July Book Review

Good lord. What have I been up to this month? Clearly not a lot because I’ve managed to read 5 books. Fear not, I’m not some voracious reading machine, these are all very easy reads. I’ve even managed to squeeze in 2 classics, but these weren’t great tomes either. Ahh shame, I was starting to feel good about myself for a moment then.


What was on the list this month?

In my Sister’s Shoes – Sinead Moriarty

Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe

Letters from Father Christmas – JRR Tolkein

Go Tell it on the Mountain – James Baldwin

The Importance of Being Seven (44 Scotland Street series) – Alexander McCall Smith

In my Sister’s Shoes – Sinead Moriarty.
Not the sort of book I’d pick up at all but Mum nearly begged me to read it saying that it was really funny. Poor Mum, she must be spending too much time on her own now that she’s retired, this really wasn’t that funny at all. I think I laughed out loud once and really I was being kind.

I can’t even be bothered to summarise what happens in it. Usual chick lit stuff. Poorly developed characters. Poorly developed plot. I don’t think Marian Keyes needs to be quaking in her boots.

Letters from Father Christmas – JRR Tolkein
Hands up if you love a bit of heartwarming reading. This is the guy for you. I picked him up for £2 in a clearance outlet and am so pleased I did. JRR Tolkein sent letters every year from Father Christmas to his children, telling them tales of the North Pole and the antics of his friend the North Polar Bear and the evil gnomes. The book contains photographed copies of the actual letters and the lovely drawings that he also used to send.

If you don’t feel a little tug on your heartstrings when you read the last letter sent to his daughter then you’re not human.

It’s one of those books that you don’t really need and indeed when I finished it I thought “Well what will I do with this now?” Answer. Keep it. You will read it again, you might even read it to your children.

By the way did anyone else get letters from Father Christmas? I have two in a box somewhere that I received, oh to be so young that you don’t recognise your own Dad’s handwriting.

The Importance of Being Seven – Alexander McCall SmithI know I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I love Alexander McCall Smith. Love him love him. Although oddly can’t love the No1 Ladies Detective Agency which is weird I know. But I especially love the 44 Scotland Street series and each time a new book comes out I do my very very utmost to be patient and wait for it to come out in paperback.

If you see any of these pick them up and read them, I know these characters so well it’s like putting on an old pair of slippers, and the fact that it’s serialised in a newspaper means that the chapters are so short they are easy to dip in and out of.

Love love and love a bit more.

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Book of the month?

The Importance of Being Seven. Mr McCall Smith I love you. And I see that the latest Courduroy Mansions book is out in paperback, excuse me while I make my way to the bookshop....

I really need to start reading something a little more highbrow. Finding the thinnest Classics I can and reading letters from Father Christmas isn’t really expanding my horizons.

Jungle Ripple blanket - All done!

Hurray hurrah. For I am finished. The Jungle Ripple blanket is done.

It has been down to the wire but it's done in time for the baby shower which is taking place this Sunday. The baby isn't due until August 20th but there's a real chance I won't get time to see her before the bundle arrives (plus, let's face it I want everyone to be impressed with me at the shower).

In an ideal world I would have done a border around the blanket, and I even went so far as to consult my crochet guru, but in the end I ran out of time, and more importantly, I was running out of yarn. Much as I love my friend and wanted to make her a present rather than just buying her something, I did want to keep it as inexpensive as possible. The yarn cost around £8 and we all know by now that we don't count our labour properly in these kinds of things or else you would be handing over a gift and saying "Yeah I made this for you, that'll be £153 thank you."

However if I make a ripple in the future, I would like to give the border a try, just to see if I can do it.

I really hope this blanket actually gets used in some way. Whether it's out in the pram, or in the cot, or out in the garden, or just randomly thrown on the floor and played with. I want to know that I've made something useful, rather than something that just gathers dust in a nursery somewhere.

Hey my not really resolution was to make a ripple blanket this year - and I've totally gone and made two! Winner.

The "need to knows" for those of you who are interested:

Yarn used: Stylecraft Special DK
1116 - Green
1425 - Emperor
1246 - Lipstick (best name for a red ever)
1082 - Bluebell
1114 - Sunshine

Size: 31 x 41 inches.

Time to complete: 28 days

Crazy Cat Lady Part 12 - Fred and Lily Update

It's been too long. I know you guys love a bit of Fred and Lily action (no, really you do, you just don't know it yet.) and it's been a while, so I thought I'd fill you in.

There have been some traumatic events in their lives lately.


Traumatic Event Number 1: A stay in the cattery when Mum and I were over in York babysitting for my brother.

