Random Jottings

Well that's it...

Well, it is done, it is read and I have just closed up the book.  I feel really really lost.  Sounds barmy does it not that a Muggle of Advanced Years feels so sad that there will be no more Harry Potter books.

Yes, I agree that JK Rowling is not the best writer in the world; yes, I agree she needs editing and how; the narrative gets very clunky when she has to come to a conclusion, BUT she has created a simply stunning world, full of humour and wit as well as darkness and magic and her attention to detail and how everything is linked and tied up in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is amazing.

I have been glued to the book most of the day and broke off when a friend came to supper tonight, but then as soon as the dishes were washed and the curtains drawn, back to HP and I have finished it, just before midnight.

I am not going to say a word about it, whether any of my predictions were right or wrong just yet, as this could give clues to the ending and I do not want to spoil it for anyone.  I will tell you this though, the denoument will make a simply terrific final scene in the final film.

Thank you Harry, Ron and Hermione and thank you JK Rowling for a wonderful ten years.

The End of it All

This blog will be silent on Saturday 21 July as I, along with millions of Muggles worldwide, will be totally absorbed with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the last in the series.  I have a crate of Butter beer which was delivered from Hogsmeade this morning, a large packet of chocolate frogs and Bertie Botts Flavoured Beans ready and waiting and I have  persuaded the Whomping Willow to uproot itself and transplant outside my front door in case any Death Eaters or Dementors try to interrupt my reading.

I shall Apparate again on Sunday morning but will keep the secret of HP7 to myself as I know that there are blog friends who will not be reading this book until later in the week.

Hester's Story - Adele Geras

Having loved Facing the Light , I shot out to Waterstones and bought Hester's Story and bang went another afternoon as I read it straight through in one lovely gulp.  Even though I am now heading towards the Corps de Ballet in the sky rather than the White Lodge, I still go all dreamy when I remember how much I wanted to be a ballerina when I was a little girl, so to discover that Hester is a famous but now retired ballet dancer, was a delight.

Hester Fields no longer dances.  An accident cut short her career and she is now a highly regarded ballet teacher. She lives at Wychwood House in Yorkshire where, every winter, a special ballet is performed at the small, purpose built theatre in the grounds.  Just after Christmas everyone starts to arrive: Hugo Carradine, a choreographer and founder of the Carradine Ballet who is to present a new work called Sarabande; the composer, Edmund Norland who is an old friend of Hester; Claudia Drake a prima ballerina, perhaps past her best who is Hugo's lover; her daughter Alison, akward and resentful of her mother's lack of interest in her; Silver McConnell the newest, most sensational young ballerina and other various assorted members of the cast. 

Hester has never married but has had a passionate love affair in her past, from which she has never fully recovered.  She is looked after and cared for by Ruby, who has been her dresser and companion for years, from the days when she was taught by her first teacher and substitute grandmother, Madame Olga.

Christmas is never celebrated at Wychwood and we do not discover why until the end of the story.  We also find out a secret grief that Hester has kept to herself all her life, and then see her enjoy an unexpected happiness found when she was least expecting it.

This book has all the ingredients that made Facing the Light such a terrific read.  An assortment of characters in one place, all coming together for a single reason, all with their different hopes and fears and agendas.  I mentioned when reviewing Facing the Light that Adele Geras had very cleverly dropped clues throughout the story, hinting at the secret and the outcome.  Being a rabid reader of Dame Agatha Christie and a great fan of Poirot's little grey cells, I keep an eye out for the odd non sequiteur or slightly unneccessary piece of description of an object or surroundings, as this can sometimes be pointing the reader in a certain direction.   So, I kept my eyes peeled and picked up on two totally separate comments quite far apart in the book which made me think 'I wonder...' and was delighted to discover that what I suspected was true.

Now, please don't think I'm being a smart arse here because I have now made the right conclusions in both of Adele's books (blame Dame Agatha), it has not mitigated my enjoyment one little bit and when the ending comes and all is right and happy it pleases me no end.  As with Facing the Light, guessing correctly made no difference to the pleasure I felt when reading both of these wonderful stories.

