrs Apple's house. She has been woken up early and is making breakfast in the kitchen. Mr Apple is supposed to be still in bed, but I can't see him. Is he in the bath, perhaps? I can't quite make it out.


I think what I took from the first book is the sense of community. They all live close together, and store all their food in The Stump Store, which is looked after by Mr Apple. This is a sawn-off stump of a tree, with a little door, and is full of chambers and store cupboards. Mr Apple's job is to check through everything every day, presumably to make sure that everything is keeping well, and nothing is going "off".



Mr Apple and Wilf in the Stump Store

When it is decided to have a village pic-nic, everyone joins in - the women-folk start baking and making and packing, and then the men help with the carrying all the baskets and rugs and so forth.

How easy life seems - how everyone gets on so well, how happy everyone is - apart from young Wilf, but he is only sad and grumpy for a page or two, and who wouldn't be, having to struggle with such a large pic-nic basket on one's birthday of all days?

Will it be like this forever?


Psalm 133

Behold, how good and pleasant it is
           when brothers dwell in unity!
It is like the precious oil on the head,
           running down the beard,
           on the beard of Aaron,
          running down the collar of his robes!
It is like the dew of Hermon,
          which falls on the mountains of Zion!
For there the Lord has commanded the blessing ,
         life for evermore.

Sunday 4th February - Sexagesima Sunday and Books

Which doesn't mean what some readers might be thinking it means...

It's the Sunday after Septuagesima Sunday (and before Quinquagesima Sunday) and are the Sundays in the run-up to Lent.

If I'm going to take Lent seriously, then I need to be thinking about it before Ash Wednesday. I normally give up Free Cell (that's actually quite a toughie for me, as it is my main way of unwinding after teaching!) and speeding, by which I mean that I pay close attention to keeping to the speed limit, which then lasts me the rest of the year.

They are the basics; I usually add something else. Maybe, this year, it will be the book mountain. As in, NOT buying books through Lent, and donating the book-budget (an as-yet undecided figure) to charity might be a thing to do.

So, here's the pile of books that I am currently reading;

on Kindle;

The Artists's Way - Julia Cameron, nearly finished. I've found this a fascinating program; I haven't followed it exactly, but have got a lot out of pondering the questions and writing theb'morning pages' most days.

A Far Cry From Kensington - Muriel Spark, halfway through. I started this, my first ever book by Muriel Spark, after reading a blog post which described the book as 'almost a manual on How to Write'. I'm finding it very amusing, in a quiet, 'Barbara Pym' way.

Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K Jerome, part way through. I can't remember why I started re-reading this, oh, yes. It was because a description of 'towing' which I read in 'Country Bunch' below made me laugh out loud.

The Diet Myth - Tom Spector, half way through. Interesting investigation of food, digestion, diet-debunking, speculation, gut microbiology.

Letters to a Young Poet - Rainer Maria Rilke, a 'dip in and out book'
Selected Poems - U A Fanthorpe, 'dip in  and out'
Flame and Shadow - Sara Teasdale, 'dip in and out'

and 'real' books;

The Secret Life of Cows - Rosamund Young, part way through. Popular bestseller about - cows. Good bedtime reading. Gently written.

A Monk's Guide to a Clean House and Mind - Shoukei Matsumoto. I'm starting Chapter 2 so it is a bit soon to come to conclusions. The cover is a beautiful shade of blue; a possible contender for the bathroom walls.

Country Bunch, an Anthology - 'Miss Read'. a 'dip in and out' anthology of poems, extracts, diary entries.

On Writing - Stephen King half way through. Fascinating, enlightening, inspiring


And then there's the list of unread books... hey, you might think this isn't such a sacrifice, NOT buying new books for a couple of months. But don't forget, I will have given up playing Free Cell....

Sunday 4th February - Cold and Grey

It was cold and sunny this morning, but that has all changed as the afternoon has continued.

Now it is half past two, and the cats have made their feelings abundantly clear. I would have been sitting in comfort at the PC, but one cat, after prowling and meowling for ages, has decided to settle down at last on the computer chair;

somewhere in the folds of the quilt you might just make out her ear.

The other is asleep on a cushion balanced on the radiator.

enough  about cats.

I am going to have to set a limit on my book and Kindle purchases. So I have. But I'm not saying what it is in case I need to make adjustments. I suppose I could try and give up buying books for Lent? That means I would still have just over a week before Ash Wednesday on 14th February. I've got a fair few stacked up in the 'New Books to Read' pile, and it is not as though we don't have hundreds in the house and access to thousands in the library... and Easter is only a couple of months away.