Lily loves staying in the cattery. Her best friend is the lady who runs it and the feeling’s mutual. Whenever we go to pick them up she gushes about how funny Lily is and how affectionate Lily is and how generally awesome Lily is. Their first stay in the cattery was when they were 4 months old and they stayed there for Christmas. They had a habit at that point of climbing up your leg or on your back – it wasn’t too painful because of their itty bitty claws. However Lily still climbs on Cattery Lady, I think she gets away with it because Cattery Lady wears a very heavy fleece, either that or she enjoys her skin being flayed.

Fred does not love staying in the cattery. He takes the rejection very personally. When we come to pick him up he is always, always already sat in the cat carrier, ready to come home. I’m pretty sure that he actually never comes out of the carrier when we drop him off and just stays in there waiting patiently for someone to return.

When they’re brought back home Fred attaches himself to you like a limpet and doesn’t like you going out of his sight. Lily is like that generally so it’s hard to tell the difference. This time, not long after we’d brought them home, Mum and I were leaving the house again and we turned round to find two little forlorn faces looking at us from the kitchen. If these looks don’t say “Please don’t leave us again” then I don’t know what does.

Look at Lily, she's a right chubster compared to Fred.

Traumatic Event Number 2: Rowan comes to stay.

Remember Rowan? She is my sister’s dog and is a very lively, very bouncy and very big Irish Setter. She has a bit of a strange effect on the cats. Fred, who is normally the softest boy going, getting regularly beaten up by his sister, turns into some kind of macho cat and bullies Rowan relentlessly. He sits on counter tops and batters her when she walks by, runs up and hisses at her when she’s just sitting quite calmly. Rowan is the biggest cissy of them all and ends up trying to climb on the sofa to hide behind a human or sits on the floor and looks at the ceiling, taking huge care not to look directly at Fred in the hopes that he leaves her alone.

The Dog Bully in butter wouldn't melt guise.

Lily takes a much more passive approach to things and decided to just hang out on the top of the kitchen cupboards for the whole weekend. She likes it up there, she can see everything going on around her, is well away from the wagging tail, can see the birds out of the kitchen window, and, most importantly, we all tend to forget she’s up there meaning that she gets vital alone time with food that’s been left out.



Mum’s getting better about letting them outside although she still hates it and is on edge the whole time that they’re out in case they disappear. I think they look forward to when I’m looking after them because I’ll let them out a little more often (although I end up on edge because I’m aware of the trouble I’ll be in if one of them gets lost under my watch).

Fred is a bit of a wanderer although he tends to return quite often to go back into the kitchen and lie down on the cool floor and pant. Panting cats are hilarious.

Lily never really strays far though, and if you’re in the garden she definitely won’t leave, preferring to hang about and see what you’re doing. She gets very agitated when Fred disappears and doesn’t come back for a while, to be honest I think she’d be quite happy to just lie on the white rug in the living room all day, keeping an eye on you.

Munchkins.

A random, unprovoked attack on my Yarn Fairy Blanket.

Running Woman Part 8 - What goes through my head when I run

I am actually sitting here in my running stuff, all sweaty so I can write this down while I remember it all. I hope you appreciate the gross lengths I go to for this blog.


I know that my mind wanders at times when I'm out jogging and when I went out tonight I decided that I would try and consciously remember all the things that go through my head when I'm pounding the pavements. Today was the first time I've been out since the Race for Life, my shin was in pretty bad shape for the week afterwards and today was the first day that I felt I'd be up to it so I went out for a little practice.

So this was what went through my head over tonight's 3km run (which took 18 minutes, if you wanted to know my pace. I believe that falls into the category of "snail pace")...

- God I hate the beginning when I'm not properly in my stride, feel like everyone is going "My god look at the size of her arse."

- Gosh there are an awful lot of hydrangea bushes in this part of Hull. Are hydrangeas a middle class plant?

- If there was a middle class plant, what would it look like?

- Oh god, main road coming up, must look like I'm not out of the breath in the slightest so all the car dwellers feel guilty about their sedentary ways.

- Jesus Jack Russell attack! Thank god she had him on a short lead.

- Ugh. Pub coming up. Need to try and run past it and look fit whilst not breathing in any of the second hand smoke.

- Hmmmm maybe I should have just run around the block, am I pushing it too hard?

- Oh god what if the shin splints come back? I'll turn off at the next cut through and not run the whole way to the end of the road.

- Erm...where's the cut through? Oh my god I've gone the wrong bloody way, I shouldn't have gone past the pub, I should have been heading in the opposite direction, there isn't a cut through on this street!

- Ha I love this Running Tracks album that Dorothy got me for my birthday - I'm running to Cliff Richard, Move It.

- Jesus. Pay attention, the car totally nearly reversed into you, less Cliff, more concentrating.

- I should really run round the park and not go straight home.

- No I should just go straight home.

