August Books

It's  a short list for finished books this month. Partly because we had the grandchildren staying for a week and  partly because I've been falling asleep to a variety of not-books e.g.R4 drama series, stuff on Sounds, the World Service. 

The one falling asleep book I did listen to was Dead Lions, Book 2 of Mick Herron's Slough House series. I then started  Real Tigers, but  realised that I knew it and the ones that follow too well to to want to listen to them all over again just now after all. 

Distressingly the other four are all crime fiction, not that that there's anything wrong with crime fiction but I'm in a 'I really should diversify my reading a bit' frame of mind which might be reflected in the September round up. Meanwhile the other four are ; - 

The Murder at World's End by Ross Montgomery. First in a projected series and I saw glowing references to it all over the shop so got it on Audible. It might be one of those books it's better to read on the page than listen to; there again it might not. It's a locked room mystery set  pre WW1, with an unlikely pair of crime solvers; an extremely foul mouthed aristocratic old lady and a second footman. I did not see the culprit until over half way which is always a plus, but it did become more and more obvious, especially as the format of the book was to place everyone else under suspicion and then exonerate them. Like I say, very well reviewed and much praised for its originality, but it wasn;t for me.   

Pick of the bunch was Karin Slaughter's The Secrets We Hide , a followup to We are All Guilty Here which I read and reviewed in June.Again I spotted the perpetrator very early on, there is a massive clue in the description of the crime right at the beginning, but that didn't really matter as it's not so much about who did it, but how they got there. I do find myself glazing over at some of Slaughters descriptions of crime scenes, especially the ones where they're analysing bullet trajectories, but I'm sure some people find that fascinating. What I find fascinating is Slaughter's description of what life in a small town in the deep south is like, where families, and family feuds go back generations and everyone thinks they know everyone else inside out , until it turns out they don't. The two central characters, Emmy and Jude and their relationship are all fascinating  and I was happy to hear today that there is a new novel in this series currently being written. 

A chance comment by a friend had me scurrying off to see if there was a new Marion Todd novel I hadn't yet read and there was so I rectified that. I think the best way to describe Todd's series is workmanlike but that's not as dismissive as it sounds. I don't think, despite her best efforts, that her characters have much emotional depth, it's all tell not show on that front, but her saving grace is that her plots are well worked out, and don't stretch the limits of credibility. There was a bit of a shock at the end of this latest one which was called Watch Them Fall, it will be interesting to see the ramifications of that work out in the next book. 

Finally, someone at the book group passed around a carrier bag full of paperbacks that were on their way to the charity shop at the last meeting to see if anyone was interested in any, and someone told me that Lynne McEwen's books were good so I took the one of hers, A Troubled Tide  that was in there. I realise once I got started that I had read the first one of the series a long time ago; this one is number 5 so obviously things have moved on a bit. But it worked perfectly well as a standalone. 

So there you go. Reads like an edition of Crimestoppers! More variety definitely coming next month. 

What a Lovely Weekend That Was!

 Busy, but very enjoyable.

On Saturday I went to Edinburgh and had lunch with my friends V and D. At my suggestion we went to Meze Meze and it was every bit as good as my previous visit. Sadly I forgot to take photos of the food when it arrived, but here is what remained after we all professed ourselves beaten. 

After lunch we walked off a lot of the calories we'd consumed (I hope) by walking to the Dovecote Gallery to see the Cosprop Exhibition. Cosprop is a company founded in 1965 by John Bright and specialises in the making of period costumes for film, theater and tv. Most people would know its work through TV productions like the BBC's Pride and Prejudice or the Merchant Ivory films.  For anyone interested in the history of fashion, or costume drama it's a Must See Exhibition. I took lots of photos; although not nearly as many as I should have probably; here is a very small selection 

Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst, BBC Pride and Prejudice

Poirot's suit ITV Poirot

The dress in the background is Marianne's wedding dress from the Ang Lee/Emma Thomson film of Sense and  Sensibility 

Lucy Honeychurch and Charlotte Bartlett Merchant Ivory A Room with a View

and finally a very splendid Russian dressing gown from a very long ago BBC version of War and Peace. 