The descriptions of the rehearsals, the steps, the music all brought back to me my childhood when I used to attend ballet classes and wore pink ballet shoes and dreamed of being a ballerina.  I read and re-read Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield so often that the pages were worn out (it is still on my bookshelf practically fallling apart), read my way through all of the 'Wells' books by Lorna Hill and would dance around the room listening to Swan Lake and pretending that I was Margot Fonteyn.  Sadly, at 5' 9" and with size 7 feet, these dreams soon came to an end, but it left me with an abiding love and fascination for ballet which has lasted all my life.  As I write this, I have nestling in my ticket box in my dressing table drawer, two stall seats for Carlos Acosta and Tamara Rojo dancing in Romeo and Juliet at Covent Garden later on in the year and, though I have seen this Kenneth Macmillan version many times (with Nureyev and Fonteyn as well) I cannot wait to see it again.

So, another reason, if one was necessary, to explain why I loved this book.  I sincerely hope that Adele goes on to pen as many adult books as she has done for children.  I shall be waiting to read them all.

Harry Potter

The witching hour, or should that be wizarding hour, is almost upon us and I will be getting up nice and early on Saturday morning,  leaping into my Magic Micra and flying off to the nearest Tesco where I will grab my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and some fresh croissants so that I can start reading it at breakfast and continue throughout the rest of the day.  I have a friend coming round for supper that evening who is also an HP fan, so if I can finish it in time, I can pass it on to her.

I have just re-read HP and the Half-Blood Prince in order to remind myself of exactly how we left it at the end of the last story and this has also helped me remember the opinion I held at the time and which I discussed at great length with my daughter, Kathryn, who is a huge fan and had read it in one gulp like mois and needed to go over every page with someone equally deranged.  She turned to her mother. Naturally....

I am not going to go into detail just in case there is anybody out there who (a) is not interested in HP or (b) is, but has yet to read this one and is catching up, but I feel there is a certain ambivalence to the prophecy that decrees Harry must kill Voldemort or vice versa.  This comes on pages 476-477 when Harry and Dumbledore are discussing the outcome and the following dialogue takes place:

"You are setting too  much store by the prophecy Harry"

"But" spluttered Harry "You said the prophecy means..."

"If Voldemort had never heard of the prophecy would it have been fulfilled?  Would it mean anything?  of course not.  Do you think every Prophecy in the Hall if Prophecy has been fulfilled?"

This little conversation makes the outcome less clear cut than everyone thinks it is going to be.  I am, therefore, biding my time on this one.  I have a few ideas of how it will end and I will be most interested to see if I am right, or way off the mark.

So, I have taken out my Harry Potter stationery set and have written down what I think is going to happen and sealed the envelope with a Charm and will only open it when I have finished HP7 and see if I am right/wrong.  I will be very honest about this and let you all know if I have hit the mark in any way at all.

And, despite everything, I still trust Snape.....

The Luxor Tapestry

OK I am going to mention The Needle in the Blood again.  I know I am starting to become a bore on the subject, but please please please do read it.

Now, this wonderful book has had a knock on effect on my interest in all things to do with embroidery etc and yes I know I am in danger of boring about that as well, but it reminded me of a wall hanging that I bought several years ago and which I have stashed away as I have not known quite what to do with it.  I shall call it the Luxor Tapestry as that is where I bought it, but think it is applique really.  However, as I am in Tapestry Mode after reading THAT book, I have decided to give it a grand title.

It was January 2001 and I was on a cruise down the Nile.  As an army child, I lived in Egypt for three years and had always longed to go back, but life got in the way as it does and I never made it.  However, this was post-divorce and I thought damn it I am going to treat myself and off I went.  I spent the entire week in a mist of tears and wallowing in nostalgia as it all came back to me.  Nothing had changed, in fact, I don't think anything had changed since AD.  It was all quite wonderful and I wish I had had a digital camera then so I could show you the pictures easily.  (I could always go back of course, nothing to stop me...)