- No I should run round the park.

- No I should just go straight home, don't push it.

- Yes! Home straight, time to pick up the pace a bit. Can see the door.

- Should have run round the park instead of coming straight home.

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And that's what went through my head this evening.

Now I really need to get changed because the sweat is drying and now I'm cold.

Really hope the shin splints don't come back.

Grandma and Grandpa

Before my Dad left to go back to France we went out for dinner and somehow started talking about my Grandma and Grandpa. I feel huge amounts of guilt that I don’t really know much about their lives when they were younger, that’s the trouble with me not really speaking to that side of my family for near on 5/6 years, those were the years when I would have been asking those questions and by the time contact was re-established those bonds weren’t there anymore and the topic never came up.


So what Dad had to tell me was a bit of a revelation, I didn’t know any of this stuff and after he’d told me I knew I would need to write it all down before I forgot it. Enter....the blog. If I didn’t have this, I wouldn’t write it down and I’d soon forget.

So...

During the WWII my Grandma worked in a dairy office – she was actually lucky, a lot of women had to switch jobs and become more ‘useful’ but dairy’s were pretty damn necessary so when war broke she didn’t have to leave. In fact only one person did have to leave and that turned out to be Grandma’s friend, who went from working in a dairy office to being a welder on ships in the docks in Hull – quite the career change.

Grandpa was in the RAF, working as ground crew, he was lucky enough to not have to leave British soil for the duration of the war. The reason he joined the RAF? He knew he would have to join one of the forces – the Navy was out because he couldn’t swim and he didn’t want to be shot, which knocked the Army out of the field, so the RAF it was.

In town there was a dance hall called The Dump. Grandma used to go there most weekends, she was a bit of a wallflower and would sit on the sides, waiting to be asked to dance. She had terrible eyesight but refused to wear her glasses out, so she would sit patiently waiting until a shape loomed towards her and asked her to dance.

One night, a man called George asked her to dance. They danced the night away and he asked her if he could walk her home. She obliged and they went off to their separate cloakrooms to retrieve their coats, and in the case of Grandma, her glasses.

She obviously didn’t have a clue who he was and it took some friends to point out her suitor so she could see him with the added benefit of lenses. Her reaction? He looked really old and had a stupid big hat on.

Not the best of starts then.

She obviously put these feeling to one side at some point however because eventually they became engaged. It was at this point that Grandpa uttered the ever so romantic words, “I suppose you’ll want a ring then?” (He had a way with words did Grandpa.) He then tried to foist on Grandma a used engagement ring that came from a broken engagement he’d had previously, Grandma politely (I’m sure) declined but suggested that he could maybe use the ring to put towards getting a new engagement ring for her.

The wedding wasn’t devoid of drama either. Grandma was terrified of what would happen on the wedding night that she ran away immediately after they got married and went to the cinema for the night on her own. Without telling anyone. Clearly she got over her issues with my Dad and two Aunties as testament to that fact, but for as long as I can remember, they slept in the same room, but in separate beds.

Before you think they were totally devoid of romance, there is one nice story. When they were married they went to live with Grandma’s mother. This proved to be short-lived after an argument about Grandma cleaning out the passageway meant they had to move out and live with Grandpa’s parents. Grandpa objected to Grandma having to clean the passageway (she wasn’t treated particularly well by her mother) and pointed out that they gave her board so they could stay in one room – at which point Grandma’s Mother kicked them out. Perhaps not the best ending, but at least he stuck up for his woman.

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(And now what I really need to do is pump my Aunts for information, I know that my Dad has a tendency to not remember history accurately so I need to check all of this with them!)

Go Tell it on the Mountain - James Baldwin

I’m coming to a bit of a conclusion when it comes to Old Classics and Modern Classics. The basic rule of thumb when it comes to my little brain is this: Old Classics I “get”. I might not always like them (sorry Wuthering Heights) but I understand what they’re trying to say to me, there’s a decent story and everything makes sense. Modern Classics have a tendency to leave me feeling distinctly stupid. They are much more abstract in the themes they deal with, so abstract in fact that they completely pass me by.


This is the 3rd book that I would probably terms as a Modern Classic (the others being Midnight’s Children *shudder* and Things Fall Apart) and this one, like the others (although not so much with Things Fall Apart) has left me scratching my head a little bit. So much so that I actually felt compelled to conduct some research into the book because I was so sure that I wasn’t “getting” it and was missing some bold point.

I actually don’t think I was (although the references to homosexuality completely passed me by, I just thought he looked up to him as an older boy, god I’m an innocent) but people are unanimously adamant that this is a seminal piece of American literature I just read. And I don’t really think that racism is the main theme of the book, which could be expected, having been written by an African-American writer in the 1950s. Race is a sub-theme within the book, it’s there, bubbling under the surface and there are occasional references to it but it’s not a great big club that Baldwin’s smacking you over the head with. Religion is the order of the day it would seem.

