Random Jottings

Mortmain Hall - Martin Edwards

Some time back I discovered the Lake District Murders by Martin, read and thoroughly enjoyed them.  Then later he popped up as consultant to the British Library Classic Crime series, introducing many of the book republished and also curating a collection of short stories for titles such as Blood on the Tracks, a collection of railway mysteries and Serpents in Eden, Countryside Crime.  He is also the author of a simply superb book which nobody who is interested in Golden Age Crime should be without The Golden Age of Murder

Last year Martin published Gallows Court, a new series featuring Rachel Savernake. I am not sure that I find Rachel a particularly likeable heroine if I am totally honest, but that does not really matter if you are finding the book intriguing and full of twists and turns. I had to really concentrate when reading this, I freely admit, but it was worth it. Now Martin has another title out Mortmain Hall (incidentally I love the cover) and a copy arrived for me to review last week.

Now I am being honest and saying that I am only halfway through this title as I have been innundated with books and e-books from publishers and publicists who, because of the current situation, have to promote their clients via the internet, twitter and all over the internet as book launches and talks have been totally wiped out.

Because of this I am getting behind with my reading. OK well what else have you got to do I hear you cry, particularly as I am in lockdown and self isolating because I have reached a Certain Age and therefore vulnerable. I have plenty of time but I freely admit I am finding it hard to concentrate. So, Martin, I am apologising if this review is not as complete as it should be.

We have a brief epilogue mentioning Mortmain Hall which immediately grabs the imagination and then straight into chapter one with another intriguing opening line "the ghost climbed out of a hackney carriage".  Rachel Savernake is lurking and following him as he boards a train at the private station of the London Necropolis Company (worth . I reading all about this organisation, it makes fascinating reading/ Check out this article as it will help set the scene.

She knows he is not who he says he is but a man returned from self imposed exile, a swindler and a thief, who fled abroad. His life is in danger and Rachel warns him of this but he is weary of it all and takes no notice.  Two chapters later he is dead. Thrown out of the train but in a way that looks like an accident. And so the plot begins to thicken.

There is also another strand introduced when Jacob Flint, a reporter is watching a trial at the Old Bailey. Clive Danskin is accused of murder and though he is a philanderer, a cheat and drowning in debt, the case against him is purely cirumstantial.  I love court room scenes and this was a goody.

"Percival Lang KC was nicknames the Tortoise. Council for the Defence exuded caution and his deliberate manner verged on lethargy. Sir Edgar, in contrast, was a born hare"

I am not giving anything away here when we find a surprise witness who provides him with an albii so that Danskin is found Not Guilty.  We already know the evidence is cirumstantial so it comes as no surprise.   The atmosphere Martin creates here in this court room environment is spot on. .

And this is where I am and I am looking forward to finishing and finding out just what happened at Mortmain Hall and how all these events link up. You will see from the insert that other bloggers are reviewing Mortmain Hall so do log onto them in due course and see what they have to say.

Martin Edwards has won numerous awards and is currently President of the Detection Club, and chair of the CWA so he knows all there is to know about Murder and Mayhem.....

Stephen Sondheim is 90

I have piles of books to review that publishers have sent me in the past few weeks as launch parties have been cancelled and publicity thrown into chaos. My own daughter's book, of which more later, falls into this category so I have a lot of reading to do. But I decided that before I embark on this I would take time to celebrate the 90th birthday of Stephen Sondheim.

Many years ago a friend of mine rang me up "I have got two tickets to the opening night of the UK opening of A Little Night Music, would you like to come with me?" I knew nothing about it, nothing about Sondheim but a free night at a London theatre was not to be sniffed at so off I went. And oh how wonderful it was. It took a while to acclimitise to his style, his lyrics and the cross cutting of sung dialogue and wit but once you tune it, it is wonderful.

Jean Simmons was in the role of Desiree, an aging actress who discovers too late that she still loves an old flame who now has a young wife.  Towards the end of the performance she sings Send in the Clowns. When the opening chord was played by the orchestra a hush fell on the audience and before she even started to sing I had a lump in my throat. I rank this song as one of the most perfect and moving every written. Last week the Proms showed a concert first broadcast on the occasion of Sondheim's 80th birthday and Judi Dench sang it. I was in tears.

My ex who is a singer came home in great delight many years ago as he had landed a small role and an understudy in the London production of Follies which I regard as nothing short of a masterpiece. This show pays tribute to the women who became Ziegfeld Follies singers and dancers (here they are called the Weisman girls) and is set in a theatre where they used to perform and which is due for demolition.  Follies follows two couples, Phyllis and Ben and Sally and Buddy, who met and married during the Follies but who have never been satisfied with their choices or their lives.

