We apologise…

…for this unplanned break in transmission.  Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.  

When I first started coughing during my trip to Belgium, I could never have dreamt it would take me so long to get over the chest infection which had hit me.  But all things come to those who wait and thankfully I’m now well again at last and trying hard to catch up with all the things I should have been doing during the past few weeks.

One big task which I’ve now started to tackle is to unpack and sort the boxes of books which I accumulated during the almost thirty years of my active ministry, many of which I no longer use and for which in any case we simply don’t have space. Some I will keep, some I will offer to colleagues if they want them, and the rest will go to a charity which supplies books to theological students overseas who cannot afford to buy the books they need.

So far I’ve emptied and sorted some twenty boxes of books and am now taking a break, as DS and Grandson#3 are coming to spend the Easter weekend with us, as our poor daughter-in-law is going to be very busy at work. Once Easter is over I’ll make a start on the long-delayed posts about my trip before tackling even one more box of books – I promise.

In the meantime I’m crossing fingers and toes that the weather forecasters have got it wrong. After a nicely dry fortnight, they are promising rain for the Easter weekend - a typical British bank holiday, in other words. I think our recently-neglected stock of board games may come in handy once again…

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Sorry, sorry, sorry…

Before you all start putting up wanted posters or dragging the nearest stream-bed, I've been busy. Despite the heat I've been working away in the garden and thoroughly enjoying myself. On top of that, for the past week I've been spending every spare minute reading – not blogs or nice light novels, but a beautifully-illustrated and totally fascinating 500-page book on local history in this area of southern Manche, lent to us by friends.

The only trouble is that it’s all in French, and rather demanding French at that, and I only have another week to finish it, before I reluctantly have to hand it back. So if you wonder at my delay in reading and commenting, I will be back, and by then probably trying to comment in French after all the practice I’m getting. À bientôt…..

A wonderful excuse

After yesterday’s snowfall DH and I find ourselves confined to barracks for the next few days. The drifts in our lane aren't deep, but we have no pressing appointments and thus feel no urgent need to dig ourselves out. Instead we’re using our enforced isolation to catch up with things or simply indulge ourselves with our favourite occupations.

This afternoon, while DH has been watching snooker on TV, I've revelled in the humour and humanity of the Call The Midwife Christmas special which DS downloaded onto my laptop during our Christmas visit. The new series starts tomorrow evening and I have to be up-to-date, don’t I? In addition I've almost finished the first of the new pair of socks for DH, but most of all I've been reading, and not just blogs either.

For Christmas Santa bought me three books and I've been reading them alongside each other ever since. The first is The Grand Designer by Rosemary Hannah, a fascinating and beautifully illustrated biography of the immensely rich Third Marquis of Bute, who was one of the most lavish patrons of the arts in nineteenth-century Britain. The second is the hugely enjoyable Letters and Diaries of Kathleen Ferrier, edited by Christopher Fifield, which reveals this wonderful singer’s warm and engaging personality and her acute and often wicked sense of humour. In complete contrast the third is Simon’s Cat by Simon Tofield,  a great collection of cartoons, perfect to dip into whenever I want a quick chuckle.

But, I hear you all cry, none of these is fiction and we all know Perpetua reads a lot of fiction. Indeed I do, but I borrow most of it from our local county library service or otherwise the Transit household would soon be stony broke. At the moment there are two very different  authors I’m thoroughly enjoying. 

The first is Barbara Nadel and I am indebted to Ayak for my introduction to this splendid writer of crime fiction. I have written before of my liking for the Venice mysteries  of Donna Leon and her wonderful creation, Commissario Guido Brunetti. In the same vein, but with the even more exotic setting of Istanbul, are Barbara Nadel’s deeply humane novels about her unlikely hero, Inspector Çetin İkmen. Sympathetically characterised and beautifully written, I find each grips me from the first page to the last and I’m left wanting more.

In complete contrast are the light, frothy, but very enjoyable Daisy Dalrymple mysteries by Carola Dunn. Set in the Britain of the early 1920’s, these novels are pure escapism and none the worse for that. Well-plotted, fast-moving and often funny, they are the literary equivalent of a foaming cappuccino, complete with chocolate sprinkles, rather than the strong, dark, Turkish coffee of Barbara Nadel’s books.

With companions like these to keep me entertained, you can understand why I’m in no great hurry to see the snow disappear.....

Burning the midnight oil

Old habits die hard. Five years after I retired for the second time, I’m still faintly haunted by my mother’s adage that “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” The trouble is that this doesn’t come naturally to me and never has done. Fundamentally I’m an owl, not a lark.

Though I enjoy the early morning when forced to experience it, my normal instinct when I wake up early is to turn over, snuggle down and go back to sleep. In the evening the converse is true. While DH will happily head off to bed and to sleep after the 10 o’clock news, I find myself perking up again, ready to go back online for an hour or two and even read in bed after finally switching off the computer.

