Birthday Puzzles

So I received two new jigsaw puzzles for my birthday and have managed now to complete them both. 

They were both ones that I had asked for and the first one puts me forcibly in mind of a comment made about me by my Russian teacher to my parents at the fifth form parents evening; to wit 'even her pleasures seem very serious'. Since this was in reference to my liking for classical music I didn't see at the time, and still don't to be honest, what business it was of his, nor am I the only 15 year old in the world ever to have liked Sibelius, so it seems a strange thing to have said. But possibly even now my pleasures are 'too serious', to judge from my choice of this

Belle Epoque Paris, peopled with such luminaries as Oscar Wilde, Baron Haussman, Guy de Maupassant, Sarah Bernhardt,and of course several Impressionist artists. I have to say that it was a bit of a challenge to do, as all the buildings are illustrated in a very impressionistic style, meaning that many many pieces were neutrally coloured with nothing on them but brown or grey smudges. But it was enjoyable and I can see me doing it again 'one day'. 

Ditto to the doing again for the second one 

which I assume  is much less 'serious' in Russian teacher terms.It is however a prime example of why I never start doing jigsaw puzzles with the edge.I mentioned this in an FB group recently and many other puzzle fans were amazed, but really, look at that edge.Apart from a few protruding flowers, where on earth would you start?

Just to remind myself, should I be looking back at this in times to come, I have this week had a good sort out of my jigsaw puzzles. I'm giving myself a bronze star. The sort out is not (at all) the same thing as a cull. But I have re-organised the places in which they are kept, and noted several which belong to the 'do once more and donate to the library' group. I also noted with some surprise that I have several puzzles that I have never even opened, so perhaps I should concentrate on those once I've completed the 'once more and then they go' pile. 

I am now signing off for just over a week while the OH and I head south to the Glorious Kingdom of Fife to celebrate forty years of wedded bliss. As I have said to several people, a week's self catering near Kirkcaldy is  not the luxury train trip across Australia which  we had planned, but it's a nod in the direction of marking the occasion. 

Loki

No not a disquisition on the Norse God, or indeed on the character portrayed by Tom Hiddlestone in the Avengers movies (although it may raise a smile on the face of some readers to record the plaintive question posed by my younger son recently  'Mum, what is it with women and Loki?'. What indeed? I had to say that I didn't know but Loki was just, well, preferable to Thor is so many ways that possibly I couldn't put into words)

..................

And dragging ourselves back to the question of which Loki I am talking about if it isn't either of those two, it is this one*

. 

Gorgeous, eh? He's a snowy owl at the Suffolk Owl Sanctuary and in line with my policy of giving to animal charities in 2020 we have sponsored him for a year . Because he's an owl, an everyone loves owls, don't they? Apart from mice, voles and other small rodents of course. It seems unlikely we will get to visit the SOS and see him in person for quite some time, but maybe next year. 

*obviously this is not a personally taken photo of him but their photo  sent in the adoption pack. My photography skills are not at that level!

100 Books to Read Poster Number 16

As you see it was The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton.

Luckily the addition of Borrowbox to my local library service saved me from having either the expense of buying it, or the embarrassment of taking it out of the library in person, as it is a book for very small children. It came as an audio book, read by Kate Winslet, who seems to be a bit of a go-to person for children's audio books. The fact that it was in audio format did at least mean that I could do something useful while listening to it. It still seemed awfully long.

I'd never read this book, which I think is also sometimes called The Faraway Tree, and I am astonished at how often it pops up on this kind of list. My mother disapproved strongly of Enid Blyton, although I am not quite sure why (she was not of the generation that would have objected to the gollywogs for example) so possibly she was, as a teacher, just following the lead of those librarians who deplored Blyton's limited vocabulary and formulaic storytelling. I gather her work was also banned from the BBC for decades as being 'second rate'.   

This does not mean that I suffered a Blyton-less childhood. I borrowed some of her books from friends, had some passed on to me from other people and occasionally was bought one by relatives other than my mother as a birthday or Christmas present. All this stuff about banning and the general disapproval is all  a bit reminiscent of a lot of the more recent fuss around the Harry Potter books, and makes me reflect how odd it is that cultural commentators who deplore any particular children;s author in such terms, seem to forget hat children do grow up and heir reading tastes generally grow up with them. Whatever the fears  in the 1960s the country was not plagued with a generation of adults who were still considering Five go to Smugglers Cove as the apogee of thriller writing in the 1970s and 80s. To me, it just all smacks a bit too much of snobbery and oneupmanship.

Anyway to revert to the actual book, all I can say is it's not for grown ups but if I had read it as a child I would have loved it, if only for the central concept of the ever changing destination at the top of the tree. So a miss for me now, but a hit for me then.

I note with some relief that having been very careful and gentle with the coin wielding, the picture for this book emerged unscathed and recognisable from behind its silver cover. 

