November walk

Can you see the dragon sitting on the wall above. I didn't spot it at the time I took the photo - must be magic left over from Hallowe'en?

Sun and snow in October

Glad to hear the ladies of the UN Women's Guild book group in Geneva enjoyed An Old-Fashioned Arrangement last week and found plenty to discuss.

Sorry not to have been blogging but have been surrounded by family/children and also doing good works - Son 3, in his charming manner, is forcing me to make a start on clearing the loft. Fascinating rubbish up there, that's the trouble, but we have already made one trip to the dump, sorry, I mean household waste recycling facility. Next stop charity shop.

Outside the village pub. Recent reading.

Recent reading:

Blown away, horrified and gripped. That’s how I felt reading This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff. But I didn’t quite believe every word. The narrator confesses he was a liar and I wasn’t sure what was true and what wasn’t. This is now a set book in schools, I gather, and it is a brilliantly drawn memoir of the author’s boyhood involving his charming mother, hopeless with men, and his unpleasant backwoodsman stepfather. Do read it. (I expect my US friends already have.)

I enjoyed Sue Gee’s The Mysteries of Glass eventually, but, though her descriptions of the Herefordshire countryside in Victorian times were excellent, I found the characters weren’t strong enough to draw me in until finally, after 200 pages, something happened. Then I was hooked, but I nearly didn’t stay the course. This book made the Orange longlist in 2005 and is, indeed, well written – the beautiful misty repressed atmosphere stayed with me.