Sunday was our wedding anniversary. We went to Perth which was rather damp

We'd chosen it for two reasons - the morning one

It was a lovely exhibition, lots of pictures I recognised, some from seeing previously, some from  reproductions in books, and then some I had never seen before.  I didn't know whether I could take photographs so didn't, although I asked permission to take the entrance sign. as it happened I could have taken as many as I wanted but there you go. Luckily they have a separate J D Fergusson gallery so I took this rather lovely portrait pair of JD and his partner Margaret Morris. 

We'd never been to Perth Art Gallery before and it's lovely. They have a Millais gallery which we had a good look around and others that we didn't have time for. We ended our visit with a mooch around the shop, a few purchases were made, and a very reasonably priced coffee. And in addition to a great collection and a lovely building I have to say the staff were fabulous; friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. A total 10/10 ; if you are interested in art and get a chance, do go. 

And the afternoon one 

Tea at Branklyn Garden. Readers who have been here for a while may remember we did the same thing last year and it has obviously now become a tradition. The tea was delicious and they have a nice selection of hand knitted tea cosies.    

Finally with reference to my previous post about The Odyssey, I note a  friend took heavy issue with my Facebook comments about it.  She'd been to see it three times, thought the script and acting were excellent and that it raised issues about xenophobia, war, women and other things in a way that was relevant to today. And while I still stand by what I said, in the interest of balance I've no objection to putting up the other side of the argument. 

The Odyssey

 

We're trying to take things fairly easy this week. The grandsons left on Monday and we don't have  a lot in the calendar just now and we're trying to keep it that way. This is  partly to recover, and partly to catch up on admin, cleaning and whatever else got left 'until later' while they were here. I daresay I shall chronicle our adventures, such as they were in due course. Meanwhile the OH suggested we go and see The Odyssey. Everyone's talking about it, our sons had been to see it, it was on locally (and cheap!) so off we went. 

If you follow me on Facebook you will already know how I felt about it. If you don't let's just say my impressions were negative. Actually, let's not just say that, let's be honest. We both loathed it. We did get a few laughs and I allowed myself a bag of sweets but that was about it for positives. 

If you're interested then Emily Wilson, recent and skilled translator (as above) of what I daresay Nolan referred to as his 'source text', summed up most of what I felt about it here and expressed it rather better than I could. I don't agree with her giving them a pass on using Americanisms because they jar horribly. How do you feel about references to 'A Trojan vet' (as in, someone who fought at Troy, rather than someone who looked after injured horses) and men calling women 'ma'am' while dressed in an approximation of bronze age clothing and armour? 

The script was atrocious, some of  the casting was  odd, although to be fair some of the acting was fine, although again,  not that much of it) the balance of the storytelling was weird, and it had an ending Homer never dreamed of. The main problem was that it wasn't alien enough. Bronze Age people didn't think or act like we do. Trying to make Odysseus a flawed hero suffering from ultimately resolved PTSD (eat lotus flowers in the company of someone looking like a Raquel Welch wannabe - if only it was that simple ) doesn't work.  This was basically a Hollywood WW2 movie in fancy dress with C20 attitudes and sensibilities. and it was awful. 

It was also far too long and too loud. The action sequences were too drawn out and some of the special effects (Polyphemus, I'm looking at you) not well done.  

It's an accepted thing currently to regard the Odyssey as a text that is about 'Going Home'; do you want to, how do you do it, and how do you know when you've arrived. All I can say to that is that we certainly knew that we wanted to get home long before we were released to do so, and that we had no trouble realising when we'd arrived. 

I'm usually meticulous here in saying 'don't take my word, try things for yourself, just because I didn't like something  doesn't mean you won't think it's great' , but in this instance I'm going to say you have better ways of spending your time and your money than going to see this appalling film. 

Still here and still relatively busy....

 

On Saturday we went to the Annual Exhibition of Scottish Printmakers which is held at the University of Stirling. I found out about it from a printmaker from whom I get a newsletter; not sure I remember signing up for it - I mean, I'm sure I did, but I have no conscious memory of it. Anyway she was one of the 40-odd printmakers chosen to exhibit this year and I thought it sounded fun and a bit different, so we roped in my friend D and the three of us went for a mooch. 

