Library of the Black Cat

2012-03-01T09:09:00.000+11:00

Simon C Thomson

2 June 1987 - 26 February 2012

Is this the beginning of the end?

2012-02-08T23:07:00.000+11:00

Oh dear. I've bought an e-reader. It doesn't smell like a book, and it doesn't have that lovely dense feeling of a book, but it fits into my hand luggage so much more easily. Now I have to decide whether the books I buy for it are just those I don't mind not having in solid form, or perhaps a digital version of a favourite so I can read it again, or what? What do I do if I read an e-book that I love and want to keep? I clearly have a l-o-n-g way to go before really accepting this format, but I've put my toe in the water. I suppose if I fall in love with a book and HAVE to have it on my real shelves as well as my digital ones, I may just have to buy it twice.

Unconscious Mutterings - the first for a while

2012-01-27T21:00:00.000+11:00

Rivals :: next door
Automatically :: smiling
Bathroom :: sink
Jerk :: jolt
Preference :: for anything
Parenting :: skills
Helmet :: head
Wave :: to the people
Judo :: strength
Flat tire :: Oh no!

Free association is described as a "psychonanalytic procedure in which a person is encouraged to give free rein to his or her thoughts and feelings, verbalizing whatever comes into the mind without monitoring its content." Over time, this technique is supposed to help bring forth repressed thoughts and feelings that the person can then work through to gain a better sense of self.

That's an admirable goal, but for the purposes of this excercise, we're just hoping to have a little fun with the technique. Try it at http://subliminal.lunanina.com

Friday Fill-ins

2012-01-27T20:54:00.001+11:00

1. It's time to clean my work desk.
2. Do it properly ... and don't forget the rubbish under the desk!
3. I'm trying to create an uncluttered workspace, but its not coming together.....
4. "You work here?", that was the last funny comment I received.
5. Please send help, I'm lost in the boxes.
6. ....but I'm determined cause I'm in it for the long haul.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to finishing, tomorrow my plans include not starting anything else and Sunday, I want to eat out!

Friday fill-ins

2012-01-14T19:30:00.001+11:00

A man and his car

1. When I looked out the window this morning three magpies were calling to each-other from opposite sides of the road.
2. Complaining about their noisy conversation doesn't make sense to me.
3. Remind me to wrap my Mum's birthday present.
4. Reading in the bath is something I love to do!
5. TP is Totally Paranoid, which is how I feel driving my Dad's car.
6. I cleaned the refrigerator recently and I found a bottle of mango syrup to put in champagne....I don't think so.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to going to the Spicks and Spectacular with Simon, Ali, Terry, Cheryl and Bruce, tomorrow my plans include pruning the lavender and Sunday, I want to toast my Mum for her birthday!

2012 is looming.........

2011-12-30T16:50:00.000+11:00

Celebrations come in all sizes

1. Wait, wait, I haven't finished yet.
2. I hope the next book I pick up to read is a little different.
3. In addition, if I can suggest it for Book Club, I could kill two birds with one......story.
4. Politely is the way we do it here!
5. At the end of the year, I like to spring clean (my wardrobe, my house, my mind....).
6. Less time for introspection is one of the things I'm looking forward to in 2012.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to cooking dinner for friends, tomorrow my plans include going to the market WITHOUT my trolley (long story) and Sunday, I want to see a movie!

Christmas is looming.......

2011-12-17T18:13:00.001+11:00

One little Christmas pudding........

1. Sleigh bells ring, are you listening?.

2. It's coming on Christmas, they're cutting down trees, sweep up the pine-needles somebody please........

3. You're a mean one but I'll give you a piece of pudding anyway.

4. Father Christmas will be very hot in Australia this year..

5. Silent night, holy night. All is calm, all is bright.

6. All I want for Christmas is a tidy house!

7. And as for the weekend, on Friday I was looking forward to watching Love Actually yet again, tomorrow my plans include afternoon tea in the city and Sunday, I want to finish the washing!

Closer to Christmas fill-ins.....

2011-12-10T17:33:00.002+11:00

Waiting for nightfall at the Carols concert

Anyone in the holiday spirit? I'm getting there.

1. As I neared the car-park I hoped there was a space.

2.In Other Rooms, Other Wonders is what I'm reading right now. It's a series of quirky stories about people living around Mr K.K. Harouni.

3. I didn't start out this way, but I still like the result.

4. I'd rather be reading to tell the truth.

5. The best way to enjoy life is to expect the unexpected.

6. This is the reason I am still smiling!

7. And as for the weekend, on Friday I was looking forward to my students' Graduation Dinner, today my plans include writing my Christmas cards and Sunday, I want to catch a movie with Ali!

First Friday in December

2011-12-02T22:22:00.000+11:00

Boys assembling toys

1. One of my favourite things about December is the proximity of holidays.

2. I wish I'd written the year we bought some of the quirkiest ornament(s)!

3. This is what I'm hoping for today/tonight: sleep unbroken by the cat howling.

4. What is it with his Y-E-O-W-ling noise? And why is it at 11pm and 5 am?

5. Ooh, a forgotten chocolate in the bottom of the bowl......

6. ....And there goes the cat again, early. My ears are ringing!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to getting the house clean, tomorrow my plans include breakfast with friends and Sunday, I want to get to my art workshop and finish lots of things!

Friday comes around again..........

2011-11-18T22:28:00.000+11:00

1. As you can see by my house, its been a busy week.

2. ...but my reports will be finished soon!

3. I love to buy things for other people.

4. and for myself, time would be the greatest gift.

5. What's up with all the grumpy people about today?

6. They're disgruntled about everything, right down to their fingertips.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to an early night and no thunderstorms, tomorrow my plans include ignoring the laundry and Sunday, I want to celebrate my Dad's birthday!

Friday Fill-ins

2011-11-12T09:40:00.000+11:00

1. Turkey is where Emmy wants to send me!

2. Memories of my grandparents always bring to mind the smell of apple pie.

3. On and on and on we go, never making a decision (staff meetings can be like that).

4. The last time I saw my best friend was too long ago.

5. Can you believe its nearly Christmas?

6. I need a week with NO interruptions.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I was looking forward to watching a movie but I fell asleep, tomorrow my plans include writing reports and Sunday, I want to have breakfast in the sun at the Mornington market!

Friday Fill-ins, late as usual.........

2011-11-01T20:08:00.000+11:00

1. Beware of the owner, never mind the cats!

2. The one thing we DON'T usually get in a day's weather in Melbourne is snow.

3. And since we're on the subject, I thought this was supposed to be spring..... where did the sun go?

4. I don't think I believe in evil spirits.

5. Where does time go?

6. Thai green chicken curry is one of my favorite meals when it's cold out.

7. And as for the weekend, on Friday I was looking forward to tapas with Anne, on Saturday my plans included getting all the marketing done without getting too wet and Sunday, I wanted to start my Reports (but I didn't)!

Thought on a book: The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

2011-09-30T18:10:00.001+10:00

Its just after the war, the one that was to end them all, and it begins in Chicago. This is the life of Ernest Hemingway and his first wife, fleshed out by imagination, sympathy and affection. It is told in the first person by the quietly passionate Hadley Richardson who is soon captivated by the young man she meets while staying with friends. Hemingway is younger, different, electrifying; Hadley's life is instantly changed by him "tall and lean, with a lot of very dark hair, and a dimple in his left cheek you could fall into."

In a flash she is in Paris, married and swept away by the Jazz Age fervour that is everywhere in her new life. Famous names slip through the pages like quicksilver as the couple are befriended by Gertrude Stein, (Ezra) Pound, F Scott Fitzgerald, and Hemingway takes their advice and writes and polishes and fills his notebooks. Hadley is described by her husband as his "small perfect cat" and she carries this nickname proudly, curling up in all sorts of small places and content to be with him.

I continued to be annoyed by Hemingway throughout the story, perhaps as a result of identifying with the storyteller as she related the joys of her marriage along with the small adjustments she constantly and happily made to avoid puncturing the bubble that sustained their life. Despite it being a time of increasing emancipation for women, Hadley contented herself with doing whatever made Ernest happiest. In the end, it was exactly this value that Hemingway squandered by falling for a brighter more demanding woman and the time of the First Wife was done. That he would kill himself so dramatically, wearing a red robe and standing in a pool of light, seemed obvious from the very beginning - or is that hindsight?

I loved the descriptions of everywhere the couple and their friends went - the gardens, the bullfights, the train journeys, the apartments, the snowfields. Cleary McLain delved deep into the Hemingway papers and painted a believable and ultimately sad picture of the brief fierce romance that was the first of four marriages for Hemingway. At the end of the book Hadley calls herself "that impossibly lucky girl" and I'd like to know more about her.

Back on the shelves.......

2011-09-29T10:09:00.000+10:00

I feel like I've returned from a far away place: the land of no books! After several months of pushing myself to open files and covers, finally I have left the shores of that odd place and returned home. I hope. This week I had to try, and so I read the book for my reading group because I think I let down the others if I don't at least make an attempt. The book wasn't something I was itching to read (what an odd expression - makes me think of fleas and I don't equate them with reading at all), but having been assured it was a quick read, I began.

Indeed it was fast: 2 hours later and the book was done. It was The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul by Deborah Rodriguez. The link takes you to a small review on the Random House website. I don't know that I agree with the reviewer who wrote that it gave them an insight into life in Kabul but perhaps it does. Kabul doesn't seem as dangerous in these pages as in other reports, but since I am reading all from the comfort of my armchair in the wilds of Melbourne, what do I know?

Having safely left the shores of the Great Bookless Desert, I turned to my enormous waiting pile of treasures (never mind the electronic ones) and began The Paris Wife by Paula McLain. Finding myself wide awake this morning at 5.30am (now that's another strange story) and unable to drift back to sleep, I finished it in a flash and I think I'm still somewhere in Europe. Review to follow.

Thank God its FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-09-02T17:49:00.000+10:00

1. When I was 10 years old I had my adult sized feet (and I did look odd!).

2. Pumpkin is my favorite vegetable because it goes with everything, and it comforts me on cold days.

3. My dream pet is one that doesn't shed hair.

4. Don't you love the morning light in spring when sunshine is all that surrounds you?

5. If I could live anywhere in the world I'd live in a small space within the sound of the sea.

6. Spring sunshine..... keep on shinin' on me.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to a quiet night at home with the TV, tomorrow my plans include getting the washing out early (sad but true) and Sunday, I want to enjoy breakfast with my Dad for Fathers Day.

Friday..........

2011-08-26T17:26:00.000+10:00

1. How in the world did I get here so quickly?

2. Some things I just don't see, even if they're right in front of me.

3. Life's an interesting journey - hope it's lots longer too.

4. There's always time and space for a picnic lunch.

5. That was where we did our best thinking, solved the world's problems and ate a lot.

6. A tiny overgrown garden in St Helena is where I think of as "our place".

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to getting closer to the bottom of the ironing basket (NOT), tomorrow my plans include spending the afternoon with friends and lots of paper and glue and Sunday, I want to wake up late and read!