Chocolate, cakes and biscuits don't usually figure in my 'Giving up for Lent' choices. I did give up biscuits once, and nearly managed it. I ate one biscuit by accident. I was chatting with a friend, and discovered the taste of biscuit in my mouth with no memory of having lifted it from the plate, conveyed it to my mouth, or crunched it up. The other I ate on purpose; 5-year-old daughter appeared with bag of biscuits she had made at school, so of course I ate one. What mother wouldn't have?

I shall be baking biscuits for the upcoming Womens' World Day of Prayer coffee morning which will happen at church on Saturday week. I say 'happen', because I am supposed to be 'organising' it, much against my will (and better judgement). One of the most unlikely things any 'spiritual' person discerned about me was that I my 'gift' was for organisation. Maybe he meant the person next to me?

We will serving traditional biscuits and cakes from Suriname; not as easy as I had hoped. The most popular cake is Bojo Cake, made with coconut and cassava. First catch your cassava - sounds like a long-legged antelope to me. So I found a recipe for...

Traditional Surinamese Custard Biscuits

heat oven to 180C, line two baking trays with baking paper

Melt 100g butter

add 120g castor sugar (I use sugar which is stored in a jar with vanilla pods for baking, so no need for

vanilla extract

add an egg, mix well,

add 200g of custard power, or half and half custard powder and cornflour

mix well, and use spoons to dollop onto the baking trays. I made 16 biscuits the first time, but will make smaller ones the second time. Leave a gap, they spread a little.

decorate with "disco sprinkles" (this recipe came from a Dutch blog, translated by google). They look like hundreds and thousands in the picture on the blog. I've bought gluten-free ones for the next time I make them.

B ake for 25 mins according to the website; I'd check after 15. They are done when they are just beginning to brown round the edges.

They are very sweet, quite moreish, with a strange texture. They taste quite custardy...

So that's my contribution sorted.

Sunday 28th January - Bell, Book and Kindle

There are no bells in this post. But the title was too good to resist.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/hereford-cathedral-chained-library

I am reading a number of books at the moment;

On Paper -

• Secret Life of Cows (Rosamund Young)
• 
  
• The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman) - just finished a day or so ago
• 
  
• Country Bunch (An Anthology collected by "Miss Read")

On Kindle -

• A Far Cry From Kensington (Muriel Spark)
• 
  
• Letters To A Young Poet (Rainer Maria Rilke)
• 
  
• Selected Poems (U A Fanthorpe)
• 
  
• Three Men In A Boat (Jerome K Jerome)
• 
  
• Flame and Shadow (Poems by Sarah Teasdale)
• 
  
• The Diet Myth - The Real Science Behind What We Eat (Tim Spector)
• 
  
• The Artist's Way (Julia Cameron)
• 
  
• Fierce Imaginings - The Great War (Rachel Mann)

Reading books, the printed-on-paper sort, is relatively straightforward. You pick up the book, find the page, and start reading. Except for the occasion where you are in one part of the house, and the book is somewhere else, so you have to go upstairs or downstairs to fetch it. Or, even worse, you are out and about somewhere, and you have left the book at home.

Reading Kindle books has advantages. If you have your device with you, then you have all your books as well, and it remembers where you have got to. I've downloaded most of the books in the Kindle list above onto most of my Kindle-reading devices. Great. O, wait, not ALL of my current books are downloaded on ALL of these devices, which are a paper-white Kindle (in the bedroom), my phone (in my handbag), and my android Lenovo Yogabook (downstairs or wherever I am working). Hey, not really a problem, provided I have wi-fi and battery-life and patience.

I also came a bit unstuck last night, when I clicked on the paperwhite Kindle and started to read. It took me a few minutes to work out which book I was reading! The page displayed had a couple of descriptive paragraphs; was this an anecdote from "The Artist's Way"? or scene-setting for "A Far Cry From Kensington"? or the beginning of yet another comic moment from "Three Men In A Boat?" At least I had no trouble discounting poetry, diet myths or "Letters To A Young Poet" from the possibilities. Finally, near the bottom of the page, the name of one of the characters, Wanda, appeared, and I knew where I was again (in Kensington). 

The phone and yogabook are a leetle bit smarter than the Kindle; so when I open the Kindle app, it shows me the cover of the book I last read, like this;

(screenshot from my phone)  

It sort of irritated me to begin with, when this new opening screen appeared after one of the updates. Now I am learning to be very grateful. 

