dovegreyreader scribbles

Port Eliot: Sunday

MLLE. FROMAGE and OFFSPRINGETTE: It's only taken the whole week to wake up, but here's how we chose to finish up Port Eliot 2010:

The sun came out for us on Sunday in St. Germans and created a lovely vibe all over the festival (in a way that only sunny days in England can). Offspringette and I near on stalked Anna Sui before her talk in the Flower Show - which, annoyingly was then moved to 5pm, to stand in for Anna Pavord who had broken her ankle prior to the weekend. Having to make the crucial decision to opt for Jarvis Cocker’s Sunday Service over Anna Sui was a toughie but I’m certainly glad we made it.

Jarvis Cocker was at complete ease on stage, although he shared with the audience that it was his first live radio broadcast - both with or without an audience, so for that alone it was worth being a part of it. He started off with the perfectly apt ‘Read It In Books’ by Echo and The Bunnymen, and through sticking to his usual features he took us through ‘On This Day’ and a selection of entertaining interviews with performers from the festival, including Marcus Coates, Chris Watson, Wilko Johnson and Bill Drummond. Sprinkled in between these often unpredictable interviews (Wilko!), Jarvis played tracks related to the ‘On This Day’ theme - it’d been 40 years since Bob Dylan’s decision to ‘go electric’, which apparently had incited a riot at the time. However, it did not incite a riot at Port Eliot - even after we were played Acoustic Dylan followed by Electric Dylan.

One of the highlights of Jarvis’ set, was a live performance from a strange apparently-inspired-by-medieval-England three piece Princes In The Tower - quirky music and outfits that would put even Offspringette and I on a level with Anna Sui.

Having to tear ourselves away from the Sunday Service was painful, we were however, completely compensated by The Leisure Society who worked especially hard to make our afternoon enjoyable. It was indie folk to dance for, and I was especially impressed by the multi talented violin/ukulele/tambourine player, and the flute/ukulele/guitar player - this section of the band really added depth, and were astonishing in the fluidity of their instrument changing!

After a quick Noodle Bar visit, it was back off to meet Dovegreyreader and to be roped into designing our own book covers, I’m pretty confident that Offspringette’s creative abilities shone through here, but you decide for yourselves:

 

Over, and, Out.  

The Wolery...Plez cnoke if an an rnsr is not reqid...

The Barn Owl Polebox is up and ready for occupation thanks to the Barn Owl Trust and a crew from Western Power...and even better you'll be pleased to know, we can see it from the house:-)
Much more information about the Barn Owl Trust's Westmoor Scheme here but just a few details to explain.

"In late February 2009, the Barn Owl Trust launched their latest Barn Owl Scheme aimed at increasing Barn Owl populations in parts of West Devon. This was made possible thanks to significant funding from Biffaward and the Devon Bird Watching & Preservation Society. Dartmoor National Park, Devon County Council and West Devon Borough Council have also contributed.

but in particular this alarming news...

"The new scheme will focus on the area between West Dartmoor and the River Tamar, as it was the only area to show a significant decline in Barn Owl numbers between the last two County surveys. The number of nest records fell from 16 in 1993 to only 2 in 2003, a decline of 87.5%.The severe decline of Barn Owls in the area between West Dartmoor and the Tamar is something of a mystery and these beautiful birds really do need all the help they can get.

and the relevant paragraph...

"If, during the course of the Westmoor Scheme we happen upon an area of outstanding Barn Owl habitat that has no trees or buildings in the vicinity, we have allocated money from the Biffaward funding for the erection of a Polebox..."

and the final paragraph...

"We have found a suitable site for our one and only Polebox and we hope to have that in place soon!"

Suitable site, that's us, so whilst we wait for residents don't miss the Barnowlcam down in Cornwall, the babies are now sitting outside their box on a regular basis, and if not they are tucked up inside.

I wasn't going to Bookerthon, but shall I...

I have been so eye-wateringly far off the Booker pace this year that I knew today was going to be painful and it is, I've only read one, February by Lisa Moore but very thrilled I am to see it there.
Except now the longlist is announced and the picture on here has become a bit of a tradition along with the Bookerthon, so I scurry round gathering in and find I have ten of the thirteen titles.
And I have been meaning to read a lot of them.

And a few I've started and been distracted from and thought I'd get back to them including most recently C by Tom McCarthy
And I had thought this Peter Carey might set me and Peter back on speaking terms again.
And I always love a good Howard Jacobson.
And...
And...
Oh alright then, I might, just one or two or thirteen or so.
But listen, ignore all that because far more exciting things are happening here in Devon because tomorrow is Barn Owl box day. Cometh the pole, cometh the machinery and eventually one hopes, cometh the Barn Owls anyway here's the full list.

Peter Carey Parrot and Olivier in America (Faber and Faber)

Emma Donoghue Room (Pan MacMillan - Picador)

Helen Dunmore The Betrayal (Penguin - Fig Tree)

Damon Galgut In a Strange Room (Grove Atlantic - Atlantic Books)

Howard Jacobson The Finkler Question (Bloomsbury)

Andrea Levy The Long Song
(Headline Publishing Group - Headline Review)

Tom McCarthy C (Random House - Jonathan Cape)

David Mitchell The Thousand Autumns of Zacob de Zoet  (Hodder & Stoughton - Sceptre)

Lisa Moore February (Random House - Chatto & Windus)

Paul Murray Skippy Dies (Penguin - Hamish Hamilton)

Rose Tremain Trespass (Random House - Chatto & Windus)

Christos Tsiolkas The Slap (Grove Atlantic - Tuskar Rock)

Alan Warner The Stars in the Bright Sky
(Random House - Jonathan Cape)

Thoughts on Grayson Perry...

It's possibly ( to my uncertain knowledge) the first time dovegreyreader scribbles has been linked to by a cross dressing website and I feel the moment shouldn't pass by unnoticed.
Port Eliot still whirring around in my mind, as it will do for weeks to come, and in particular the whole Grayson Perry thing which had passed by on the periphery of my consciousness until now, something happening in London to which I had paid little attention.
We can be a bit cut off from reality down here in the West Country and it would indeed stop the traffic and probably cause a few accidents were Grayson to walk down the street, but somehow not at all unusual at Port Eliot, and there's something intriguing about it all.
Of course transvestites not unknown in Devon, indeed, in the days when health visitors visited across the age spectrum of patients registered at the GP surgery they were attached to, I took a referral from a GP and had the pleasure of visiting a particularly glamorous man who had modelled his look on a 1960's film star whose name he had taken too. His make-up always immaculate but living out his lonely last days in chronically poor health, poverty and isolation in a woodland caravan with just a dog for company.
I got to know him/her really well and even found myself popping into the WI clothing store to pick up clothes on his/her behalf in the days when we did helpful things like that too. We'd made a wish list and I'd been careful to check colour preferences etc and caused quite a stir the day I asked for a salmon pink dressing gown, preferably with some lace frills, to fit someone 6ft 5" tall, and could they possibly help me with a pair of ladies, knee-high winter boots (with extra calf room) in a size 14.
It occurred to me how effectively Grayson Perry blasts away stereotypes and demolishes personal prejudices with his style whilst equally I discover on  reading up, elicits fierce responses..

"...recently a man in the street called him a paedophile: “It’s interesting how that is now the nuclear weapon of insults. The soundbite of the venal hater.”

If ever anyone spots a paedophile element it's the health visitor in me and I have to say it was the very last thought that would have come into my head. The whole look is almost like an art form on legs regardless of any personal reasons ceramic artist Grayson Perry may have for adopting his alter ego Claire when he feels so inclined, and the dresses are mind-blowingly clever designs, though interesting to read Grayson's own take on it

"In the past seven years, I have changed from dressing as a woman to being a man in a dress. I am not pretending to be a woman any more. I am a man who is wearing the most ridiculous outfits."

They are utterly gorgeous creations, what better frock to wear to a Flower Show awards ceremony than this one and beautifully made I discovered as I tried to get a good look without invading his personal space. I had to stop myself having a feel of the fabric, but curtain weight I think and it occurred to me that I was probably getting a glimpse of an iconic dress exhibition of the far distant future... when people will queue for hours, much as they have for the Grace Kelly collection from the thirties, to see the wardrobe of a man's frocks from the noughties.

Zzzzzzz....

We're finally home having dismantled our Flower Show exhibits... three days of imagination, sleepless nights waking at 3am wondering how to include triplets in a flower display, miles traipsed in torrential rain sourcing very odd things...mice, babies, sunflower, three hours of setting up and all demolished in about three minutes flat, but what a fantastic weekend we've had, and what a nice flower arrangement of leftovers now sits by my desk.
The advice from the man on the market who sold me the single sunflower, and let me into the secret about  cutting the stem underwater to make it last, was spot on, it looks a lot perkier than I do right now.
A gorgeous sunny day today and lots more to report including one of the highlights of my afternoon, this lot...

Cornwall's latest singing sensation from one port to another, Port Isaac to Port Eliot, The Fisherman's Friends.
So we'll carry on posting a few more festival events over the next couple of days before settling down with the books and the reading again, but meanwhile, one plate of toast with Buckfast honey and a pot of tea later I'm about ready to drop, so please forgive me I will.

Diane Athill at Port Eliot...

If ever you think you might be too old to come to a festival like this just change your mind and come next year.
If Diane Athill can manage it in her nineties there really are no excuses.
It's fascinating listening to people talking as they walk around. I keep hearing...'We're going to come to this every year now' and I'm not surprised, a fantastic family atmosphere around the main events and a wonderful variety ranging from much quieter and more reflective, to performance art up in the Walled Garden.
Spontaneous 'happenings' just break out all over the place.
I've done the Noodle Kitchen for lunch and it'll be The Orangery for tea in a minute before I catch Craig Taylor's Million Tiny Plays followed by Fisherman's Friends, the Cornish singing fishermen.
Never a dull moment.
I caught the start of Diane Athill's reading with elevenses in the Persephone corner, this year a finely decked out marquee. Persephone will be publishing Diane's collection of short stories in the spring, more to look forward to and Diane, in competition with a microphoned performance across the way, insisted on standing up so that her voice would carry...which it did.
Incredible.