The show is packed with stunning set pieces and songs starting with 'Hats off here they come, those Beautiful girls' . Anyone who knows Singing in the Rain will recognise the pastiche of one of the numbers in this film where we have a parade of lovely girls dressed as Winter, September, Spring and Summer.  The show has double casting, a young Phyllis, Ben, Sally and Buddy to contrast with how they are now.  Most of the best songs are reserved for the women, 'Broadway Baby', 'Mirror, Mirror on the Wall' and a simply heart stopping 'One last Waltz' which sounds like faux-Richard Strauss and is a quite beautiful song.  However, the biggy is 'I'm Still Here'.  This is sung by the main diva in the show charting divorce, scandal, alcoholism and begging on the streets, but hey 'I'm Still Here'.  I saw Eartha Kitt do this night after night when my ex was in the show in the West End back in the 90s and she brought the house down every single time.

It is a show full of regrets, bitterness and nostalgia and has resonances for me.  When I saw it, my two daughters were 8 and 10, we went to see the show with their Dad in it several times and they knew the words and music better than the artistes themselves by the end of the run, and it was such a lovely time in my life, so I tend to find it makes me rather sad when I see it, which is a shame as it is wonderful.

I was lucky enough to have a seat for the last night of the run in the West End and everyone was on top form.  The entire audience was full of aficionados who had obviously seen it dozens of times, loved it and knew the songs and by the end of the evening for the big revival of Beautfiul Girls the entire audience was on their feet singing.  Quite stunning.  But for me, the evening did not end there.  The producer, Cameron MacIntosh threw a lavish after show party on stage and I found myself mingling and drinking champagne with Eartha Kitt, Millicent Martin, Daniel Massey and other assorted luminaries who had come to see the show.  Stephen Sondheim attended and I ended up chatting to him for about 10 minutes about the different versions of the show (the earlier one had a darker ending with a breakdown of one of the characters but this was deemed not acceptable for this run) and I told him I preferred the earlier ending and he was delighted to hear it.  The sign of a person with good manners is their total attention and that is what Stephen Sondheim gave me.  Not once did his eyes stray past me searching for someone more interesting and famous to talk to, and believe me everyone else came in that category!  It was thrilling.

The best part was at the end of the party.  The musical director sat at the white grand piano on the stage and started to play songs from the shows.  I ended up leaning on the piano with the cast singing songs from Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific etc.  It was sheer magic and I do not think I have ever spent a more wonderful, unforgettable night. 

Last year my elder daughter in Australia bought me two tickets for Follies at the National Theatre for my birthday and I took my younger daughter. It was superb but a bittersweet memory of happier times which echoes the feeling of the piece. I spent most of the afternoon on the verge of tears and afterwards my daughter said Oh Mum I had forgotten just how marvellous it was. And she was right. It was and it is.

Both my girls like Sondheim - when they were small I took them to see Sweeney Todd which looking back was probably not a good idea.........

But they survived.

I have piles of books to review that publishers have sent me in the past few weeks as launch parties have been cancelled and publicity thrown into chaos. My own daughter's book, of which more later, falls into this category so I have a lot of reading to do. But I decided that before I embark on this I would take time to celebrate the 90th birthday of Stephen Sondheim.

Many years ago a friend of mine rang me up "I have got two tickets to the opening night of the UK opening of A Little Night Music, would you like to come with me?" I knew nothing about it, nothing about Sondheim but a free night at a London theatre was not to be sniffed at so off I went. And oh how wonderful it was. It took a while to acclimitise to his style, his lyrics and the cross cutting of sung dialogue and wit but once you tune it, it is wonderful.

Jean Simmons was in the role of Desiree, an aging actress who discovers too late that she still loves an old flame who now has a young wife.  Towards the end of the performance she sings Send in the Clowns. When the opening chord was played by the orchestra a hush fell on the audience and before she even started to sing I had a lump in my throat. I rank this song as one of the most perfect and moving every written. Last week the Proms showed a concert first broadcast on the occasion of Sondheim's 80th birthday and Judi Dench sang it. I was in tears.

My ex who is a singer came home in great delight many years ago as he had landed a small role and an understudy in the London production of Follies which I regard as nothing short of a masterpiece. This show pays tribute to the women who became Ziegfeld Follies singers and dancers (here they are called the Weisman girls) and is set in a theatre where they used to perform and which is due for demolition.  Follies follows two couples, Phyllis and Ben and Sally and Buddy, who met and married during the Follies but who have never been satisfied with their choices or their lives.