Friday Fill-ins

2011-08-19T21:48:00.000+10:00

1. It's fun to sneak out and not tell a soul.

2. Lemon Delicious pudding is easy to make.

3. I like to be on time, or even earlier.

4. How it feels to ride a bicycle I will never know!

5. Something I'm very much excited about escapes me at the moment, but I'm thinking...........

6. My afternoon tea with a new friend was well worth it.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to an early night, tomorrow my plans include making Emmy's pumpkin pastries and Sunday, I want to finish something.....ANYTHING..... from the "to-do" pile!

Friday Fill-ins

2011-08-12T17:30:00.000+10:00

1. The only question is whether I can be bothered.

2. Its impossible to do it all in one day.

3. Three things on my desk: photograph of my 4 best friends, the book I should be indexing instead of doing this (!) and my Tardis USB hub..

4. Change into something warmer is the one thing I HAVE to do today!

5. I love playing with messy things.

6. The flowering tree outside my window, when its in full sun, overwhelms the senses.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf", tomorrow my plans include dinner with friends and Sunday, I want to sleep in, but I'm guessing I wont!

Friday Fill Ins

2011-08-05T18:57:00.000+10:00

Basil sunbaking

1. How can I make more hours in every day?

2. I know that a weed is only a plant in the wrong place, so I must have too many wrong places.

3. My hair defies description today - I've been swimming.

4. I spend longer getting ready for a reunion than almost any other occasion. Nothing should be that stressful.

5. My favorite summer fruits are strawberries and cherries.

6. The thing I wanted to remember...what was that?

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to "Silent Witness" on tv, tomorrow my plans include dinner with my sister-in-law and Sunday, I want to celebrate Dawn's birthday!

Friday Fill-ins

2011-07-16T14:43:00.001+10:00

The Zombie Outbreak Response Unit

1. I hold on going round corners, particularly in THAT car......

2. Kim is someone I like to travel with because we like to eat the same things and never argue over the money.

3. That day, when we landed in Broome, everything came together perfectly.

4. I'd like to find more time this year, but I dont imagine I will.

5. Best words on TV: "Trust me, I'm the Doctor."

6. I love to lie in bed at night and listen to the radio quiz in the dark.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to salt & pepper calamari, tomorrow my plans include a blueberry muffin and Sunday, I want to make scones!

Friday Fill-ins

2011-07-14T23:28:00.004+10:00

by Electra

1. I am from radio broadcasts, from Singer sewing machines with a treadle and books in every room. I am from the Goons, and Rogers and Hammerstein musicals, from rolling back the carpet and learning to dance a foxtrot. I am from photogaphy and water-colour, oils and pastels.

2. I am from the flat at the top of the stairs where the walls are painted grey and my cot is beside the window but its too high for me to see out. I am from a room where the curtains are white linen with bamboo drawn on them and one wall in the bedroom is painted dark red and the dressing table has a cane covered door.

3. I am from the dahlias in my grandfather's garden and the nasturtiums beside the laundry door, the garden bed that was my own and ringed with tiny stones so that ants had to walk around instead of over.......but they never did.

4. I am from people who read themselves to sleep and people who needed to know the answers, from women who sewed whatever was needed and men who went to sea and relatives who married better.

5. I am from the gardeners and the vegetable growers and the artists and the long-haired women who always found time. I am from the jam makers and the picture-takers.

6. And as for the weekend, tonight I was looking forward to reading a book, tomorrow my plans include coffee with my parents and Sunday, I want to fix the back gate!

Friday Fill-ins

2011-07-02T08:37:00.000+10:00

1. Blue skies and bright sun on this cold winter morning...............

2. Looking back into memory lane just makes me laugh, most days.

3. Kids need to get dirty.

4. New people, seeing with relaxed eyes, time to enjoy what's around me; these are some of the best things about vacation.

5. Love is to be found in unexpected places.

6. I dont think I'll be entering any submarine races.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to dinner at a local Thai restaurant, tomorrow my plans include making the most of the wind and sunshine (its laundry day AGAIN) and Sunday, I want to spend the day with friends!

Friday Fill-ins

2011-06-25T18:38:00.001+10:00

1. Getting away sounds like a great idea.

2. In winter a big bowl of porridge is what you need to start your day off right.

3. Coffee, tea or hot chocolate?

4. A book in place of mindless television.....possibilities for the imagination .

5. The lights of the city as you come over the last hill.......home.

6. Spending the day lost in painting is my idea of happiness.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to meeting my son's girlfriend (!), tomorrow my plans include laundry and marketing and Sunday, I want to stay in bed with a book!

Unconscious Mutterings

2011-06-20T21:26:00.000+10:00

That's an admirable goal, but for the purposes of this excercise, we're just hoping to have a little fun with the technique.

Diligence :: due
Volume :: of work
Hospital :: grounds
Binge :: drinking
Loyalty :: to others
Pediatrics :: hospital
Authorize :: signature
Cage :: lion
Studious :: industrious
Transfer :: pass

Friday again!!

2011-06-17T18:19:00.000+10:00

1. One of my favorite birthday presents was the dalek money box from my son.

2. He knows me well, it was as simple as that.

3. The moon is made of something far less tasty than green cheese they tell me.

4. My bookshelf includes a great collection of books I may never read again but cant bear to part with.

5. I was tempted by bag of chocolate frogs.........and gave in.

6. Reading, getting up late and catching up with friends are some of the things I like to do on vacation.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to a play at the Whitehorse Theatre, tomorrow my plans include buying fabric for new curtains in the spare room and Sunday, I want to start a book (because my reports are finished!!).

Paris In July

2011-06-14T23:27:00.000+10:00

Some things are so good you want to repeat them over and over again........and one is the lovely Paris in July "challenge". Last year it was a chance to look in some boxes of photographs and share a lovely time in my life quite a few years ago when we went to Paris and didn't want to come home. This year, well, perhaps I'll find my black beret (I live in Melbourne, what other colour is there?) and sample french delicacies wherever I find them. Might also have to shop for some seriously parisienne acoutrements........

Last year I found this storybook which combined my love of books, cats and some delightful artwork.......plus it was french. What will I find this year? If you think this might intrigue you too, join us by looking here at the founders of this Parisienne journey and following your nose........

Friday Fill-ins

2011-06-11T13:54:00.000+10:00

Basil snoozing

1. I remember when I first heard possums on the roof at night and thought we had a burglar.

2. Red maple leaves are showering down from Peter's tree on the front lawn.

3. Most humans need a reality check once in a while.

4. "Where DID I put that?"...sound familiar?

5. I was inspired by Electra today.

6. I saved it on a really obvious bright pink USB memory stick but now I cant find the thing at all and its hiding who knows where!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to starting my reports, tomorrow my plans include chasing the sun around the garden with our washing and Sunday, I want to get to the market with Lizzie!

Week 428 - more mutterings of the unconscious.....

2011-04-11T11:42:00.000+10:00

Analytical :: process
Production :: line
Softball :: ouch
Uniform :: navy blue
Intangible :: friends
Grill :: interrogate
Second base :: way out there.......
Citizen :: of the world
Celery :: yuk
Opera :: isn't what I expected

....and in the words of the lady in charge: "Rules are, there are no rules." There are no right or wrong answers. Don't limit yourself to one word responses; just say everything that pops into your head.

Your turn (the original post is here).....

Unconscious Muttering.......

2011-03-31T13:33:00.001+11:00

Recommendation :: stay off your feet
Toilet paper :: soft
Scissors :: curved
Blaze :: warmth
Frame :: picture
Process :: cook
Flight :: of fancy
Irish :: whimsy
Glasses :: could be cleaner
Campaign :: trail

That's an admirable goal, but for the purposes of this excercise, we're just hoping to have a little fun with the technique. Visit the original here for yourself.

Friday Fill-ins

2011-03-20T00:40:00.000+11:00

1. I love to go to the Sunday market in Mornington because there's so much to look at.

2. If I had to choose......... it’s the quality!

3. The last thing I had to eat was a chocolate -covered raspberry.

4. Wondering what others think of what I do is no longer essential.

5. Please take a moment to savour the day around you.

6. Good fortune (and good friends) have brought you this far.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to not cooking, tomorrow my plans include lots of cooking and Sunday, I want to s-l-e-e-p!

Dealing with the weather........

2011-03-13T16:33:00.002+11:00

Thought my international readers might like to hear something that was NOT on the iPod our Prime Minister gave to the US President.... an iPod which was supposed to have on it a representative collection of Australian music. There has been much amusement and not a little confusion over the selection of the tracks - why was one thing there and another not? Why was a Crowded House track included when they come from NZ? Why were all the tracks politically correct?

You can't please everyone all the time.

The link here is to a song re-worked since our monumental weather events across Australia this summer. It can be downloaded from the ABC Shop online and donations made to the Premier's Flood Appeal for Queensland, despite the fact that many more parts of the country were effected. At least its a start, and to be fair to Macca, the weather events just keep on coming............ Now Macca is certainly not everyone's taste, but he makes me smile (and grit my teeth, and yell at the radio, and laugh out loud, generally every show). Tune in on Sunday morning (Australian time) from 5.30 til 10 am every week. His program is called Australia All Over.

Fridays.... week 8

2011-02-27T19:00:00.001+11:00

1. Ooooh, I nearly forgot again!

2. Its the end of February already, I can't stand it!

3. How the heck did I end up with so many things on my "To Do" list?

4. The beach at Blairgowrie is one of my favorite places to visit.

5. I'm not a hoarder, I'm not (just dont look in the Busy Room)!

6. For me to keep a book, it has to be good.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to putting my feet up, tomorrow my plans include putting away the sewing machine at last ('cos I'll have finished the mending wont I??) and Sunday, I want to make a start on the next job on the list!

Friday again.........

2011-02-18T23:05:00.000+11:00

1. New experiences and possibilities sometimes turn out to be closer than I expected.

2. I took an unexpected turn on a daily walk and wished I hadn't.

3. I'm looking forward to my next cup of tea.

4. Replacing a knee joint is something I could never have imagined.

5. Try to find that missing sock before I throw out the other one.

6. I've tried, but I cant think of anything that is extraordinary about me.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to sleeping through the thunderstorm, tomorrow my plans include finishing the lavender-bushes pruning (big dusty job) and Sunday, I want to do another few laps of the pool!

It WAS Friday, but now its not........ Fill-ins #6

2011-02-13T20:38:00.000+11:00

1. Family is so very interesting.

2. Today has been full of ups and downs, all self-inflicted, and related to my sore knees.

3. Trust me to take up something exhausting.

4. I'm just going to dive in and hope for the best.

5. Parents come in handy according to my son.

6. ...which is the only bit of what was said that I can rememnber.

7. And as for the weekend, on Friday I was looking forward to dinner out with friends, on Saturday my plans included trying out the new turkish coffee shop at the market and Sunday, I wanted to get to Mornington and buy a bird feeder! Two out of three achieved....

Unconscious Mutterings 418

2011-02-05T23:58:00.001+11:00

I say ... and you think ... ?