The photograph at the top is of the Chained Library in Hereford Cathedral. We saw it several years ago when spent a week in that neck of the woods. Makes me even more grateful for my Kindle.

Sunday 21st January 2018 - Poetry and Prose

Long time no write.

I've been plagued by general "under-the-weather-ness" since before Christmas. I've now discovered that I have probably been brewing a low grade infection since maybe October. I have regular blood tests to make sure that the various pills and potions I take aren't causing any problems... one of the things they check is my white blood cell count which has been slowly creeping up implying an infection. So I have been taking the antibiotics for a week now, and  I cancelled everything that could easily be cancelled on Thursday and Friday.

That means I have been spending quite a lot of time sitting around in bed, reading, or browsing on the internet, or dozing. The next couple of days are lighter than usual, so, hopefully, by the time I've finished the second box of antibiotics, whatever bugs had taken up residence will have been dealt with.

Meanwhile, I have discovered the poetry of U A Fanthorpe and Rainer Marie Rilke's 'Letters to a Young Poet'. And I'm trying to read 'A Far Cry From Kensington' by Muriel Spark but I can't continue past the first page until I have absorbed all its wonders.

I knew about U A Fanthorpe, in the sense that I had tripped across several of her popular poems and been very amused. Try the one about the damsel being rescued from the dragon which is about the picture at the top of this post. the picture.

But this poem, one, about the list of psychiatric patients for the next day's clinic is very poignant;

The List

Flawlessly typed, and spaced
At the proper intervals,
Serene and lordly, they pace
Along tomorrow’s list
Like giftbearers on a frieze.

In tranquil order, arrayed
With the basic human equipment -
A name, a time, a number -
They advance on the future.

Not more harmonious who pace
Holding a hawk, a fish, a jar
(The customary offerings),
Along the valley of the kings.

Tomorrow these names will turn nasty,
Senile, pregnant, late,
Handicapped, handcuffed, unhandy,
Muddled, moribund, mute,

Be stained by living. But here,
Orderly, equal, right,
On the edge of tomorrow, they pause
Like giftbearers on a frieze

With the proper offering,
A time, a number, a name.
I am the artist, the typist;
I did my best for them.

(from Side Effects, 1978)

And why can't I get past the first page of 'A Far Cry From Kensington'?

' ... I formed the habit of insomnia. Insomnia is not bad in itself. You can lie awake at night and think; the quality of insomnia depends entirely on what you decide to think of.  Can you decide to think?-Yes, you can. You can put your mind to anything most of the time....'

that needs some pondering before moving on. I still don't know anything about this person, except that she is talking about the past, and about now in the book.

Later on...  (I have managed to read a couple more pages!)

'.... if there's nothing wrong with you except fat, it is easy to get thin.Youbeat and drink the same as always , only half. If you are handed a plate of food, leave half; if you have to help yourself, take half...'

if only it were that easy. Oh, wait; she has advice on will power as well! Please excuse me from writing as I Need to Read!

Friday 5th January 2018 - 12th Night

We'll be finishing off clearing the Christmas Decorations this weekend.
Once the house is back back to normal it will feel like the real start to the year.

No, wait, the year 'began' yesterday, on the 4th, when term started.

No, hang on, isn't 1st January the date? Or was it the 1st Sunday in Advent, at the beginning of December? That's when the church year begins.

Or the start of the school year, last September?

Or way back in April, at the start of a new tax year? Tax Year!!!!! Aaargh!!!!

I have been wrestling with Phase 1 of doing my tax return; the Gathering Together of All The Paperwork. The deadline of 31st January is ominously close.

psychologytoday.com

The stuff I earn through PAYE is easy to deal with - round up the P60s and there you are. It's the self-employed teaching that drives me loopy.

I would have got on a lot better if it wasn't for the fact that I organise the figures in school years, eg for the last school year I divide them into Autumn Term 2016, Spring Term 2017, and Summer Term 2017. But the tax year cuts across everything, so for my 2016-17 tax return I have to select the figures for Summer 2016, Autumn 2016 and Spring 2017. I knew I had all the numbers, but in two notebooks (one for each school year) and in various folders on the computer. It was just all a bit brain-bending.

Anyway, three hours later and my papers are in neat piles and the necessary figures are all noted in the current notebook, ready for Phase 2; Do The Tax Return, once I have regained my strength.

Meanwhile... I'll take a break... cup of tea, biscuit, unexpected piano pupil (must remember to add that to this term's records....