The show is packed with stunning set pieces and songs starting with 'Hats off here they come, those Beautiful girls' . Anyone who knows Singing in the Rain will recognise the pastiche of one of the numbers in this film where we have a parade of lovely girls dressed as Winter, September, Spring and Summer.  The show has double casting, a young Phyllis, Ben, Sally and Buddy to contrast with how they are now.  Most of the best songs are reserved for the women, 'Broadway Baby', 'Mirror, Mirror on the Wall' and a simply heart stopping 'One last Waltz' which sounds like faux-Richard Strauss and is a quite beautiful song.  However, the biggy is 'I'm Still Here'.  This is sung by the main diva in the show charting divorce, scandal, alcoholism and begging on the streets, but hey 'I'm Still Here'.  I saw Eartha Kitt do this night after night when my ex was in the show in the West End back in the 90s and she brought the house down every single time.

It is a show full of regrets, bitterness and nostalgia and has resonances for me.  When I saw it, my two daughters were 8 and 10, we went to see the show with their Dad in it several times and they knew the words and music better than the artistes themselves by the end of the run, and it was such a lovely time in my life, so I tend to find it makes me rather sad when I see it, which is a shame as it is wonderful.

I was lucky enough to have a seat for the last night of the run in the West End and everyone was on top form.  The entire audience was full of aficionados who had obviously seen it dozens of times, loved it and knew the songs and by the end of the evening for the big revival of Beautfiul Girls the entire audience was on their feet singing.  Quite stunning.  But for me, the evening did not end there.  The producer, Cameron MacIntosh threw a lavish after show party on stage and I found myself mingling and drinking champagne with Eartha Kitt, Millicent Martin, Daniel Massey and other assorted luminaries who had come to see the show.  Stephen Sondheim attended and I ended up chatting to him for about 10 minutes about the different versions of the show (the earlier one had a darker ending with a breakdown of one of the characters but this was deemed not acceptable for this run) and I told him I preferred the earlier ending and he was delighted to hear it.  The sign of a person with good manners is their total attention and that is what Stephen Sondheim gave me.  Not once did his eyes stray past me searching for someone more interesting and famous to talk to, and believe me everyone else came in that category!  It was thrilling.

The best part was at the end of the party.  The musical director sat at the white grand piano on the stage and started to play songs from the shows.  I ended up leaning on the piano with the cast singing songs from Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific etc.  It was sheer magic and I do not think I have ever spent a more wonderful, unforgettable night. 

Last year my elder daughter in Australia bought me two tickets for Follies at the National Theatre for my birthday and I took my younger daughter. It was superb but a bittersweet memory of happier times which echoes the feeling of the piece. I spent most of the afternoon on the verge of tears and afterwards my daughter said Oh Mum I had forgotten just how marvellous it was. And she was right. It was and it is.

Both my girls like Sondheim - when they were small I took them to see Sweeney Todd which looking back was probably not a good idea.........

But they survived.

I have piles of books to review that publishers have sent me in the past few weeks as launch parties have been cancelled and publicity thrown into chaos. My own daughter's book, of which more later, falls into this category so I have a lot of reading to do. But I decided that before I embark on this I would take time to celebrate the 90th birthday of Stephen Sondheim.

Many years ago a friend of mine rang me up "I have got two tickets to the opening night of the UK opening of A Little Night Music, would you like to come with me?" I knew nothing about it, nothing about Sondheim but a free night at a London theatre was not to be sniffed at so off I went. And oh how wonderful it was. It took a while to acclimitise to his style, his lyrics and the cross cutting of sung dialogue and wit but once you tune it, it is wonderful.

Jean Simmons was in the role of Desiree, an aging actress who discovers too late that she still loves an old flame who now has a young wife.  Towards the end of the performance she sings Send in the Clowns. When the opening chord was played by the orchestra a hush fell on the audience and before she even started to sing I had a lump in my throat. I rank this song as one of the most perfect and moving every written. Last week the Proms showed a concert first broadcast on the occasion of Sondheim's 80th birthday and Judi Dench sang it. I was in tears.

My ex who is a singer came home in great delight many years ago as he had landed a small role and an understudy in the London production of Follies which I regard as nothing short of a masterpiece. This show pays tribute to the women who became Ziegfeld Follies singers and dancers (here they are called the Weisman girls) and is set in a theatre where they used to perform and which is due for demolition.  Follies follows two couples, Phyllis and Ben and Sally and Buddy, who met and married during the Follies but who have never been satisfied with their choices or their lives.