Talking of fashion...

Grayson's out and about in his awesome Sunday finery... I'm really intrigued, he had a quilt in the V&A exhibition, I must find out more.

Justine Picardie meets Coco...

Oh my word is there a treat in store with Justine Picardie's forthcoming biography of Coco Chanel. I know as much about fashion as I do about quantum physics truth be told, and must confess to a limited interest in the subject, but that's all changed now and what better way for it to change than with an in depth look at the life behind that little black dress.

Justine spoke in the exquisite setting of the Flower Show marquee, and me perched next to the bookish exhibit depicting Patrick Suskind's Perfume, with its bright-eyed mackerel of Friday now reeking, but I held my nose and was enthralled as the life of surely the world's most iconic fashion figure was laid out before us.

In her own inimitable style Justine has researched in depth, ploughed her way through dusty archives, stayed in convents, worked in Coco Chanel's Parisian apartment and generally immersed herself in a cloud of Number 5 to bring Chanel to life and I now can't wait to read the book. As you'd expect there are moments of great sadness, and apparently a very interesting war to recount and the book will contain 400 pictures, many discovered in private archives and never seen before...we had a little preview, Coco intimately acquainted with some very influential and wealthy figures here in the UK.
Justine and I have something very special planned for here nearer to publication date but meanwhile meet Coco the dog-in-a-handbag also in attendance.

and Coco was of course introduced to Justine.

Saturday Pick: Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou

OFFSPRINGETTE: Well, it turned a little bit soggy last night as we made our way from the Falafel stand (or was it Moroccan, or was it Spanish?) over to Caught By The River for an evening of musical hijinks. There is literally so much going on at Port Eliot, it would be impossible to cover everything, so we've decided to pick out our favourite act from last night as our focus:

Trevor Moss and Hannah Lou are a husband and wife duo who channel the Appalachian folk tradition at its finest. One microphone, two guitars and a harmonica is all it takes to transport us into their world. "The Allotment Song"  in particular really stood out as a charming retelling of one man's routine in his garden. As budding gardeners (sorry) ourselves, it was a delight The thing we liked the most about this pair, aside from their obvious fingerstyle talent, was the fun they had. Their chemistry was captivating and had we not had to move it along, we'd have stopped by the Rough Trade (where Fromage lost quite a lot of impulse money) tent for their signing. 

Today, we are planning on visiting Ana Sui and Tim Banks at the Flower Show, hoping to pick up some fashion tips as we are truly unfashionable people, then it's off to the Caberet to catch a bit of Jarvis Cocker's Sunday Service, recorded live for BBC 6 Music. Before we leave tonight, we're going to dash to Caught By The River for The Leisure Society and we're going to round everything off with a dose of The Book Club Boutique Band, appropriately enough!

Just caught sight of Dovegreyreader, she says Justine was fantastic. Expect more news on this soon!

We're off to design our own book covers in the Biba tent...

In Two Places At Once: Justine Picardie

OFFSPRINGETTE: Good morning all, I present to you the guest blog so kindly provided by Justine Picardie. I can tell you that she produced this despite my little skate-related computer playing up. At this very moment, Justine is giving a no doubt fantastic talk over at the Flower Show on her latest book on Coco Chanel, with a rapt audience containing none other than dearest mother. It felt like the right time, then, to give you a little insight into how Justine's Port Eliot is going:

"Here I am at Port Eliot, revived after a cup of tea and slice of shortbread with dovegreyreader. Am grappling with an unfamiliar computer, so forgive my mistakes. Just done my first event – with Nicholas St Aubyn, author of a new novel about an old yet previously untold story (Custom of the County, a Tudor treasure hunt set in Cornwall. We talked about how fragments of history can be woven together into a novel – so I was back in Du Maurier territory, two years after coming to talk about ‘Daphne’ here at Port Eliot. The perfect setting – the Round Room inside the big house – and an intelligent audience, as is always the case at this festival.

Back tomorrow to do my first bit of publicity for my new book, which is a biography of Coco Chanel. I’ll be showing pictures that have been hidden away in the archives for decades, and am feeling slightly nervous at the prospect – how can I talk at the same time as negotiating a power point presentation thingy? Still, it’s going to be in another lovely venue – Michael Howells’ flower show, which is appropriate, as I’m talking about Chanel’s use of the camellia in her fashion iconography. Will also be putting Chanel into the context of her longstanding links with England and quintessential British style (tweed, gentlemen’s tailoring, woollen jumpers).

Anyway, hope to see some old friends here, and make new acquaintances as well. Here’s hoping for blue skies over St Germans, and just enough sunshine to make it another perfect day…"

I think it might be Sunday...

10.30am and I'm back again fresh as a daisy and very much looking forward to the day after a whopping eight hours sleep (off site obviously) which is good because I have to be in several places at once today.
I want to catch Diane Athill at Persephone for elevenses, then nip into hear a bit of Margaret Drabble before dashing down to hear Justine Picardie talking about Coco Chanel.
More from me later and I guess Offspringette is here somewhere and will stop by, she has Justine's guest blog post in the can and will get that on here later, and doubtless have news of the night time revels plus the latest update on the whereabouts of the legendary Jarvis Cocker who will be broadcasting The Sunday Service live from the festival on BBC 6 Music from 4pm this afternoon... Jarvis who?

Instances of the number seven...

Being quite firmly of the belief that canvas is for painting on not sleeping under, I have eschewed the glories of the campsite and driven the fifteen miles home to a bath, bed and electricity (not necessarily in that order) and will be up bright and early tomorrow for Day Two, but I just had to share a picture of this Q&A session with author Alexander Masters talking to Sam Leith earlier this afternoon. Alexander is talking about his books Stuart - A Life Backwards and his latest on the life of mathematician Simon Phillips Norton.
I didn't catch it all, but trust me these two were talking completely seriously and intelligently about the books dressed like...well dressed like this.

It could only happen at Port Eliot which is what makes this festival so refreshing and full of surprises, you never know what you are going to see around the next corner / wall / forest / toilet block.
And here's a quick shot of all the events taking place at The Boat House, down on the banks of the River Lynher,

the same river that Sir Humphrey Repton famously "moved" when he landscaped the gardens because it was in the way....as you do.

Growing Alice's Flowers with Mary Keen.

The new edition of Five Dials online literary magazine happened live from the festival so if it's arrived in your inbox as it has in mine, Grayson Perry pressed the button and launched it on its way there.
Then time for a cup of tea and a slice of apple and almond cake in the beautiful setting of the Port Eliot Orangery to the accompaniment of a string quartet.

Back to my bench in the Flower Show marquee for Mary Keen talking about Alice Oswald's flowers and introduced by Cathy St Germans.

The gardener's outnumbered the poets so Mary geared her talk towards horticulture but interspersed with recordings of Alice Oswald reading several poems from Weeds & Wildflowers.
It was good to hear Mary endorse the Rambling Rector, a vigorous climbing rose that we have had in abundance and which I love, but which Bookhound chops down when I'm not looking, claiming risk of structural damage. Yes, he's right, it will take a roof off apparently.
Still that Rector undaunted and resilient returns year on year.
The secret of all cultivation seems to be about knowing your soil and I have to admit I'm not that well-acquainted with ours, not its consistency, nor its acidity.The next secret is to get mud on your hands, which I don't really like doing either, but it was good to hear that both Mary and Alice share a love of the snowdrop and magical to then hear Alice reading that poem...

A pale and pining girl, head bowed, heart gnawed,
whose figure nods and shivers in a shawl
of fine white wool, has suddenly appeared
in the damp woods, as mild and mute as snowfall.
She may not last. She has no strength at all,
but she stoops and shakes as if she'd stood all night
on one bare foot, confiding with the moonlight...

Festival Fashion...

I hope you're keeping up, just catching you up with festival fashion and what you will be seeing on the catwalks this season.
The Biba tent is heaving with people waiting to be kitted out by the wonderful Barbara Hulanicki, they are working flat out in there.

It's a trademark of the festival to walk around in shiny silver, absolutely everyone's kitted out ready to be roasted. My thanks to this model who agreed to have her picture syndicated across the dovegreyether just so you can all go and get the Bacofoil out and make a start on your outfits.

MLLE. FROMAGE: So, after arriving we built the house (put up the tent!), explored the site, stopped at a fancy carribean food tent for some jerk chicken, and then....realised we'd missed The Belles of London City, a wonderfully refreshing troupe of Morris Dancers! So caught up in the festival groove we were we totally forgot our itinerary. Not all was lost, after a quick contemplation it was clear we had another few hours of milling around, and that's when we spotted our Belles (Above). Jingling along off to the RSPB tent so they were, in the Caught By The River part of the festival.

Along here we also found the Outdoor Swimming Society - an organisation dedicated to the promotion of taking a wild dip, although I think they're trying to break the festival crowd in gently here:

Finally, take a look at your clock, for when it hits the hour, this is what happens on PET (Port Eliot Time):

OFFSPRINGETTE: Forget the silent disco, it's all about the One Minute Disco here. Apologies for the blurredness of this picture, we were indulging in a bit of a bop.

The Prizegiving & Grayson Perry...

Oh jolly good, I see Offspringette's stopped by, I'm just back from the Port Eliot Flower Show prize-giving and great excitement as the inimitable Grayson Perry was presenting books to each class winner... his frock quite a bit more interesting than mine.

I managed quick hugs with Cathy St Germans who declared our entries £$%&* brilliant and here's Cathy with international stage designer Michael Howells who designed the gorgeous flower show setting here.

First prize in the Great Novel class went to a magnificent take on Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie...subtitled The Grass Menagerie which also won Best in Show, very well deserved.
I've just bumped into Justine Picardie who is here to talk about her forthcoming biography of Coco Chanel which will be published in September, Justine will be back later to do a guest post and give us her take on the festival.
Next up a cup of tea before I catch gardener Mary Keen, mother of Alice Oswald, talking on Growing Alice's Flowers.