The one thing guaranteed to make me put the light off before the wee small hours is the knowledge that DH will wake me in the morning no later than 9. Not that I want him to, you understand, it’s just that we’ve decided that we simply can’t allow our respective body clocks to get too far out of line or life would become much too complicated. So he gets up when he’s ready to do so and wakes me when my morning porridge is ready. DH is no cook, but he can make a mean pan of porridge (it must be his Scottish ancestry) so on most mornings making breakfast is his province, not mine.

The snag comes when he is on a rare trip away without me, as he is at the moment. As I type he’s in the process of taking an elderly aunt home from a visit to his mother’s and has left me to my own devices for a couple of days. As soon as I know there is no-one around to keep me in line, I fall far too easily into bad ways, as I did last night.

Oh, I was good at first. The TV went off at 10 and the computer about an hour later. I told myself I was tired after a busy weekend and needed an early night. So I was in bed soon after 11 and decided to reward myself with the opening chapter (or two) of my latest library book: A Question of Belief  by the superlative Donna Leon.

Who was I trying to kid? There is no such thing as reading only a chapter or two of a Donna Leon novel. Her writing is so good, her settings so atmospheric and her characters so well-drawn that I instantly found myself drawn into the story and emerged to find that it was almost 3am, my eyelids were drooping from tiredness and I was two-thirds of the way through the book. 

Even then something in me urged me to make a night of it and finish the whole book, but from somewhere I found a remnant of commonsense and made myself switch off the light. From habit I woke just before 9, heavy-eyed and sluggish, but still full of the guilty joy of reading in bed until I could read no more. I still have the final third to read, but tonight DH will be home and I will be good again – until next time.

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Bedtime reading

Looking back through my posts recently, I was amazed to see that it’s over six months since I last wrote about books. For this particular ex-librarian and lifelong bookworm this is so long a gap that you might be forgiven for thinking that I had completely stopped reading books in favour of blogs. I will admit that my book-reading time is somewhat eaten into by blogs nowadays, but thankfully I possess neither a laptop nor an iPad, so that in bed, at least, books are my sole source of reading matter.

This morning, while drinking the tea which always starts my day, I finished the last tense pages of a really excellent crime novel by a author I first discovered last year.  No Escape is the second novel by Natasha Cooper that I have read, but it won’t be the last. Well characterised and expertly plotted, it gripped me from the first page to the last. That book will go back to the library tomorrow, but I still have a substantial pile of others on my bedside table.

Being nothing if not eclectic in my reading tastes, the next book in the pile is a non-fiction book, published by the National Museum of Wales. Things Of Beauty: what two sisters did for Wales is a fascinatingly illustrated study of the Davies sisters, Margaret and Gwendoline, who used the enormous wealth inherited from their Victorian industrialist father, to build up a wonderful collection of Impressionist and other paintings, which they bequeathed to the National Museum of Wales.

My interest in them is not simply artistic, but comes from the fact that they were local people, born in the village of which I was once vicar, as was their remarkable father, who worked his way out of deep poverty to become one of Wales’ richest and most influential men. It would be difficult to live in Mid-Wales and not be intrigued by the Davies family and their achievements.

Below this in the pile is Louisa May, a biography by Martha Saxton of the 19th century American author, Louisa May Alcott. I was inspired to request this from the library by posts on Lifeonthecutoff's Blog about her life and work. As a girl I read and reread her most famous novel Little Women until my copy almost disintegrated, and having an enduring affection for children's literature, I still return to it and her other novels from time to time.

One of the things I only recently learned about Louisa May Alcott is that, like her heroine Jo in Little Women, in the 1860’s she published a series of sensational Gothic thrillers under a pseudonym in order to make the money for which the Alcott family always had dire need. These were rediscovered and republished in two collections in the 1970s and thanks to our library’s capacious store, one of these collections, entitled Plots & Counterplots, is also in my pile of bedtime reading.

Finally, as one of those books one can dip in and out of when too tired to read a continuous narrative, I have All Wound Up, the latest collection of very funny and perceptive essays on knitting and life, written by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, the inimitable Yarn Harlot.

So, with reading tastes as varied as my taste in music, and all your blogs to read too, I don’t think I’m likely to be bored. And of course I know I can always rely on you for interesting suggestions as to what to read when I've finished my pile. J

Rain, rain go away…

….but if it doesn’t, there are always books. Since DH’s mother went home on Tuesday morning, we haven’t had a day without rain, often rather a lot of rain, so the garden is still far too sodden for me to work outside. Of course there is always knitting to do and Assisi to ponder, in the gaps between the usual chores and my daily French language practice of listening to the radio or reading the local paper, but wet weather is when books really come into their own for me.