The show is packed with stunning set pieces and songs starting with 'Hats off here they come, those Beautiful girls' . Anyone who knows Singing in the Rain will recognise the pastiche of one of the numbers in this film where we have a parade of lovely girls dressed as Winter, September, Spring and Summer.  The show has double casting, a young Phyllis, Ben, Sally and Buddy to contrast with how they are now.  Most of the best songs are reserved for the women, 'Broadway Baby', 'Mirror, Mirror on the Wall' and a simply heart stopping 'One last Waltz' which sounds like faux-Richard Strauss and is a quite beautiful song.  However, the biggy is 'I'm Still Here'.  This is sung by the main diva in the show charting divorce, scandal, alcoholism and begging on the streets, but hey 'I'm Still Here'.  I saw Eartha Kitt do this night after night when my ex was in the show in the West End back in the 90s and she brought the house down every single time.

It is a show full of regrets, bitterness and nostalgia and has resonances for me.  When I saw it, my two daughters were 8 and 10, we went to see the show with their Dad in it several times and they knew the words and music better than the artistes themselves by the end of the run, and it was such a lovely time in my life, so I tend to find it makes me rather sad when I see it, which is a shame as it is wonderful.

I was lucky enough to have a seat for the last night of the run in the West End and everyone was on top form.  The entire audience was full of aficionados who had obviously seen it dozens of times, loved it and knew the songs and by the end of the evening for the big revival of Beautfiul Girls the entire audience was on their feet singing.  Quite stunning.  But for me, the evening did not end there.  The producer, Cameron MacIntosh threw a lavish after show party on stage and I found myself mingling and drinking champagne with Eartha Kitt, Millicent Martin, Daniel Massey and other assorted luminaries who had come to see the show.  Stephen Sondheim attended and I ended up chatting to him for about 10 minutes about the different versions of the show (the earlier one had a darker ending with a breakdown of one of the characters but this was deemed not acceptable for this run) and I told him I preferred the earlier ending and he was delighted to hear it.  The sign of a person with good manners is their total attention and that is what Stephen Sondheim gave me.  Not once did his eyes stray past me searching for someone more interesting and famous to talk to, and believe me everyone else came in that category!  It was thrilling.

The best part was at the end of the party.  The musical director sat at the white grand piano on the stage and started to play songs from the shows.  I ended up leaning on the piano with the cast singing songs from Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific etc.  It was sheer magic and I do not think I have ever spent a more wonderful, unforgettable night. 

Last year my elder daughter in Australia bought me two tickets for Follies at the National Theatre for my birthday and I took my younger daughter. It was superb but a bittersweet memory of happier times which echoes the feeling of the piece. I spent most of the afternoon on the verge of tears and afterwards my daughter said Oh Mum I had forgotten just how marvellous it was. And she was right. It was and it is.

Both my girls like Sondheim - when they were small I took them to see Sweeney Todd which looking back was probably not a good idea.........

But they survived.

Forget the spirit of the Blitz - Random Rant

I have spent the last few hours trying to think of a word to describe how I feel at the moment and in the end have decided to say “discombobulated”. The dictionary definition is “to confuse someone and make feel uncomfortable” and that just about sums my thoughts and feelings as I sit on the sofa and write this.

So much written about the Corona virus, so many different opinions, so many know it alls on social media who know better than anyone else, so much panic everywhere that it is difficult to know where to start.

I don’t do panic. I never have. I worry but I refuse to panic. When my youngest daughter called me a couple of weeks ago to check I was ok for groceries that I was fine, I was bewildered, well of course I am I said. And I was and I still think so but honestly I swing between amazement and sheer fury at the behaviour of some of people.

Loads of articles on recalling the Spirit of the Blitz, Pulling Together and Keeping that Good Old British Determination going.  Well, it is all crap.  Having witnessed the scenes in the supermarkets, the jostling and pushing, the grabbing of every single thing you can lay your hands on and even stealing from the Food Bank trolleys, I realise that for a lot of people it is self self self all the way.

One of the things I have always admired about us Brits is our refusal to be beaten, our sheer stubbornness  and bloody mindedness. We are a nation of moaners and grumblers but we do get on with it and can exhibit enormous reservoirs of will and determination.   But asking us to summon up the spirit of the Blitz is a waste of time and also totally wrong. That was a different situation. OK everyone was petrified and scared of being bombed out but if you went out in the street and ignored advice and a bomb obliterated your existence you were NOT ENDANGERING ANYBODY ELSE.   So I see the papers and social media today and people are out and about, they are going in their thousands to the beach, there are cafes and arcades still open, they are still queuing to get into supermarkets.

I refuse to join in the carping and criticising of the government and I don’t care what political colour it or you may be - this is unprecedented and yes, I am sure mistakes have been made, it is going to happen. Of course it will.  Boris why didn’t you shut the cafes etc earlier? Why are you not bringing in total lockdown and keep people off the streets? I hear you cry.