Offspringette and Mlle. Fromage checking in...

Just a quick post to let you know we're out there, trawling the paths of Port Eliot, looking to bring you images and our top festival finds! Our first discovery was a certain 'Flower Show', where we happened upon some rosettes...

 

We have rosettes...

Congratulations team dovegrey...we have snaffled rosettes!
Tough opposition on all fronts so we are thrilled with a Highly Commended for our Great Expectations and wait for it....Third Prize for Bookhound's weeds!

Photos to follow but thus far I'm in and have wireless, Offspringette is busy pitching her tent and will be along soon, yippee, fantastic festival atmosphere, I'm off to have a look in the Biba tent where Barbara Hulanicki is busy decking people out in ...well wait and see.
Back soon

Team dovegrey enters the Port Eliot Flower Festival...

...the installation is complete, we are entered and await judging tomorrow morning.
I've spent all day scouring gardens and hedgerows with my secateurs and in the end we had a pantechnicon-sized quantity of flora not unlike the Eden Project in scale. Add in three imaginations running wild and Bookhound, Offspringette and I have converted lots of your ideas into our Port Eliot Festival entries and I can't begin to tell you how much fun it has been cooking up this storm.

Talking of cooks we bumped into Hugh Fernley Eatitall Whitingstall as we walked in.
Our only mistake was to grab a quick siesta this afternoon ready for a leisurely set up this evening, quite forgetting that the holiday/ festival traffic would be terrible, and it was, but God was on our side again ... thanks RevCheryl, I'm sure you interceded. As we pulled up outside the winding queue at the pedestrian entrance, where we could unload our four buckets of floribundence, props, boxes of things that might be useful, lace curtains, a rhubarb forcer, a gravestone etc there was an us-sized parking space.
We sent Bookhound off to do the arrangement of weeds and I think we must all commend his floral artistry and thanks to Fran for the Hopkins' quote from Inversnaid, perfect. The elephant is a little local addition, being the emblem of the Eliot family.
 
and Offspringette and I set to on Great Expectations
So a few pics for you and brace for a weekend of madness ahead.
Offspringette has guest-blog access so between us we will bring you Port Eliot Festival live as it happens and I expect her friends will stop by here too, so apologies if it gets a bit noisy.
Hopefully I'll grab a few people to come and say a few words too, but meanwhile enjoy your flower show entries, remembering that this is Port Eliot where less might be more but in this case more is never enough... is this a first, an international blog entry?
Oh ever so very well done team dovegrey.

and a close-up of that sunflower...

and the triplets
and the mice eating the cake...

Today's shopping list...

How can a blog get any more exciting than this...today's shopping list.
David Vann and his partner Nancy are in the UK and came for tea. Oh my how we have laughed and now I'm on tenterhooks for his next book, Caribou, out here in January. Fortunately I'd done a quick turn around on the tablecloth after the visiting Canadians, so we were fine and Devon cream tea was done and Bookhound and David did the hunting, shooting, fishing stuff while Nancy and I talked life and books.
But the rest of the shopping list...well the installation is shaping up nicely. Tomorrow is setting up day and Bookhound still has his task ahead...to make us a slate gravestone with inscription, while I go and pillage other people's gardens, not such a big ask in view of what I've had to source today.

Thou shalt not covet...

...thy neighbour's flowers.
So is it wrong that every garden I walk past now has things in it that I want?
I've never suffered from flower envy before, it's an entirely new disease for me but the symptoms are proliferating and extending beyond neighbour's gardens, because have you noticed what nice flowers the council plant on roundabouts these days too.

So as I drove into town this morning I was even coveting the beautiful little cottage garden we left behind to live in the middle of this field, with a garden that reverts to type at the first excuse. I crawled past our old house and wondered whether planting the plants in the first place = 9/10ths of possession and whether I could walk in and claim a few sprigs back.
I had woken up at 6am thinking I need to see Issy, except that Issy and I have been out of touch for years despite the fact she only lives a few miles up the road, I can hardly ring up and say 'Er...how's your garden looking?'
But Issy is a real gardener and does have the most beautiful herbaceous borders ...just what we need.
So there I was gazing outside the flower shop thinking, I wonder if they'll lend me one of those rusty buckets for my weed arrangement, when someone tapped me on the shoulder and said 'Hiiiiiiiiii, long time no see'.
There is a God.
I went round to Issy's for a cup of tea this afternoon, and team dovegrey be of good cheer, we will go to the ball wearing more than a load of Ox-Eye Daisies, we can cut some gorgeous and symbolic things from Issy's garden on Friday for our arrangement, lots of seed poddy things as well.
I'm busy running round gathering in props as you suggest them for this installation (including the quest for a sunflower, thank you for that challenge Kevin)  so thank you all for your fabulous ideas, please keep them coming. I've spent a good while today writing your comments out onto cards to pin on the veil, which I hope can cope with the weight of our expectations.
Currently there's a mock up on the kitchen table which consists of an upturned wastepaper bin with a polystyrene lace pillow balanced on top to give us 24" backdrop height and all covered in an old quilt and draped around with the nicely yellowed lace.
I'm not sure why I thought I'd have time to read this holiday.

Pssst....The Port Eliot Festival Flower Show

If your name is Michael Howells or Cathy St Germans or Lady Boyd or Kitty Arden then please could you go and look at another blog ...you're judging this and it's secret.

Right, so I know I really should have asked you first, but there was no one here to save me from myself, it was a spur of the moment thing ...I've entered us (that's all of you, and me) collectively as 'dovegreyreader scribbles' in two classes in the Port Eliot Festival Flower Show.
This was on the assumption that collective imagination and inspiration from 185 countries around the world would help us to come up with some stunning ideas, which we (Bookhound, Offspringette and I) will then transform into entries.

I did check with Lady St Germans and have been reassured that this is not cheating, and that indeed there is much excitement about our entry... no pressure then.
Now the folly of this becomes apparent when I tell you I am not God's gift to flower arranging let alone the Constance Spry of the blog world, and right now the garden has Ox-Eye Daisies which smell vile, Rose of Sharon, Honeysuckle and not a lot more...but this is no ordinary flower show, this is the Port Eliot Flower Show. It won't matter if the Oasis is showing, normal rules of flower show etiquette don't apply, technical mastery and floral precision are thankfully not a pre-requisite, and though natural plant material must dominate, it's about imagination and a love of flowers.
We can think laterally and very creatively and cook up a real storm of an installation which may well veer into a terrible mess, but it's the taking part that counts.
So if you could get your thinking caps on we'd be very grateful...

I won't need too much help with with Class 8

"Hoe, Hoe, Hoe!" An arrangement of weeds not to exceed 18" in any direction.

But all suggestions welcome, I've got a container lined up but when is a weed a wildflower...I've located a plentiful supply of Rosebay Willowherb about a mile up the road for some colour, will that count?

It's Class 2 that is more of a challenge...

"In the Library" - An Arrangement of Flowers Depicting a Great Novel.
Not to exceed 24" in any direction. Props and drapes may be used. In fact, do not hold back. To be viewed from the front.

Now there's nothing more exciting than having four visiting Canadians, vibrant inspirational women all, you feed them a delicious cream tea (well done to Bookhound) and then you trap them in your book room and ask for ideas. In a flash CanadaGill came up with a brilliant suggestion for the book which we'll have to keep secret... so can you not tell anyone, we'll have to keep it under wraps, keep our powder dry, beware of pale imitations.
But we have great expectations about any ideas you might come up with and with some lateral thinking around the word 'expectations' suddenly we were brain storming and had it sussed.
I've developed the theme a bit further and picked up some old lacy net curtains in charity shop today which I'm going to tea dye, because I'm thinking Miss Havisham's veil as a draping backdrop, and what's the betting the very time I want white nets to go yellowy-brown they stay pristine.
Next I plan to pin our 'expectations' on to the veil. much as you pin your hopes on something, or lay them around and we've been looking at dictionary definitions.
The act of expecting.
Eager anticipation: eyes shining with expectation.
The state of being expected.
Something expected: a result that did not live up to expectations.
Prospects, especially of success or gain.

I'm wondering if you're getting the gist, if so all ideas for 'expectations' gratefully received and they can take the form of pictures or actual things that create a mood of expectation...so far they include
a half-knitted sock (has to be in there somewhere)
a sealed letter
a little parcel of books
a picture of the England football team (ha ha)
eggs
closed flower buds
seeds
caterpillar
various newspaper headlines
quotes from books
adverts for plastic surgery
a bus ticket

and I'm sure you can think of more, it can be as weird, whacky and wonderful as you like and if it's a picture and you want to email it to me please do, we'll put your name and location on it as the suggester or find a picture of it ourselves and print it off.
The flowers will have to be mainly the daisies (just pray they last until Friday which is setting up day) but with a Miss Havisham wedding bouquet look to them, so plenty going over to seed and there are a few foxgloves left...digitalis and all its poisonous connections with the heart, more lateral thinking about that jilted bride and there's plenty of ivy around. The Tinker has suggested that we arrange for it all to catch fire at the end of the show, I thanked him profusely for the idea, but said perhaps not.
I have a feeling this is going to end up looking more like a fusion of The Old Curiosity Shop and The Darling Buds of May but never mind, over to you, please do name your 'expectations.'

Orsum Boards roll in...

Never a dull moment chez dovegrey, but just as we wave off the Canadian visitors, (and how sad we were to see them leave,) in rolls Offspringette and the charity skateboard team, Orsum Boards...Lee, Matt and Charlie. Offspringette is project managing them on their John O'Groats to Lands End (JOGLE) UK record-breaking fund raiser for the GoGo Trust, supporting AIDS widows and orphans in S. Africa.

873 miles done, just a few more to go, so if you see them in Cornwall tomorrow give them a wave and try not to run them over. I happened to be driving back from Honiton today where I had a lovely first-time meeting with Karen from Cornflower, much more about that soon, and came across a van crawling along the old A30 and there they were powering along in front.

