Random Jottings

Random in Waiting

Well I am back. Up to London suitcase in hand, heart in mouth, mentally ready to deliver baby if need be, made sure mobile is charged, numbers needed all logged on, nightie, dressing gown, toothbrush, a spare pair of specs, books (oh like I am going to have time to read) and all to no avail.  Back I came.

Florence, who is not exactly slow on the uptake, knows something is about to happen and will not let her mother out of her sight and will not let anybody else do anything with or for her.   Helen not too bothered, hoping all the acitivity might shift something but to no avail.   Felicity, other grandma, and I took Florence out to the park in an endeavour to tire her out.  Total waste of time resulting in one two and a half year old bouncing off the walls and two grandmothers in dire need of a snifter and a nap, in that order.

So decided to come home and told son-in-law that by leaving I hoped the Law of Sod would now come into play and Helen go into labour as soon as I got round the corner.  Don't call me I said because I do not answer phone while driving, but send text and I will pull up at first opportunity and do a wheelie and return.   OK off I go and have just got into the traffic when PING goes a text. As we were crawling along at a snail's pace I took a look, trembling in every limb, and it was from kathryn in Oz. 'Hi mum how is it going?'  Calmed down and carried on.   Dreadful accident at Redbridge Roundabout, hour getting round it, ambulances everywhere, police, smashed up car and all pretty scary but made it back home safe.

Another PING, another text....Hello Mum did you get my text?  Kathryn in Oz again by which time I was in such a state of nerves I had to lie down in a darkened room with a wet towel on my head, clutching a large gin (ok made that last bit up but it sounded good).

So here I am totally unable to settle to anything and reading gone out the window as I simply cannot concentrate.  Have turned to Agatha Christie and Mills and Boon at the moment to keep me going and making lots of cups of tea and eyeing the bottle of wine lurking in the back of the cupboard.

I may disappear at any moment so if nothing is happening on Random for a bit then you will know the reason why.  In the meantime Strictly Come Dancing back tonight and I am girding up the loins, metaphorically speaking, for an evening of sequins and fake tan.

That will calm me down...

Stranger in the Room - Amanda Kyle Williams

Last year I reviewed a debut thriller by this author, The Stranger You seek (link here) which I thoroughly enjoyed though I freely admit I had my doubts at first when I saw that the heroine, Kyle Street, was an ex-cop and a recovering alchoholic with issues, but I have now realised that this is always going to be the case in this genre.   I do wonder if there is such a thing as a happy Cop/Detective but the nature of the job must make this unlikely and it does make for interesting, on the edge characters. She has now written her follow up Stranger in the Room and it is a stonking read as was the first.

Keye runs her own Investigation Agency and in the first book consulted with the police department and, in particular, Lieutenant Aaron Rauser, who sounds gorgeous and he is now her partner.  In my first review I said I immediately pictured George Clooney as this character and that remains the same which adds a frisson I freely admit. Both are about to set off for a weekend together when they receive a call that a young boy has been found strangled and, as Keye has a slightly less high profile case involving chicken feed being found in funeral urns instead of ashes to deal with, she sets off to investigate leaving Rauser to take charge of the murder scene.

The two cases gradually develop and run alongside one another.  I did wonder for some time if the two were going to cross lines at one stage as this does sometimes happen, but Kyle Williams leads us along nicely and we are never sure. The chicken feed in the urn leads to something more ghastly and gruesome, but before Keye comes across the reason for the lack of ashes of the deceased, she rushes back to Atlanta to be with her cousin, Miki, a fragile, self harming photographer who has returned home and found a man in her house who threatens to shoot her.   She is not taken seriously as she has a history of psychiatric problems, but when an elderly man is found murdered and left hanging on a door in her hallway, then the police and Keye realise something sinister is going on and that somebody is out to do her harm.  OK and there I stop with plotlines as I don't want to give anything away.

I very much like the author's syle, it is sharp and witty "I run a little detective agency in Atlanta. And when I say little, I mean it's just me and my red eyed computer guy Neil Donovan. And when I say red-eyed I mean he probably smoked a joint with his scrambled eggs this morning"

I also love the description of the food.  Keye's mum is a great cook and there is a description of some of her dishes that had me salivating while I read: "the passionate southern cook I'd grown up with regularly put her own flair on regional delicacies like spicy shrimp and grits.   She grew poblano peppers in her own garden and stuffed them with cheese and cubed acorn squash she had sauteed in garlic. She skewered fresh peaches on cinnamon sticks and bathed them in bourbon and honey on the grill until their meat was sweet and smoky.  She filled tiny pastry cups with goat cheese and home made lime curd and glass pitchers with sweet iced tea and fresh thyme..."