As you will see from the photo above it was busy. There were three aisles with artists on both sides and this was probably a relatively quiet moment in that particular aisle. Lots of different sorts of prints; both in the way they were made and the subject matter, and obviously not all to my taste but it was fun to see the variety on show. D did actually buy a print, I restrained myself and just picked up lots of business cards for future reference. The OH pointed to me out that Abbie Lois wasn't there, and I pointed out to him that that was hardly surprising since all her stuff seems currently to be in Birnam. 

After our initial trawl around we stopped for a drink. I made the mistake of ordering a white Americano. The cup was overfilled and there was hardly any milk in it so the liquid was very very hot and it was impossible to take off the top, to add sweetener, without being flooded by  hot coffee ( not to mention  scalding finger ends) In the end, when it still wasn't cool enough to go near, even after D had finished her cup of tea I abandoned it - a lesson learned for any future trip to that particular part of Stirling Uni. I'm in two minds about whether to write to the catering manager and suggest s/he ensures that everyone operating their coffee machines has been properly trained. because you know, if I were American, I would be preparing to sue right now :-) But I probably won't because I'm British and we tend to shrug these things off with a 'well there's nothing to be done about it now' .

After another tour round the prints we decamped to the local small town of Bridge  of  Allan which was heaving with people. This made it a bit difficult to find anywhere nice for lunch, but we did manage to find somewhere in the end and we followed that up with a look around a few shops. Bridge of Allan has some very nice shops. And then we came home and I was so tired I watched some gymnastics (European Women's Championships) and then went to bed for three hours. A generally ( burnt fingers notwithstanding) happy day.

And now - 

This can only mean one thing - the grandchildren are arriving very shortly ( in about two hours in fact if the Lumo train doesn't let us down. ) So filled cake tins, and a few flexible plans made for the coming week. Please bear with me if blog posts are neglected while they are here. 

M I A and July Book Review

 

I am still not over my tooth extraction whihc sounds wimpish but it wasn't until yesterday that I managed a full day without a painkiller . Today the pain is at a low level so I am hopeful that it will be totally gone in a couple of days. The gum is closing up nicely and the stitches have gone so that's all progress. 

So, July books. Somehow no J D Kirk! how can this be? but Mick Herron made three appearances. This was because The Catch and Slow Horses were my falling asleep to books in July and I suspect a  re-listen of the whole series is on the cards for the next few months. I also read a physical copy of Clown Town because the quality of the audio book was abysmal and I was sure I had missed things when (trying to) listen. 

Rounding off the crime books this time was the Crime Fiction group choice; The Sting in Her Tale by Mark Ezra. This was generally enjoyed by everyone, including me,  as a 'light summer read' but coincidences and unlikely escapes stretch credulity which is always a bit of a no-no for me. I don't regret the time reading it, especially as it didn't take long , but I won't be bothering with the next in the series. 

I met someone at the Gaskell Society Conference who is doing a Ph D on the uses of fairy tale and the fantastic in other genres, and I mentioned Nicholas Stuart Gray to her. This led to me sending her more info and to a re-read  of The Seventh Swan. It's the story of the seventh brother in the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale; the one whose shirt wasn't quite finished in time and who was therefore left with a swan's wing. It's not my favourite of his but I still love it and I took the opportunity of it being down from the shelf to re-read it. 

I took advantage of 2 x 99p deals on Kindle in July and bought and read Written on the Dark by Guy Gavriel Kay and The Cromarty Library Circle by Shona Maclean. Written on the Dark was standard GG Kay fare; his writing is quite mannered and I find certain of his stylistic tics irritating but the plots are good and the characterisation done with more subtlety than might normally be expected in books like this. It was fun to read of an alternative medieval Europe in which the English lost Agincourt and Joan of Arc was saved from burning. The Cromarty Library Circle, an historical novel set (where else?) in the small Scottish town of Cromarty in the 1830s was really interesting; a slow burn but a very satisfying one. 