So the team are in and feet up, sixty miles done today, the blisters have been attended to and many showers and much food later (bless Bookhound again, the man's a miracle ) all resting up before the final few days of their push for the tail end of the country, and doing an interview on Radio Devon from here at 8am tomorrow morning before they set off for the finish on Wednesday.
Never let it be said that the young people of today aren't committed to doing good.
This lot are amazing. 

The Visit...

Canada  is visiting Devon this weekend, Mrs KFC & three friends who all read dovegreyreader staying at that nice hotel up the lane and we have given them a right royal Tamar Valley welcome to these hillsides and are all having a magical time; guided tours, visit to the Tinker, dinner at Endsleigh, cream teas and I can now own up to what has been keeping me very busy for the last six weeks ....gifts.
How can you have people come all this way and not send them off with something home made (and a few books)  so a tiny little 7" pieced and quilted patchwork square for each (with even tinier pieces I realised as I stitched, forty-eight together into one) as a souvenir of their visit, and one has the honour of the "deliberate" error because only God's work must be perfect...you'll spot it, it was late, my eyes were going in different directions, if you find two I'll be really upset.

...made from those fabrics bought at the V&A quilt exhibition, limited edition replicas of 19th century designs and rotating clockwise from top left, Summer Winds, Sunny Lanes, Eddystone Light and Rocky Road, the blocks all chosen for a rural, local feel, and in one case a rather obvious blog connection, and stitched full of Devon love and memories.
And wait for it... you might need to sit down if you are not already, but steady yourself anyway... The Inundation of the Spring Enlarges Every Soul, the Emily Dickinson wall-hanging is finished...

...yes can you believe I just typed that word...completely finished.
Emily is about 30" square and has been a joyously colourful part of my life for about two years now, and very intensely for the last six weeks, so that 'finished' is good, and I can't tell you how much happy anticipation of the visit has been stitched into this, so I am delighted that Emily will be crossing the pond and making her new home with Sheila and Kevin in Canada. I'm hoping the Attic Windows design has a touch of the trompe l'oeil about it and might cheer their walls when the snow is deep outside and spring still seems a long way off.
For the experts out there, this is machine pieced and hand-quilted and adapted to suit my theme from a picture seen in a book but with no cutting pattern available, so I was on a frolic of my own and had to call in the draughtsman in the family to help me get the angles of the mitred corners spot on. It's hard to see but each 'pane' is cross-hatched with quilting to give a lattice effect with a quilted vine border weaving around the appliqued butterflies, and then as I inscribed the poem in full for the label on the back, I realised it held double poignancy with its memory of a visit to the South West.

The inundation of the Spring
Enlarges every soul —
It sweeps the tenement away
But leaves the Water whole —

In which the soul at first estranged —
Seeks faintly for its shore
But acclimated — pines no more
For that Peninsula —

There has been much covert conspiracy between Kevin and I over Sheila's surprise because I know they are very discerning in their taste, so first you have to ensure that people really want to give house room to things like this... then you have to give them a choice between two quarter-made things because with six weeks to go you have time to finish one or the other, but then that does give them plenty of  time to decorate the house to match.
Anyway, mission accomplished this end and take a look because I think it may be hung in a room near to this very exquisite sculpture which I have had very happily ingrained in my mind's eye for the last six weeks.

Team Ulysses debrief...

I have been so busy 'playing' this week that I completely forgot my planned Team Ulysses debrief for today, the 16th, but no matter, Faber to the rescue with a post I wrote on the whole magnificent experience and you can read it over at Faber's  Thought Fox today.
I feel as if we made a little bit of history between us and I'm wondering if anyone else feels a I do, a real sense of satisfaction after our year, and perhaps new and refreshing reading habits creeping in... there's a lot of 'out loud' going on here.

Lyndall Gordon on Emily Dickinson

My trips to Dartington have felt more like pilgrimages this year.
Five carefully selected events to listen to authors whose books I have read and loved, and as a consequence I've done three trips across Dartmoor, three hundred miles in a matter of days, and in some very unseasonal weather. Torrential rain on the seaward side of high Dartmoor is certainly not an unusual occurrence but it never ceases to amaze me how I often descend into brilliant sunshine on the other side.

But Dartington hasn't been spared the inclement weather this year and it creates an entirely different atmosphere at a festival that usually sees people basking in the sun on the courtyard green. I'm sure there's been plenty of that too but not on St Swithun's Day, so that's us done for now.
So off I pootled yesterday, with Woman's Hour on the radio, to hear Lyndall Gordon talking about her recent biography Lives Like Loaded Guns - Emily Dickinson and Her Family's Feuds and I wasn't disappointed.
As a Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford there can be little doubt that Lyndall Gordon is one of our foremost literary biographers, she already has Charlotte Bronte, TS Eliot, Henry James, Virginia Woolf and Mary Wollstonecraft tucked under her belt, her work is as expected, impeccably researched and referenced to the highest scholarly standards, none of which guarantees success on the literary festival stage. There is a happy knack that sadly eludes many (and I've heard a good few in my time and I expect you have too), the ability to combine academic prowess with a stage presence and a warmth that will connect with an audience without making them feel like fools who should have tried harder at school.  Actors who write books have an advantage, a stage presence and an audience eating out of their hand, much harder for scholars to achieve but accomplished with ease by Lyndall Gordon.
It was of course fascinating to hear her outline Emily Dickinson's life and the feuds that have spilled over into the very recent past, and the way that Emily devised her own blueprint for the retiring recluse that we think we know... not as a retreat, suggested Lyndall, but more as a form of control. But it was Lyndall's responses to a selection of well - thought through and intelligent questions from the audience, including one from a descendant of the Dickinson family, that just had us all picking our jaws up from the floor of the Great Hall in amazement and admiration.
Asked about the nature of the poetry itself and whether she agreed with Ted Hughes's assertion that Emily Dickinson was one of the greatest religious poets, Lyndall Gordon proceeded in quick and very unshowy order to offer a comparison of the great religious poets putting together an instant answer. Quoting the poetry of Dickinson, Herbert, Hopkins and Eliot at length and from memory, thus creating for us an audible comparison that proved beyond doubt that Emily Dickinson was far less affected by notions of abandonment than others, and finally quoting Josephine Hart who sees Emily Dickinson as a self-empowering ecstatic.
We were a bit ecstatic too, stunned in fact and a round of grateful and heartfelt applause followed that response and it was the subject of the buzz of chatter as the audience spilled out onto the courtyard afterwards. Personally I just hope that young students who may find themselves in attendance at any of Lyndall Gordon's lectures fully appreciate what they are in receipt of, I'd pay good money to go and sit in.
Lyndall's favourite poem by Emily Dickinson, again quoted by heart ... 443

I tie my Hat—I crease my Shawl—
Life's little duties do—precisely—
As the very least
Were infinite—to me—

I put new Blossoms in the Glass—
And throw the old—away—
I push a petal from my gown
That anchored there—I weigh
The time 'twill be till six o'clock
I have so much to do—
And yet—Existence—some way back—
Stopped—struck—my tickling—through—
We cannot put Ourself away
As a completed Man
Or Woman—When the Errand's done
We came to Flesh—upon—
There may be—Miles on Miles of Nought—
Of Action—sicker far—
To simulate—is stinging work—
To cover what we are
From Science—and from Surgery—
Too Telescopic Eyes
To bear on us unshaded—
For their—sake—not for Ours—
Twould start them—
We—could tremble—
But since we got a Bomb—
And held it in our Bosom—
Nay—Hold it—it is calm—

Therefore—we do life's labor—
Though life's Reward—be done—
With scrupulous exactness—
To hold our Senses—on—


And I came away with a treasure too.
Authors do write the most thoughtful things in my books when they sign them, I'm getting quite an archive  and all with my marginalia in too, including that first edition of Wolf Hall (now fetching £500)  The inscription is personal and based on something I said about the book here, and to my delight I discover also quoted on Lyndall's website , but my copy of Lives Like Loaded Guns now as precious as the crown jewels.
Thank you Lyndall

I Curse the River of Time ~ Per Petterson

'There was a wide open sky over Jan Myrdal's sentences. The world unfolded in all its majesty, back in time, forward in time, history was one long river and we were all borne along by that river....'

I had made a super-human effort to get to hear Norwegian author Per Petterson speak at Dartington late in the afternoon recently and on several counts...I love the books and wanted to hear him speak because I doubt he does many events here in the UK and I wanted the books signed. Bookhound dropped me off because it's a parking nightmare and I stepped out of the car right alongside Roy Hattersley and his Buster-replacement canine which looked for all the world like a Bill Sykes dog.
Per Petterson, author of many more novels than have been translated into English. So far we have To Siberia, In the Wake and perhaps best known, his Dublin Impac prize winning novel, Out Stealing Horses, which he confirmed had won him a great deal of money. It is indeed, at 100,000 euros, the world's most lucrative literary prize, but I had just turned the final page on his latest novel I Curse the River of Time published by Harvill Secker and was intrigued. The title a quote taken from the lesser known verse of Chairman Mao, a hero of main protagonist, student- turned Communist Arvid Jansen along with his other idols, Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. 
My mind was still a twirl of thoughts and I was interested to see if I could learn more about this author, by his own admission from an ordinary working-class background, who lost three members of his family in the Scandinavian Star ferry disaster of 1990; a loss, a theme and a setting which frequently crops up in his fiction.
This is late 1980s Norway, Communism is in tatters throughout Europe, and Arvid, having thrown in the towel on his studies and gone to work on the assembly line in a factory, is facing the loss of both the women in his life, divorce beckons and his mother is diagnosed with cancer. He's a troubled radical, seemingly obsessed by detail, who has never quite grown up and as Per Petterson wrote the book he thought he might discover more about this little boy's relationship with his mother, because it is one of the fascinating facets of the book... well to tell would be to spoil.