I swear just reading that put an inch on my hips.

Hard to follow up a successful debut novel but Amanda Kyle Williams has done it and I am already looking forward to the next.

Great read.

Tess Gerritsen - Last to Die

I really enjoy the Rizzoli and Isles books of Tess Gerritsen so was very glad to get my mitts on her new one Last to Die.  Dr Maura Isles is visiting Evensong, a boarding school for emotionally traumatised children in the Maine wilderness.  She is visiting one of the residents there, Julian 'Rat' Perkins a 16 year old boy she met on a previous case. (This was The Killing Place and a really tense creepy book). I went back and re-read it after finishing this one and had forgotten how scary it was.

All the children, and some of the staff, have been involved with violence and traumatised by the murder of relatives and close friends.   There are three, Claire, Teddy and Will who have all been brought there by a mysterious blonde woman who appears at each scene of trauma and takes them to safety. Each of these three children have not only had their parents murdered but have then suffered a double blow as their new foster parents and/or relatives are also killed.  It seems that somebody is determined to wipe out the second generation as well.

The school is run by the mysteriously saturnine Antony Sansone who we are led to believe is in love with Maura.  Those of us who have read all of the Rizzoli and Isles stories know that she has been involved in a destructive relationship with someone who can never be with her and so we wonder what is going to happen here.   The personal thread runs through all of these mysteries and make them an even more compelling read. 

Dark happening and death begin to rear their ugly head at Evensong and it is clear that these three children are not as safe as we thought and that somebody is determined to track them down. Detective Jane Rizzoli is pulled into the investigation and the two of them work together again in frightening  circumstances to track down the killer.

As will all books by Tess Gerritsen, I thought one thing only to be proved wrong with a twist at the end.   She always does this and leaves the reader with a tantalisingly ambiguous ending so that we are hooked and await the next with impatience.

A super read and I really do recommend her novels if you have not discovered them yet as you are in for a treat.   Some links below to others by this author reviewed on Random.  Roll on the next one.

Oh and if you have seen the TV series please do not think that it in anyway represents the characters and events in this author's work. It is dire....

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 http://randomjottings.typepad.com/random_jottings_of_an_ope/2010/09/tess-gerritsen.html

http://randomjottings.typepad.com/random_jottings_of_an_ope/2010/11/crime-round-up.html

http://randomjottings.typepad.com/random_jottings_of_an_ope/2011/07/the-silent-girl-tess-gerritsen.html

Andy - you did it!

Love the above but love this one below more - sheer happiness. No more the Dour Scot.  I am just watching it all over again on Sky at the moment. Bloody fantastic.

Summer of 2012 - What a fantastic few months

Like all other Brits I put down our country, I moan, I whinge - it's a national pastime and in case you wonder why we do so, it is a hedge against disappointment and letdown.  There is a quote "Despair I can deal with it's the hope I can't take" and that is it really. So many times we have had our expectations raised and then dashed in all forms of sport, mainly in cricket and football it seems to me and we take refuge by grumbling 'Well, I knew we weren't going to win anyway".   We feel safer that way.

Well, never again.   This year has been a simply stunning summer.  We kicked off with the Queen's Jubilee weekend and the heartwarming sight of all the crowds turning out to support and cheer on Her Maj, despite the BBC's best efforts to wreck it with their ghastly coverage.   Then we had Wimbledon where Murray, despite losing, won the hearts of the public with his speech at the end where he thanked 'You guys' and assured us that we did not put pressure on him and that our support meant a lot to him.   When he first started playing there was always a wag in the crowd who would shout 'C'mon Tim'. Well go in peace Mr Henman, you won't be hearing it any more.