Because he made the mistake of thinking that we would be sensible. We would listen to advice, we would make the right decisions. He did not want to snatch our liberty away, he wanted to allow us freedom of choice. Well, Prime Minister, you can now see you got it wrong.  You underestimated the sheer pigheadedness and Nobody is going to tell me what to Do attitude of your countrymen.

So now you have to make bloody sure they are made to do as they are told and enforce this lockdown and if you get virtue signalling twits arguing about Civil Liberties ignore them.  

And before everyone gets misty eyed and nostalgic about the Blitz Spirit just remember the black marketeers, the looters after houses had been bombed, those who profited from other people’s misery and remember it was not all goodwill.  In the end looters suffered the death penalty if they were caught, that was how serious it was and while I am certainly not suggesting such draconian action now, it shows how seriously this kind of behaviour was taken.

I am now in self isolation. I have said goodbye for the foreseeable to my family and grandchildren which reduced me to tears, but it has to be done.

I am writing this on a Sunday afternoon, the sun is shining, daffodils tossing in the breeze and I would just love it to be a normal happy day and go for a walk by the sea and pop into a cafe and have a cuppa and a cake. But I can’t and neither can you. And just listening to the news right this minute it appears that the Brecon Beacons and Lake District have had their busiest weekend in years. FFS.

I am so grateful that I have my health, so far, and do not have any underlying health issues apart from a wonky knee. I am grateful for music, books, (some publishers have sent me ebooks to read, bless them)  the internet which is a boon in these current times if you ignore the nasty side of social media, Face time which has enabled me to talk to my daughter in Australia whose visit to us this year looks as if it is not going to happen, and many other things including my good neighbours who are going to help if I need it.

There are a lot of good, kind and thoughtful people out there. I know this but in the face of the behaviour of some it can be difficult to remember  but I will try. Stay safe everyone and do keep visiting Random Jottings and leaving comments - it makes such a difference.

And if you really want to summon up the spirit of the Blitz may I suggest you cut up your newspapers into squares and hang them up in your toilet and stop panic buying loo rolls....

British Library - How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

First up - I love visiting the British Library. OK I freely admit I am not madly keen on its architecture. I lived in Judd Street just opposite for years and watched it slowly being built and I do mean slowly. My sister, a librarian, worked for the British Library in Store Street and was really looking forward to moving into the new building. Sadly, it took so long that she was retired by the time it was open.

When she was working for the BL she had a pass to the British Museum and one glorious day I explored the stacks behind the Reading Room and it was wonderful. All those books and along winding iron stairways and galleries.  My joy was unconfined when I discovered all the Famous Five books by Enid Blyton!

Then a year or so ago I was able to return the favour and took my sister to the British Library in the Euston Road as those lovely peeps there had arranged a tour around the stacks and when I tell you we saw the Guttenburg bible and scores by Mozart and Shakespeare's first folio I am sure you can imagine my feelings. Tears were not far away.

Then they have a wonderful bookshop and in that bookshop are packed those wonderful British Library Crime Club series which I have written about so many times on Random. Freeman Wills Croft, George Bellairs, E C R Lorac, John Dickson Carr, Alan Melville - an endless list of long forgotten Golden Age authors now available again. I was delighted when one of the titles I suggested was reprinted.

And NOW if that was not enough the British Library is releasing a series of out-of-print books by largely forgotten female writers this spring to coincide with the forthcoming exhibition “Unfinished Business: The Fight for Women’s Rights”.

Starting with four books from the 1910s, 20s, 30s and 40s, the Women Writers series focuses on authors who enjoyed broad, popular appeal in their day. Each work sees fictional heroines challenge the attitudes of their time and highlight women’s experience inside and outside the home.

It begins with The Tree of Heaven by May Sinclair, a suffragist and British novelist who was dubbed "the readable modernist". Her 1917 book follows the fortunes of the Harrison family as the children grow up in the shadow of the First World War and Dorothy’s brothers go off, one by one, to the trenches, while she becomes involved with the suffrage movement.

When I read this I had to laugh as I had just read a post about this author on the Anne Bronte blog where Nick Holland who runs it had written about May Sinclair. Here is the link to this post as it is well worth reading http://www.annebronte.org/2020/03/08/iwd-may-sinclair-and-the-three-brontes/.   Then to cap this I popped into the Oxfam Book shop this morning while I was in town and found a copy of The Three Brontes, a biography by, yes, one May Sinclair. It is weird how this kind of things happens.

Bad Girl by American short story author and Hollywood screenwriter Viña Delmar follows. Published in 1928, Bad Girl was a bestseller in its day as a cautionary tale about attitudes to premarital sex, pregnancy and childbirth in 1920s Harlem. I know nothing about this author at all - I freely admit this and so looking forward to finding out more.