The flash went off when I took this photo so the colour is wrong but the detail is much clearer than the picture below, which is its true colour

On the last morning I went for a stroll around the town of Luxor where the boat was berthed and came across a shop full of the most wonderful fabrics, silks, and embroidery so I walked in and there on the wall was this hanging.  I loved and coveted it instantly and so started off the process by asking the shop owner how much:

He: £400 madame

Me:  Good heavens I cannot afford that.  Goodbye

He (grabbing my arm) I am sure we can come to an agreement madame

So we sat down, a pot of coffee and lovely almond biscuits were produced and we started to negotiate. After I had been told that he had a family of around 20 to support and I was introduced to nearly all of them, including the most enchanting black eyed toddlers beaming at me (I was dashing the bread from their lips I gather by not paying the full price) and grandmothers bent double and with toothless smiles, and an hour passed, I emerged with the hanging in my bag for the price of £60.  In my opinion, a bargain.

It seems somewhat shameful, therefore, that it has been stashed away ever since.  I take it out every now and then and look at it, not sure what to do with it and put it back.  Well, it is out again and this time I am determined that somehow it is going to be hung.  About time it saw the light of day and I shall see if I can get some nice kind person to come along and drill holes in the wall etc and put in hooks for the hanging of - while I can decorate, paint, plaster and lay a kitchen floor, I have never mastered the art of putting up shelves and not sure I want to at my time of life.

I hope you like the pictures and agree that it is a lovely article to own.  Forgive the crinkly bits, I am going to have to get the iron out. 

I blame Odo and THAT book...

Facing the Light - Adele Geras

Over the last few weeks I have had a wide choice of books to read and I have hit the jackpot on several occasions.  Apart from The Needle in the Blood which is definitely going to be one of my books of the year, I have read an assortment of thrillers, fun reads and biographies and now I have discovered the adult works of Adele Geras.  I am sure Adele likes a bargain as well as anybody, so will not mind that I picked up a hardback edition of this book in a SuperBookShop in Colchester for £5.  As soon as I spotted it, I pounced and as it was the last copy on the shelf, was delighted I had happened to be passing by at that particular moment.  I normally avoid going into Colchester shopping centre like the plague so this was serendipity of best kind.

This story is right up my street.  Leonora, the Matriarch of her family and the daughter of the famous Edwardian painter Ethan Walsh, is 75 and her family gather round her to celebrate this occasion.  Her two daughters, grandchildren, assorted husbands and partners are all in attendance together with a television documentary producer, Sean Everard, who is there to make a film about the life and work of Ethan.  The setting is the family home, Willow Court in Wiltshire.  So the scene is set for arguments, tears, hatred, love, lust and all sorts of secrets and lies to be revealed over a sunny weekend.

I loved this book and could not put it down once I had started. At the very beginning a young child finds a body in the lake, somebody has drowned.  The reader is not told who it is and we then fast forward some 60 years to the birthday party and the arrival of the family.  There is a secret in the past and Adele Geras very cleverly drops the odd clue and hint in the narrative which you can miss if you are not careful.  It is easy to do as you are swept along in this absorbing story but about half way through the narrative, I began to think 'I wonder...what if...?'  I was proved right by the end but did not feel that my guessing the final revelations spoiled the story in any way, in fact, it helped me look out for more proof of my suppositions.  If I had not guessed I would have enjoyed it just as much.

A simply terrific and absorbing read.  I was very pleased to get this edition as I love the cover and prefer it to the paperback.  Of course paying £5 instead of £12.99 was even better, but Adele, should you read this post, rest assured I was so enchanted with this book I nipped into Waterstones next time I was in town and bought the paperback of Hester's Story - full price!

Greater love hath no woman for a book than to purchase it and pay the full amount and not order it from Amazon.....

Highly recommended.

Thrills and Spills

I have been very lucky over the last few weeks as I have received lots of lovely parcels all containing books from generous publishers who have sent me an interesting assortment to read and review.

I mentioned Accent Press on this blog in an earlier post.  They are based in Wales and their founder, Hazel Cushion, was kind enough to send me several of their output.  The one I have enjoyed the most is Absent Light by Eve Isherwood .  This tells the story of Helen Powers who was once a scene of crime officer for the West Midland Police.  She now works as a portrait photographer as she resigned from the force after turning whistleblower on the discovery that her then lover was corrupt.  The ensuing publicity and hostility she faced meant that the could no longer continue in the job she loved.