And then the Olympics.  No need for me to go into detail, read the sports writers and journalists who have posted some wonderful stuff. I have publicly admitted that I was Totally Wrong about the Games (I still object to some of the sponsors etc, I mean McDonalds?), but all my pessimism vanished and I can pinpoint the moment it happened.  It was when Her Maj turned round to Daniel Craig and said 'Good evening Mr Bond'. Nowhere, and I mean nowhere, but in the UK would you have such a stunning moment full of wit and British humour and I gather it went down a storm all over the world.  The Opening Ceremony was simply stunning and we all knew that everything was Going to be Alright. And so it proved.

Of course the BBC had to have their crass moment, they always do and the Director General of the Beeb (a pox upon him) intoned that we must not go overboard with our support of British sportsmen and women and we must support other nations as well.   He had the gall to say this after the night at the Stadium where the predominantly British crowd had been cheering on Usain Bolt.  That night we did not have many medal contenders so we yelled and shrieked ourselves hoarse over runners from Africa, the USA et al.  I doubt other host countries would do the same.   Needless to say he was shot down in flames but I do wonder sometimes how these people get jobs when they are obviously so utterly utterly stupid.  Heartwarming to see that the Paralympics were sold out and that the level of support for these Games was the best ever in its history again from a public who rejoiced in it all.

For me I am proudest of the fact that the Great British Public recognised excellence when they saw it, be it from Belarus, Addis Abbaba, Leeds, Clackheaton, Colchester or anywhere in the world. We yelled, we shrieked, we screamed support to athletes who had been left miles behind but were determined to reach the finishing line and were treated by the spectators as if they had just won a Gold Medal. I have watched many Olympic Games and the partisanship towards the host nation participants has sometimes resulted in everybody else more or less being ignored.  Not so this year in London and that makes me proud.

This is turning into a long burble of joy but I have not yet finished.

Watched the Parade through London yesterday and, once again, the joy, the delight on the faces of all the Olympians and Paralympians at the reception they were receving just filled me with happiness. Many of them carried placards saying Thank You which they waved at the crowds.  There were people hanging from lamposts, on rooftops, standing on window sills to see them all go by.  As John Inverdale said in the studio later 'There wasn't a single Health and Safety rule that wasn't broken today'.   Mostly there were no crash barriers on the streets to control the crowd and they were not needed. A fly past and the the Red Arrows and a stunning finish to it all.  I have to say that the sight of our Beloved Prime Minister, David Cameron, standing next to Boris Johnson who made a totally mad and hilarious speech which had the crowd whooping and hollering, with a rictus grin on his face trying to pretend he was loving every moment, finished the day off beautifully.

(Lowest point of the day was when Katherine bloody Jenkin came on, half dressed as usual, and sang the National Anthem.  Is there somebody, anybody who will take this ghastly woman off to a desert island and leave here there?  If there is then please step forward and take Lesley bloody Garrett with you as well). 

And yet, and yet there was still more to come. Andy Murray was to Play Djokovic in the US Open Final and could he do it? Could he?   Must be his year, made Wimbledon final, won Olympic gold and now surely he would round off this glorious summer by winning?   OK let me just say that at 1am when it was going into a fifth set I keeled over.  I was a nervous wreck, had been pacing the floor, even went into the kitchen at midnight and made a batch of pastry and I could take no more.  Woke up at 4am in a muck sweat having dreamed that Andy had lost. Staggered out of bed and switched on laptop and sat and looked at the screen and prayed and then up comes my home page and UTTER JOY!!!   I cannot think of another tennis player at the moment who has worked so hard and come back after disappointment after disappointment and put up with nasty comments and sports writers saying he will never win a slam (other tennis players too), and now he has done it. What an end to the Summer of Sport.

OK so burbling over - oh no not quite.  Watched the Last Night of the Proms and this year there were very few moaners about its jingoism and when we got to Rule Britannia on came a selection of Olympians and Paralympians to join in.  I honestly thought the roof was going to come off. Not ashamed to say I was in tears.

Right that is it.  It is all over and yet the memories of the Summer of 2012 will go on for ever.  If there is one thing that has come out of all this is that it is now cool to say I am Proud to be British.

And I am.

Thank you one and all.

Oxford Dictionary of Music - a must have reference book for all involved in music

I have a shelf of books on one of my bookcases wherein dwell all my reference books.  I have written about them earlier in a post here, and today I am delighted to be able to talk about yet another wonderful addition to my collection courtesy of Oxford University Press.