Agency :: service
Ministrations :: help
Charlie :: 's Angels
Bricks :: and mortar
Contingencies :: insurance
Dad :: navy blue
Zoned :: confined
Direct :: sale
Team :: work
Cave :: man

.......what an odd collection, and what does it say about me I wonder?? How do you play? Easy. Simply copy the word prompts (created by LunaNina) and fill in the space with whatever answer comes to your mind. If you have a chance, check out what other people say. Couldn't be easier - can't go wrong.

Friday Fill-ins

2011-02-04T23:38:00.000+11:00

1. We are on this earth because we haven't found the escape hatch yet.

2. Tonight's experience of driving through the flash flooding rain is not something I care to repeat too soon.

3. One of the hardest things for me to learn is that people who don't agree with me are not always wrong.

4. Have I been disconnected?

5. I remember when a little bit of pocket money went a l-o-n-g way.

6. Finding a great book (and the time to read it) is one of the best parts of my life.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to staying up to make sure the water stays outside, tomorrow my plans include getting to the market (probably by boat!) and Sunday, I want to enjoy that coffee you promised me Liz!

Unconscious Mutterings 417

2011-01-29T23:48:00.001+11:00

Girlfriend :: chatter
Crushed :: by fall
Source :: code
Corner :: window
Gossip :: coffee
Encounter :: briefly
Make an offer :: I might refuse
Stylish :: wishful thinking
Profit :: money
Waste :: paper

How do you play? Easy. Simply copy the word prompts (created by LunaNina) and fill in the space with whatever answer comes to your mind. If you have a chance, check out what other people say. Couldn't be easier - can't go wrong.

Unconscious Mutterings....week 416

2011-01-21T22:51:00.000+11:00

Bootie :: baby
User :: friendly
Child :: of the universe
Scribe :: monk
Manager :: shopping
Upsetting :: cry
Puddles :: flood
Hopeful :: survival
Procrastination :: me
Statistics :: numbers numbers numbers

2011 - Week 3

2011-01-21T22:17:00.000+11:00

1. So many of us on the other side of the world can't imagine what snow must be like at this time of year - we're flooded instead.

2. So many people have retained their generosity of spirit even in hardship.

3. Those who are accepting of what life throws at them might just have the answer.

4. As I compose the answers, one cat is waiting quietly by the door and the other is sitting beside the fridge complaining loudly "Feeeeeeeeed me".

5. Light is in both the mirror and its reflection.

6. I wonder if we could make a long list of all that is ordinary.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to reading more of Stephen Fry's autobiography, tomorrow my plans include hosting my mothers birthday party and Sunday, I want to sleep in, but I cant!

Thoughts on a book - 1/1: Jihad - Britain

2011-01-17T23:34:00.000+11:00

A novel by Jack Everett and David Coles.

NOTE: no spoilers included.

Just before Christmas I was surprised by an email offering me a book to review – a completely unsolicited request based on a random reading of my thoughts here. I continue to be tickled by the links we make so easily across the world, those of us quietly uploading posts about books, movies, observations of life and the amazing array of people who share this online environment with us. Yes it should be obvious, in this world where here in Australia our Emergency Services have used social media to disseminate information quickly and effectively in the face of huge floodwaters.....but I am delighted just the same.

I read the first few pages of this book as soon as it arrived but the complications of end-of-year events at work meant it has been longer than I wanted before getting back to it. Once begun again, I could not stop reading and completed the book in a sitting.

Enough rambling......

This novel is a disturbing addition to the many stories being woven around terrorism in the aftermath of 9/11. It follows the paths of two men who represent opposing viewpoints – Imran Assail, an extremist Muslim bound for Paradise via jihad, a holy war with Britain as its target, and Francis Raike, a new Prime Minister carried to office by his desire to recreate a better Britain in the wake of the terrorist-created destruction described in clinical detail at the beginning of the story.

The writing is clean and crisp, details spilling out across the pages without confusion; the plots and sub plots ebbing and playing out around each-other. Background to the terrorism which opens the story is related with precision and reveals an unnerving attention to detail in the planning and execution of devastation and murder on a grand scale. The reader observes first the fanaticism of Assail and his partner Fahkri and then the equally driven passion of Francis Raike as he drives the political reforms necessary to replace complacency with national pride and rebuild Britain.

The book begins on New Years Eve 2011, regresses briefly to 2006, then continues through to 2016. There is a love story glimpsed here and there as the PM endeavours to maintain a private life in the face of his enormous responsibilities. There are insights into ways the world could be re-imagined in a manner which recognises diversity while celebrating the common man and his lifestyle. The authors touch on conscription, economic refugees, a new version of transportation of convicts, bomb making, CCTV piracy and even climate change. The pace is swift, the targets of terrorism are frighteningly real, most of the good people survive. The scariest thing about the book is how easy it is to imagine everything being true.

Find this book and read it yourself, you won’t be disappointed.

First for the new year.........

2011-01-09T15:49:00.000+11:00

1. It's 2011; I have a feeling its all going to be different this year.

2. I can never understand why anyone would spoil a good piece of ham with nasty yellow pickles, but they're okay on other stuff, maybe.....

3. Thankfully I have my "to do" list almost completed, xcept for the really big things!!

4. Friends, books, chocolate, warm days, free time and health are the best things in life.

5. I am so pleased that the pile of books on the end of the desk is getting ever-so-slightly lower.

6. I planned to fill the bowl with cherries but I ate them instead.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to catching up with Ann, tomorrow my plans include working on the mosaic and Sunday, I want to sleep in and then maybe get into the garden (oh the weeds....)!

Thoughts on a book: Water for Elephants

2011-01-09T15:08:00.002+11:00

It’s a long time since I read a book from cover to cover and let the time drift... but this morning I woke early enough I thought to read just a chapter or two before making the most of the cooler weather. Well, strike that out for a start.

Water for Elephants has been sitting on the pile for a month or two, getting pushed under other more clamorous reads, until today. After a humid night I woke early, retrieved the top book from the closest pile, and planned to read a chapter before rising. Suddenly it was time for morning tea - breakfast long passed – and two cats sat in the bedroom doorway silently waiting for me to leave the room and perhaps get as far as the kitchen to the fridge..............

Jacob Jankowski tells his story from the perspective of the walking frame which at ninety or is it ninety three (see the opening lines of Ch 1) he grasps with the thin and wrinkled age-spotted hands he barely recognises. The bare bones: how he met his wife and started his family, how he begrudges ending his days in “assisted living” accommodation.

This is the tale of a grieving young man running from the emptiness of a life suddenly bereft of family. It is 1931 and homelessness and unemployment are the norm across middle America; Jacob has no home, no friends, no work and must rely on luck and pragmatism to survive. In desperation he flings himself at a passing train in the hope that wherever it takes him must be a better place than where he is, and finds himself onboard the circus train that freights the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth across the country. It is as well that his almost completed college degree is in veterinary science.

In three months of eventful journeying across America, Jacob carts buckets of food for the big cats and camels, tends to horses, dogs and a giraffe, shares a wagon with a clown, falls disastrously in love, drinks large amounts of prohibited whiskey and discovers in himself the same love for animals that was to have underpinned E. Jankowski & Son, Doctors of Veterinary Medicine a lifetime before. That this part of his life has a happy ending, not revealed here, is proof that good things do indeed come to good people.

What I appreciated most were the insights into life revealed by Jacob’s interactions with his nurse, and how easily we take away the independence of a person in tiny increments, because its quicker, easier and more convenient than the alternative of asking, negotiating, acquiescing, humouring and respecting the individual. Vignettes of life in Jacob's present came every couple of chapters, sprinkled throughout the book much like the engaging photographs of circuses of the time, and I liked these as much as the tale that lead to them.

Now what’s for lunch?

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. Allen & Unwin 2006

Mutterings 414

2011-01-07T19:13:00.000+11:00

Carwash :: wet
Intuition :: familiar
Desperate :: situations
Tears :: hot
Purple :: Marg
Storage :: over flowing
Duct :: needs cleaning
System :: reboot
Cabinet :: of curiosities
Manager :: I'm not

Maybe I'll read 100 this year....

2011-01-07T19:04:00.012+11:00

If you're a book worm like me, and you'd rather be reading than almost anything else, and you have a H-U-G-E pile of books on the desk that you are determined to read this year........... then this might be just the spur you need. Last year I managed a little over 50 books and am determined to do better this year (who needs a dusted mantlepiece anyway??).

Visit the host here and register to read as many books as you can do the next twelve months.... all the pressure comes from within!!

Here's the start I've made:

1 Friends in high places by Donna Leon

2 Gould's book of fish by Richard Flanagan

3 The piano teacher by Janice YK Lee

4 Gift of the gob by Kate Burridge

5 The Castlemaine murders by Kerry Greenwood

6 Blood from a stone by Donna Leon

7 The pyramid by Henning Mankell

8 The painter of battles by Arturo Perez-Reverte

9 A question of belief by Donna Leon

10 Water for elephants by Sara Gruen
11 Loveliest dead by Ray Garton
12 1/1: Jihad - Britain by Jack Everett & David Coles
13 Incidental music by Francoise Sagan
14 The Fry chronicles by Stephen Fry
15 Fatal remedies by Donna Leon
16 The gang of four by Liz Byrski
17 A tiny bit marvellous by Dawn French
18 The cat who played Brahms by Lilian Jackson Braun
19 The Fig Tree by Arnold Zable
20 Sustenance by Simone Lazaroo
21 The unknown terrorist by Richard Flanagan
22 The Seamstress by Geraldine Wooller
23 A death in Calabria by Michele Giuttani
24 Sustenance by Simone Lazaroo

25 A mind to murder by PD James

26 The elephant to Hollywood by Michael Caine
27 Cat o'nine tails by Jeffrey Archer
28 The glass room by Simon Mawer
29 The clan of the cave bear by Jean Auel
30 Little coffee shop of Kabul by Deborah Rodriguez
31 The Paris wife by Paula McLain
32 Don Camillo and the devil by Giovanni Guareschi
33 The troubled man by Henning Mankell
34 Sidetracked by Henning Mankell
35 Love in the time of cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
36 My sister's keeper by Jodi Picoult
37 The secret orchard of Roger Ackerley by Diana Petre
38 Full Circle by Helen Townsend
39 The dressmaker by Rosalie Ham
40 Caleb's crossing by Geraldine Brooks
41 In other rooms, other wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin
42 The girl who would speak for the dead by Paul Elwork
43 Chronicler of the winds by Henning Mankell

The Mind's Eye

2010-12-27T18:24:00.002+11:00

Thoughts on the latest book by Oliver Sacks

I have felt an affinity with Oliver Sacks ever since seeing the movie Awakenings (several times) and becoming absorbed in the young doctor's attempts to bring life back to the patients in limbo. The unfortunate side of seeing the movie is that I "see" Robin Williams whenever I read "Oliver Sacks". Perhaps not so bad, because it was Robin Williams in a less than usually manic role. I have taken Sacks' refusal to put limits on expectations into my work life - trying to see beyond the obvious in the children I teach, seeing more than meets the eye when what DOES meet the eye can be confronting, the disabilities seeming to outweigh the abilities.