'I was a man out of time, or my character had a flaw, a crack in its foundation that would grow wider with each year.'

And another introspective, predominantly first person narrative frequently slipping into a stream of consciousness that can be quite tricky to follow. Nothing linear about the novel's progress, this one kept me on my reading toes. One moment very definitely in the latter day as Arvid follows his mother and tags along as an unwelcome guest on a ferry trip to a remote island she feels compelled to visit before her death, then thrust back into Arvid's recent past or further back into his childhood, and with little indication of where you might be. Completely reflective of the mind's wanderings, as Per Petterson said, you can't impose an order on remembering, and all the better for that unpredictability I felt as I read, but also a reflection of my current vogue for my slower 'ear' reading over the faster 'eye' reading.
There's an existential flavour to it all and clueless of Devon wouldn't even presume to know whether there is any philosophical influence here, and I wasn't going to be the swotty dingbat who asked the question, but in an average day I don't get many chances to mention Soren Kierkegaard so why waste one. He was a Danish neighbour, and if despair, angst, absurdity, alienation and boredom (thank you Wikipedia) are part of the existential script then they are all here.Yes Kierkegaard's my man for explaining all this and Per Petterson advanced the writing of Knut Hamsun as a huge influence on him so we're on a roll there I think.
There is a precision to the geography and a crystal clear sense of place in I Curse the River of Time, which somehow anchors the free-ranging narrative, detailing the particular in a way that sounds completely romantic to this Devon dweller. Were I to suggest I'd walked down West Street, turned right into Russell Street, waved to LindaW in her office and then progressed to the junction with Plymouth Road, I'm not sure you'd be very impressed, even though Linda's office is lovely and she always gives me a cheery smile, but perhaps it's about familiarity with our own surroundings... how much more alluring does it all sound when it's Norway.

'That afternoon when my mother took the Underground alone from Veitvet on Groruddalen to Jernbanetorget with the brown suitcase in her hand to cross the damp square on the seaward side of the old Ostbane Station...'

Heck, where's that Norwegian Blue typewriter when you need it, though I was delighted to see there was a Norwegian Blue bicycle in the novel.
So I settled down to listen as Per Petterson described his writing process and much was explained.
He doesn't plot at all...just starts with a sentence and keeps writing until he reaches the other end, and he knows when he reaches the end. His starting point is that sentence and sometimes he has to wait for it, every word of that sentence matters and is carefully chosen because to him rhythm is imperative, which all makes the translation of his work an interesting collaboration. He works from a distance in a three way partnership with editor and translator, the editor conveying anything he doesn't like to the translator 'Tell her I don't like this...' rather than any direct communication between them... that's what editors are for and by his own admission he is a pest. Though something may get lost in translation, there can be gains too though that may entail a month spent looking for a single word.
Arvid is also a recurring character in the novels, not quite Per Petterson's alter ego, more his stuntman he tells us, but still a great deal of himself is written in, and it became clear that writing for him involves an intense descent into the core of a book from which I suspect it must be most disconcerting to emerge, but the end result for me as a reader quite mesmerisingly good and different.
Any other Per Petterson fans out there?

Endsleigh Salon ....Plague & Pestilence

With grand designs on turning up at last month's Salon as the acknowledged expert on plague, buboes and rats, I was thwarted by tempus fugit and failing to carpe the diem in my attempt to fully digest Benedict Gummer's The Scourging Angel The Black Death in the British Isles, but in the event my failure hardly mattered.
It was with huge sadness that we learnt that one of our members, who had joined about a year ago after reading about us here, was now seriously ill in hospital and battling cancer. None of us had the first inkling... V always radiant and animated, a picture of health, but we reflected for a moment on some of the far-reaching discussions we have had over the last year, and how much courage it must have taken for her not to reveal that fight, or how it may have impacted on us a group and the freedom of our debates if we had known.
We all signed a card, but sadly V died peacefully the next afternoon.
So at our meeting this evening, (with the prior permission of V's husband and the hotel management,) we will be inscribing and quietly placing two of V's favourite books on the library shelves at Endsleigh, in memory of her love of books and reading, and her vibrant and enthusiastic contribution to our Salon evenings... those two books, chosen by V's husband, The Little Friend by Donna Tartt and The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer.
It took us a while to get going after that news and of course still unaware quite how near the end was for V so talking hopefully of sending her books to read, but we headed on into Plague and Pestilence and with perhaps one of the biggest plagues of our times at the forefront of our minds.
In a state of shock I kicked off to rather a lame and halting start with Always the Children by Anne Watts attempting, but possibly not succeeding instantly, to highlight the ravages of war and disease that permeate Anne's book. Thus I wasted my slot and kept piping up all evening '...'oh yes, well that's apparent in this book too.'
Rebecca added to the disease register with The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson, delineating the history of cholera and its spread from the Broad Street pump which finally gave the clues to the origins of the disease.
Next up The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald for its portrayal of a young girl with TB and much debate about the scourge that was TB, and the scourge that it could yet become again as disease mutation and resistance to all and sundry seems to be a risk these days. The book had much impressed the reader and so we had a little eulogise about Penelope Fitzgerald while we could.
Jeannie then stepped in brandishing Angel of Death by Professor Gareth Williams, a history of smallpox... I'll bet you're wishing you'd been there now aren't you, things were getting scarier by the minute, because of course who knows who keeps a bit of the supposedly eradicated smallpox on the side for some illicit germ warfare. There was a flurried rolling-up of sleeves amongst the more senior members to reveal vaccination scars, all apparently now useless should there be an outbreak, which led to some disappointment amongst those of us marked for life at a tender age. Jeannie brought much-needed mirth to the proceedings by bravely revealing that as a four year old in the 1950s, she had played the starring role in a government sponsored public health film on the dangers of smallpox.
We were all incredibly impressed to be in the company of a Shirley Temple starlet, though Jeannie quickly disabused us of any notions of grandeur because sadly it was never shown to the public, and seeing it for the first time recently Jeannie was able to deduce why. As the fatally ill child actress is carried in the arms of her distraught mother and clutching the offending and germ-laden toy rabbit brought back as a gift from overseas, the prostrate, pox-laden floppy child lifts her pox-laden head and flashes a beaming smile of complete happiness at the camera....CUT.
This quite diverted us from too much in-depth debate about bio-terrorism as we really did all want a good night's sleep.
Next up The Corner That Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner and I didn't write much because I was too engrossed in the Sylvia discussions, but something ravaged through that convent for sure. It's a book I only have in an edition with very dodgy tiny print and I have been searching for a better one ever since. I got as far as the tower falling down and gave up last time I tried to read it.
Then for our delectation The Ninth Life of Louis Drax by Liz Jensen, which, set in a hospital coma clinic, felt plaguey and pestilentialy enough to make the cut and came well  recommended as was Blackwater Rising by Attica Locke...I think... Rebecca will help me out here...
The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis was a winning Sci-Fi combination of bubonic plague and a mutant flu virus with some time travel thrown in that involved Oxford in 2056 and Medieval England, and you probably still had parking trouble in the middle of the city. Our resident speech therapist wanted to know ' Did she have to learn medieval English to communicate?'  I think it was an affirmative.
Poor Karen, fancy telling someone the topic is Plague & Pestilence and they say 'Oh I've got the perfect book for that' and lending you a copy of The Plague by Albert Camus...
Oh b%&*$%...her word not mine, but surprise surprise, readable, good story, beautifully written, not bleak and highly recommended, who'd have thought...
Last but not least Angela brings back The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer for the second time and reads us the Health chapter...something about flaying a fat cat and drawing out the guts, mixing in some bits of bear and then stuffing and roasting said cat and anointing ill people with the dripping... I might have got that slightly mixed up with something I saw on Hugh Fearnley Eatitall Whittingstall, but it was hilarious as usual and just what we needed, though we're all agreed, Angela's in trouble at any attempt at a hat trick to make that book fit three separate themes, tonight Immigration & Emigration.

The Hand That First Held Mine ~ Maggie O'Farrell

It's now several weeks since I turned the final page of Maggie O'Farrell's latest novel The Hand That First Held Mine so it's about to undergo the 'Lasting Memory' test...will opening it and looking at my marginalia remind me in an instant, or has the book disappeared into the soupy mix of recent reading.
I've given myself a very different reading year this year...or perhaps it's an age thing, perhaps I'm looking for something else.
As you know, some years I'm hungry to devour the latest and the bestest novels and I'm onto them in a flash, oddly this year I'm feeling a bit manyana about it all. I've picked up several Booker longlist certainties and would usually have dived in, but this year I'm way off the Booker pace so it remains to be seen whether the long list piques my attention.
I've been reading Why Poetry Matters by Jay Parini and came across a quote from Robert Frost,

'The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader. I have known people who could read without hearing the sentence sounds and they were the fastest readers. Eye readers we call them. They can get the meaning by glances. But they are bad readers because they miss the best part of what a writer puts into his work.'

In that case I know I've done plenty of 'bad' reading in my time and currently I'm all for ear reading, hearing the sentence sounds and I think this may be one of the unseen benefits of a year in the company of Ulysses... that book has taught me so much about my own reading habits. Team Ulysses...are you still there... I was feeling so bereft at the thought of no post for the July 16th that I plan, in the best of teamwork traditions, a team debrief for this Friday.
And suddenly I'm loving poetry again too.
So where was I...right... The Hand That First Held Mine and perfect because Maggie O' Farrell writes beautifully about the complexities of family relationships spread across two generations and which you somehow know are going to collide eventually...it's a bit like searching for a pattern repeat in a reading experience, you know it's there you just have to find it. When it suddenly jumps out you have an 'aha' moment.
So whilst one past tense thread sees Alexis Sinclair leaving sleepy Devon and heading off for late 1950's London with the maverick magazine editor Innes Kent, the other has new parents Elina and Ted coping, in the present day and often in the present tense, with the arrival of their baby.
Now I have a real problem with novels written in the present tense, I often ditch them within twenty pages, there have to be exceptionally good reasons for my to carry on, so how interesting that it can be done because I didn't even notice it here, Maggie O'Farrell segues into it perfectly.
Artist Elina has given birth to a boy by emergency caesarian section and is struggling; hovering on the brink of puerperal psychosis or perhaps exhaustion, but all very worrying, except film editor Ted, so wrapped up in his own fractured memories and childhood flashbacks since the birth of the baby, hardly seems aware of Elina's distress. Perhaps in an effort to gain control over something... anything, in this new and chaotic existence, Ted heads back to work as soon as Elina comes home with the baby, splicing and editing films into some semblance of order in a way that he'd probably like to be able to do with his own life. Hopeless at containing each others' anxieties I can only begin to imagine what the poor baby must have been feeling like when at four weeks old he still has no name. The attachment is clearly more like detachment, with poor Ted tiptoeing  around the edges of idyllic, idealised parenting wherein rests disillusion and nothing really tallies.