And finally  a whole bunch of people  recommended A Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans to me. I didn't think I had heard of her before but I find she wrote the book on which the film 'Their finest' was based, and which I did see and enjoy years ago.  It seems a lot of her books are set in or just after World War 2. This one is a 'Just After' one and I loved it. What there is of plot is quite gentle but the characters, while being based in some cases on recognisable types, are finely and sympathetically drawn. It's not at all sentimental though as Evans can be quite caustic in her descriptions, but it's very honest and all her people are understandable and most of them you feel some empathy for. I'm not generally fond of small children in grown up novels but there is one here who is a triumph; instantly recognisable by anyone who has had experience of a toddler. Wholeheartedly recomnended by me and I plan to read some more. 

A New Jigsaw

 I know, what excitement (slightly sarcastic sigh!) 

This is another from the 'Dinner With ..  an artist ' series; obviously this one is Van Gogh. I'd had it on my Amazon wishlist for several years and no-one had bought it, so recently, when I was looking for something to take me over the limit for free postage I treated myself. 

Like all of these puzzles it's lovely when finished. They're generally just challenging enough; I have to say this one was perhaps the hardest of the ones I've done,because the sky was a pain, but I persevered and overall I really enjoyed doing it. Definitely a keeper but I must get around to doing some more that are destined for the charity shop soon. 

It also kept my mind off how rubbish I was feeling after my dental surgery. That was on Thursday and it wasn't until last night (Saturday) that I started feeling anything like my usual self, and that was a usual self operating at about 50%. Just another reminder that the older you get the longer you take to recover I suppose. Feeling even better today so I suppose it's onwards and upwards from now. Hope so anyway. 

Happy Birthday - from me to me.

 I'm not five, so I'm not going to do a list of 'wot I got for my birfday' , but  since it was a milestone one  I did treat myself, and bought a one day weaving workshop from Radical Weavers in Stirling. They do several different ones, but this one promised me that I would bring home a three coloured scarf so that was the one I went for. Most of August was booked up when I looked, but they had one space left on 1st August, just before my birthday, so I booked it. 

It was an early start, I had to be in Stirling and ready to go by 9.30 which is  a bit of an ask, depending on how ready you are to take a risk on the train that gets you somewhere just in time not being cancelled - that's not a risk I'm particularly willing to take when I've shelled out a significant amount of money for an all day activity. 

I've wanted to try weaving for a long time - hence the purchase of the tiny weaving kit while on holiday and which excited me enough to spur me into looking for a local workshop. There was someone in Orkney who taught weaving, but it was in six week blocks and we were never in Orkney for six consecutive weeks when she was doing the lessons. And then, when I had decided I would make sure that we were there, by dint of not booking anything until the dates for the weaving classes went up, they stopped appearing and when I messaged to enquire I got ghosted. Turns out the teacher and her husband were all caught up in building themselves a new house and she had no time for teaching,  but I can't help feeling that she could have found two minutes to message me with that information. 

Leaving that aside, now I've had a grumpy rant about it, I did finish the Stirling workshop and I did come away with a three coloured scarf and I am more or less happy with  it.. Here's a photo. 

If you've been paying attention at the back you'll realise I used the same inspiration photo for this as I did for my dyeing at Lay Family Yarn in June. Same picture, totally different effect. I'm not happy with the edges which, despite my best efforts, are a bit iffy but I know that's mainly because it was my first go and therefore a learning experience and that if I were to continue weaving they would get better. 

However I am not going to continue weaving*. I had not appreciated quite how tiring it is physically. We worked from 9.30 to 5.30 with about 40 minutes for lunch and I was exhausted long before  finishing time. Also I was bored. I know lots of people find weaving meditative and mindful and that's fine, but I didn't. I found  it dull and repetitive and totally unstimulating. I'm obviously not wired to be a weaver. But at least now I know! 

*well except for finishing the kit coaster which I'm 2/3rds of the way through. 

A Very Big Birthday

is what I celebrated earlier this week. I'm not saying quite how big it was, but those who remember Project 60  can easily work it out.

To celebrate the OH and Son No 2 and I all went out for afternoon tea at a posh local hotel. 

The food was delicious , although they could possibly have made some of the sandwiches in brown bread,  and I would have liked the offer of a second pot of tea. But those are my only really tiny niggles. They had taken on board that we didn't want anything fishy and the carrot cake had little chocolate rectangles that said Happy Birthday on them. So full marks for that. 

And I am fairly reconciled to hitting this particular landmark by reflecting that I neither look nor feel my age. That said it's been a bit of a week. 