This is the Oxford Dictionary of Music and as I already have their guide to Opera and to Musicals I feel I now have the various genres well covered.   I have said it before, but will say it again, that Google and other search engines are wonderful and marvellous and I would not be without them, but a real proper reference book is a thing of joy for ever.

This is a brand new edition, the sixth and in the preface one of the three editors, Tim Rutherford-Johnson, tells the reader that whereas previous editions focused on updating and increasing its coverage of performances, 'the present edition concentrates on contemporary composers and popular and non-Western music'. Being a bit of a stick in the mud when it comes to music, I was slightly worried by this but am assured that performers have not been neglected and hundreds of biographies have been reviewed and updated as well as those on orchestras, opera houses et al. 

I have spent the last week or so since I received this tome opening pages at random and picking out entries for a casual reading, something I do with all such reference books, as the chance of finding out something in this serendipitous way which is interesting and fun, is a good one and of course this has been the case here.   Looking up the letter C the page fell open at an entry for Isabella Colbran.   Never heard of this lady and know nothing, but having read her entry I discovered that she was born in 1785 and was regarded as the finest dramatic colaratura soprano of her day. In 1811 she went to sing in Naples and became the impresario's mistress, probably a good career move.   However she left him and, in 1815, married Rossini - an even better career move.   Rossini wrote Elisabetta d'Inghilterra for her and she created the leading soprano roles in his Otello, Semiramide and others.  She also sang in one of his lesser known works, La Donna Del Lago and I mention this because years ago when I worked for the London Borough of Camden and used to help out at their Arts Festival, they staged the first performance of this opera in this country with a very young, but quite wonderful new soprano - Kiri te Kanawa.   Just thought you might like to know that....

Turn to D and we now find an entry on Gustavo Dudamel the Venezualan conductor who burst onto the London scene with the Simon Bolivar National Youth Orchestra at the Proms a few years back. I don't think I will ever forget the sensational evening they produced and the fun and cheering at the end of the concert.  Great Stuff.

I had to look up Bryn Terfel of course but no particular wild happenings here - just a series of dates and successes which are seemingly endless and consecutive and long may it continue to be so.   Having seen him back in 1989 at the Cardiff Singer of the World competition and making the prediction that he would make a superb Wotan in about twenty years time, I made the vow that when he did give his first performance I would be there.  And he did and I was and it was incredible.

Of course, it is always interesting and fun to look up the superstars in a work like this such as Pavarotti, Carreras and Domingo, but we already know an awful lot about them and have seen them over the years, so it is the older entries that are of such interest such as the one I quoted above - Isabella Colbran.   Once started on this exploration and an hour or two passes pretty quickly.

As with all books from the OUP stable, production values are high, smooth paper lovely to the touch, clear fonts and printing and an excellent cover.   Appendix 1 is a quiz/crossword solver's dream as it gives directions and expression markings in French, German and Italian. Here are a few to wet your appetite:

• French - petit detache: staccato with the point of the bow for each note
• French - sur la touche: on the fingerboard, bow over the fingerboard
• German - Affektvoll: full of fervour
• German - Empfindung: feeling, sentiment
• Italian - Addolorato: grieved, in a saddened style
• Italian - Lusingando: flattering, play in a coaxing intimate manner

I could go on and on, reading some of these expressions out loud makes them sound quite beautiful.

Appendix 2 is a List of Abbreviations found in Musical Scores, many of which I am familiar with from my choir days D.C (da capo) being the one I always eyed with dislike, particularly if I was singing Bach, but we won't go there.....

I have only mentioned one editor but there are, in fact, three and the other two are Michael Kennedy who used to be chief music critic of the Sunday Telegraph and is an authority on English music of the 20th century, and the other Joyce Bourne Kennedy who I see is Mrs Kennedy and has assisted him in his work.  Her book, a Dictionary of Opera Characters, was published in 1998 so a very musical household indeed.

A marvellous work and one final thing I must mention which certainly brings this must have reference book up to date, is that many of the entries have recommended web links. You go to the link at the OUP reference section, locate the entry in which you are interested and then click straight through to the relevant website.  So you have the technical computer information alongside the printed word and, let's face it, that is the best of both worlds.

A superb book and I tremble to think of the months and years of work which have gone into this. I am most grateful, as ever, for Oxford University Press, for granting me the privilege of being able to review the Oxford Dictionary of Music. 

Tag line on the front is from The Times "up to date and, frankly, indispensable'.   No need to say more.....