Third in the series is 1931’s My Husband Simon by Mollie Panter-Downes. Set in 1930s London, literary Nevis Falconer struggles to be a writer and also manage her marriage with increasing independence outside the home.

Now this writer I do know. One Fine Day is one of the most elegiac beautifully written novels I have every read. Just after the end of WW2 and I have my beloved Virago green covered edition with which I will never part.  "First published in 1946 this subtle, finely wrought novel presents a memorable portrait of the aftermath of war, its effect upon a marraige and a family, charting, too, a gradual but significant change in the nature of English middle class life". It is wonderful.   Persephone books have also published others by this author but My Husband Simon is totally new to me and I cannot wait to get my greedy little mitts on it,

The fourth title is Chatterton Square, a 1947 novel by James Tait Black Memorial Prize-winner and William author E H Young. The book concerns the complex web of relationships between two neighbouring families, the Blacketts and the Frasers. Framed by the advance of the Second World War, the mechanics of marriage and love are laid bare through the observation of three of the marital options open to the mid-century woman: unmarried, separated, miserably married.

Now another writer I love. I have Chatterton Square, again in the Virago green edition and also others by E H Young. I read Miss Mole a few years ago and loved it and here is a link to my review.

The series launches in the spring with a further four titles to be released in the autumn and I am simply delighted to see that among these is a title by Elizabeth von Arnim "Father" . I discovered EVA about twenty years ago when I came across An Enchanted April (again a Virago copy) and embarked on tracking down as many of her others as I could. 

These books are being published ahead of a new British Library exhibition  "What a magnificent way to mark the British Library’s forthcoming, hotly anticipated women’s rights show ‘Unfinished Business’. These books have been sourced from the library’s collections and, while not about women’s rights as such, the first four titles have a modern, forward-looking focus and provide a freshness of insight into women’s lives and the richness and excellence of their writing."

So there you have it - a myriad reasons for loving and visiting the British Library.  I am lucky enough to be sent review copies of many of their books and this is a privilege and a delight and one which I never take for granted.

Lots to look forward to.

Random Virus - I am prepared..

Now before I get into rant or flippant mode I wish to make it quite clear that I am not dismissing the Corona-virus as a passing matter of no import. No, it is very serious indeed and we have to be sensible and take precautions. BUT I refuse to panic. I really do even though my daughter telephoned this week to see if I was ok as "you are in the danger category mum". Well ta very much daughter dear. She wanted to check if I had enough groceries and was my freezer full etc and could I manage.  I asked her when in her entire life has she known her mother have no food in the house and no meals in the freezer and why did she now assume I was in my dotage and living off baked beans?

OK she meant it kindly I know.

So what to do? As far as I am concerned I am Keeping Calm and Carrying On. I am meeting friends, I am going out, I went into town to Fenwicks for a facial the other day and lovely Linda who looks after me said Sod it gave me a kiss as I was leaving and also shook hands.

The Premier League over here has banned players from shaking hands in the tunnel before they run on the pitch to play which is without doubt the daftest thing I have heard in a long time. As one writer in a paper said this morning:

"In a bid to slow the spread of coronavirus, the Premier League authorities have forbidden footballers from shaking hands before a match. Obviously the players will still be tackling each other, rolling around in the mud together, spitting on the pitch, kissing and hugging after they score a goal, and spending 90 minutes in close proximity to a tightly packed crowd of 60,000 people. But as long as the players don’t shake hands, everyone should be fine."

Mad.

Now before we left the EU (gosh that sounds wonderful - you know how I feel about the EU so forgive me) we had Project Fear. Planes would be grounded, there would be lorries queued for miles as they tried to get through the Channel Tunnel, there would be no medicines, the seas would run dry, there would be a plague of frogs blah blah and lo and behold Nothing Happened.  We had people stockpiling food and dried goods in their cellers and stocking up on loo rolls.  If they still have this stuff squirrelled away they will be feeling very superior now as panic buying has set in.

The two main staples that seem to be vanishing at the speed of light are loo rolls and pasta. Pasta? I can understand loo rolls vanishing as it is something that we need and use all the time, but pasta?  I cannot think if you are ill having twenty bags of fusilli in your cupboard is going to help you. And yes I know it is in case you have to isolate yourself and need to have food in the cupboard but even so...

I promised Helen I would be sensible and not do anything daft (not that I ever do at least I don't think so) so I have decided to Get Ready.  I did a supermarket shop this morning but bought my usual stuff though with extra ingredients this weekend as tomorrow is my monthly batch cook day where I load up the freezer with casseroles etc.  The only thing I did buy was, yes you have guessed it, toilet rolls. This is pure common sense and I will work my way through them though as I live on my own I reckon it will take a while.  (A Face Book friend told me this morning that she knows a guy who works at Tesco and the cunning swine are putting out all the expensive loo rolls for sale first. Every little helps is their catch phrase and they are living up to it).