'He had no idea that having a baby would entail so much entertaining, so many visitors, so many phone calls and e mails, so many pots of tea to be made, served , cleared away, washed up, that the mere act of procreation meant that people suddenly wanted to come around several times and week and sit in your house for hours on end.'

Meanwhile the past-tense Alexis-Innes thread is building alongside as they make a life together in the changing face of 1960's London, Alexis blossoms and you know that eventually these two threads are going to weave in but not quite how.
I often stop and reflect very early on in a novel now...
Do I want to know more about these characters?
Am I bothered about them ?
Do I care what happens?
Yes on all counts and I had the names and linking arrows darting all over the front page of the book to the extent that it all felt a bit like a literary version of that ball of string game we used to have to 'play' on those multi-disciplinary team building awaydays...which I'll have to explain now I've mentioned it.
I shudder to think that I actually used to do this but it's supposed to demonstrate the complexities of a situation, so the policeman holds onto one end and throws the ball of string across the seated circle to the social worker (I'm tempted to say they drop it but that would be unfair, they have thresholds) who then holds onto their bit of string and throws the ball to the midwife.Catching it with reluctance the midwife holds her bit and then lobs the ball across to the GP who treats it like hot coals, barely lets it touch their fingers before it's thrown back to me the health visitor. I look around for the school nurse who is run off her feet poor thing and far too busy to be there, so ever hopeful I throw it with some force back at the social worker and as you can see there's a nicely tangled web of string developing which the facilitator then draws our attention to.
We all sigh and agree, mission accomplished, visual learning aid achieved, what a tangled web we weave and at least hope it's coffee time.
No sighing with Maggie O'Farrell's book, she tosses her ball of string (and perhaps decide for yourself who or what may be the ball of string) competently hither and thither and slowly I could see where she was leading me via her themes of possession and motherhood, lies and secrets and the awakening of memories and I was really impressed.
I'm equally impressed that writing this has easily recaptured the mood of the book for me too, that makes it a winner.

Footnote :: Amazing what you discover on google in the search for a picture of a ball of string.

Cowslip inspiration...

Did I say that I wasn't going to start making anything else until I'd finished what I'd started?
No more quilts or wall-hangings until the backlog is cleared?
Well I'm sorry I didn't really mean that.
In fact nothing to stop me gathering in some inspiration, and reading Alice Oswald is just too good an inspirational quilting opportunity to miss...I'm thinking rivers and trees and flowers but so much more because there is nothing sentimental about Alice's writing.
To ensure that the moment didn't completely pass me by I went on the regular pilgrimage to Cowslip Workshops over at Launceston. I've taken you there before I know but it's always peaceful and uplifting, a working farm as well as the perfect creative setting.
Now this is what I call a proper gazebo, no messing about at B&Q, this won't be heading off into orbit over Plymouth way any time soon. Why we didn't think of  growing grass on the top of ours I don't know....Bookhound, please can you build me one of these?

A fine place to sit and stare at patchwork fields while you contemplate a patchwork of your own.

I don't often bring pictures of roses here because apart from a few climbers we are the kiss of death to the rose and have learnt the hard and expensive way that a David Austin rose garden just won't work for us. Jo meanwhile has an abundance of them at Cowslip.

and a garden laced with eye-lifting colour, I was drawn to those on my spectrum right now.


and vegetables all mixed in and around

This thing of exquisitely pieced perfection is actually a Cornish slate fountain, the water just trips musically out over the top and down the sides...not wanting to be too demanding or anything but Bookhound, please can you make me one of these as well ?

So for my Alice Oswald piece I had nothing in mind beyond realist rather than abstract fabrics, with wildflower designs and thinking I knew my colour range went into the shop with one idea and came out with another one entirely. Often it's about starting somewhere, building and gathering fabrics around a theme that pleases my eye and, don't ask me how this bit works but fabrics and colours that speak to the mood of the reading.
I just recognise it somehow when it all joins up.
Watch this space ...but perhaps wait five years or so.

dovegreyholidays...

One of the joys of the last eighteen months spent working from home, as a self-employed virtual health visitor, is that it hardly seems like work as I knew it.
No more smart work clothes, eating lunch in my car, traipsing along farm tracks up on Dartmoor in the pouring rain, driving miles and miles in a day, catching horrible bugs in doctor's surgeries, going to meetings that bored the socks off me, no more NHS managers, no more missing the summer in the garden. There could be drawbacks I suppose... like perhaps not actually seeing people and babies, or pining for the pit bull terriers that sit on your lap and drool all over your trousers, or feeling lonely because you're not in an office having a laugh... except we use skype as our office and we do laugh a lot. But I'm dealing with lots of very sad things, and words are all I have to work with, so I have to remind myself to take a break from work every so often and recharge the batteries, which is what I'm doing for the next two weeks.
No plans to stray far from home or blog and lots of lovely things penciled in the diary, including a visit from Mrs KFC and friends from Canada which we are more than over-excited about. They will be staying at a nearby 'very nice hotel' and we shall be serving Devon cream tea on the verandah because how can we not. It's also the annual village Cherry Fair whilst they are here, so if Canada wishes to witness traditional English village mayhem with a good old rural wellie-throwing contest and Guess the Weight of the Cake we will be able to oblige.
It's a very scaled down Dartington for me this year because for reasons various ( to do with publicity and marketing requirements) I have declined the kind offer of six free tickets, and will be paying my own way just like the old days. I am planning to see Per Peterson whose latest novel The Curse of the River of Time I have just finished, Charlotte Moore speaking about Hancox, Lyndall Gordon on Emily Dickinson, Jon McGregor speaking about Even the Dogs and Carol Drinkwater... the first Mrs Herriot in the TV series All Creatures Great and Small and now the author of the very successful Olive Farm series. Carol has very kindly done a lovely dovegreyreader asks... for us which will be on here soon, and I'm really looking forward to meeting her next week.
I will hopefully be getting to Port Eliot again this year too.
I was very generously offered carte blanche for a dovegreyreader event which I'm embarrassed to say I declined in a bit of a panic and a sudden dearth of imagination (chicken...but next year I wonder about a knitting tent...or a quilting tent..) but I will be blogging around the festival and Offspringette may come along and blog about all the noisy things.
I meanwhile am very much looking forward to the Persephone Tea with Diana Athill, Margaret Drabble will be speaking too and you can be very sure I won't miss the new Flower Show which sounds quite amazing. I've been sent a sneak preview of  Michael Howell's designs for the set and it's fabulous, with a fantastic line up of events all set in the Orangery. This includes Alice Oswald's mother, gardener Mary Keen, talking about Growing Alice's Flowers and with recorded poetry readings by Alice....bliss and much more about that soon.
But even though we're not going away, it's holiday time and I need holiday reading so I've been having a gaze around the shelves because it would be a good time to settle down with a chunkster of a book.
I still haven't read A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel so that might make the cut if I fancy a bit of French Revolution.

Having heard Sue McGregor extolling the virtues of Norman Lewis on A Good Read a few weeks ago I have a stack of his books ready and waiting and dipping into the biography Semi Invisible Man by Julian Evans has also piqued my interest. Norman Lewis seems to be a highly respected, brilliant and much-loved writer about whom I know very little and I would like to know more...I've made a definite start on the biography and reading A Voyage By Dhow alongside I feel stellar praise for my new best friend Norm coming on.

                         
Seeing Peyton Place by Grace Metalious on Simon's selection for the NTTVBG Summer Reads reminds that I have it and have been meaning to, so I might.

There seems to be a buzz around The Clay Dreaming by Ed Hillyer, good recommends reach these shores, but it's 540 very big pages long so I might just chip away at that and see how I do.
This next one might not make for holiday reading, but arriving in the post another book which had me jumping up and down with excitement, others may not see it as quite so exciting but it's my sphere and I can't wait to read it, The Mind of the Child - Child Development in Literature, Science and Medicine, 1840-1900 by Sally Shuttleworth and published by Oxford University Press.

It is the most impressive looking book, scholarly and copiously referenced as you'd expect, so it will take me some time, but I have a feeling it will lead me nicely back into the nineteenth century novel.
So that's enough to keep me going, how about you...any good holiday reads lined up?

To Let....

The Barn Owl box has arrived, it's still got to go on top of the four metre pole, but the Des. Res. will be up soon...

There is good news...

Two good bits of news...well for Devon that is so don't get too excited.

The search party has been out this week, looking for Meg, the heavily pregnant Border Collie wearing the red collar who lives on the farm at the end of the lane. Meg went missing on Tuesday so Bookhound went off and searched the hedges and barns around us and also the streams.
We have a terrible soft spot for Border Collies, our firstborn dog was a gentle, cat-loving, wall-eyed Border Collie called Ben (seen here with Charlie, our first born cat) who preceded the children by five years, and then put up with them for twelve more, before passing over to that big pen in the sky where you're allowed to chase sheep as much as you like and not get the living daylights shouted out of you. Border Collies are apparently renowned for wandering off to die and Ben moved here with us and then tried his hardest to get lost, except we kept finding him...the final time lying in a water culvert the day before Christmas Eve and looking very sorry for himself so we finally got the message. Bookhound brought him home and we warmed him up by the Aga and let him eat chocolate bourbon biscuits all over Christmas (Ben not Bookhound) because we knew we were going to have to make the 'decision', which we did the day after Boxing Day, and of course we all howled right through to New Year and beyond.
So an evening of searching but no sign of Meg until we had a call from the farm yesterday... Meg found safe and well and nestled with her puppies under a big sheet of metal out in the field... clever Meg. Impossible to see the puppies yet, they are tucked out of sight and she won't let anyone near, but I expect we'll go and have a look and take the camera when she's good and ready and back in the barn.