Now it would appear, somebody wants her dead.  A bogus appointment with a prospective client results in her being mugged and pushed into the canal.  She survives but then later a car tries to run her down.  Helen cannot go to the police as she is doubtful that they woulf help her and she is not totally sure who she can trust.  She meets up with Stratton, a detective who she knew when she was in the force, and he offers to help her track down the mystery that is in her past life.  Is it linked with the police or to the secret that her mother has been hiding all her life and which Helen has only discovered after her death?

I found this a solid, entertaining read and as it ends with Helen determined to return to police work, it looks as if it might be the beginning of a series. As you all know by now, I love a series...

Next up, The Painted Messiah by Craig Smith .  This was sent to me by Myrmidon Books along with several others, all of which look promising. The are all paperbacks but those lovely full size ones that at the moment only appear to be available at airport bookshops.  Production values are high with good well designed covers and I am looking forward to reading the rest of the bundle sent to me.  Myrmidon Books is located in Newcastle upon Tyne and as my family come from that city and I lived there as a child, this makes me even more well disposed towards them.

There is a legend that after the scourging of Christ, Pilate commanded that his victim be painted from life.  Somewhere, this portrait has survived as the only true image of Christ and, purportedly, grants eternal life to whoever posseses it.

Kate Kenyon, who in style and attitude appears to be an updated version of Modesty Blaise, and her sidekick Ethan, have learned of its whereabouts and decide to steal it.  Like Thomas Crown in the Thomas Crown Affair, Kate steals for sheer fun and pure enjoyment of the risks she undertakens. This time the fun stops as they are intercepted during the robbery, a gun fight ensues and people die.  From then on, she and Ethan are on the run from Sir Julian Corbeau, the owner of the painting, an international criminal holed up in Switzerland as there is a price on his head.  He is also a descendent from the founders of the Knights Templar and he wants his painting back and revenge on those who stole it.

Throw in the CIA, the mysterious Swiss Bankers, the enigmatic Contessa Medici and a parrallel narrative set in the time of Pilate and Herod and you have what I would describe as a rattling good yarn.  Fast paced, exciting and very very filmic, it is impossible not to see the influence of the Da Vinci Code on this story, but it is much better written.  This may not be much of a compliment as the little I have read of this Dan Brown opus leads me to believe that this would be very easy to do.

To sum up, two very entertaining books which kept my attention throughout.  So two from my Whopping Great Pile which is slowly but surely going down.  Lots more to go though - there's a lovely thought.

The Needle in the Blood - Part Deux

Before I sat down to start this post I looked up the word 'burble'.  According the the Concise Oxford Dictionary there are three definitions:

1. make a continuous murmuring noise
2. speak unintelligibly and at unnecessary length
3. rambling speech

This more or less describes my state since finishing The Needle in the Blood which, despite my best efforts, I finally finished on Friday.  I kept putting it down as I did not want it to end.  Then ten minutes later I picked it up again, read for half an hour and then closed it up.  This was totally barmy of course.  Because of this book I have started thinking about all the crafty (as in arts and) things I used to do years ago, and I can only liken this particular behaviour to mine when knitting and noticing I was nearly at the end of a ball of wool and used to knit twice as fast in order to get to the end of the row before the wool ran out.  Yes, I know.  Nobody has to say anything...

In the end of course, I had to finish it and then I closed it up and felt totally lost.  I know a lot of you did not like Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, but when I read that book I was plunged into a totally different world and came out into the daylight blinking and wondering where on earth I was as it took me over so completely.  I have named this condition as Norellitis, but it is as nothing as suffering from Odo Syndrome and I am sure the only cure is another book by Sarah Bower.