Semi-autobiographical, the book takes place over the period of 1 day, the main protagonist being John, a young boy whose father, Gabriel, is a preacher in the church. John has been told he is destined to follow his father but harbours no wishes to do so and has an almost all-consuming hatred for his father who is the most un-Christian preacher you could come across, liberally beating his children and wife.

Whilst everyone is gathered in the church, we hear the background stories of Gabriel, his sister Florence, and John’s mother, Elizabeth, in their own voices and begin to understand a little of the forces and dynamics at play in each of their lives. Gabriel is a gigantic huge twat it turns out – knocking some girl up before stealing from his first wife to send her away to have the baby. However his life as a preacher gives him the perfect excuse to “do as I say not do as I do.” Hypocrite. Florence is the least religious of them all, has some kind of moral compass, but has had a rough deal in life and Elizabeth has had an equally tough time.

This is all marvellous and I enjoyed reading these background stories, understanding a little more how and why everyone was interacting with each other in the way that they did, and then the book in the final part goes totally haywire.

John undergoes a hysterical conversion to God and has various dreams and visions that made little or no sense to me.

And then the book ended.

I hate books that do that. I felt cheated, I didn’t understand, is John’s conversion real or is he doing it to get back at Gabriel and act as a check on his vile behaviour? If it’s real then why has it happened? We don’t know what’s happening in John’s head when he experiences God, we’re too busy focusing on the lives of Gabriel, Florence and Elizabeth.

I don’t really know what I thought of this one. I think, if it’s impossible I’m just ambivalent to it. Maybe it would strike more of a chord with me if I was American and had more of a feel for the culture and the time in which it was written? Maybe he’s just not the author for me. Whilst I wouldn’t tell people not to read it, I’m not desperately looking for hands to thrust my copy into either.

Final verdict? Odd.

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(Get me! I’m ahead of schedule, this, my friends is Classic Number 8. And there’s another Modern Classic on the way – The Great Gatsby? Step on up.)

Craft Hurricane

At the moment the living room at my Dad’s looks like a crafty hurricane has been through it. There’s aida, fabric, thread, needles, yarn and patterns strewn across the place and in the middle of it is little old me feeling increasingly overwhelmed with the stuff I’ve got to do.

I need to sit down and make a system, I need to make a list, but instead I wander aimlessly from one project to another, picking something up, only to put it down 10 minutes later and start on something else. I can slowly feel my sanity dripping away.

But then I remembered that I have a blog and I use this blog in a most inventive way. A way of documenting things I have done or things I want to do. I have also noticed that when I put things on this blog and say I’m going to do them, I am immediately held accountable and that post will act as a little niggly devil on my shoulder prodding me to get a shift on.

So things I am working on/need to work on:

- Jungle Ripple blanket (needs to be finished by 31st July for the baby shower but can be postponed because the baby isn’t due until 20th August.)

- Christmas card for July

- Wall hanging like the one I did for my niece’s christening
- France 2010 album

See? I already feel better. There isn’t actually that much I’m working on at all, it just feels like a lot because of the paraphernalia and the mess. I hate the mess you know.

So I need to prioritise.

I am tempted to put the Christmas card up at the top because we’re almost at the end of July now but then again is it really necessary? Would it be the end of the world if I did two in August instead? Would any of you hold that against me?

It would be lovely to get the Jungle Ripple finished by 31st July but it wouldn’t be the end of the world if it didn’t. All that would happen is I would miss out on the admiring glances from friends – which I can’t lie, is hard to turn down.

The wall hanging is a surprise addition to my list, I knew I was making it but didn’t think I’d be making it so soon. However this little lady was unwilling to hang about in the uterus for a whole 9 months so arrived a little early. Some people are so impatient. Plus I know that these bad boys intimidate me but actually don’t take that long to do at all. This could easily be finished in a weekend, I just need to find a man with a saw to cut some dowelling.

France 2010 album does need doing but has a deadline of 31st December 2011 so isn’t that urgent, I’m just aware that if I keep on postponing it I’m never going to get it done.

So after that mindless rambling and the knowledge that I have a free weekend ahead of me. I think I have a plan of action.

1. Wall hanging

2. Jungle Ripple

3. Christmas card for July

4. France 2010 album

I think Number 2 & 3 might be interchangeable, depending on how progress with the blanket goes. If it’s not looking like getting done for the 31st then I’ll abandon ship and pick up needle and thread and get cross stitching instead.

Phew. Thanks for getting me through that guys. Come back in September when I’ve decided I want to make things for people for Christmas and am having a complete breakdown about it.