Random Jottings

I am back and now I am off again

I try and space out visits, grandchildren sitting and looking after, friends etc but every now and then, despite my best intentions, I end up charging around like the proverbial.

Last week I was in London with darling grandchildren. In the afternoon I had been to Bloomsbury to attend a tea party and a meet with the author of one of their books (more anon). Had a delightful time but then had to face the Tube back to Ealing and, as Tottenham Court Road station was closed for refurbishment, had a trudge back to Holborn. Then fought my way onto the Central Line and all the memories of how ghastly it all was in the rush hour came roaring back with a thud. Delighted that as soon as I pushed onto the train a delightful young girl stood up and offered me her seat (I was pretty sure I looked exhausted) and I accepted gratefully with a thank you and a smile. She gave me a wave when she left the train a few stops later. Lovely.

OK got out at Ealing Broadway and waited for the bus to take me back to The Avenue. Long wait, huge queue so I decided to walk. MISTAKE. Took me forty minutes and I was shattered when I arrived but it was worth it as Florence and Beatrice were sitting looking out the window and as soon as they saw me rushed shrieking to the door and flung themselves on me. A card was thrust into my hand from Florence saying Dear grandma I cannot wate to see you and hop you are well I love you Florence. Come bak soon. Choke choke.

On Friday went out to lunch with a friend I had not seen for ages and we caught up on all the chat and gossip and then I slung my bags in the car and sallied forth to tackle the North Circular, A12, M25, Dartford Bridge, M23 in that order to go to visit my good friend Daphne in Horley. Took to my bed on arrival and had a great few days just pottering and chatting. Visiting Daphne, however is fraught with danger as though I take bags of books to give her thinking AH HAH I have cleared some space, I inevitably come back with far more than I went with. And you can see precisely how many below:

A pile of Agatha Christie for my re-read this year and Ann Cleeves who I have not read before

Spoils from the charity shops which we haunt on a regular basis.More Agathas and decided to re-read Bill Bryson again. Also a Josceline Dimbleby cook book

Borrowed these to refresh my Tudor history knowledge post Wolf Hall

And these were from Bloomsbury and a Ronald Welch from OUP all new and exciting

So I reckon I returned home with five times the amount I went with.  It is all part of a cunning plan by Daphne to clear some of her shelf space I fear......

This morning I was greeted by my postman with a cheery Welcome back, I have a few parcels for you. I cannot win.

Tomorrow I am off again, this time up to Quorn in Leicestershire to see my sister and a Messiah on the Saturday evening given by her choir, a massage tomorrow night (birthday pressie from Jude and I shall need it by then), drive back Sunday with Jude who is staying with me for a few days and then back to London on Wednesday afternoon and look after Florence on Thursday and Judith can spend time with children, she then catches the train home on Friday, I stay and have time with family, then Saturday I go to the ENO for a performance of Sweeney Todd with lovely Bryn Terfel then I drive home and take to my bed in preparation for a return visit to London the following week.

It is all TOO MUCH TO BEAR.

I love it really.

Away for a week

In London with children and now visiting a friend so away for a week. I arrived with a pile of books for Daphne, she immediately presents me with a bagful, passes on a pile of Agatha Christies for my re-read project so now I have more than I arrived with. I also have a goodie bag from Bloomsbury where I attended a tea party the other day, more of that on my return home, and then this morning we went out for stroll round the local shops and I came away with another half a dozen books from the charity shops. I am a hopeless case.....

Crime x two in the UK

I have spent most of the week chuntering and fuming and firing off vituperative comments on various cricketing forums re the state of our current team but have now calmed down and, as always when we are knocked out a tournament early, can now relax and enjoy the rest of the games on show and there are some cracking ones coming up.

So to sooth the savage breast I have turned to crime, as per.  This time two new titles and two new authors, to me anyway, and unlike my last crime readings which were set in LA and Venice respectively, these are UK based. The Slaughter Man by Tony Parsons was my first read of the week.  A family are found slaughtered by what appears to be a weapon for killing animals, the wife has been raped, the husband shot through the eyes and two of the three children are dead, the youngest has vanished.