DoveGreyReader has written a brilliant review of this over on her blog and has said practically everything I want to say about  this wonderful story so recommend that you nip over and have a look.  All I want to do is to pick out passages from the book that are just so beautifully descriptive and which enchanted me:

"Venison haunches marinated in red wine with cloves, fowls stuffed teasingly one inside the other starting with swans and bustards, ending with ortolans and quails, squirrels legs friend in sweet batter and pasties of songbirds crowned with tiny , gilded beaks....dishes of peas in cream and parsnips stewed with saffron, dried figs and apricots from Provence...the jewels in the wine cups wink mockingly in the light of hundreds of beeswax candles, all green and gold"

"He watches the two deacons about their work, moved by the reverence with which they take the sacred vestments out of the chests inlaid with ivory crosses in which they are stored, gently shaking and smoothing and brushing before laying them out in the order in which he will assume them< alb, dalmatic, amice, cincture, stole chasuble, pallium and mitre.  The names flow like poetry through his mind,  The ritual of clothing, which must be done in the same way, with the same prayers, before every service, calms him as he is transformed from mortal man to pries, from the victim of his senses to the servant of his faith".

"He (Odo) takes Gytha to see his cathedral, walks with her up the nave whose arches still soar like the fingers of God into the open sky, so high that the men working above the clerestory and triforium, throwing across the roof trusses, look as though they are crawling across the blue face of heaven......he bids her imagine the tapestry, stretched between the columns of the nave, lit by hundreds of candles, scented with incense, shivering allittle in air vibrant with music. Complete"

The Needle in the Blood starts and finishes with the Bayeux Tapestry which is always there in the background but for me the main story and focus is that of the great love between Gytha and Odo.  I know I keep mentioning Katherine by Anya Seton but time and time again when reading Sarah's story, my mind slipped back to my teenage days when I first discovered it and could not put it down as I was taken over by the love of Katherine and John, Duke of Gaunt.  For me, The Needle in the Blood has the same wonderful sweep of imagery, the contrast of the richness of the food and wine and emeralds and rubies of the Earl and his mistress, with the straw pallets, the mud, the dirt and the basics of life for the rest of the household, the jousting, the feasting and then the quiet moments in the cathedral and church.

Painting of Odo at the Battle of Hastings

I was totally bowled over by this book but was not sure when I started it if I would be.  To begin with, it is written in the present tense which I always find difficult to read.  Don't ask me why, there is no logical reason for this at all and in the past I have abandoned books because of this particular style.  But not this one.  In Odo Sarah Bower has created a charismatic and, quite frankly, gorgeously sexy hero, who has huge power and riches, but is brought to his knees by his love for Gytha.  The ending is right but heart breaking and I felt totally lost when I had read the last sentence and closed up the book.

"What shall I say of Odo, Bishop of Bayueux?  In this man, it seems to me, vices were mingled with virtues, but he was more given to worldly affairs than to spiritual contemplation"  Orderic Vitalis, Ecclesiastical History, Book IV

I am sure this is a correct description of Odo, but how much more human and warm he sounds in this story.  In Odo and Gytha, Sarah Bower has created a created a pair of star crossed lovers to rank alongside Eloise and Abelard and Romeo and Juliet and just in case you think that perhaps this is a rave too far, do read the book and see how you feel at the end of it.

Wonderful.

Saturday morning ramblings

I was awake bright and early this morning, must have been something to do with the sun (yes the sun at last!) shining through my bedroom window.  It is clouding over a bit now but still bright enough to make me feel more cheerful.  I have just had my breakfast, mug of tea now to hand so just thought I would ramble a bit.

I have had a good, positive week this week.  Not always the case recently, but I am feeling happier today.  As you know, I have just finished reading Needle in the Blood which I have been burbling on about (will be reviewing properly over the weekend), and am now half way through Towards the Light by Adele Geras which is one of those stories in a perfect setting, country house, matriarch's birthday, family all around, the perfect scene for all sorts of things to happen.  And they are.  And it is terrific.  More of that later.

I honestly think the sun is shining today because the Prom Season has started at the Royal Albert Hall.  To paraphrase the opening line of Little Women 'Summer isn't summer without the Proms'.  I have spent most of my musical life when younger standing in the arena watching the most wonderful artists perform, conductors conduct and magnificent orchestras play.  My musical education took place there and it holds a very special place in my heart.   I expanded on this in a post last year should you wish to read it here and will not repeat myself, something I find I do quite a lot these days.  Encroaching old age I suppose.  Oh dear.