But the most important thing of all - if I am in self isolation have I Enough Books to Read? Buggar pasta I dare not run out of books. No need to panic Elaine take a gander at your Kindle wherein reside some 300 books half of which are waiting to be read. Look at your To Be Read pile in the corner of your living room, there are at least another 50 there and then should desperation really set in and you have to re-read you have shelves full of Dickens, Austen, Trollope, Wharton, von Arnim and enough Agatha Christie, Sayers and Ngaio Marsh to last you for all eternity (I should not use that phrase really I could be tempting fate)

And then of course there are all those progs on Amazon Prime and Netflix which you really really need to catch up on. Then I have the entire Fred and Ginger oeuvre on DVD which will keep me happy and make me dance round the living room...Heaven I'm in Heaven...

Then all my MGM musicals on Dvd - Carousel, Oklahoma, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Calamity Jane, Singing in the Rain (I have the entire Gene Kelly oeuvre as well).

Finally, I have taken delivery of these this week and so I think I can safely say that I am Prepared for All Eventualities

OK Bring it on

Stay well everybody because joking apart I would not wish this horrid virus on me or anybody else.

Au reservoir.

 

Carol Drinkwater

Carol is appearing at this year's Felixstowe Book Festival and will be talking about her new book, published in May,  The House on the Edge of the Cliff. As well as writing fiction Carol has also written a trilogy about her life on her olive farm in France, The Olive Farm, the Olive Season and the Olive Harvest. I really enjoyed them despite the fact they were written in the present tense, which is my bete noire as you know,  but I found this did not matter as the writing is so good.  Bad writing, in past or present tense, I cannot stand and have tossed quite a few received books aside because of this, but no danger here.

Carol and Michel bought the farm, Appassionata, when they had no business to do so.  They had not known each other long, but as Michel had proposed to her within 24 hours of meeting (tres romantique!) it was clear he was a man of decision and they really could not afford it but they had a look anyway.

"The years of neglect, aided by the recent freak weather, have certainly put paid to Appassionata's former glory. Still, I am drawn to it, to its faded elegance.  it remains graceful. There is beauty here. And history. Even the gnarled and twisted olive trees look as though they have stood witness on this hillside for a thousand years"

And so they buy it and embark on its restoration and seeing if they can run it once more as an olive farm.  Now whenever I read books of couples who are going to live their dream in France/Spain/Italy/Mexico whatsoever and I read the lyric descriptions of sitting watching the sun go down while freshly caught fish sizzle on the barbecue with twigs of rosemary adding a fragrant smell, and drinking the local wine blah blah blah, I usually feel a profound irritation.  I blame Peter Mayle for this and his book A Year in Provence which I found acutely annoying, every Frenchman or woman an eccentric, every daily task turned into a soap opera, all this followed by one of the worst series the BBC ever produced which fortunately died the death.  All this has made me wary of reading books such as this and probably explains why I had not read these three.    And yes, there are wonderful descriptions of food, wine, the locals etc etc but I found this time that I did not get annoyed or fed up with it.  We have to come back, not only to the quality of the writing, which is high, but to the reality of the back breaking hard work with which both of them approached their mighty task.  Not easy and there were times when they teetered close to bankruptcy, dealing with the French bureaucratic process was tortuous and time consuming, a task Carol leaves happily to Michel, and I can only sit back and admire all the physical work which both of them undertook.

I used to become envious when I read of people who undertook these great adventures and think Oh I wish I could do that, but know full well that I never would.  One has to have a certain adventuresome spirit and total commitment for this kind of journey and I know now that I do not possess it. Oh I may travel and enjoy myself, but at the end of a day I do like a comfortable bed, hot water, a secure roof over my head and no worries.  So I now thoroughly enjoy second hand adventuring and realise that it is not all fun and enjoyment.  Problems and sadness still happen no matter where you live and Carol and Michel have had their fair share.   Carol loses a much wanted baby, her sorrow and desolation beautifully expressed and reduced me to tears, and is told that she must not try again.  She has two stepdaughters but a child of one's own, hers and Michel will never be.    They come very close to losing the farm because of lack of finance and then they are involved in a car accident and Michel, unknown to Carol, who is struggling to stop his business from collapse, falls into a deep depression and withdraws within himself.  He wants to go back to Paris, his interest in the farm drops away and at one stage he actually says he wants a divorce.   Carol is left to struggle on alone and struggle she does, but she never gives  up on Michel giving him space and time.  I admire her enormously for this and this period, which seems to last a year or more, tests her sorely.   She is obviously a more understanding and a better woman than I because my reaction when told after all the love and care lavished on Appassionata that my husband wanted out, would probably have been Oh well sod off then.    But she is wiser and gradually by keeping in touch with Michel, sending him parcels of herbs and olive oil from the farm, enticing him back for Christmas and a holiday, he slowly gets better and his breakdown is slowly overcome.   Lovely to know that they are still together and that Appassionata now produces olive oil and is doing well.