Triple Delight from Yale University Press

Simply gorgeous parcel arrived this morning from Yale UP and I am gloating over its contents and have to share my delight.   These are three books high up on my reading list, but as you know, I am awaiting the birth of second grandchild and know full well these will take a while to get through so I want to flag these up and recommend them to you before I even read them.  And if you think this is being a bit precipitate, then read on...

The Great Charles Dickens Scandal - Michael Slater.   In this year of Dicken's celebration I am sure some of us are beginning to flag, but not me.   I find Dickens a totally fascinating man as well as loving his writing, and the contradictions in his character and his portayal of himself as the happy family man with the perfect life when, in fact, he was the opposite, is intriguing. I read Michael Slater's simply magnificent biography of Dickens a year or so ago, reviewed here, and said in my then post that he had concentrated on Dickens the writer.   I am glad he has now decided to analyse his paterfamilia image in more detail and if it is half as good as his biography then I shall be a happy lady.

My Dear Governess - the letters of Edith Wharton to Anna Bahlmann edited by Irene-Goldman Price.  Oh this is going to be read first. Well, not straight through, will read a bit each night as gulping down letters all at once is not a good idea in my opinion, they need to be savoured. In 2009 the papers of Bahlmann, a governess and companion to several prominent American families, were auctioned and among this collection was a treasure trove for all Wharton lovers - 135 letters from Edith to her governess.  I have already dipped in and here is an excerpt from a letter written when Edith was just fifteen: "Today is what the poets call 'halycon' weather; a word which always bring 'to my mind's eye, Horatio' a vision of becalmed ships in blue seas, with white birds swooping overhead"...OK do you think there is a fifteen year old today who would write like that?   Well, perhaps there is but I have my doubts.   SO looking forward to watching the style and expression of her letters change as she matures and grows older.

Victorian Bloomsbury - Rosemary Ashton.  Another gorgeous book which I cannot wait to read.  This is the story of Bloomsbury before Woolf et al got hold of it.   While we automatically think of VW and her cohorts whenever the word Bloomsbury is mentioned, the neighbourhood was, according to the blurb "the undisputed intellectual quarter of nineteenth century London".  Having lived in Bloomsbury for a large part of my teens and twenties and knowing so many of the parks, squares and streets of this area I know I am going to find this of great interest.  There are a lot of 'firsts' in Bloomsbury including the first kindergarten and hospital for children in Britain and first medical school for women amongst others.

So three totally drool over books to read in the coming months - think the Slater will be first off the pile and the Wharton for my bedside table and then will tackle Bloombury as soon as.

My thanks to Yale for their generosity.  I know they are a super duper publishers because of course they published Pashas by one James Mather who just happens to be my lovely son-in-law...........

Magnificent Obsession - Helen Rappaport

This simply splendid book about the death of Prince Albert and how it shaped the monarchy was my Book of the Year 2011.  I reviewed it here.

Delighted to say that this is now available in paperback (love the cover) so if anybody was holding back on purchasing then please do grab a copy as soon as possible.   It is also available in Kindle, but much as I adore my own e-reader and don't want to depress sales, this is the kind of book you really need to have on your shelves and to turn the pages and see the photos properly.

I am a huge admirer of Helen's writing which is both scholarly and immensely readable, not a combination that comes to many, and have reviewed her as often as possible on Random.  I am, therefore, delighted to say that she shows no sign of flagging in her authorship and in January 2013 has another book out which sounds rather intriguing. 

This is what the blurb on Amazon has to say:

Book Description

Capturing the Light starts with a tiny scrap of purple-tinged paper, 176 years old and about the size of a postage stamp. On it you can just make out a tiny, ghostly image of a gothic window, an image so small and perfect that it ‘might be supposed to be the work of some Lilliputian artist’: the world’s first photographic negative. This captivating book traces the lives of two very different men in the 1830s, both racing to be the first to solve one of the world’s oldest problems: how to capture an image and keep it for ever. On the one hand there is Henry Fox Talbot: a quiet, solitary gentleman-amateur tinkering away on his farm in the English countryside. On the other Louis Daguerre, a flamboyant, charismatic French showman in search of fame and fortune. Only one question remains: who will get there first?