And the other bit of good news...the barn owl house is arriving today and Western Power, who ominously knew our house in an instant, are also coming to check out how to erect the four metre pole with barn owl accommodation atop. Our familiarity with the services a throwback to the era of the mysterious and regular power cuts that we had a few years ago. There are real advantages to being on the same stretch of the National Grid as a 5* hotel because they brook no nonsense and charge Western Power £6000 a day for any interruption in electricity supply. After days and days of this, and us making countless cups of tea and consoling weeping electricians who couldn't sort it, they eventually brought in the helicopter which caught the culprit in the act... an itchy bullock rubbing up against the pole and dislodging the connections several fields away.

So come live with us soon barn owls (but firmly not, I am told, a Border Collie puppy) and having gone the whole Oswald recently I just knew I could rely on Alice for a few perfect words on the subject

Owl Village (extract)

There is a place between an owl
and a tall crowd of equal lines,
a wood of wishbone trees

Half air, half village,
it murmurs, like the mind upon the brain...

from The Thing in the Gap-Stone Stile

dovegreyquilting...

So all it took was one trip to the V&A museum and a quilt exhibition, a dip back into Beth Gutcheon's 1970s Patchwork Primer and there I am standing in front of the wooden blanket box containing quilts finished and unfinished, odds and ends half pieced, bags of bits half cut out with the final patterns long-forgotten and, if the inspiration of the exhibition is to be believed, a wealth of half-written stories of my own waiting to be completed. So I gave myself a jolly good talking too whilst I waded through and sorted the fabric stash... almost forty years of accumulating bits here and bits there which suddenly read like a history of my quilting life too as I looked at the fabrics and started sorting them.
In fact it's not as bad as it seems, much of it leftover from recognisable and completed projects...well alright, a little bit of it is.
But no plans to start anything new, I have plenty of UFOs to complete and finish including one that I vowed I wouldn't put on here again until it was finished and it's almost done so I'll unveil it soon, but then there's also the half-finished Millenium Quilt...which is now going to double as the 2012 Olympic Quilt too, clever eh.

The trouble is I can't quilt and watch, I can only quilt and listen (or talk)  and I wanted something involving and that I would look forward to, so I headed off to the library in search of a good long unabridged audio book.
That all took some time, not only because the choice is huge but because each one I picked up didn't feel like the right thing to be stitching into a quilt...because that what it would feel like, murders wouldn't do at all. In the end I settled on Stone's Fall by Iain Pears and in a single disc MP3 format. How very clever is all this, one whole book on one small disc.
What took even longer was the self service to check the thing out.
When did this all happen?
A circular arrangement of little booths with touch screens and then a cubby hole to slide your choices into which by some miracle of technology recognises the contents and tells the machine to print out a docket instructing you how much to pay (£1.80 for three weeks) and when to bring it back.
Then it's time to pay and that's the moment when you realise you only have a £20 note and any surplus will be credited to your library account, so you go and join the big queue of people who have by-passed the technology because they also don't have change, or the machine wouldn't work... or perhaps they just want to have sight of a librarian and hear the familiar ker-clunk of the date stamp.
When I suggested this to the librarian she commented wistfully that she was only a library assistant not a real librarian and wasn't allowed to call herself one, and I sensed hierarchy and discontent in the library system per se. I nearly offered to go and put a luddite hammer through the machine for her but I suppose it's all saving time and money, and freeing staff up to do other things.
It's been a while since I've done any serious quilting so it takes time to get my eye in again and turn out nice even stitches, but it comes eventually and the trick is to work the highly patterned bits first where it won't be quite so obvious that you're limping a bit.
It's lovely to be back with all my familiar notions...my twenty-year old wooden thimble (plum) is on its very last legs and I can't bear the thought of it disintegrating, it's already split and super-glued.

After nightmares of my own making with water-soluble markers pens down the years I always mark with chalk when I can, using this Japanese Chakoner (accept no substitutes) which I've also had for twenty years. It's filled with fine chalk dust and the tiniest wheel draws the finest lines.

Then I wax my quilting thread with one of two things, my own chunk of beeswax, or my mum's in the holder. I love to think of her running her quilting thread through this just the same as I do.

So I listened and I stitched, up to chapter twenty five so far, the size nine golden eye quilting between (why are they called 'betweens') needle fair flew along and suddenly you look down and there they are, a lovely neatish row of stitches and you wonder why you ever left off doing this.


 

Lady Day...

You could be forgiven for thinking that Lady Day is on March 25th not July 6th, and is actually about paying your rent on time, or traveling to your new farm, or celebrating the Feast of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary, or eating waffles if you live in Sweden, though perhaps not necessarily in that order.
Or perhaps you thought it was a tribute to Billie Holiday whose nickname was Lady Day.
I doubt you thought it was anything to do with a sneaking off to W.H.Smith's to take a look at a magazine but ye gods, today is The Lady day, the dovegreyreader interview with the very lovely Stephanie Cross. I have to say a very big thank you to Stephanie who took the trouble to travel all the way down here from London for the day and had gone to a great deal of effort in preparing her questions, and please don't ask how many pics Bookhound took before a few emerged that I was even half happy for Her Majesty to flick past...because indeed 'tis rumoured...

The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim ~ Jonathan Coe

Poor Maxwell Sim at least he's got seventy friends on Facebook....most of them complete strangers but he posts

'cheerful, ironically worded status updates to show them all what a busy life I was leading.'

Maxwell forty-eight years old, a misfit exhausted by his efforts to fit in and hoping his Hugo Boss jeans and Lacoste shirt will do the trick. A victim of the 21st century and born into the in-between generation who have perhaps known both worlds, the pre and post-computer age, those who have had to make choices about how much or how little of it to embrace and then wondered quite how to.
So he embraces Facebook when in fact the truth is much more worryingly stark,

'As for human contact, I'd lost all appetite for it. Mankind has, as you may have noticed, become very inventive about devising new ways for people to avoid talking to each other, and I've been taking full advantage of the most recent ones.'

Seemingly hopeless at reading social signs, it's a real effort to get alongside a first-person narrative character who appears wholly unreliable, and who if you met somewhere you might hastily judge as uninteresting or boring and move on... but that's the trouble, that's what everyone does to Maxwell in his eyes...in his eyes...that's important. There might be a limit to the conversation Maxwell and I could sustain on the subject of toothbrush sales for example, so when, in between jobs and suffering from depression after the breakdown of his marriage (and possibly before) Maxwell embarks on a four day sales and publicity trip for a newly designed toothbrush, I wondered quite where Jonathan Coe was taking me.
You see I told you didn't I?
Own up it's not really grabbing you is it?
And that cover's a bit garish isn't it...doesn't match the decor here at all.
Well I was almost deceived into thinking likewise and surrendering, but several threads intrigued me, and I have to confess kept me reading longer than I might have done, and how glad I am that I saw it through to the end with Maxwell, because what lies beneath, with its themes of 21st century isolation and loneliness, and the potential for a futile existence in the midst of so much technology, somehow pulled this together to the point where I couldn't put the book down.
And as for the final page...loved it loved it loved it...worth reading the book just to see what sleight of hand Jonathan Coe comes up with to round off his novel.
The action builds around the central plot of Maxwell's journey, both inner and outer, which Jonathan Coe anchors in the past as well as the techno-crazy present, with his use of the story of the voyage of Donald Crowhurst, thus demonstrating that perhaps this is not just a 21st century malaise after all. I barely recall the scandal of the mysterious voyage of lone sailor Donald Crowhurst back in the 1960s, when men still steered by the stars not the satellites, and could be incommunicado at sea for weeks on end, but I do recall the sense of national pride as Francis Chichester sailed home after his single-handed circumnavigation.
Somehow drawn into the Sunday Times £5000 round-the-world race which followed, Crowhurst set sail with barely the maritime experience to get him out of Teignmouth harbour, let alone around Cape Horn. He chose the route of deception with careful manipulation of log books, perfectly possible in those days, and decided to mosey up and down the African coast and rejoin the race nearer the end. Thus began Crowhurst's great and fateful unraveling as the deception became unsustainable and the depth of the lie he would have to live with for the rest of his life became apparent. 
The parallels, albeit in a minor key, become evident in Maxwell Sim's life too, he's similarly shipwrecked, just with a black Toyota Prius instead of a boat and a SatNav he calls Emma and talks to all the time.
One of Crowhurst's last poems, written before madness descended and he disappeared over the side of his boat, somehow encapsulates Maxwell's plight too

'Save some pity for the Misfit, fighting on with bursting heart;
Not a trace of common sense, his is not common flight.
Save, save him some pity. But save the greater part
For him that sees no glimmer of the Misfit's guiding light.

Chris Packham (he of Springwatch...used to have blond hair and do children's TV) enthused about the book The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst on the radio a while back so bells rang, but several other even funnier bells rang rang as I read.

Me...with a cup of tea in bed shouting down to Bookhound in the kitchen.

'What's that book called on the kitchen shelf?'

Which shelf...which book?'

'The book with the nice blue cover that I propped up because it matched the teapot...'

'Narrowboat...'

'Who's it by?'