Oliver Sacks is fascinated by the human brain and its curiosities: its ability to survive trauma, overcome obstacles, re-invent itself, provide the answer to one mystery while simultaneously creating another.... This latest book is no different and includes case histories and personal observations and includes torment and panic as the author's own eyesight is increasingly compromised by an ocular melanoma and he is drawn into what the mind does really see. I appreciate his ability to write mostly in terms the non-medical readers can follow without too much recourse to the dictionary, only getting a little lost when Sacks compares recent research with various theories surrounding everything from how plastic the brain remains, to the accuracy of visual perception in someone without sight. I will read some of those chapters again.

As always, I need to return to his previous books and follow the cross-referencing myself, doubtless getting lost in each book once again but rekindling my own wonder at the agility of the litttle grey cells.

some free associations...... (week 413)

2010-12-27T17:06:00.000+11:00

I say ... and you think ... ?

Detective :: Montalbano
Bra :: wire
Prove it :: why?
The end :: is nigh
Messy :: washing
Immovable :: object
Jingle :: bells
False :: teeth
Comprehend :: read
Scream :: psycho

Didn't make even CLOSE!!

2010-12-27T16:33:00.001+11:00

...so I'll have to try again in 2011

Spin the bottle by Monica McInerney

Absent in the spring by Mary Westmacott (aka Agatha Christie)

Giants bread by Mary Westmacott

The rose and the yew tree by Mary Westmacott

The bone woman by Clea Koff

The end of the alphabet by CS Richardson

Paper Moon by Andrea Camileri

Rounding the mark by Andrea Camileri

The cat who wasn't there by Lilian Jackson Braun

Marley & me by John Grogan

The chocolate lovers club by Carole Matthews

The snack thief by Andrea Camileri

What Alice forgot by Liane Moriaty

How to Hepburn by Karen Karbo

Dear Fatty by Dawn French

The housekeeper and the professor by Yoko Ogawa

Deep sleep by Frances Fyfield

Garden spells by Sarah Addison Allen

The harper's quine by Pat McIntosh

Shadow play by Frances Fyfield

The diving bell and the butterfly by Jean Dominique Bauby

A clear conscience by Frances Fyfield

The patience of the spider by Andrea Camileri

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

Willful behaviour by Donne Leon

The nightwatch by Sarah Waters

The lizard's bite by David Hewson

The girl who kicked a hornets nest by Steig Larsson

A child's book of true crime by Chloe Hooper

The second-last woman in England by Maggie Joel

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

The Sunday philosophy club by Alexander McCall Smith

The Believers by Zoe Heller

The Scarpetta Factor by Patricia Cornwell

The Book of Lost Threads by Tess Evans

Cents and Sensibility by Maggie Alderson

The Mystic Masseur by VS Naipaul

Morgan's passing by Anne Tyler

Let me sing you gentle songs by Linda Olsson

The smell of an oily rag by Ouang Yu

The piano teacher by Janice Y K Lee

Mr Rosenblum's list by Natasha Solomons

Singing in the shrouds by Ngaio Marsh

Time for books......

2010-12-25T23:57:00.000+11:00

The very best way to begin my Christmas holidays was to spend a day in Carlton with my friend Lorraine who likes coffee and books too (who cares in which order??). The worst part of the day was the grotty carpark, but apart from that it was another sublime day spent browsing in book stores and refuelling here and there.

We began at Readings which is just about my very favourite bookstore because there's every latest release, but also some titles I never see anywhere else. I love to browse, no-one bothers you but advice is freely given if you ask. There's music, movies, quirky ephemera around the registers, and shelves and shelves and tables and tables of lovely books. Then across the road to Borders and lunch at the coffee shop outside the Nova ticket box.

And if I see that lady with the fabulous red shoes again, I'm going to have to ask her where she shops (and hope its somewhere vaguely local).

Holidays at last

2010-12-18T09:03:00.002+11:00

Its the first morning of my Christmas holidays and the grumbles of life at work are already fading.......today perhaps being washed away by the steady rain. Remind me again...this IS Melbourne, and it IS summer...isn't it? Someone last week pointed out that, based on some research into meteorological records of Wangaratta (or was it Warrnambool?), we should expect alternating decades of drought and rain, so I'm giving up complaining right now. All I need to do is keep an umbrella by each door, a shower proof coat in the car, and my sense of humour intact. It was Billy Connelly who said that there is no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes, and I'm living by that if I can. Pragmatics over pique.

There is still a week 'til Christmas, and while most of my shopping is done, there are presents to wrap and cooking to start. I'm looking forward to the freedom of baking at any time of the day, dusting the benches with flour and probably crunching almonds or something equally slippery under my feet. The old cat will be sitting patiently on the chair with the best view of the kitchen, waiting to see if I leave the room and forget something tasty is still sitting on the bench; the younger cat will be patrolling the doorway and occasionally complaining that I dont sit down often enough. In other parts of the house a pile of books grows every week (after my conversations with Martin at South Melbourne market's book shop) and the work bench in my busy room is stacked with presents to finish.

Best go and make a start..........

Friday Fill-ins 203

2010-12-17T17:30:00.001+11:00

1. What in the world will I do first, now that holidays ARE HERE???

2. After the breakfast we all shared at work this morning, the one thing I can say for certain is that we are very well fed.

3. Go out to the car and bring in the shopping please ..... I can't move another inch.

4. One day when I least expected it, heaven sent me Ali who challenged me to write a blog, and NOW look what's happened......

5. I keep all the friends I've made close to my heart.

6. I could get up tomorrow really early and wrap all my Christmas presents and make a start on the pudding which I should have made last month at least and write all the Christmas cards I promised myself I would send this year.......... or not.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to our traditional end-of-year dinner with Dene and John, tomorrow my plans include celebrating my friend John's big 'O' birthday and Sunday, I want to sleep in 'til its dark again!

AND then there's another list of songs I'm struggling to decipher.........

19. IDOAWCJLTOIUTK: (Uh-huh! I get it now...)I'm dreaming of a white Christmas just like the ones I used to know
20. CROAOFJFNAYN: Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose
21. IBTLALLC: Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas...
22. OLTOBHSWSTL: O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie
23. SBRAYLITLSIG: ??
24. IBHFC: I'll be home for Christmas
25. WWYAMCWWYAMC: We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas
26. IHTBOCD: I heard the bells on Christmas Day
27. FTSIAJHS:Frosty the snowman is a jolly happy soul

Friday Fill-ins 202

2010-12-10T21:45:00.001+11:00

1. I wish it was holiday time RIGHT NOW.

2. Its better to try and see the other point of view (you can always agree to disagree) than stay dispassionate about everything because that's what you think defines leadership ...that's what I'm thinking (its been a bad week).

3. Please bring dinner with you, I'm too tired to cook!

4. Going to the letter box and finding a surprise from the other side of the world is so amazing, not to mention unexpected and appreciated.

5. One of my fondest hopes is to find lots of chocolate under the tree.

6. It was the most thoughtful thing you could possibly have done for me, and I just wanted to say thank you.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to getting out the box of Christmas decorations (after someone else brings dinner!!), tomorrow my plans include getting to the shops and back without incident and Sunday, I want to find something REALLY different for my Mum for Christmas!

...and then there are these which are not so easy as last week...

10. YKDADAPAVCACADAB:You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen...
11. ISMKSCUTMLN:I saw Mummy kissing Santa Claus underneath the mistletoe last night
12. CSBSDIHS:??
13. HTHASGTTNK: Hark, the herald angels sing, Glory to the newborn King
14. GGROBAR:Gandma got run over by a reindeer
15. OHNTSASB: Oh holy night, the stars are shining brightly
16. AIWFCIMTFT:All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.
17. DTTSIAOHOS:??
18. WTKOOA: We three kings of Orient are (which is my favourite carol ever since I was a king in a kindergarten pagent)

Unconscious Mutterings (week 410)

2010-12-08T21:43:00.000+11:00

I say ... and you think ... ?

Twitter :: what?
Facebook :: so boring. Who cares what you had for dinner?
MySpace :: never been there
Friend :: ah....I like these people and I have lots in my life. They make me smile.
Subscribe :: commit
Conflict :: please don't
Ignore :: what my boss does when its something she doesn't like
Drama :: theatre
Hide :: and seek
List :: the things you love

Unconscious Mutterings might intrigue you...........

Friday Fill-ins and Christmas songs too!!

2010-12-04T22:57:00.004+11:00

1. The best thing about a birthday celebration is catching up with friends and sharing stories about the last time we were together..

2. The one thing I wish I could stop, but realise I cant, is the passage of time.

3. I went shopping recently and the most interesting thing I bought was a hand crafted timber brooch for my Mum.

4. Somebody please take away this new iPad and give me an old-fashioned child's game instead, technology is addictive .

5. The reason is.... I just want some time to myself with NO-ONE INTERRUPTING (but I'm sorry I shouted).

6. Considering summer is on its way to Melbourne, the last thing I'm likely to see is snow and I definitely wont be cold.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to going to see "Madame Butterfly" and look for my friend the opera singer on stage (not many parts, should be easy to spot), tomorrow my plans include maybe washing the last few months dirt off the car and Sunday, I want to catch up with Jo over a coffee in Mornington!

AND just for fun

1. HYAMLC: Have yourself a merry little Christmas.........
2. TFNTADS: The first Noel, the angels did say.......
3. GRYMGLNYD: God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay.....
4. ICUAMC: It came upon a midnight clear................
5. SNHNAICAIB: SIlent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright........
6. OTFDOCMTLGTM: On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me.......
7. DTHWBOHFLLLLLLLL: Deck the halls with bows of holly, fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.
8. YBWOYBNC:You'd better watch out, you'd better not cry......
9. JTTWTLHC:Joy to the world, the Lord is come

Friday Fill-ins 201

2010-11-26T18:14:00.001+11:00

1. Three things I must have on my Thanksgiving table (if Thanksgiving was something I celebrated): great food, fresh flowers and sparkling tableware.

2. Its Friday and its been a l-o-n-g week and now I'm sacked out on the couch.

3. This is the most peculiar day we've had in a while - humid, pouring rain, thunder, sunshine..... think La Nina is on her way for summer down under.

4. I cant wait to decorate my house for Christmas...and start baking goodies to give away (and not taste-test so many this year).

5. Oh, man, thankfully it's the one night of the week when my tradition is NOT TO COOK and I'm upholding it against all odds.

6. Someday soon I'll have to perfect the art of sleeping standing up.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to a quiet night at home with a pizza, tomorrow my plans include heading to the Mornington Christmas market with Bee and Sunday, I want to finish my reports!

Friday Fill-ins 200

2010-11-19T16:02:00.000+11:00

1. Why does the sun ALWAYS shine so brightly on the days when I have to get inside things done?.

2. One of the best things about reading is the ability of a great book to let me see the world.

3. Thank you for not being TOO critical of my random thoughts.

4. Exploring the beach is my favorite holiday because I can pretend the walking is good for me while I'm really just having a leisurely wander and exfoliating my feet at the same time!!

5. I am SO lucky to have great friends and lots of times for laughter.

6. I know in my heart that we can be everything we make up our minds to be.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to picking up Peter's cousin from the airport (if Tiger Air actually flies the plane that is...), tomorrow my plans include celebrating my Dad's 80th birthday by going out for dinner to a wild place he's found that we just HAVE to try and Sunday, I want to have a late breakfast in the sun!