On Monday I went to the dentist with what I thought was a gum infection which could be cured by either time or antibiotics. One x-ray later and she's recommending that she refer me to an oral surgeon for  a possibly tricky extraction. So guess where I'm going tomorrow? all the way up to that there Embra to get a tooth out. Half the time I think, well it's only having a tooth out, it's not as though you haven't had it done several times before, and the other half of the time I think ' but that's been by a normal dentist, why do I need something different now?'  And then I sway back to 'but if the OS is the expert then that's the best place to go'. And then generally I just do a mental calculation of how in X hours it will all be behind me. In addition to all this I went to see a physiotherapist this morning in an attempt to get my back sorted before our big holiday in October. 

So all in all the Big Birthday was the least of my worries! 

Wool Stats and Finished Projects for June

 Stats are good for the first time in ages. Wool in in July was Nil. Nada. Nuffink. Hooray! Albeit this was partly down to the late arrival of the Madrigal Yarn Sock club, but you know, I'll take that. 

Wool out was 447g. There were three finished projects this month. 

A scarf knitted with some wool that arrived in a swap

The socks from the June club yarn, which are for son no 2

And Freddie the Fox, which was a kit I bought very recently and made more or less straight away. The balance of the wool out went into a long term project.

Net decrease for the year is now 1986g. It's slow work getting it down, but I suppose that's what happens when most of your wool stash is 4-ply! 

A day of Two Halves-ish

 So obviously not the account of the day we both really enjoyed in Wales - that's still to come in due course. Meanwhile  on Wednesday we went up to Birnam. 

Obviously we didn't go there for a woodland walk or we would have needed to go to Dunsinane. We went to see an exhibition by my favourite print make Abbie Lois,  in the Birnam Arts Centre. 

It had a cheerful bear by the door 

and I have to say it is a lovely large bright and airy space. The gallery where the exhibition was is upstirs and this is partly  why I say it was a day of two halves because I was just a wee bit disappointed in it. This was my fault, as I was expecting there to be more new work than there actually was. A lot of the prints I had seen before and although they are lovely I'd been expecting more new things. It's one thing to nip into Stirling to see less than you had expected; another to drive all the way to Birnam for the same experience. 

Since we were in their neck of the woods we'd arranged to see my friend S and her husband for lunch and I'd suggested the cafe at the Arts Centre as on paper it looked fine. On closer in-person inspection not quite as good as anticipated, especially since it was approaching lunchtime and all they had in a savoury line was two rather depressed looking ham and cheddar baps. Even if at least one of us hadn't been a vegetarian that wasn't going to feed four of us. Luckily, as the exhibition hadn't taken as long as anticipated we were able to have a quick stroll  around the village , bits of which are very picturesque,

and we found an alternative venue, which I think was called the Oak Tree cafe and it was just what we were looking for. We managed to intercept the others before they got as far as Birnam Arts and we had an excellent lunch and, just like my previous experience at Meze Meze, we were there for quite a long time after we had  finished eating! It was great to catch up. I know my stay at the Ilkley Hotel earlier this month gave rise to some funny moments but Sharon had just been staying in a hotel in the Highlands which obviously gave it a run for its money. Much laughter around the lunch table. Definitely no lack of enjoyment during this part of the day.

I am out all day tomorrow doing something exciting, of which more anon; next post though  should be wool stats and project news for July and for the first time in a while I'm not dreading totting up the numbers!

The Welsh Mountain Zoo

I have to say not our most successful zoo trip ever. This was partly because it was hot which meant that most of the animals very sensibly stayed in their little houses. In fact during the first half hour the most active animal we saw was a rat running through one of the bird enclosures, and for  a long time I thought that might be the only things we saw moving all day. In the end it wasn't quite that bad. 

Being fairly far up a mountain the place does at least have fabulous views. 

We did catch sight of a few things. 

The brown bear 

Ring tailed lemurs

and of course the ubiquitous meerkats

We did see various other things; some penguins, a red panda, gibbons and a variety of birds but I didn't get any good pictures of any of those. The catering was average, and the entrance fee was very  expensive. Not a value for money day in my opinion. In all fairness, possibly on cooler days when more animals are on show and not cowering in any shelter from the sun they can find, it would be a much more fun day out. 