We’re getting quite a good collection in our French house now, and by the time I’ve read them all I should have forgotten the earliest ones and be able to start all over again. Quite how permanent English-speaking residents of France satisfy their craving for reading matter without bankrupting themselves I’m not sure, but we manage very well for our three summer months here.

At the bottom of my just-read pile is Maxwell's Reunion by M J Trow, followed by Wild About The Boy by Dolores Gordon-Smith, an enjoyable mystery in the Agatha Christie/Margery Allingham mould. Set in 1920s Britain, its likeable hero is a mystery writer turned amateur detective and its portrayal of the period is shot through with a deep awareness of the dark shadow cast by the First World War.

About to join that pile is something quite different and I have to thank The Broad at ABroad with a View  for the recommendation. It’s Pass The Polenta by Teresa Lust and consists of a series of truly wonderful essays on food and the memories it evokes. I’ve revelled in the author’s passion for her subject and found it engaging, touching, funny and mouth-watering in turn. Definitely one to reread in the future.

Alongside that I’ve just this morning started A Letter of Mary, the third of the wonderful Mary Russell mysteries by Laurie King. Starting from the premise made in the first of the series, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, of the unlikely, yet completely believable, encounter between an elderly Sherlock Holmes and a young woman graduate student, the books describe the growing relationship between them and the intricate cases they undertake. This is really excellent writing: densely plotted, intelligently and beautifully written, with strongly-drawn characters and a gripping atmosphere of mystery and undefined threat.

With books like that to lose myself in, I may not even notice when the sun comes out again. All I need now are your suggestions as to what to read once my pile is finished….


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A jolly good read

After the intensity of Holy Week and Easter and the fun of my birthday celebrations yesterday, today I’ve felt like doing nothing more strenuous than sitting in the sun with an entertaining book. As it happens, I have the perfect one close at hand – funny, intriguing and with an unexpectedly stinging twist to the tale.

It’s one of the Maxwell mysteries by M J Trow, an author I only recently discovered, though I’m making up for lost time as fast as I can (sadly the earlier ones are now out-of-print). The central character of the series is Peter “Mad Max” Maxwell, a middle-aged history teacher (as is his creator) with a talent for tripping over corpses and an insatiable thirst for justice that won’t let him ignore them.

In the constantly changing landscape that is modern education, Mad Max is a fixed point of politically-incorrect eccentricity, stubborn, not to say pig-headed, persistence, and a heavily camouflaged, but still tangible and deep humanity. He is also very, very funny.

The books aren’t great literature, but they are intelligent and strongly-plotted mysteries and extremely well-written, with a bitingly sardonic wit and a hero who both amuses and infuriates. In addition, for anyone interested in how teenagers have been educated over the past 15 years, they give an acutely-observed insider’s view of life at the chalk-face (oops, white-board). To me they are ideal holiday reading. What’s yours?

The novel that changed my life

One of the many things I’ve appreciated since becoming involved in the blogging world is the number of really excellent book recommendations I’ve come across, often for books I would never have thought of trying without such suggestions.

Perhaps I can return the favour by telling you about a book which has meant more to me than I can easily express. Its author was Rumer Godden, probably not as widely read as she used to be, but very well worth discovering. In a long writing career she wrote over 60 books and she was widely praised for her vivid, highly atmospheric writing, especially in her works set in India. A number of her novels were made into successful films, including Black Narcissus, The River and Greengage Summer.

The book I want to write about isn’t one of her best-known works, though it too is a good read, but to me it’s so much more. Its title is In This House Of Brede and it tells the story of a woman in her 40s, who gives up a very successful career to become a Benedictine nun. It is beautifully written, well characterised, and extraordinarily absorbing in its portrayal of a very different and demanding way of life.

I first read it in 1975, at a time when I was neither a church-goer nor even a nominal Christian. I hadn’t been to church, other than for weddings and funerals, for nearly 10 years and wasn’t in the least interested in changing that situation. It was the purest serendipity that led to my picking up the book in the first place. It was lunchtime, it was raining, and I wanted something to read while I ate my sandwiches in the staffroom of the library where I worked.  After a hasty search along the fiction shelves, my eye fell on a book on display, which I didn’t remember having seen before. It looked different enough to catch my interest and make me decide to read it over lunch. The rest, as they say, is history.

Once I started reading, I could hardly put it down. I devoured it, reading late into the night, even though I had to get up early for work the next day. Even before I finished it, I knew that my world-view had altered. For the first time in my life I realised that faith isn’t just something believed in the head, but something that has to be lived out, something that changes people profoundly, and, hopefully, for ever. This realisation didn’t immediately make me a Christian, but it was the first small step on a road which led me within a year to confirmation in the Anglican church and years later, after many twists and turns, to ordination and eventually to full-time parish ministry.