Friday Fill-ins 199

2010-11-12T23:05:00.000+11:00

1. When pigs fly past my cats they wont be impressed.

2. ...and their expression will clearly ask "seriously?"!

3. Call me anything but late for breakfast, so long as you're cooking.

4. I can't wait to get horizontal, if you know what I mean.

5. The most entertaining person in my life is my son because he constantly surprises me, sometimes a good thing, sometimes not.....

6. Well I've done my bit, who's next?

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to going to bed (see above), tomorrow my plans include trying to stay dry in the thunderstorm that's predicted and Sunday, I want to finish my reports!

... #197

2010-10-29T22:43:00.000+11:00

1. While the cat's away no-one does the dishes.

2. ...but coming to home to sleep in my own bed is absolutely fabuloso!

3. Children are very expensive no matter HOW old they are.

4. The first thing I hear is "What's for dinner?" when I get home from work or shopping or what have you.

5. This may seem odd, but I really feel like a piece of roasted pumpkin right now.

6. But I'll settle for someone else to cook tea and that seems like a fine idea to me!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to unpacking my bags from a week away, tomorrow my plans include re-filling the cupboards (how could one person eat so much??) and Sunday, I want to sleep in then celebrate my friend's birthday by going out for what she think is lunch but I'll know is really breakfast!

Friday Fill-ins #196

2010-10-22T18:34:00.000+11:00

1. One of my strongest beliefs is that everyone has a talent for something.

2. I'd really like to take part in things related to Halloween because I like witches and I love pumpkins but..... why, WHY do the creepy black spiders have to be so huge!

3. The sky is cloudy with a threat of rain and wind and cold, so put on that warm and waterproof coat, find your woolly scarf and come out and play.

4. Reading a good book beside the fire in my living room is comforting to me.

5. I always thought I'd be living in South East Asia by now.

6. I put on my furry suit, practised my musical howling, polished my fangs and then I went outside to look at the full moon.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to getting home earlier than usual, tomorrow my plans include finishing the ironing from the last two weeks because we've run out of clothes and Sunday, I want to pack my suitcase for a week away with school camp!

Friday Fill-ins #195

2010-10-16T16:38:00.000+11:00

1. Wow, it's not Friday anymore...I'm getting worse!

2. My garden after the rain is always beautiful.

3. My favorite way to start a day is to lie in bed and listen to Red Symons.

4. My grandfather had been out in the garden all day, pruning and cutting and weeding until at afternoon-tea time he walked in the door holding a pumpkin.

5. I look out my window and see one of the cats staring at me reprovingly because I've been too busy to open the door and let him in.

6. Wishing I was closer to retiring is what I've been thinking about lately.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to cooking dinner for my friends, tomorrow my plans include buying door prizes for the staff dinner and Sunday, I want to have my favourite breakfast (see last week)!

Friday Fill-ins #194

2010-10-09T21:35:00.000+11:00

Oops... what happened to Friday?

1. My favorite month is June because its the beginning of winter...and my birthday's in it too.

2. I love a fresh breeze in my hair, in the sails, in my washing.

3. I love to sniff the morning air in spring.

4. Poached eggs, smoked salmon, grilled asparagus and hollandaise is what I like to have as a treat for breakfast, just once a year is enough.

5. The hobby I enjoy most is reading.

6. My friends would think I'd lost the plot if my vocabulary included "oh my"!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to a bath and finishing my book (at the same time), tomorrow my plans include sweeping up the fallen blossom and Sunday, I want to have a browse in the second-hand treasures in the Tyabb barn!

From 37 on...

2010-10-03T22:54:00.000+11:00

Still trying to read 100 books this year, and I'm running out of time..........

38. Morgan's passing by Anne Tyler

39. Let me sing you gentle songs by Linda Olsson

40. The smell of an oily rag by Ouang Yu

41. The piano teacher by Janice Y K Lee

42. Mr Rosenblum's list by Natasha Solomons

43. Singing in the shrouds by Ngaio Marsh

Friday Fill-ins #193

2010-10-01T18:08:00.000+10:00

1. My back could be SO much better if I slept properly..

2. Spring has sprung and everything in my garden has suddenly gone wild.

3. Leaves are falling all around, but only because I attacked the hedge with the clippers.

4. What was that? Something about forgetfulness?

5. Healing is a glorious thing and it sneaks up on you.

6. Eating out is what I've been up to lately!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to wishing Michelle a belated happy birthday, tomorrow my plans include washing the outdoor furniture to be ready for eating outside and Sunday, I want to find lots of presents at the Healesville market!

Thankyou... with a cherry on top!

2010-09-21T00:20:00.000+10:00

Imagine my surprise when I finally returned here to the land of my journal blog, as opposed to my crafty one which is still sadly languishing, to find a gift from Tamara whose blog Thyme for Tea inspired me to remember Paris in July.

Not quite sure my blog fits the description, at least from my side of the screen, but thank you all the same.

AWARD RULES: a question to answer, some other blogs to foward the award to, and a thankyou. First the question: "If you had the chance to go back and change one thing in your life, would you, and what would it be?" As I sat and thought about my answer only one thing came to mind......... Despite a lot of things I would not like to REPEAT in my life (and there are quite a few of those!!)(wearing quilted brown velvet springs to mind for a start), there are few things I would change completely except this: I wish that I had been able to see the bigger picture of my husband's last year with us, to have been more understanding and perhaps less selfish, kinder and more accepting.

Peter was slowly becoming less able to live the life he wanted while his heart and its various machines and medications struggled to keep him alive. The rally driver was no longer able to drive, the mechanic was no longer able to do more than advise from the sidelines while his son struggled to teach himself to re-build his car, the photographer no longer had the strength to hunt out special locations, the engineer could only manage going into the office for a couple of hours each day. Throughout this time I refused to cook the fatty salty things he loved, pestered him to get up, grumbled about rearranging my work to get him to and from his own and somehow think I lost my partner underneath the schedules and the medications and the ambulance rides and the maybe the desperation. Now I wish I'd just curled up with him, lived the slowest life possible together, and maybe it might have been longer. How could we know it wasn't something we could fix?

Oh boy this takes me to places I didn't want to go just now, just ever. But as I write I am trying to sit up, wiping my eyes for the hundredth time this week (it seems to be a raw time just lately) and taking heart from the fact that this blog has only a small audience and perhaps they will understand, and so it doesn't matter that my response has been more personal than perhaps it needed to be. Maybe I should have written about regretting the brown quilted velvet instead? I feel my mood lifting at the memory of that awful skirt.

Okay. Lightness.

Finding only 6 blogs that fit the bill is easier. In no particular order, my 6 special blogs are:

1. Nancy at Small World of Inchies and Twinchies - where tiny things are celebrated and wonders can be found.

2. 365 Cat Ladies and Friends - for lovers of cats and whimsy

3. Lisa at The Craft's Meow - she has to be amongst the kindest and most thoughtful people I know, and we've never even met. Such is the power of a blog.

4. Electra at Wishin' I knew how to Blog - where you never know what you're going to find (and this makes two awards so that PROVES she's special!!)

5. Third Storey Window for intriguing things that get me thinking...
6. Free Advice - still worth every penny - because I love Rosemary's sense of humour and pragmatism.

Now to thank Tamara properly for her kindness in bestowing this award on me..... I found your blog through Electra's posts and just had to take part in the Paris month. It was a lovely time for me to hunt through the photographs and post some special moments. Writing those posts gave me confidence to take up writing for pleasure again and I cant thank you enough for that small piece of motivation.

Thoughts on a book: Let Me Sing You Gentle Songs

2010-09-20T21:27:00.000+10:00

I love holidays so that I can read and read and finish a book in my own time instead of snatching moments here and there and perhaps losing something of the thread.

This small book is a product of the author's life in both New Zealand and Sweden, and the images of each seem to ring true despite my never having been to either place. The story is of two women who bring their memories and their wounds into their life together and forge something new and precious. The book is set in present day Sweden and begins with Veronika arriving in a remote village to rent a house and perhaps to write the book she has been planning in her mind. Veronika's neighbour is said to be a witch but is only a reclusive older woman living in the house her grandfather built. Her name is Astrid. The women share their stories in alternate chapters, going back further and further into the past, and deeper into the reasons for their individual sadness and chosen place of solitude.

A lovely touch throughout the book are the snatches of poetry which head each chapter - first in Swedish, followed by their translation by the author. Each phrase is mirrored and expanded by the chapter which follows and had the effect of making me stop to reflect before starting on the next small journey that the pages would chart.

The book is essentially about love, loss, compasssion, accommodation and finally renewal. The friendship between the women, so different in age and experience, is developed and nurtured with understanding and sensitivity. Crisp and clear pictures are painted through the memories and the seasons. While there is much sadness in the stories of the past it is not a sad book, rather a celebration of the small steps towards living with the experiences of ones life and reliving memories to keep the good and let the bad filter away.

"Come, sit by me, and I shall tell you all my sorrows; we shall talk to each other about secrets."

Read it.

"Let me sing you gentle songs" by Linda Olsson. Penguin 2005 (255p)

Friday Fill-ins #190

2010-08-20T17:32:00.001+10:00

1. Laughter is what keeps me sane.

2. "Got the details..." are the three words that started off the last email I sent.

3. What I'm most looking forward to today is staying home for a home cooked meal with friends....even if I'm cooking it myself.

4. The antics of my oldest cat as he works out the latest puzzle (think "How to open the bread bin" or "How to get into the pantry silently" puts a smile on my face.

5. Where in the world would I rather be? Maybe Naxos with good friends.

6. That hot chocolate after work was just what I needed!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to cooking up a feast, tomorrow my plans include going to Olga Berg's sale and Sunday, I want to dry the washing in the sun for a change!

Friday Fill-ins #189

2010-08-14T15:18:00.001+10:00

1. Music is vital to life.

2. Waking up warm is what I like first thing in the morning, but its always quickly followed by having to let the cat out the front door followed by leaping out of dressing gown and back under the covers in a single fluid (who am I kidding?) movement.....

3. The first thing I said this morning was: "YES! Saturday!" (because I'm late)..

4. Christmas Dinner in winter; it's what's for dinner tonight.

5. It's all been too much so I'm going back to my book and a box of chocolates (wishful thinking).

6. Curling up with a good book is what I feel like doing right now but the washing calls. It is Saturday afterall.....

7. And as for the weekend, tonight (Friday) I'm looking forward to peace and quiet, tomorrow my plans include dinner with friends and fellow dragon-boat paddlers and Sunday, I want to fill the trailer and head to the tip on "free green waste day".!

Thoughts on a movie: Second Hand Wedding

2010-08-10T23:05:00.000+10:00

NO SPOILERS IN THIS POST.

This little movie must have taken a while to get to Australia since it was made in New Zealand in 2008. It is showing at my local theatre where quirky films sometimes find a home and often play for weeks to small but full houses.