About the Author

Roger Watson is a world authority on the early history of photography. He is currently the Curator of the Fox Talbot Museum at Lacock Abbey and an occasional lecturer at DeMontfort University in Leicester. Helen Rappaport is a historian with a specialism in the nineteenth century. She is the author of eight published books, including Ekaterinburg: The Last Days of the Romanovs and Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert and the Death that Changed the Monarchy.

Another for my list....

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Random on Rappaport

Beautiful for ever - link here

Ekaterinburg - link here

RJ Ellory: fake book reviews

The author of A Quiet Belief in Angels and a Simple Act of Violence, whose real name is Roger Jon Ellory, apologised for his "lapse of judgment".

via www.telegraph.co.uk

This sort of thing makes me really really mad.  When there are so many authors out there struggling to get reviewed on Amazon, the fact that a high profile writer feels the need to behave in this way, is totally unacceptable.  The article mentions Orlando Figes, the historian, who also posted fraudulent reviews praising himself and dissing other writers.   These guys are not on the breadline, they are not struggling with a day job while trying to get published, they are established and, presumably, earning good money so why do they do it?  One can only assume they are needy and insecure.  Of course they are also cheats and con artists.

I note that Mr Ellory has apologised for his 'lack of judgement'.  Well that is a polite way of describing LIES.

I review on Amazon and every word I write is true and real and I am ashamed to be in the company of this man who should know better.  Sadly, this publicity will probably sell even more of his books.

Very Random at the Moment

I am likely to be a Random visitor on Random in the coming weeks.   My daughter Helen is awaiting the birth of her little girl and we are all hopping around waiting for the telephone call that she is on her way.  I have my own Hospital Case in the boot of my car all ready with necessities I will need and can set off as soon as I receive the word that I am wanted.  I am keeping my diary clear for the next few weeks and it is all very exciting, if a tad nerve wracking. Florence arrived unexpectedly early so the first I knew about her birth was when Helen called me early one morning and I heard this little squeaking and snuffling and she said 'Mum here is your granddaughter'.  A moment never to be forgotten.

I was in London at the weekend looking after Florence so that her parents could attend a wedding in Oxford and they set off complete with bag just in case Helen went into labour at the reception, but, thankfully, the bride and groom were spared the disruption.  I did not rest easy until they were both back in doors.

Florence is growing apace and her communication skills are really excellent and we can sit and have nice, chatty conversations and she is just a darling.   A friend of mine and her granddaughter came round in the afternoon and, after initial shyness, they got on well and it was lovely to see them together.  I kept Florence up fairly late as well so that when she went to bed she crashed out in a few minutes and, best of all, did not wake up until 7.30 am the next morning so that her parents could have a decent sleep.  Cunning grandma.....

I have also been visiting my sister in the last week in Quorn, Leicester and just chilling.  Met up with Hayley from the lovely blog Desperate Reader for a cup of tea as well and it is always good to see her and catch up. I have made so many friends through blogging and it is getting to the stage now where I could go to any city or town in the UK and probably be able to find a kindred spirit living there.  

One thing I did while with Judith is to learn how to do Killer Soduku.   I have been doing these puzzles for years now and have graduated to the Difficult and Fiendish but have always sheered away from the Killer variety, but as Jude is addicted I asked her to show me how to do it.  Impossible to learn just by reading the rules.   So she showed me and I then spent the next few days filling in numbers and muttering under my breath 'Well if it is 4 then the two boxes must be 3 and 1 and if it is 17 then it is 9 and 7......" and now I am HOOKED.   After Florence was in bed the other night out came by little book and a cup of tea and propped up in bed with pencil and rubber and calculating like mad.   Huge fun and as I have recently read an article saying that as one gets older just doing a crossword puzzle a day as you get older can keep your mind alive and keep you fitter longer, I have now decided I don't need to run a marathon I can just sit in my armchair and get healthy......yes I know.

Not done much reading in the last few days but am halfway through Stranger in the Room by Kyle Williams, the second in a series of thrillers set in Atlanta. I reviewed the author's debut novel last year and thought it was very good and this one is shaping up nicely as well.

Then I have a historical novel on the go, The Venetian Contract by Marina Fiorati, another author I have reviewed earlier, and am enjoying this as well, so hoping I can get a review or two up soon.

BUT as I said, posts may be scrappy and a bit hit and miss in the coming month while I wait to be a Grandma AGAIN- YAY!!!!