'Rolt'


And finally Narrowboat, the book I bought for £1 because it had nice illustrations by Denys Watkins - Pitchford, and the cover looked a little Vanessa Bell-like, finds a place because Jonathan Coe mentions it at a key stage of his novel.
Then there's a priceless moment when Maxwell, parted from his wife joins an online parenting site and masquerades as a woman, befriending his wife, who then starts sending him her short stories, which of course feature the gaping flaws in their marriage...it's sad but funny rolled into one.
So in the end I was convinced and thoroughly enjoyed a book I didn't think I was going to, but I wonder, did all this work like magic for me in a way that it might not work for others?
If you've read this I'd love to know your thoughts...

NTTVBG Summer Reads

Happy Independence Day America. and having promised our summer holiday reading suggestions 4th July seemed like a good day to unveil them. We think we have pinned down eight good reads and plenty of variety, all of which which has involved some hilarity and many messages from Simon of Savidge reads who changed his mind daily :-)

Lynne of dovegreyreader

The Last Secret of the Temple by Paul Sussman (Bantam Press, 2006)

If summer holidays are about an exciting page-turner of a read in between dips in the sea and an ice cream (well that's what we do in Devon) then this book is perfect. An intelligently written and well-researched archaeological adventure as Egyptian Arab detective inspector finds himself teamed up with a worryingly bigoted Israeli counterpart and a Palestinian journalist in the search for an ancient artifact that must not fall into the wrong hands. The story spreads across the broadest of historical canvases...from ancient Jerusalem and the Crusades via Vichy France and the Nazi holocaust right through to present-day tensions in the Middle East but never loses its focus. Edge of the seat reading and countless unexpected plot twists might just have your ice cream melting because you forget to eat it.

The Great Western Beach - A Memoir of a Cornish Childhood Between the Wars by Emma Smith (Bloomsbury, 2009)

Whilst you're on the beach you might as well read about one, and if you happen to be in Newquay you can wander around Emma Smith's childhood haunts too. Life in 1920's Newquay was ordered,calm and pleasurable. There were social events, visiting and the tennis club to be enjoyed, dance classes and daily lessons with a local teacher, friendships to be forged amongst the children, a life by the sea to be enjoyed but hovering over all was Emma Smith's war-damaged father. Emma Smith has retrieved those memories over seventy years later as if yesterday. It has to be a huge achievement to write a child's voice memoir like this, without investing it with the wisdom and hindsight of adulthood. Even better not a hint of sliding down that slippery slope into Misery Memoir, a book you won't want to end.

Kirsty of Other Stories

The Loudest Sound and Nothing by Clare Wigfall (Faber, 2007)

This is one of my very favourite short story collections. If you're not going away over the summer, then you can travel in your imagination with these stories. Never have I read a collection which spans so many places, times, ages, and backgrounds. Never have I read an author who is as comfortable writing in the dialect of a remote Scottish island as she is in the drawl of the southern states of America. In part, this might be one of the benefits of Wigfall’s life to date: according to the dust jacket, she grew up between London and California and now lives in Prague. A wonderful collection to dip in and out of throughout the summer.

Rachel Ray by Anthony Trollope (Oxford World Classics, 2008 –originally published in 1863)

I always think that long summer holidays are the perfect time to lose yourself in a nice, fat Victorian novel and novels don't come fatter than those of Anthony Trollope. However, this time I've plumped for one of his shorter efforts, Rachel Ray. Despite there being important and serious themes running through the novel – the political, religious, commercial, and class warfare that permeates a community – it is also a funny book. Many of the characters have that slight Dickensian caricature about them, and many have wonderfully evocative names that would in no way be out of place in a Dickens story: Mr Prong, Miss Pucker, Mr and Mrs Tappitt (the brewers), Rev Comfort. Rachel Ray is a book rich in descriptions, and rich in characterization. There are shades of grey in everyone; everyone has good and bad qualities (don’t we all?) and there is hardly a character that doesn’t evoke both sympathy and frustration at various points. This is a great introduction to Trollope’s work.

Kim of Reading Matters

The Tortilla Curtain by TC Boyle (Bloomsbury Classic Reads, 2004)

If you like your summer reads to be entertaining but also meaty, with plenty to chew over and keep you turning the pages, then TC Boyle's 1996 novel will fit the bill perfectly. Set in California, it's a tale of the haves and have nots. There are two view points throughout, told in alternate chapters, which reveal the contrasts between the protectionist middle classes who live with a fortress mentality and the poverty-stricken illegal immigrants (from Mexico) who struggle to put food on their plate on a day-to-day basis despite the obvious and abundant wealth around them. The subject matter sounds heavy, but Boyle has such a lightness of touch and such a wicked sense of humour, that amid the tears there's also plenty of laughs, too. This is the type of book that stays with you long after you've reached the final page...

Valley of Grace by Marion Halligan (Allen & Unwin, 2009)

This exquisitely designed book will make you look tres cool by the swimming pool this summer - even if you don't read it. However, the content is equally divine: think Parisian streetscapes, chocolate shops, Antiquarian bookshops, beautiful gardens and crumbling old houses in need of tender loving care. Oh, and babies. This is a gorgeous collection of interwoven short stories set in modern day Paris. There's a fairy tale quality to the writing, which makes Valley of Grace seem like a light, frivolous read, but scratch the surface and there's a lot going on here, about hope and children and the ties that bind us together. Delicious.

Simon of Savidge Reads

Peyton Place – Grace Metalious (Virago Press, 2009 – originally published in 1956)

I know people always say that the summer months are for reading something lighter, something easier and many people might think Peyton Place is one such book because of its ‘trashy’ tag that it sadly gained. It’s not trash at all but an insightful, gossipy and most importantly of all well written novel about the goings on behind closed doors in a picturesque New England town. You will be gripped both by some of the dark storylines and their twists and turns but also by the wonderful characters. It’s pure escapism, but very well written escapism. Perfect for curtain twitcher’s or people watchers who want a little something salacious in the summer months and one that’s wonderfully written.

Mudbound – Hillary Jordan (Windmill Books, 2008)

It always amazes me that this book isn’t better known because it’s marvellous! I am always a fan of authors who can take to a vast amount of places, through some unique characters and push you through several emotions all in a short space of time and with ‘Mudbound’ Hillary Jordan does that and more (I actually gasped and cried at this book I am unashamed to say). Set in the Mississippi Delta in 1946 we meet Henry and Laura McAllan take over a cotton farm, just as they are burying someone. Intrigued, you should be. What then follows is an epic (if you can have such a thing in 330ish pages) tale of war, slavery, racism and a love that shouldn’t be. This ticks all the boxes for a meatier summer read and will resonate with you long after, it’s a must read any season.

Boundaries...

I've just been filling in the forms to renew my passport this week...not that I'm going anywhere but I always like to be able to flee the country if necessary, and I have been following the draconian rules about crosses in boxes and then the photos, my word the photos
Colour, taken within the last month, 45mm x 35mm, close up with the head height from chin to crown of between 29mm and 34mm, clear focus, plain grey/cream background, free from shadows, facing forwards, no hair across eyes, preferably no glasses, neutral expression, no baby's dummy in mouth, no red eye...
and then that final dire warning about the signature which must under no circumstances extend beyond the edges of the box.
On a normal day my signature does exactly that so I have to assert a great deal of self-restraint to stop it flourishing way across the lines.
As I walked away from my desk there was senior cat Muffy, sun-puddling and keeping her signature pose well within the boundaries ...clever cat.

dovegreylife...,

Please forgive the extreme indulgence while I congratulate a child of ours, but before I do, I wonder if any of your nearest and dearest has done something to make you proud recently,

...or the dog's won the Pet Most Like Its Owner prize,
...or you've just had some really good news...anything at all... would you consider sharing it in comments if you want to so we can all offer congratulations?
Let's just have ourselves a great big brag-and-boastathon and enjoy some feel-good factor for a change, because I  don't know about you but a deluge of cheery news would be the perfect antidote to oil, budgets and football.
Go on, go for it.
So our good news...A little voice came on the phone and said 'I'm a real teacher', and we all jumped up and down because Offspringette has passed muster at the end of her PGCE year to teach Culture & Media in secondary schools, and nabbed the grade of  'Outstanding'  for her efforts. Wouldn't her very first Head Mystery (as Offspringette called the Head Mistress at her infant's school) have been rightly proud of her, as are we.
Stand by your desks, who'd have thought we'd have a teacher in our midst!
And now in Orkney for some rest and relaxation before heading off down the UK, project managing a John O'Groats to Land's End charity skate, bless the child, she found her mother some wool and sent it by post.


Bookhound meanwhile is sick with anticipation over the stamp of approval for planning permission for his little building project, and we can but hope it arrives soon. Much to our surprise we've been sent a letter... 'To the Occupant' ....from the Planning Department saying that building work is planned in our vicinity and do we have any objections.
We've decided after a great deal of thought, and taking all things into consideration, not to object to our own planning application or to find fault with Bookhound's own hand drawn plans, so we are hoping it will get the green light, because the odd exploratory trench does seem to have appeared already, and it would be a real shame to have to fill them all in again.
It's like Time Team out there, this is the very complicated bore-hole versus spring water supply exposed...

...and talking of feeling sick...well I was a bit queasy last week and perhaps all may have been explained when Bookhound confessed that he had inadvertently (and not for very long he assures me) switched the unpurified spring water supply into the house.

'There's probably a dead sheep up there! ' I exclaimed in less than measured tones.
'And we've been drinking from the equivalent of the Broad Street Pump? ' so I am just thankful not to have succumbed to cholera.

But in between investigating his trenches and while he's waiting on permissions, Bookhound has taken the apple trees by the branches and gone off to join the local apple growers' group  (you see I told you this was exciting), attending an evening on all things apple but mainly paying attention to the words 'juice', 'cider' and 'scrumpy' which is the plan, because we can now hire crushers and pasteurizers. He was also more than a little delighted to be sitting but a few seats away from a direct descendant of Henry Merryweather who we have to thank for the Bramley's Apple of which we have several.
Anyway once he's been to the Pruning Day (heck is he excited about that) our trees will smarten up and fruit in profusion apparently, but this is the year that we pledge to ourselves that the apples won't be wasted