Last night was the First Night and broadcast on BBC2.  In the first half we had the most lovely, unpretentious performance of the Elgar Cello Concerto I have heard in a long time.  If unpretentious sounds an odd word to use, yes it is, but I have chosen it carefully.  Some cellists (and a certain name springs to mind) impose their personality on this piece and we are more aware of them than the music.   A shining example of this a few years ago was Nigel Kennedy (or Kennedy as we must now call him) who recorded the Four Seasons and totally took it over.  It was not Vivaldi it was 'Nige' and I came to hate the very sound of it. 

I digress.  The cellist was Paul Watkins.  Not a name that reverberates around the world yet he is a wonderful player.  I remember watching him many years ago when he won the Young Musician of the Year award.  This was in the days when the BBC showed it in its entirety, when they did not dumb down, when ...but I must not get started on what my children call Mum's Rants.  Paul Watkins was interviewed in the interval and it was clear from the person talking to him that he had been most taken with his performance for the very reasons I have given above.  Paul Watkins is quintessentially English.  There he sat in his suit and his tie and his horn rimmed glasses, beaming in the most delightful manner and so happy that we had loved the way he had played, modest, witty and humorous and such a change from the normal run of pretentious artistes who are very conscious of their aura.  It made me smile just watching him smile.

Gosh, I am rambling more and more so let us get on.  Second half, a glorious performance of Beethoven's Choral Symphony with the massed choruses singing without scores, just letting rip, orchestra playing like demons and four terrific soloists.  I thought to hell with my neighbour upstairs and I turned the volume on my TV up full blast for the final Ode to Joy.  Sheer bliss.  In customary parlance 'the audience went wild' and the applause went on and on.  What I liked about Charles Hazelwood, the commentator for the evening, was the fact that he did not try to discuss the performance in musical terms, but merely ended up the evening by saying ' this is the kind of music that makes you glad to be alive'.

Hear hear say I.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Crafty Person - not

Well I blame Emma at Snowbooks for making me feel that I want to get creative.  She sent me a copy of The Crafter's Companion and now of course my knitting finger is getting twitchy.  I have unearthed a pattern for a sweater that I have had for some time now and as I have not done any knitting for yonks, this is a very simple, basic raglan sleeve knit one purl one pattern so surely I can manage that and get back in the swing of it all.

Well, trying to find the right wool is proving horrendous as we have a dearth of knitting shops of any kind at all in Colchester, with the dear old Co-op having a Knit and Stitch corner that is so lacking in anything other than baby pink and lime green wool that I really wonder why they bother.  I have spent the last hour on line trying to track down this particular wool as I, in my ignorance, thought that any old chunky wool would do.  Oh dear me no.  It has to have 10 stitches to 10cm and the tension has to be correct and there is a big notice saying that the pattern designed Cannot Accept Responsibility if I use Any Other Wool not recommended by them. 

So I now have a headache looking at Chunky, Super Chunky, Double Knit, Cashmere, Merino, Fluffy and Designer wool and need to go and lie down.  Was about to give up entirely when by chance I came across a website page for The Wool Cabin which is, o joy o rapture, in Clacton just half an hour drive from where I live.  I now know what I will do on Saturday and as Clacton has a pier, candy floss and is by the seaside it might be rather fun.

I have been toying with the idea of doing some embroidery again as I used to spend hours as a teenager doing incredibly useless things like tray cloths (does anybody use them any more?) and once spent four years doing a tablecloth, a petal a day it seemed to me.  Here is an example of my youthful attempt on a cushion cover which I have kept - must be all of 40 years old. 

A patchwork cushion cover made years ago.  Could not be more simple as I am incapable of doing Log Cabin, or anything difficult in any way.  I keep thinking I could if only I had time.  Perhaps when I retire. The list of things I intend to do when I retire gets longer each day and as one thing on this list is getting to know Wagner's Parsifal I have a sneaky feeling that I won't achieve very much after that.

I am quite proud of my crochet throw as well.  I made this about 35 years ago and now, of course, they are very fashionable and I actually saw one in a posh shop selling for about £150. I nearly passed out.

So, it is all Em's fault and if I end up with a jumper two feet longer than it should be I shall tell her so. But then she sent me Needle in the Blood as well so I forgive her everything as I have just finished it and it is WONDERFUL.  But my ravings will have to wait another day.