The killing mirrors a murder carried out many years ago, the guilty party now out on parole and attention diverts to him. At first sight it appears he has nothing to do with it, he is old and dying of terminal cancer, but then the investigating team finds that the ceiling of the caravan in which he lives is plastered with pictures of the murdered wife and he is arrested.

The murder takes place in a gated community in Highgate and having worked there many years ago in the library in Swain's Lane, opposite the cemetery, I know the location of the crime and its surrounding environs which I always find adds an extra layer of interest to the story. It features a new detective, Max Wolfe who is, naturally, divorced and on his own but in this case has the care and custody of his young daughter. He is the usual troubled soul endemic in crime fiction but not as filled with angst as some which is a relief..

I found this book compelling reading, well written and kept my attention right to the end. I did guess who did it and why about half way through as I suspected the same old childhood story was going to emerge and I was right, but that made no difference to my enjoyment. It is a tad gruesome in places but on the whole did not go overboard and if you enjoy thrillers then I think this can be added to the list of authors to keep an eye out for in the future.

The second was Before it's too Late by Jane Isaac. This is set in Warwickshire and a missing girl, Ellen Readman, has just been found floating in the river having been dead for some time.  Then another girl vanishes from a local college in Stratford on Avon, a Chinese student seemingly abducted while walking home alone after an argument with her boyfriend.

The two cases may or may not be linked but the police are keeping an open mind when a second student from the same college as Min Li, vanishes. This time it is a young male student also from China and in both cases ransom notes are received and paid though the money is never collected.

The detective investigating these disappearances and possible murders is DI Will Jackman and, he too, has his family problems though these are not those of divorce and estrangement, more tragic circumstances are in play.

Once more I guessed who did or who dun it half way through. I have obviously read too many crime novels as I can pick up the probabilities earlier these days, but it did not affect my enjoyment at all. Ending felt slightly rushed but I look forward to more from this author and the final page certainly made us feel there might be more to come. I do hope so.

So two satisfying reads and took my mind off the dire state of cricket in this country...

NB - These two titles are due to be published in May and April respectively so do put them on your list or, even better, pre-order

Cricket - End of the World (Cup)

Oh my prophetic soul....

"I am rather glad in a way that we are so awful. I want this England team to continue to play in its clueless, gutless and stupid way. I want them to lose every single game. I want them to be bowled out for embarrassingly low scores. I want them to trip and knock over the bails. I want them to fall flat on their faces so that they are run out. I want them to continue to show the world just how dire they are so that the nation will rise up and demand the sacking of Clarke, Downton, Flower,Moores and Saker and the rest of that cretinous backstabbing shower of self satisfied smug arses that purport to run cricket in this country.  I would like them to feel so ashamed of themselves that they will hire a mini bus and drive it off Beachy Head.   Mark you, they are so f*****g useless they would probably run out of petrol and cock that up as well"

I wrote this a week or so ago. Today we were knocked out of the World Cup by Bangladesh. Yes, Bangladesh. One of those 'minnow' teams that we have been so superior about. The kind of team we can beat 'easily'.  I did not see the Bangladesh batting as I was asleep but woke up in time to see the start of the England innings. We had to get 276 to win. A walk in the park for most other teams, but for us, oh no.   First of all there is a mix up and Moeen Ali was run out while Bell was wandering around in a trance. Then Bell, as he always does, scored well at the start then slowed the batting down to a crawl and was then out. One by one the rest of the team followed including our captain, Morgan, who got his fifth consecutive duck in the competition.  Buttler came in and started tonking the ball all over the park but as per he was too low down in the batting order and could not get us over the finishing line.   We were then left with Broad who now has the batting yips and Anderson not exactly known for his batting skills. Broad heaved a six and then out. Anderson had his stumps knocked out of the ground in less than a minute and pandemonium reigned as Bangldesh went quite mad with joy at the realisation that they had reached the quarter finals of the World Cup.   And I cheered like made when Anderson lost his wicket and re-read my opening paragraph to see why I did so.

