A few quick thoughts

I've been doing some reading, but haven't posted my thoughts for a while. One book I found an interesting read was Richard Flanagan's The Narrow Road to the Deep North, which was 2014's Booker prize winner. The story of Darrigo Evans, a Tasmanian who becomes a doctor just before the Second World War. He joins the Australian army , becomes an officer and is eventually posted to the Asian theatre of war, where he becomes a prisoner of the Japanese and one of the many men who were forced to build the notorious Burma railway. A large part of the book describes the appalling conditions of that situation, but also tells of Darrigo's attempts to make life easier for the men. In contrast to the horror of war, Darrigo's experiences with women, his wife and others are tenderly narrated.


I actually enjoyed Niall Williams The History of the Rain more, although it was only (!) longlisted for the 2014 Man Booker prize. Narrated by Ruth Swain, lying in her attic bedroom under a skylight streaming with rain, surrounded by her father's library.Although it seemed a little slow to get into, when Ruth begins to tell her family story, I became absorbed in the book. We all have family stories behind us, as well as making our own. Ruth tells of how her father grew up, how his family first came to Ireland, how her parents met and her father's attempts at farming on their 14 aces of unsuitable land. Ruth's comments on the events around her are delightfully sharp and funny, and the writing is lovely. Ruth's descriptions of her father's books and her relationship to a huge number of individual titles is fascinating, as is the importance of actual physical books to her, her father and grandmother.
A wonderful story of lives as they are being lived, about human failings and sadness, but also about hope and persistence.

D J Taylor's The Windsor Faction starts from the assumption that Wallis Simpson died on the operating table and that Edward VIII carries on as king. It's a "What if history had been different" story, which makes for interesting fiction, especially as in this tale, several of the characters are real. The extracts from the diaries of Beverly Nichols are a nice touch - I've only read a few of his gardening books in the past, and Edwards behaviour seems to be based on the many biographies and memoirs that are about him. We also get a different point of view, that of Cynthia Kirkpatrick, who returns to England from Ceylon as World War Two breaks out. Cynthia becomes a secretary at a literary magazine, and also is involved with Tyler Kent  and eventually is asked to work for MI5. The atmosphere of what is called "the phony war" is evoked very well, and the whole story is enjoyable, especially as we know the eventual outcome of the war in real life, but is not apparent at the end of this story.

Autumn and a sewing room

While waiting for and having some work done on our French house, we've been enjoying some fine weather in the Auvergne - that is, up until the last few days, when it has become much cooler and cloudier. My husband has had some beautiful cycle rides while I've been walking and occasionally swimming in the indoor pool in Mauriac. The glorious autumn colours surrounding us when we first arrived are now almost gone, with just the occasional tree still with some brightness left.

I've also done some sewing, as I now have a sewing room, a small narrow room with its own tiny balcony, where I can leave sewing projects, instead of having to move them off the dining table every time we have a meal. I have made in it so far a dust cover for my ancient Bernina sewing machine, an infinity scarf from pieces left over from older projects (as was the dust cover) and have embarked on some machine embroidery. I'll probably still use the dining table for cutting out, as the desk (IKEA) is not very wide.

My Wedding Dress

My Wedding Dress was made by me, using a Vogue  Designer Original Belinda Belville pattern. It has quite a lot of hand stitching round the lace edged sleeves and bodice top. Here it is on display in my local church, when there was a flower and craft festival last year. The theme was the circle of life , so included craft items and flower displays on baptisms, weddings, Easter, Christmas, tea parties and many other celebrations. The church was filled with gorgeous flower displays . My wedding was in October 1980, so the style reflects the fashion at that time. It was comfortable to wear, but as it has 17 tiny fabric covered buttons down the centre back, with rouleaux loop fastenings, is impossible to get into unaided.

Linking to

albeit a day late.

Two good reads

I've enjoyed two of my most recent reads. One was a book club read, the Wolf Border by Sarah Hall and the other was The Round House by Louise Erdrich.
Sarah Hall's  story has a fairly feisty heroine, Rachel, who starts out as a free spirit, leading a project studying wolves in Montana. She pays a brief visit home, to visit her mother in Cumbria,, returns to the wolf reservation where she is working and has a brief fling with a Kyle, a fellow worker and Native American. After the sudden death of her mother, Rachel returns to Cumbria when offered a job involving the bringing back to Britain of a pair of wolves, into a reserve set up by an aristocrat, Thomas.
Rachel settles into the familiar Cumbrian landscape, then discovers she is pregnant. There is a lot of comparison with the newly -imported wolves and their breeding and Rachel's pregnancy and eventual motherhood. Her ambivalent emotions are described very well. I enjoyed Sarah Hall's writing, which can be lyrical in her description of the local environment, and also almost staccato when describing meetings and talk between her characters. The contrast of Thomas and his son and daughters lives with Rachel and her team of co- workers is well brought out, and her difficult relationship with her younger brother and his wife, childless but not through choice is tenderly discussed.an interesting and topical read, as there is much public discussion about the re-wilding of Britain; elsewhere in Europe where wolves are successfully increasing their range in the French Alps, Italy and Spain, the discussion is about how farmers might be compensated for loss of livestock attacked by wolves.