On the way back we stopped at Bedd Gelert for an ice cream and a stroll by the river where we spent a few enjoyable minutes watching two middle aged walkers take off their boots and socks and gingerly step over some rocks into the river, then gingerly step out again only to realise they had nothing with which to dry their feet. Rather than wait for nature to do the job they put socks and boots back onto wet feet. Ugh! 

This was the coolest picture I took all day - the river at Bedd Gelert

Tomorrow, a day we both really enjoyed!

Wales Day 2 - Another Garden

 So on Day 2 we took ourselves off to another garden; this one on the Lleyn peninsula. It was called  Plas yn Rhiw. It was even hotter than the day before and it was a long drive ( at least the car has air con!) and the garden isn't anything like as nice as the one at Plas Brondanw 

Plas yn Rhiw belongs to the National Trust so at least we got in free although I have to say our National Trust for Scotland cards were initially treated with a blank expression; you would think NT employees would be taught to recognise the cards for similar organisations with  reciprocal agreements re entry but apparently not. Well either that or this guy had forgotten everything he ever knew about the NTS. 

The house is currently shut for some very necessary renovations ( bees nesting in the ceiling anyone?) so only the garden was on show. I'm sure it's lovely and very interesting but it didn't particularly float our boat. But as I said it was uncomfortably hot and that coloured our reactions to things almost every day for the whole week.

They had a very nice tearoom though; it was full to overflowing when we arrived but, once we'd looked at the gardens, the coachload of German visitors ( who we had seen the previous day at Plas Brandanw and who we decided must be on a tour of 'Little Known Gardens of Wales') had gone. I had the nicest piece of sponge cake there that I have had out in years; it was delicious. I'm not saying that it was worth the long drive there just for the cake but it possibly came close! 

The other thing the garden had going for it was fantastic views.

A few photos

Tomorrow - a disappointing visit to the Zoo!

Remember we went to Wales?

 So here are a few photos/memories of the first couple of days.

The OH had volunteered to find and book the accommodation for our week in Wales which accounts for the fact that we stayed somewhere that had a steam railway running across the top of the back garden. I was assured that there would not be many trains in a day, but this did not take account of the fact that both local heritage railways, Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland were having a festival the first weekend we were there and so ran lots more trains than normal. 

That said the inside of the cottage was charming although, despite the fact that it wasn't teeny tiny, it felt a bit cramped to me sometimes. 

And here's a 'gravity train' going past at one point of the weekend, seen from the garden, which was on a steep slope. It had several lovely places to sit out, but sadly the week was so hot that actually doing that would have been an invitation to heat stroke so we never got to do it. 

You'll need to click to enlarge the photo to see all the people properly. 

The OH's brother was with us but for the first three days he was partaking of the steam festival so we were on our own to begin with. First up was a return trip to Plas Brondanw which we had loved so much the last time we stayed in the area. Still loved it, although this time it was the wrong time of year for the hydrangeas sadly.

The welsh cakes in the cafe were as good as before

and the grounds as beautiful. Just a few photos as I know I have a lot of the place on here from last time ( somewhere!) 

So that was arrival and Day 1. More coming .... 

Happy Mail - Not Yarn!

 I treated myself! 

I was introduced to Rituals via a You Tube channel about eight months ago. Before that I'd never heard of them, but it wasn't long afterwards that I saw they had opened a shop in the Stirling Shopping Centre, so I went in for a browse. I didn't buy anything then, but a while later when I needed some new shampoo I went  and had a look and bought a (very expensive!) bottle of the stuff.

Well I say very expensive but it's lasted ages and it's very kind to my hair so perhaps it's not in the grand scheme of things. As seems to be normal nowadays I was encouraged to sign up for their e-mails which I did and I generally give them a quick look when they come and then discard them. 

Last week though they had a special offer on a box of three full size shower gels, on-line only and I thought, Why Not? Obviously I did my usual thing of thinking um, and ah, and should I really do it,  for several days first, but I did eventually persuade myself that buying three bottles of shower gel on special offer didn't make me a selfish horrible person and I ordered them. They came today, so very quickly and in a nice box ( see above) 

And now they're out of the box, as below

If I remember I'll report back on which is my favourite in due course. 