This is the story of Cheryl and her fiance Stew, and her attempt to have the wedding of her dreams without the intervention of her mother's penchant for everything second hand. I loved the footage of Cheryl's mother Jill, racing between garage sales in her yellow Mini van with her dippy friend Muffy reading the street directory to find the most direct route and beat the dealers to every sale. Where did Muffy get those coats? Silly question, a garage sale of course.... where else to find great fluffy fake furs and black and white spotted creations that make her look like a demented sheep. Her character owes much to the urban myths about scatterbrained blondes, but of course she has secrets and one of the best is revealed at the wedding in the final scenes of the film.

The predictable storyline is not the feature of this film, it is the vehicle to show how characters interact and weave the fabric of life. There are lots of good deeds, a few bad ones, and many well-intentioned ones. There is work-place tension and jealousy, a nightmarish vision of the possible wedding from hell, the bridesmaid who wants to look sexy; the family home has plastic fruit in the kitchen, a satisfyingly familiar pile of ladders and tyres beside the garage, and mis-matched mugs for serving tea. The ending is funny and touching. Watch out for the extra piece during the credits which explains the random appearances of the sign thief.

When Marian and I choose a movie it wont be a thrilling action movie with spies and gadgetry, and it probably wont be animated. It might have subtitles (I loved The Hedgehog last week), it might be romantic and it will definitely make us laugh. Despite a couple of sequences that were a bit close to home and made me shudder just a little, this was a good movie that I'm glad we saw.

I like my books challenging and my movies like hot frothy chocolate.

Here's the beginning of the next 30...

2010-08-08T19:50:00.002+10:00

31. The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

32. The Sunday philosophy club by Alexander McCall Smith

33. The Believers by Zoe Heller

34. The Scarpetta Factor by Patricia Cornwell

35. The Book of Lost Threads by Tess Evans
36. Cents and Sensibility by Maggie Alderson
37. The Mystic Masseur by VS Naipaul

Friday Fill-ins #188

2010-08-06T19:01:00.000+10:00

1. Life is full of friends who all like to go out to eat, and often there's chocolate involved.

2. Sometimes its hard but you've just got to keep going til you finish the block.

3. My last text message (or IM) ended in these three words: "....on Monday, ok?".

4. Pumpkin and spinach risotto is what I'm thinking about for dinner sometime soon.

5. On the 1st day of August I started the second year of my new life; not sure I like it yet, but its the only one I've got at the moment.

6. I used to be lively and energetic, I'm sure I was, once....

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to watching tv (at last there's something on that I like), tomorrow my plans include returning my Dad's car and Sunday, I want to get to the Education Show, but I may just sleep in instead!

Friday Fill-ins #187

2010-07-30T19:09:00.001+10:00

1. I'm going to do it my way and everyone else will just have to live with that.

2. Please dont ask me to do anything implying adventure and daring because I'm either too cautious, or just plain scared.

3. Perhaps today you can make it a point to buy me chocolate more often,

4. ....because I'm almost positive that would awaken my true adventurer’s spirit.

5. Compassion is more common than I thought.

6. My friends have been around for me, no questions asked, no matter how difficult it has been some days.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to a rare Friday night home alone, tomorrow my plans include visiting the church where I was married 24 years ago and Sunday, I want to have a great big breakfast cooked by someone else!

Thoughts on a book: The Scarpetta Factor

2010-07-30T18:55:00.000+10:00

I like Patricia Corwell's writing because the plot is always a puzzle and sometimes you have the first pieces so early you dont recognise them for what they are...... Why note a homeless man? Why does a rival give you a hug?

This book continues the backstory that has been an undercurrent over the past six or seven of these crime novels which follow the career of Dr Kay Scarpetta, Chief Medical Examiner, her niece Lucy and husband Benton Wesley, formerly of the FBI. The writing is fast paced and hard to put down, not the least because there's always a lot to keep in mind.

The story begins with the body of Toni Darien in the Manhatten morgue and Scarpetta's care to make sense of anomalies the body presents. Nearby her husband Benton, working at Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital, is beginning to worry about a handmade Christmas card addressed to him, and with a sinister song recorded on its tiny circuit. Scarpetta's niece Lucy is snowbound in Vermont, trying to salvage something from a weekend with her partner and simultaneously searching the internet for clues to the mystery her aunt faces on the autopsy table. Before long there are threads to follow and tangles to unwind, and Benton realises almost too late that everything is part of something very much bigger and more frightening than anyone but the FBI will believe.

As I read, it occured to me that here was the echo I had felt when I first read the Millenium books.... Lucy Farinelli calls to mind Lisbeth Salander. Each is a computer whiz-kid, talking in codes that only other similarly minded people can follow, only too aware of how much information is stored and how each store can be opened, accessed and manipulated from afar. Each is basically a solitary person although Lucy is more socially presentable in her own skin than Lisbeth who communicates best when disguised by dress or the anonymity of a chat room. Each wears leathers and determinedly androgenous clothes on their slight figures.

It was only when I got to the end of this book that I remembered one of the things that had charmed me when I began to read Scarpetta stories, years ago..... the cooking. Pasta, rich aromatic sauces, shopping for ingredients to fill the house with memories of family and friends and times shared; a glass of wine to drink while lovingly preparing the simplest and tastiest of midnight snacks.

I do like a book with lots of different aspects to it!

The Scarpetta Factor, Patricia Cornwell, Griffin Press 2009 (ISBN 978-0-316-73317-5)

Paris in July - 8

2010-07-27T20:27:00.000+10:00

Wanted to share the talents of my friend Liz who has not long returned from Europe. This is her evocative and beautifully coloured photograph of a Paris morning through her hotel window.

What I love most about this challenge is reading everyone's memories and reviews and recipes. Plus it made me notice french things everywhere, from my placemats in the kitchen and the perpetual calendar on the wall, to the food and furnishings in my local shops.

What shall we do once July is over?

Thoughts on a book: The Believers

2010-07-25T11:52:00.001+10:00

I sometimes wonder what motivates me to pick up a book, or a collection of books. Is there something subliminal that guides my hand, or am I simply having a "like that cover" day?

Last week I picked up a copy of The Believers by Zoe Heller. The blurb lead me to think it would be a good book to read that I wouldn't have to struggle through like the last one (The Yiddish Policemen's Union, mused upon earlier this month), determined as I had been to finish it, despite not being sure I was enjoying the ride.

The Litvinoff family, yes its another book with Jewish themes, are the characters. Parents Joel and Audrey dominate the lives of their three children: adopted Lenny, doormat Karla, and about to be born-again Jew Rosa. After a brief opening which paints Joel and Audrey in their familiar mariage, and describes their relationships with the three adult children, the remainder of the book deals with the aftermath of Joel's stroke. There are no medical elements to overwhelm the reader, instead the details are of the life the family thought they knew, and what had in fact been happening instead.

I found parallels with Audrey's observation of her new life while Joel lingered in hospital

"By day she sat at Joel's bedside, in a narcaleptic stupor: by night she rattled around the Perry Street house, a lone pea in an oversized pod. Her domestic life, which for forty years had been framed by Joel's clamorous, demanding presence, had become a shambolic, unpunctuated affair....it was simply that without Joel she didn't have the gumption, the discipline, to call a halt to the day by herself."

...and that odd feeling that comes later when life keeps on going

"A few nights ago, Jean persuaded Audrey to accompany her to an anti-war meeting in Chelsea. Audrey needed to get out in the world and recharge her batteries, she said....It had seemed a reasonable enough idea at the time. But the outing had proved to be a terrible mistake. Ausdrey was not ready to put her personal calamity in the perspective that social life required. It did not reassure her to know that life in the great world was going on as before: it offended her."

Oh I know that feeling, but the rest of the story belong entirely to the Litvinoffs. The women were overshadowed by the life their parents led and undermined in the lives they created for themselves. They seemed to be unplanned by-products of a thisty sexlife and just had to be endured and bullied into adults. Nothing either woman does meets with parental approval, only in the last pages does Audrey show any empathy for Karla and she isn't even around to hear it. Their adopted brother, addicted to heroin and whatever else he can persuade his doting mother to pay for, seems to have slipped through life without boundaries and at thirty-four is still only a sketchy man.

It might not sound like a great story, but its a good read and I did indeed stay in bed this morning til I finished it, BECAUSE I wanted to finish it. I may even keep the book, a positive affirmation in a house with many bookshelves and all of them full.

The Believers - Zoe Heller, Fig Tree (Penguin) 2008

Paris in July - 7 "Cat's Tongues"

2010-07-25T00:40:00.002+10:00

After leaving a comment on Tamara's blog about celebrating Bastille Day at school with chocolate Langues de Chat, I thought I'd try and find out why they were such a tradition for our french mistress. For those who didn't read my comment, Mademoiselle shared them with us every year, but I dont remember ever being told why anyone would want to make a cats tongue from chocolate........ definitely weird.

Haven't found anything yet, but along the way I discovered that the Japanese make them (here's the link) and so do the Germans (as you can see here), but the only french cats tongues I have found to date are biscuits. And while searching, as you do, I came across this blog which might be fun to read too.....combining a few of my favourite things in one place.

So maybe this tradition that I thought I had discovered at school was in fact my french teacher's own little chocolate obsession, disguised as a teaching tool.

Paris in July - 6

2010-07-24T23:41:00.000+10:00

I have a secondhand bookshop that is my first call every Saturday morning. This week I was idly browsing while the rest of the family bought and sold, and I found a gem to add to the cat book collection AND share for this challenge. Look for more information about "Paris in July" here.

ZAT CAT ! by Chelsey McLaren Its a tail (!) of a cat who falls on his feet, as all cats do, and creates havoc at 'Le "wild & glamorous" de Paree! C'est l'ouvre Spectaculaire du Grand Couturier Monsieur Pierre.' I'd love to be able to reproduce more of the text but permission from the publisher might take too long for this challenge. The font is handlettered by the author, and the illustrations - whimsical pen and pencil sketches, deceptively simple and stylised - are a delight. If you ever smiled at the amount of information conveyed by a few lines in a Ronald Searle sketch for a St Trinians story, you'll love these. I especially like the translations of occasional french phrases... they appear like footnotes at the bottom of each page, accompanied by a little sketch of the Eiffel Tower. Not that you'd need them because the simplicity of the text makes it very clear what is meant, even if you dont have a word of french at all.

Published in 2003 by Scholastic Press, a division of Scholastic Inc. NY

Friday Fill-ins 186

2010-07-24T00:17:00.000+10:00

1. I feel certain that this weekend will be full of good things.

2. ...but I might have to give up sleeping to catch up on all the things I need to do.

3. Do not stand in my way tomorrow.

4. The best thing about every day is that each one is completely unique.

5. It's hard to know how much more to do before bed.

6. I think I'll just start at the beginning and hope that everone else follows suit.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to reading the next chapter, tomorrow my plans include having dinner with friends I haven't seen in ages and Sunday, I want to lie in bed til lunchtime and finish my book!

Thoughts on a book: The Yiddish Policemen's Union

2010-07-20T12:02:00.002+10:00

Happy to admit that I picked up this book on its cover alone because I liked its retro feel and I imagined a sort of Dick Tracy narrative that would be easy to read. Since I was due to spend a few days recuperating, I also thought it wouldn't tax the post-anaesthetic brain too much either. Wrong on both counts.