So if you are thinking of coming to the Felixstowe Book Festival, then come and hear Carol talk. The website with all the events is now up and running (I have taken over the event management of the site this year and it has given me a few panics but all seems to be ok) so do check it out.   Booking is not yet open but I will be letting everyone know when that happens.

Carol is appearing at this year's Felixstowe Book Festival and will be talking about her new book, published in May,  The House on the Edge of the Cliff. As well as writing fiction Carol has also written a trilogy about her life on her olive farm in France, The Olive Farm, the Olive Season and the Olive Harvest. I really enjoyed them despite the fact they were written in the present tense, which is my bete noire as you know,  but I found this did not matter as the writing is so good.  Bad writing, in past or present tense, I cannot stand and have tossed quite a few received books aside because of this, but no danger here.

Carol and Michel bought the farm, Appassionata, when they had no business to do so.  They had not known each other long, but as Michel had proposed to her within 24 hours of meeting (tres romantique!) it was clear he was a man of decision and they really could not afford it but they had a look anyway.

"The years of neglect, aided by the recent freak weather, have certainly put paid to Appassionata's former glory. Still, I am drawn to it, to its faded elegance.  it remains graceful. There is beauty here. And history. Even the gnarled and twisted olive trees look as though they have stood witness on this hillside for a thousand years"

And so they buy it and embark on its restoration and seeing if they can run it once more as an olive farm.  Now whenever I read books of couples who are going to live their dream in France/Spain/Italy/Mexico whatsoever and I read the lyric descriptions of sitting watching the sun go down while freshly caught fish sizzle on the barbecue with twigs of rosemary adding a fragrant smell, and drinking the local wine blah blah blah, I usually feel a profound irritation.  I blame Peter Mayle for this and his book A Year in Provence which I found acutely annoying, every Frenchman or woman an eccentric, every daily task turned into a soap opera, all this followed by one of the worst series the BBC ever produced which fortunately died the death.  All this has made me wary of reading books such as this and probably explains why I had not read these three.    And yes, there are wonderful descriptions of food, wine, the locals etc etc but I found this time that I did not get annoyed or fed up with it.  We have to come back, not only to the quality of the writing, which is high, but to the reality of the back breaking hard work with which both of them approached their mighty task.  Not easy and there were times when they teetered close to bankruptcy, dealing with the French bureaucratic process was tortuous and time consuming, a task Carol leaves happily to Michel, and I can only sit back and admire all the physical work which both of them undertook.

I used to become envious when I read of people who undertook these great adventures and think Oh I wish I could do that, but know full well that I never would.  One has to have a certain adventuresome spirit and total commitment for this kind of journey and I know now that I do not possess it. Oh I may travel and enjoy myself, but at the end of a day I do like a comfortable bed, hot water, a secure roof over my head and no worries.  So I now thoroughly enjoy second hand adventuring and realise that it is not all fun and enjoyment.  Problems and sadness still happen no matter where you live and Carol and Michel have had their fair share.   Carol loses a much wanted baby, her sorrow and desolation beautifully expressed and reduced me to tears, and is told that she must not try again.  She has two stepdaughters but a child of one's own, hers and Michel will never be.    They come very close to losing the farm because of lack of finance and then they are involved in a car accident and Michel, unknown to Carol, who is struggling to stop his business from collapse, falls into a deep depression and withdraws within himself.  He wants to go back to Paris, his interest in the farm drops away and at one stage he actually says he wants a divorce.   Carol is left to struggle on alone and struggle she does, but she never gives  up on Michel giving him space and time.  I admire her enormously for this and this period, which seems to last a year or more, tests her sorely.   She is obviously a more understanding and a better woman than I because my reaction when told after all the love and care lavished on Appassionata that my husband wanted out, would probably have been Oh well sod off then.    But she is wiser and gradually by keeping in touch with Michel, sending him parcels of herbs and olive oil from the farm, enticing him back for Christmas and a holiday, he slowly gets better and his breakdown is slowly overcome.   Lovely to know that they are still together and that Appassionata now produces olive oil and is doing well.

So if you are thinking of coming to the Felixstowe Book Festival, then come and hear Carol talk. The website with all the events is now up and running (I have taken over the event management of the site this year and it has given me a few panics but all seems to be ok) so do check it out.   Booking is not yet open but I will be letting everyone know when that happens.