Yorkshire Part 2 - The Conference

I don't think I have ever not enjoyed a Gaskell Society Conference and this one was well up to standard. For a long time it seemed to be the case that either you got great food, but the accommodation wasn't so brilliant, or vice versa but on the past few occasions both have been acceptable or better , and to be honest you're not there for the beds or the food but the friends and the papers. Although I'm aware that not everyone takes quite such a sanguine view. 

The hotel wasn't perfect, mainly due to being short staffed,  and I did end up having basically the same dinner two nights out of three, but that wouldn't have been the case if I ate fish so it's not fair to hold that against the catering. The sandwich lunches wouldn't have set the world alight but then when did a sandwich lunch ever do that? And it was certainly far too hot to add soup. 

The current chair of the society had taken it upon herself to try and up the academic content a bit, so there was actually a call for papers this year and we ended up with a very wide spread of subjects being talked about; some more interesting than others. but that's always the way. I particularly enjoyed a Ph D student from Edinburgh talking about dress in Gaskell's novels with particular reference to North and South and, my surprise of the weekend, was enjoying an analysis of Gaskell's novels which sought to prove whether or not she understood the industrial changes she was living through and whether she was more positive then negative in her attitude towards them in her writing. Oddly, to me,  this seemed to show that she was fairly neutral about it in all her books which I found very surprising since industrialists complained bitterly of her negative attitudes towards factories and factory owners in Mary Barton and she wrote North and South in part to even up the score. So an analysis which showed that she was equally positive about industrial change in both these books made me wonder if there was something wrong with the basic analytic method...but what do I know? It was an entertaining talk. 

There were outings. The first was to the Brotherton Library in Leeds. I spent a lot of time there as an undergraduate so there was nothing new for me in the actual building and they had a very dull exhibition on in the special collections gallery. They did however get out some of their Gaskell treasures and they were well worth looking at. We were all fascinated by a recent discovery - here's a photo 

Each piece of paper has a page number at the top, referring to a page in a biography of Gaskell and then an excerpt written out in blue. Underneath in red,  and occasionally very cross, writing are corrective comments, written it is believed by Gaskell's second daughter Meta. I think it's fair to say she had a lot to find fault with. 

The other outing was to Thornton near Bradford where many of the Bronte children were born, as their father was the curate there before he moved to Haworth. The birthplace has recently been restored and opened to the public by no less a personage than Kween Kamilla. We had a guided tour led by someone who had been involved in all the hard work of raising money, and getting the thing done so he had lots to tell us. They have made  a very good job of it. Of course they can't get hold of authentic Bronte artefacts, unlike the Parsonage at Haworth, but they have managed to furnish it with contemporary furniture. 

This is the writing desk in the parlour

Someone made a beautiful scale model of the house and it's on display in the scullery/kitchen

There are three bedrooms you can sleep over in (via Air BnB if you're interested!) They'd had a Chinese Bronte scholar staying and she had donated a copy of Jane Eyre in mandarin

After the birthplace which very sadly wasn't serving refreshments that afternoon, we went to the local church where there is a small Bronte exhibition. I was more interested in a couple of wall hangings they had 

 

this was one of them. It looks like a quilt but in fact it's a printed textile. It was lovely. Sadly the lady at the Church Information Point had no information on it.  

They also have a window designed by William Morris, 

not the best picture ever but it gives the general idea

After the Church, and despite the heat, we were dragged across the road to the ruins of the church where  Patrick Bronte had been the curate; the one we had visited was built much later. There's not much left of it , bar the cupola

which, thanks to the ivy, has an appropriate gothic aspect. 

I did miss that normal Gaskell Society staple; the cream tea which was sadly not in evidence this time around. But not the end of the world. As is usual I came home re-fired with enthusiasm for C19 writers and writing, and as a result I am currently working my way through Juliet Barker's The Brontes: A Life in Letters again. I am a trifle concerned that I am not as irritated with Charlotte and Emily as I normally am, but I tell myself that will be rectified once I tackle Barker's huge Biography once again. 

And of course I'm wondering where the next G S Conference will be; there were no hints to be had at this one!