The detective is Meyer Landsman. He's obsessive, addicted and driven. He carries the weight of his failed marriage, his lost son, his dead father, his dead sister.............and he lives in a hotel room that you can almost smell. One night a man is found murdered in another room and the night manager calls Landsman to take a look

Landsman puts on his trousers and shoes and hitches up his suspenders. Then he and Tenenboym turn to look at the doorknob, where a necktie hangs, red with a fat maroon stripe, already knotted to save time. Landsman has eight hours to go until his next shift. Eight rat hours, sucking at his bottle, in his glass tank lined with wood shavings. Landsman sighs and goes for the tie. He slides it over his head and pushes the knot up to his collar. He puts on his jacket, feels for the wallet and shield in the breast pocket, pats the sholem he wears in a holster under his arm, a chopped Smith and Wesson Model 39.

"I hate to wake you, Detective," Tenenboym says. "Only I noticed you don't really sleep."

"I sleep," Landsman says. He picks up the shot glass that he is currently dating, a souvenir of the World's Fair of 1977. "Its just that I do it in my underpants and shirt."

....and that's where it all gets tricky because the vocabulary is rapidly filling with words I dont know, that I've never heard, that are clearly part of the Jewish patois. Before long I am absorbed in the culture of a jewish community in Alaska, a product of post-war migration I know nothing about until now. The plot is, in the end, deceptively simple but bound up in so much Jewish tradition, suspicion and hierarchy that I am lost.

For several days I have picked the book up and read a chapter or more, then once more put it aside, only to pick it up again because I want to know the end. Finally I got a rug, a pot of tea, curled up with the cat and decided to read to the end....Landsman is dogged and determined. The murder of the rabbe's son will be unraveled, the mystery of the chess game will be solved, Landsman's miserable life will be re-shaped. There are some of the usual plot steps: a feared policeman in another jurisdiction that turns out to be an old friend, a partner's loyalty in the face of overwhelming opposition, heavy-handed FBI. At the end, Landsman solves the myteries by reaching a calm space with his ex-wife that allows him to rethink the evidence and look again at what he could have seen the first time.

Now for something different........

Paris in July - Memories 5

2010-07-20T10:22:00.004+10:00

The Arc de Triomphe, designed by Jean Chalgrin, commemorates Napoleon's victories and was erected in the Place Charles de Gaulle, taking several years to finish. It is 167 feet (49m) tall and 147 feet (45m) wide.

I'm including two pictures I took of the Arc because when I was choosing between them I remembered a conversation we had at the time about "holiday snaps".... I was torn between wanting to simply record places I had visited but also record our family trip to Europe, although at the time I was convinced it would be only the first of many (wrong!!). I imagined a sort of coffee table book full of pictures we had taken - a catalogue of sights. Just as well as I came to my senses pretty quickly and included us in the pictures too. I was trying to avoid the dreaded slide-night commentary "Here we are in front of the Arc de Triomphe, and here we are walking up the street, and here's me buying a coffee but you cant really see the shop too well....." etc etc

So here are two happy fellows, posing for the photographer to prove they were there! Peter's terrible old waxy coat survived many more years and I think still lives in the bottom of the "in-case-we-get-a-flat-tyre" box in the boot of the car. Simon's woolly suit was the best thing we bought (from Tesco for a song) and kept him snug in every country. Its in a suitcase in the top of my wardrobe!

185

2010-07-16T13:11:00.001+10:00

1. This is what life does. It lets you feel the very highest heights, it fills your world with friends and experiences, it sobers you in times of sadness.

2. ....so with that in mind, who wouldn't want to stay out there and appreciate the moment?

3. Upon reflection, that last chocolate was probably just one too many.

4. I haven't felt quite this uncomfortable for quite a long time.

5. Later, you wake up and wonder if it all really happened, or were you dreaming?

6. I find the easiest thing to do with bad thoughts is to cast them out to the far and boundless sea.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to sleeping off the anaesthetic, tomorrow my plans include sleeping late and Sunday, I want to spend the day with friends, providing someone else does the driving!

Paris in July - Memories 4

2010-07-13T22:47:00.003+10:00

I don't know how much this cover proves.... except that it dates from before the addition of the glass pyramid which caused such a furore when it was built........

We got up super early one morning and stood in the queue to get into the Louvre, and we must have left our son with my sister-in-law because I can't imagine we pushed his pram up and down all those stairs. My husband was keen to see the Mona Lisa, but one look at the crowded gallery where the tiny image hangs was enough for me and I left the brothers to fight their way to the front. I headed down the stairs into the awesome galleries of Egyptian Antiquities and lost myself in the collections. My most vivid memory is of being dwarfed by huge columns, and I still feel the sadness I felt then that these magnificent things were hidden in a basement in Europe instead of standing proudly in the African sunshine.

After a day lost inside the Louvre, and to make it up to those of the family who hadn't been with us, we all went out for dinner, and I counted 2CVs in every street, parked across corners and squeezed onto pavements. How could you not love this little car? I seem to remember that it was designed to travel across fields and safely transport eggs in a basket on the front seat without causing any to roll about and break.... they still look fairly basic to me, but if someone handed me the keys to one tomorrow, I'd be delighted (black with dark red doors please).

Tonight when I looked back through the Louvre guidebook, there was a photograph of a small marble head, shield shaped and smooth, with just a nose to define it. Without looking at the text I knew it to be a piece of translucent white marble from the Cyclades, perhaps even Naxos, just like the tiny copy I brought back and which sits on my mantlepiece. When I bought this guidebook 23 years ago, I could never have imagined going to Naxos and bringing home my own piece of history.

Travel memories are like tentacles snaking their way around and through places large and small, weaving everything together in a way that creates ownership and affection in the mind of the adventurer.

Reading this year (aiming for 100...)

2010-07-10T17:02:00.007+10:00

Now I dont really need any excuse to read, and I have an enormous and ever-increasing collection of books on the end of the desk (and beside the bed and beside my favourite chair), but this was a challenge I thought I just might take up.... How hard could it be to read 100 books in a year? Then I got out my list from 2009 (a sad but true confession of obsession) and found that the total was only 60 something. And since I had had lots of time for reading last year, maybe it wasn't going to be so easy. We shall see.

Spin the bottle by Monica McInerney

Absent in the spring by Mary Westmacott (aka Agatha Christie)
Giants bread by Mary Westmacott

The rose and the yew tree by Mary Westmacott

The bone woman by Clea Koff

The end of the alphabet by CS Richardson

Paper Moon by Andrea Camileri

Rounding the mark by Andrea Camileri

The cat who wasn't there by Lilian Jackson Braun

Marley & me by John Grogan

The chocolate lovers club by Carole Matthews

The snack thief by Andrea Camileri

What Alice forgot by Liane Moriaty

How to Hepburn by Karen Karbo

Dear Fatty by Dawn French

The housekeeper and the professor by Yoko Ogawa

Deep sleep by Frances Fyfield

Garden spells by Sarah Addison Allen

The harper's quine by Pat McIntosh

Shadow play by Frances Fyfield

The diving bell and the butterfly by Jean Dominique Bauby

A clear conscience by Frances Fyfield

The patience of the spider by Andrea Camileri

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

Willful behaviour by Donne Leon

The nightwatch by Sarah Waters (musings in a previous post)

The lizard's bite by David Hewson

The girl who kicked a hornets nest by Steig Larsson (also mused about here)

A child's book of true crime by Chloe Hooper (my note..... this is No. 29)
The second-last woman in England by Maggie Joel

184

2010-07-09T18:51:00.001+10:00

1. Layers of clothes, layers of blankets, layers of leaves all over the garden... its winter in Melbourne.

2. The thing I most wish I had more of is insight.

3. I'd be willing to bet that 10 minutes into Monday I'll forget I've just had 2 weeks holiday.

4. My big fat black cat scares the dog.

5. I'm fond of eating

6. ...which is why I do it too much!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to an early night, tomorrow my plans include returning my mother's car that I've been driving for a fortnight and Sunday, I want to get to the market at Mornington!

Paris in July - Memories 3

2010-07-09T14:38:00.002+10:00

Before we left Australia for the UK in '87, my Dad said we should try to do one of two things in Paris.... go to Moulin Rouge, or dine on the Seine courtesy of des Bateaux Mouches. I cant remember why we chose the river, but we did and here's the proof.

I have no recollection of what we wore (clearly I've been wearing black for a while) but I know we were very cold when the cruise finished and we were staggering out to find a taxi home. I had a big coat but my husband was braving the Paris winter in his shirt and Reefer jacket. Somehow we negotiated the intersection of Pont des Invalides without being run over and I remember Peter confidently stepping out onto the road and flagging down a taxi; we had had so much to drink that its a miracle we even remembered our address, and I know the taxi driver thought we were crazy tourists. Which we were. We had so much fun that night and it always made us laugh to remember.

Paris in July - Memories 2

2010-07-07T20:05:00.002+10:00

Finally found the album from Paris and remembered immediately how it rained for most of our short time in Europe, Paris being absolutely no exception. Our son was warmly dressed and undoubtedly the most comfortable since he was being pushed around in an umbrella stroller complete with sheepskin and all-encompassing weatherproof cover (no wonder he doesn't remember anything!!). Of course he was only 6 months old......... I know, what were we thinking???

One day we walked all over the city and aimed to go up the Eiffel Tower, no matter what it cost, but we couldn't take the pram and neither of us would go without the other to share the view, so we stayed on the ground and looked up. We also thought we would return and do it some other time, but it wasn't to be. That's a lesson in seizing the day.

Later we walked further away and I was able to take the traditional photograph and since it was a cloudy day, maybe the view from the top would have been an anti-cllimax anyway. This all reminds me of just how difficult some things were for us travelling with young children, not the least being my shyness combined with the need to breastfeed my son, and there seeming to be nowhere to do it outside of our room. Apart from anything else, it was really cold, and I had so many layers on that the whole thing was just a bit unfeasible. On the other hand of course we met all sorts of people who were charmed by our two families travelling so far from Australia, and they went out of their way to make things easy for us. We got by with school french (me and my brother-in-law) and lots of gestures and smiles.

More pictures next time..... (and don't forget to join in)

Book Review: The girl who kicked the hornet's nest

2010-07-03T17:48:00.000+10:00

Don't know which is more exhausted, my mind or my hands...this is a big book. I have had this on my pile to read since early in the year and have been waiting for a long break from other things so that I could devote my time to it. When I read the first two books in this Millenium trilogy I found myself incapable of putting them down except to sleep, and even then it was hard.

Within a couple of pages of this third book I was back in the darkness of the end of the second and all the nasty characters flooded back. This book is so much more about Salander than before and a side effect of reading her story is my cancellation of several online memberships I joined when I was bored..... who knows who has been reading my hard drive now. One of the telling aspects of this book was the obvious gap between the intelligence and understandings of the old guard and the realities of life in this technological web....the certainties held by those members of "The Section", as Blomkvist called them, are no longer certain; secrets can be unlocked in ways never imagined in the past.