Anniversary Flowers

In a week's time we shall have been married for forty years. It seems almost impossible that it's been that long. I would say it hasn't felt that long, but then how long does forty years feel?

If things had been normal we would have been flying to Oz about now to spend a few days with my cousin  in Perth before boarding the Indian-Pacific for a train trip across the width of Australia. Well, it wasn't to be. I hope we will manage to do this another year; after all Australia isn't gong anywhere in the meantime. 

We are off next Saturday for a week in the Glorious Kingdom of Fife which, while not exactly a luxury train trip across Australia, is at least doing something to mark the occasion. Because we'll be away on the actual day my sister sent a h-u-g-e bouquet this week. It smells glorious and I've put it on the table in the sunroom, where I am spending a lot of my time these days. It gives me something nice to look at while I knit, rather than l the hugely guilt inducing view of TWWCTG. 

Jug Jug Jug (the most unlikely T S Eliot quote ever)

but I am in fact  talking about an actual jug - to whit, this one:-

Isn't that lovely? I mean, probably only if you have a bit of a thing for jugs, but if you do, isn't it? 

Many years ago when we used to come on holiday to Orkney there was a local ceramicist called Ellie Pearson. She produced lovely work but it was a tad on the expensive side for a youngish couple with a mortgage and two children, and although we promised ourselves each time that we would  buy a piece of her work 'next year' somehow we never did. And then we came one year and she had retired so we had missed our chance. 

On a similar note we have long loved the things that come from the Westray Pottery. We have even bought things from there for other people, and  we promised ourselves that 'one day' we would buy a piece for ourselves. And lo! it came to pass that 'one day' was in fact yesterday. Spurred on by the news in an e-mail from the local craft co-op that the Westray Potter had retired we trotted off down to their shop in The Hope and bought a jug of his before they sold all their remaining stock and we missed our chance again.  It wasn't the OH's favourite, but it was mine. And for once I prevailed. 

Baking Subscription August

This was Pear and Frangipane Tart. It was delicious.

I have to admit to rebelling when I saw the instructions for the pastry making since they began with freezing the butter and then grating it. That all seemed like far too much faff when the end product was going to be bog standard shortcrust pastry so I lobbed the butter and the flour and salt into the food processor with two tablespoons of cold water and it was fine. I learned long ago that the food processor is w-a-y better at producing pastry than I am.

The lattice is a bit rough round the edges. I put too much pastry into the case and left too little  for the lattice strips and looking at the photo now I can also see a mistake! but at least I showed willing. I egg washed the top, although why they tell you to do that when you drown the top in icing sugar (and I only used half the amount provided) I can't imagine.

I was pleased with it though and expect I'll make it again. I keep an album of photos for these bakes on Facebook and was rather surprised to find that this one garnered more reaction than almost any other one I have ever done. 

Beginning the Harvest

I think I have told the story here before about how the experts at the local gardening club told us we would 'never grow raspberries on Burray'. Generally we grow more raspberries than we know what to do with, so some years a packed freezer means a treat for the local bird population. 

This year though we will be picking for ourselves and here's the first crop. There were still loads on the  canes needing to ripen when we got these on Sunday so we'll be venturing to the raspberry plants again tomorrow if the sun is shining. Or if it just isn't raining. 

(What passes for) A Busy Week

Tuesday I went to the hairdressers, this afternoon is the library book group on Skype, and yesterday I went to the optometrist. Obviously the way things are just now not everyone can get an appointment, but I am struggling with my sight again so I was allowed to go. The propensity of glasses to steam up when wearing a mask proved slightly problematic throughout!

Anyway I have been referred to the eye unit  at the hospital, which apparently has carried on working more or less throughout the lock down period, to see if the surgeon will agree to laser the thickening capsule around my replacement lens. To say I was surprised at this instant referral would be to understate the case, considering how long and how hard I fought to be referred for the op. in the first place. So it was no surprise to hear the optometrist say 'Normally I would say wait a while' but very  surprising when he said he would refer me straight away. Pleasing though.

It's a while since I read the book which will be under discussion this afternoon (Gallow View by Peter Robinson) so I hope I can remember enough to find something interesting, or at least pertinent, to say. I am still scarred by the memory of the lengthy discussion re the Kirkwall street lighting all those months ago.

August 11th Part 2 Before and After

No words needed!

August 11th Part One

Such an exciting day. At one o' clock  I have an appointment with the hairdresser. I'm not sure when I was last there but according to the evidence of my cheque book it was just before Christmas. It's more than time to tame the wild greying mane.Stand by for the before and after photographs ....

A Very Special Delivery

No not more food! but this book

Plague Clothes is a set of poems written by the Shetland poet Robert Alan Jamieson (and for knitting friends yes, he is connected to the Janieson wool producers!) during his recovery from Covid 19, from which he suffered quite badly.

As he started to regain his strength he went out for a daily walk and when he came home fell into the habit of composing a poem straight onto his Facebook page. Several friends, myself included, urged him to think about having them published, as an instant poetic response to the world of corona virus. 