The Round House by Louise Erdrich is a quite different read.It is written from the point of view of Joe, a 12 year old Native American, whose mother is attacked and raped, The story concerns the consequences of this act for Joe, an only child , and his parents. It also covers some Native American legends, as well as the legal side of reservation life. I really cared about Joe and his group of friends as they dealt with the complexities of the adult world around them, as well as the problems the attack on Joe's mother had brought to the whole community.
I found this an interesting read, showing a part of modern American life of which I knew very little. Louise Erdrich is an award winning novelist and poet, as well as being part Ojibwe Native American, so writes from a particular point-of-view.
I had this on my bookshelves for a couple of years, then saw a copy in a French bookshop,  and plucked it off my shelves to read and enjoy.

Sloe gin

While on a recent walk up to the Col d'Aulac, above the vallee du Mars in the Auvergne, we came across a sloe bush, bearing a small but healthy-looking crop. So we picked as many as we could reach, and now those same little berries are macerating in a mix of sugar and gin, waiting for the gin to turn a beautiful ruby red colour and to taste of those same sloes. Last time I made sloe gin here, I froze the fruit overnight, then bottled it, this time I just pricked them a couple of times with a sharp -pointed knife, put them in a glass jar, added the sugar and then the gin. I'll give the jar a good shake over the next few days until the sugar has dissolved, then put it away until later in the yea, or even next year.

From the Col, you get a lovely view of the whole valley and the surrounding mountains. Well worth the climb of over 400 metres. This view was taken on the way up, not quite at the top.

Summer reading

I've recently read Nan Shepherd's The Living Mountain and enjoyed it, Her detailed descriptions of being, walking, sleeping and closely observing life on the Cairngorms are beautifully written and helped to give me a little more insight into the life of the mountains with which I am currently surrounded in the Cantal. The plateaux are used extensively for cattle rearing, both for milk, which is made into Cantal cheese, and for beef - meat from the Salers breed is highly valued and thus commands a higher price. Cantal cheese is found all over France and elsewhere , usually in its Vieux (Old or Aged) and Entre Deux (literally between two) forms.  Both are a bit like cheddar in texture, but with their own distinctive taste. The youngest form, Tomme de Cantal  is softer and milder and is used mainly for cooking, especially with potatoes to make aligot or truffade.
We occasionally walk up to the Plateaux de Trizac and once up there the feeling of space is immense. Last month we walked up the other side of the valley, almost up to the Promenade des Estives, a track which goes along the crest of the hills between two valleys, the Mars and the Auze.

The plateaux du Trizac

My other readngs have been quite mixed, varying from the light-hearted Lucia in London by E F Benson, which I think I enjoyed even more than the two previous novels in this series. I feel that I am familiar with Lucia and her social climbing attitudes, so could sit back and just enjoy the tale for what it was., a highly amusing tale of social climbing at its most obvious.
Alan Titchmarsh's tale "The Haunting" had some particular interest as it was set in Winchester and the Itchen valley, a very lovely part of Hampshire,  and familiar territory to me. The story concerns a school teacher who after his marriage fails, buys a small cottage with access  through an overgrown garden to the River Itchen, The cottage and the house next door were formerly part of an old mill, and the story of those who occupied the place in the past has resonances with Harry and his neighbour Alex and her young daughter.Anne. A fairly quick read but one which held my attention'
Sebastian Barry's On Canaan's Side was aquite different story, being narrated by an eighty-nine year old Irishwoman, Lily Bere, who had fled to America just after the First World War, with Tadg, to whom she has become engaged. Lilly looks back on her long life, bringing up a son, and later a grandson, who has just killed himself. Lily's life has been one of loss, but she has also found some sort of contentment though her employer, Mrs Wolohan, who herself suffers grievous losses.
Not a particularly summery read, but a gripping  and memorable tale.
Saplings by Noel Streatfield tells the story of four middle -class children, and their parents, and how all are affected by war. Seen at first as a happy family group enjoying a typical middle-class holiday at Eastbourne just before the start of the second World War, the story  soon hints at the chaos and disasters to come. After war is declared the children  are first evacuated to their grandparents in the country and are later sent away to boarding school, and separated from each other during summer holidays. The loss of their father Alex, who was more sympathetic to his children's emotional needs than their mother Lena, and of the home in London, was disastrous for them. I thought this a very interesting read and as someone who was at boarding while parents were abroad working, had a good deal of sympathy for the situation the children found themselves in. Their point of view is made clear to the reader, but not to the adults they are dependant on for their well-being,

H is for Hawk

My book group recently read Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawk, which won ,amongst other prizes last year, the Costa book of the year award.  I enjoyed the read, although  some others found it hard to get into and some also struggled to finish it. It was intriguing, with its beautiful and lyrical writing about nature when Helen is training and eventually flying Mabel outside. The descriptions of the English countryside even in winter inspired me to look for the beauty in the barest of winter landscapes when out and about in it. Contrasted with this was a near academic dissertation of T H White's The Goshawk, his story of trying to train a goshawk in the way that Helen Macdoanld was doing. There was also quite a lot of information about early books on the training of hawks, which I personally found interesting.
The author seemed to have been an observer rather than a participant as a child, which was when she first read The Goshawk and became passionate about hawks.
We did have some discussion about her description of the grief she felt at the sudden death of her father, which was obviously a shock to the whole family and concluded that the training of Mabel was an eventually successful effort to overcome her grief.
All i n all, this is a worthwhile read and a memorable one.