As a librarian, I knew in theory the ability of books to change lives. Now, as a retired parish priest, I can testify from my own experience just how profound this change can be. Books are powerful, otherwise why would oppressive regimes try to ban them?  Books are powerful and to be treasured and my copy of In This House Of Brede is very treasured indeed.


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A good read

Life has been a bit full since I last posted and anyway I need to prove to myself that I can post short as well as long. J  So I’m just going to introduce you to one of my favourite authors and leave you to get acquainted.

Like a lot of clergy, I love detective novels. Perhaps it’s something to do with the eternal struggle between good and evil, the need to try to restore the balance between right and wrong. Whatever it is, and I’m too tired today to try to analyse it any further, I read a lot of them and enjoy discovering new authors, as well as returning to old favourites.

At the moment I’m reading Wilful Behaviour by Donna Leon, an American who has lived for many years in Italy, and whose knowledge and understanding of this complex and often corrupt society comes through very clearly in her writing.  Like all her books, it’s set in Venice and features her wonderful main character, the unforgettable Commissario Brunetti.

Donna Leon is very much in my top ten list of favourites for a number of reasons. Her writing is elegant and spare and superbly atmospheric. She knows Venice intimately and makes it into almost another character, rather than just a backdrop to the main story. Her characters are finely drawn and utterly believable, and it’s satisfying to watch them develop from book to book. Her plots are well-crafted, often sombre and almost always ambiguous.

Don’t read Donna Leon if you want nice, neat, happy endings, but if you prefer a story that will challenge you as you read it and linger on in your mind long after you’ve finished reading, then do try her. I don’t think you will be disappointed.


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While the cat’s away….

….the mouse gets busy (whisper it who dares) spring-cleaning. Not that it’s actually spring here in the Mid-Wales hills, you understand, far from it. Also, as anyone who knows me will tell you, I'm not the world's most ardent housewife, especially in winter, when the days are so short. However, earlier in the week, when the sun managed to shine for a few precious minutes, I had a good look round and was so horrified by the depth of the dust that I decided I HAD to do something about it. 

Fortuitously, DH had arranged to visit his mother this weekend, so the chance to get on unimpeded was too good to miss. Dear as he is, it's so much easier doing things like spring-cleaning when he isn't around. I can stop for breaks and meals when convenient, rather than at usual times, and can shift all his clutter into one big pile in his office or workshop, rather than have him yelping "Don't move that, I'm just about to deal with it." I've heard that one before..... So once I’d waved him goodbye it was out with the duster and the other implements of domestic torture and into the fray.

I started downstairs and that was reasonably straightforward. Granted, there was my knitting stuff to subdue and sort before I could find the settee, but after that it all went like clockwork. The dust was duly disturbed and went off in a huff, the Dyson lurched even nearer to total exhaustion, but at least I can see the surface of the furniture again and we now have a sitting-room where we can actually sit, a dining-table with room for the dishes and a kitchen which positively begs to be cooked in.

Buoyed up by my initial success, I tackled upstairs – or at least the state of chaos known as my study. I knew there was a carpet in there somewhere and I was determined to find it or die in the attempt. Tying a string to the door handle and holding tightly to the other end, I advanced into the jungle surrounding my desk. It was touch and go for a while, but eventually, after a fierce struggle, I emerged triumphant.

For the first time in aeons I can open the bottom drawer of my filing-cabinet without having to shift the tottering piles of books and papers which normally cover the floor in front of it. It’s not that I’m an untidy worker, really I’m not. It’s just that work is so much more fun than filing: a recipe for chaos if ever I heard one. Still, for this brief moment in time, the books have all been shelved and the papers are nestling comfortably in their correct files.

Of course this pristine state of affairs won’t last, but at present I’m so smug it’s quite understandable. I’ve reminded myself what colour the carpet is and can kid myself yet again that at last I’m getting organised.

But it was a slow process getting there. The trouble is that this wasn’t like tidying the kitchen cupboards. These weren’t boring old tins and packets I was sorting but books and magazines and papers, and what they all had in common was lots and lots of irresistibly tempting print. And what do I always do when faced with print – why of course I read it.

As far back as I can remember I’ve been in love with reading. As a child, I’m told, I taught myself to read before school age by constantly asking my parents “What does that say?” whenever I came across words, any words, even on the side of a bus. After that I couldn’t see a cornflake packet on the breakfast table without reading every word on it and my first introduction to foreign languages was the French bit on the HP sauce bottle.

Later my long-suffering mother was forced to take me off fire-lighting duty and give me another chore, because, instead of lighting the fire with yesterday’s newspaper, I would just sit on the hearth rug and read it. This passion for reading is probably why I decided to become a librarian and is certainly why housework comes so low on my list of priorities. If it were a toss-up between dusting and reading, any kind of reading – well, which would you choose?


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