He went one better. With no holiday possible this year he used the money he would have spent as seed money for the establishing of a small new publishing company Taproot Press, run by his son and daughter-in-law and Plague Clothes is their first book. They printed copies for all RAJ's friends who had requested one and they were given free as a thank you for the support given to him during his illness. People being people they all actually wanted to pay, so although there was no obligation we had the opportunity to give to a crowdfunder to help the new company if we wished. 

The copies, all numbered and signed, were  sent off last week and mine arrived on Friday. It's a beautiful book; hard back, with lots of wonderful photographs to illustrate the poems and I am delighted with it. I would say Taproot have got off to a flying start. 

100 Books to Read Poster No 15

I have absolutely no idea what that image is supposed to be, but the book was Roald Dahl's Matilda. I hadn't read this one before because I was prejudiced against Dahl many years ago when I read that he had abandoned his wife after she had a stroke, and so never bought borrowed or read any of his books, not even for my children. I am old enough now to realise that there was probably a lot more to the situation than that stark 'fact', but I am also too old to start reading his books - unless as now I am obliged to. 

Since I am not 'the target demographic' I can hardly pass judgement , although that won't stop me. I think it was a book of two halves; one's a school story, the other a fairy tale. I think the segue from one to the other is too obvious and jarring. I also think it shows Dahl to be an horrendous cultural snob. That said he was excellent in the first half on the powerlessness of small children in a world controlled, often in a manner perceived by them to be unjust, by adults.

I didn't particularly enjoy it, but I think as a child I might have done - although I am at a loss to think at what age I might have read and liked it

I am a bit concerned about the mess being made when scraping off the silver over the book pictures recently. I wonder if the stuff goes hard over time? with 85 (gulp) still to go, it would be  a sad thing if they were all, bar the first dozen, to be so mangled. 

A Day Late - but Yum Yum!

We love things from Betty's. We do not love how much they cost, which is probably the only thing that keeps us from a steady stream of what the Americans call Baked Goods arriving at our door from Harrogate. 

Birthdays warrant a little extravagance though, so I suggested the OH splash out and get something from Betty's for mine.  The postal service being even more than usually unpredictable  the box didn't arrive util Wednesday -

but well worth the short wait. Delicious! And not quite all gone yet, but they need eating up quite quickly before they spoil.

100 Books to Read Poster No. 14

It's a sad fact that, with my eyesight deteriorating  again I can make out that image better as a photograph on the computer than looking at it 'in real life'....

Be that as it may this was Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie and of course I had read it before. I was 10 when I read my first Christie (during a very wet holiday on Arran where my mother bought The Murder of Roger Ackroyd for something to do and I read it when she had finished it. Thus began a lifelong love affair with the crime fiction genre - not that it was called that when I was a child - and I had read the whole Christie canon barring a few short stories by the time I was fifteen. I preferred Miss Marple to Hercule Poirot, and probably still do to be honest.

I was dreading re-reading this in a way because I haven't read any Christie for a long time, although I have some BBC Radio Dramatisations on my tablet which I use when I can't sleep. I find They Do It With Mirrors particularly useful for curing insomnia. In the meantime I have become accustomed to thinking of Christie in the way she is talked of these days as a bit of a second class writer; fantastical plots, stereotypical characters, ,producing puzzles rather  than stories etc etc.

A lot of this is true, and if you want a fantastical plot then MOTOE is probably the GoTo example, and its not far behind in the stereotypes for characters department either. On the other hand there are some quite amusing touches , and Poirot on the page is not quite the caricature that recent film and TV versions of Christie's books have made him. 

There was an unwittingly chilling moment. The book was first published in 1934 and there was no reason then for Christie not to put into the mouth of a German character, commenting on a murder,  the sentiment that "We are not so wicked as that in Germany". Not many years later history would give the lie to that in a particularly terrible way.

Leaving that last aside though, I rather enjoyed this book, certainly more than I had anticipated and I decided that Christie was a better writer than I had remembered. So a hit rather than a miss for this one I think.

Happy Birthday to Me (for yesterday)

I wasn't feeling particularly jolly when my birthday arrived, but I managed to cheer up as the day went on, greatly helped by phone calls and Skype calls from family, some lovely cards and equally nice presents. The problem with the presents of course is where to start; do I cast on socks, do I start one of my jigsaw puzzles, do I read one of my new books? In the event I spent so much time interacting with people that I managed only to not quite finish the edges of the jigsaw puzzle before the day was over.

The OH produced the cake, which is a Baking Subscription reprise; the sticky toffee drip cake from October 2018. It was gorgeous then and was even more gorgeous this time around since I wasn't the person making it! 

Getting older is no fun really but the brother of the OH and I decided that we will just go with feeling  like we're actually only in our mid-30s until decrepitude convinces both ourselves and others of the fact that we actually left them behind some years ago. 

Onwards and Upwards.  Or bookwards in my case for the remainder of today.