This story is as violent and judgemental as its predecessors, readers being swept along with Blomkvist's convictions and morality. I wanted the resolution of Salander's life to be what it was, and I expected Berger to make the decisions she did. I have no knowledge of Europe in the Cold War except as a reader, but I suspect books give us only the tip of the iceberg - I am thankful to have lived in the distant South Pacific.

This review is for me but still I have not revealed the storyline since others may well read my thoughts here. I am driven to read books that swallow me into their story so that time outside the book ceases to exist; where did the last two days go? That said, I think the characters can end here and I do not pine for a surprise find on a lost Larsson laptop. These people, Salander and Blomkvist and all the others....they have had enough excitment in their lives and I'm not sorry their stories have stopped.

Anything I read next will seem lighter by comparison.

Friday Fill-ins #183

2010-07-02T16:15:00.000+10:00

1. When it's quiet I get suspicious.
2. I haven't cooked anything frivolous in what seems like a month.
3. My heart is not in it today.
4. I dont think I've dreaded a time of year as much as this July.
5. In the town where I was born its cold and wintery which is why I love it.
6. His sense of humour is something I really miss about my significant other.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to eating Thai, tomorrow my plans include a birthday party for a friend and Sunday, I want to eat poffertjes for breakfast!

Paris in July - Memories

2010-07-02T14:20:00.002+10:00

Just after our son was born, we flew to London to spend Christmas with family and counted our pennies in the New Year to see if we could afford some time in Europe. We ferried across the Channel in the pouring rain and landed for our big adventure: two brothers and their wives and three small children between us. What we lacked in money (which was lots) we made up for in enthusiasm.....

In Paris we booked into a miniature pension and our room was not much bigger than the bed. Somewhere we fitted a porta-cot, bags and baby stuff. Our room was on the third floor and when we opened the long thin french doors our view was of the internal circular courtyard where every room had a wrought iron balcony decorated with little bits of washing. The outside walls were crazed and dusty grey, the iron was probably rusted, but it was like nothing I had ever seen before and I loved it instantly.

Listening to Eartha Kitt "C'est si bon" and going to find the old photo album to see what pictures I took....

(Don't forget to check here and join in)

Bubbles....

2010-07-02T10:26:00.000+10:00

"What is fame? an empty bubble:" so said James Grainger back in the 1700s. But I like bubbles, especially on sunny days when sitting on the grass with children, bubble wands and bottles of soap suds in hand. And fame? I think the closest thing I'll come to it is my portrait which appears now in my profile here and elsewhere.

I have learned that my friends are quite capable of conspiring behind me to reach this end. My dear and distant friend Lisa, herself I suspect to be a card carrying crazy cat lady, hatched a scheme and roped in Debbie who asked Ali who checked with Liz who studied my cats closely. The result is indeed a small treasure. Haven't checked with the cats, but suspect that MrP will be unimpressed as usual, mainly because he doesn't have centre stage. Basil will be disgruntled that he has to share my lap, and doubtless hoping the book doesn't get too heavy and begin to lean on him (as indeed books have in the past).

I hope many other pet-obsessed friends will follow the practice of imortalising the addiction by visiting the gallery of Susan Faye. She was kind enough to interview me and the rest of the story is here.

Robins Egg Blues

2010-06-30T16:23:00.001+10:00

Just back from surfing, following my nose from Electra to Jana and this blog caught my eye. Lots of lovely photographs from Linda's travels, and some lovely french-inspired things to reward someone among her 600+ followers. Go over and visit, and see what you think, and you just might win the collection of goodies too.

Reading....

2010-06-28T19:29:00.001+10:00

Just started the last Millenium book (Girl who kicked a Hornet's Nest)....... may not eat, definitely wont be dusting, may have to be pushed into bed. Can't put it down.

Friday Fill-ins #182

2010-06-26T15:39:00.002+10:00

1. On vacation, I like to get up late, sometimes not at all, and read all day.
2. On the far side of Australia, where almost no-one lives, there are fabulous creatures to see in the ocean.
3. One of my favorite vacation spots is anywhere off the coast, on board Penrod II.
4. The kids in my school are at their most peculiar during the time of a full moon.
5. Up, up and away .... soft coils of hair and cat fur, and me chasing along behind with the vacuum cleaner.
6. Bananas should be left on the tree.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to hearing all about Ann's trip, tomorrow my plans include swapping some books I dont want to keep for something I might, and Sunday, I want to start the last Stieg Larsson!

Paris in July

2010-06-21T22:23:00.001+10:00

I have so many memories of Paris - little things that pop into my head and make me smile. If you love anything French, join in the Paris in July experience and share your thoughts with us. For the whole story and the challenges involved, have a look at Thyme for Tea or BookBath and read it in full.

Friday Fill-ins #181

2010-06-18T23:20:00.003+10:00

1. Y-A-W-N... its so nice here under the doona and thank goodness its Saturday and I can sleep in and...WHAT? Its Friday and I should have been up an hour ago and its 6:58.
2. It was the reason, of course, that I was hideously late for work and didn't have breakfast and the day went downhill from there.
3. Reading to the end of every book is something I no longer feel the need to do.
4. I have another errand to run, then I'm heading for the coffee shop.
5. What do you mean its not there...just go find it
6. What were once vices are dim memories.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to going to the theatre with friends, tomorrow my plans include watching last week's episode of Dr Who and Sunday, I want to sleep in!

Book Review: The Night Watch

2010-06-12T23:30:00.000+10:00

I'm almost at the point where I don't want to open a book that has been shortlisted for the Man Booker.... its not that I only want to read light-hearted stories, or that I dont want to be challenged, or have my comfort zone upended, its just that lately I've been reading to fill spaces in my life and short-listed books take up brain power I just dont have to spare. I should start another stack and put them all there.....for later.

Having got that off my chest.....The Night Watch by Sarah Waters (Virago 2006) took me on a journey backwards in London from 1947 to 1941. Starting at the end of the story and going back to fill in the blanks provided some unexpected twists. This is a story of lives unravelled by the war, the strands knotted together in sad loops where no-one has a happy ending. Four women are linked together - Kay, Helen and Julia in a series of shortlived and ultimately unsatisfactory relationships with eachother, and Viv whose life is lived in the shadow of someone else's marriage. I found the women easy to picture because they have been seen in the background of so many wartime movies: working the jobs that men will return to reclaim, wearing clothes salvaged and darned to make them last. The backdrop of London bombings is told so well that I expected plaster dust to rise from the pages as I turned them.

Sexuality runs through the book as a longing never allowed to be satisfied for too long. I found myself waiting for the next disaster, the next leave-taking, the next mis-interpreted glance. Uncovering the secret of the ring came too late in the story to make me care. Its not a book I enjoyed, but I did read it until the end.

Friday Fill-ins #180

2010-06-11T23:48:00.000+10:00

1. I'm home in a warm room with a cat on my feet and a hot chocolate beside the keyboard, and it feels great.
2. The solution is sometimes not what you really want to be told.
3.Tonight I cant wait to fall asleep.
4. How about I make a big pot of pumpkin risotto and throw in a handful of spinach and some pine nuts at the end, and then you come over for tea?
5. Laughter is something I highly recommend!
6. Imagine being that slender again.....
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to finishing what I started, tomorrow my plans include putting a new blanket on my sons bed and Sunday, I want to catch up with friends for lunch!

Friday Fill-ins #179

2010-06-06T15:52:00.002+10:00

1. Tasmania is my favorite place to travel to.

2. When I think about my childhood, I often remember things related to the gardens of my grandparents: peeling back the hairy buds of poppies, sitting under a spreading tree on the grass and trying to stay hidden for hours, being allowed to have a garden bed all my very own, climbing the oak tree, pulling up onion grass and getting smelly hands.

3. A scrumptious hot chocolate is what one makes for a good friend.

4. The wind in the trees, the rain on my skin, a wide rainbow across the sky.

5. Finding the next book in a favourite series is so exciting!

6. My best friend knows far too much.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to getting home, tomorrow my plans include keeping out of the rain and Sunday, I want to buy myself a birthday present.

About Book Club

2010-06-06T15:29:00.001+10:00

I had no idea belonging to a book club was going to be so tricky. When we started, nearly 2 years ago, it was a group made up of neighbours and the friends (and friends of friends) of one of them. That's me, I'm a friend, and we've known eachother since starting school 50 years ago. One of the other members started school with us too.

Anyway the routine of this book group is that we meet mostly in the same home, and that person keeps a record of what we've read and who suggested the book. We take it in turns to suggest a book to read, and mostly we are a couple of months ahead so people can read on if they feel that way inclined, or maybe reserve the book at their library. I generally buy a copy.

I wonder why other people joined the group? Did they want to read new books? Did they want to be challenged by questioning their reading, their understandings? Did they want to read books they would never have picked up without the prompting of someone else? Did they want to share their sort of books with like-minded readers? Did they want the discipline of reading a book each month to give them permission to take time for themselves?

Why did I join? First I think because I like the people, and also because I'm confident to comment on books I've read. I also wanted to be pushed to read genres I dont usually choose. I think I'm just a bit disgruntled because some nights the best conversation is not about the book, but around the supper table afterwards. Perhaps I expected too much.

Friday Fill-ins #178

2010-05-28T23:40:00.001+10:00

1. Chocolate mud-cake cupcakes -- the best food to take on a picnic.

2. Summer seems like a long way off now.

3. Somebody took my socks and boots and left me with nothing to wear but my flip flops.

4. To love someone is a good way to pass the time (for years...).

5. Why on earth would anyone want to go on a long hike?

6. When I crave food, it's usually because I forgot to eat sometime a l-o-n-g time ago.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to going to bed (yawn), tomorrow my plans include buying some thermal underwear and Sunday, I want to stay dry while I'm paddling the boat!

Friday Fill-ins #171

2010-04-09T17:46:00.000+10:00

1. In 1992, I was lots younger and sillier.
2. All I want as a present for any occasion for the rest of my life is laughter and smiles.
3. Do what you can, with what you have, where you will have the most impact.
4. At the beginning of my holidays instead of at the end is where I'd like to be.
5. The trees and flowers are telling me things I cant quite believe, and why am I listening???
6. I want the next book I open to be one that just keeps going on (provided its a good one).
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to staying home on a very rare Friday, tomorrow my plans include finding the things I should have spent the holidays doing, and doing them! and Sunday, I want to find a way of keeping the rain off while I'm on the river.

Cats on the shelves #1

2010-02-21T11:35:00.001+11:00

I can't resist a book about cats, so long as it resists the temptation to be too cute, and has something interesting to say as well. After a trip to visit friends lucky enough to spend part of every year on the beautiful island of Naxos, and after finding cats here and there on the island......... this book was hard to pass. So many of the photographs included slender black cats, just like one of mine, so I chose one of my favourites to share.

"The Mediterranean Cat" by Hans Silvester, translated in 1996 and published that year by Chronicle Books.

One day I went shopping on Naxos to buy the cotton blanket. The shop was narrow and filled with linen for every occasion. The owner spoke very little English so my friend translated for me and we went upstairs to look on the many shelves. Success! Its light, cool, soft to touch, and reminds me of my holiday with some of my dearest friends.

....off to hunt for the photographs of Naxos felines...