Enjoyed hearing the pundits on Sky talking about what was wrong etc but find it rather hard to swallow anything Strauss says after his c**t comment re KP.  And talking about how badly we play the one day stuff and what we should do when he was pants at it as well is a bit much.   Bob Willis is on later and he is not exactly a laugh a minute at the best of times so looking forward to hearing his view. I think his middle name should be Eeyore because that is exactly who he sounds like.

We now have one more game to play, pointless really, before skulking home. We play Afghanistan. My daughter Kathryn has tickets for this match and as she told me a few weeks ago, this was to ensure that 'I see England win at least one game'...............................

I will say no more else my computer screen will be covered in *********

Oh and all the news headlines are saying we suffered a Shock Defeat. Wrong. It was not a shock. It was entirely predictable.

Crime - Venice and LA

Two contrasting crime novels this week, one set in Venice and one in Los Angeles. First up, the latest Brunetti book by Donna Leon, Falling in Love.

I freely admit that the last three Brunetti books, and a stand alone title published last year, I found very disappointing and gave the impression that Leon was tiring of her creation but was bound to a contract to write a certain number. I found them lacklustre and rather hurried so was slightly apprehensive of how I would enjoy this one. It is much better I am happy to say. The first Brunetti, Death at La Fenice, married the worlds of murder and opera and as the story was set in one of my favourite cities in the world, was irresistible and lead me to read all of her output.

Since then the opera house burned down but has now been rebuilt so Leon is back to her first setting in which it is clear she feels very comfortable. The opera singer, Flavia Petrelli, a suspect in the first novel, is back at the opera house to sing Tosca and is very uncomfortable with a persistent fan who sends yellow roses wherever she goes. Used to adoring fans it becomes clear that she is being stalked by a very persistent admirer who attacks a young singer who Petrelli praised to warn her that the star belongs to her. Yes, her as we find the shadowy fan is a woman.

It all ends up in a finale on the stage after the final performance of Tosca with all its operatic connotations where Petrelli shows she has more in common with Floria Tosca than supposed....

One thing I always notice when I read these books is how the final solution always takes place in a few pages. The reader is immersed in the book and thinking gosh this is getting good and then realises that there are only twenty or so pages left. Happened again this time.   I enjoyed it and pleased to be able to say I did after my lukewarm reaction to the last few, but gosh I am finding Brunetti's wife Paola increasingly annoying and rather marginal nowadays to the thrust of the books. Brunetti comes home for lunch as he seems to do daily 'There's frittata with zucchini and stuffed turkey breast' says Paola and then for dessert, pumpkin and raisin cake. And all this done while reading Henry James 'Truth, beauty, elegant prose, lacerating psychological penetration, thrilling dialogue'.

I will say no more.

A relief to turn to The 3rd Woman by Jonathan Freedland. Freedland has been the Guardian correspondent in Washington and a reporter for the Washington Post and for BBC news. Seems this is his first book under his own name having written several bestsellers under the name, Sam Bourne. Always puzzles me when writers suddenly decide drop an alias. If it was not important why do it in the first place?

Never mind, he has written a terrific book which I found a slow burner but persisted with. Lots of characters to introduce and scenes to set and it is important to take your time and get all this in your consciousness in order to then enjoy the cracking story. It is written from the perspective of a journalist, Madison Webb, and you soon forget this is a male writer as he is totally at ease with the female persona he has taken on as author. I suppose being a journalist makes it easy.  Madison is a reporter obsessed with exposing lies and corruption and leads a busy, somewhat narrow focused life when she is shocked out of it by the murder of her own sister, Abigail. She is found dead of an overdose of heroin and, at first, the police decide it was an accident but when Madison discovers at least two other women who have died in the same way, she is determined to prove there is a serial killer on the loose.

OK no more. Just to say that there is a conspiracy behind all this, a mayoral election is taking place with all the wheeling and dealing involved, Madison is followed, bugs placed in her home, a friend is knocked down in a hit and run and all sorts of dark shadowy figures are at work. I can already seen the film in my mind's eye.

An excellent read and tightly written and plotted. I loved it.

And, naturally, I am now off to read the books by one Sam Bourne....

NB - These books are to be published in April and July respectively but there is nothing stopping you putting them on your wishlist or pre-ordering. Both available for the Kindle.