The Twelve, July 2024

 

Another six books have been completed since I last posted.

Two by Tana French, The Secret Place and The Likeness. They were enjoyable although both were far too clever for their own good. As crime fiction should be. I think that itch has been dealt with for a while although I do have a Denise Mina waiting in the wings.

And speaking of crime - I'll Be Gone  In The Dark by Michelle McNamara, a true account of the search for a serial rapist and killer in California. I liked it. Very well written. McNamara died before it was published and I found myself more interested in her than the killer who, like most of his ilk, was mediocre and underwhelming.

I raced through Pet. Five stars. I want to read everything Catherine Chidgey has written and I am grateful to my Irish/Kiwi cousin for the recommendation.

Then I completed reading According to Queeney by Beryl Bainbridge. It didn't grip me as much as some of Bainbridge's other books. Still a decent read. And, at times, bloody comical. I shall read it again when I'm eighty.

I picked up a copy of The Seventh Son by Sebastian Faulks somewhere last week. Tesco charity bookshelves, Oxfam? Cannot remember. Read it in four days. (Remember I'm also reading eleven other books concurrently.) Could not put it down. There were some of the same themes as Human Traces but it was much more accessible. An exhilarating and enjoyable read that left me thinking about what it is to be a human being. I loved it.

Not reading but I did start listening to All Quiet On The Western Front. I will never be able to gather strawberries again without recalling the suffering of horses on the battlefield. I know the men suffered too but there must be something less harrowing to listen to whilst gardening. 

Twelve

The depths of the wood

Twelve will be my new magic number. Twelve batches of wine at a time, for dealing with 20-25 makes it seem like a job which is probably why I ignored all two dozen flagons in the year 2019. It's all been sorted now bar the bottling and the drinking and I'm down to 17 gallons.

Also, twelve books on the reading pile. That had crept up to eighteen and reading was becoming just another chore. I finished three last week and have not added any others, not even the Sara Baume that Hannah gave me for Christmas. My current top book is The Secret Commonwealth and I'm still reading Human Traces.

We watched Dunkirk last night and I enjoyed it. Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy. How could I not? Bert said it was OK. Not his favourite war film. He prefers darkness, I like heroes. I'm simple like that.

A Foggy Night

I set the alarm last night for 5:15am as I wanted to see the Super Blood Wolf Moon. The name alone was fantastic. I said to Bert,

No doubt, as per usual, there will be clouds and we'll see nothing. If it's good do you want me to wake you?

He said,

Only if it's amazing.

I went to bed, read from three books,

A Monster Calls, Patrick Ness
Who We are, Dee Roslyn
Human Traces, Sebastian Faulks...

Then turned out the light and tried to sleep which wasn't easy as my feet were FREEZING.

Jess wakened me sometime around three or four, whining, wanting to go downstairs. I looked out the window and saw it was misty outside. It turned out the dog was thirsty and as she lapped from her bowl I went outside. Despite the fog, the moon was visible and was mostly eclipsed.  Perhaps two-thirds. I returned to bed and slept almost immediately. Two hours later the alarm went off. Totality! I hurried downstairs. The fog had thickened and there was no moon to be seen. Back to bed with a cup of coffee and some more A Monster Calls then back to sleep until nine o'clock.

When I eventually got up I wondered if seeing the partially eclipsed moon had just been a lovely dream.

Three Fine Days

Recently I have slipped back to that bad habit of getting up late. It is certainly delightful to snuggle under the duvet in the morning but getting up after 9 feels so wrong. The days are getting shorter now and it is a waste of the light. So I've given myself a jolly good talking-to and will be making every effort to climb out of bed at least an hour earlier.

Another change I have to make is to get outdoors more. I have decided that if the day is dry I will find something to do outside rather than lurk in the house. In the past two days have been working in my vegetable plot and in my flower garden. I have been foraging for blackberries. I have been watching the buzzards and I have been drinking coffee and reading the Sunday papers in the poly tunnel which is far, far, far nicer than drinking coffee and reading papers on the kitchen sofa. I have been wheeling barrows of dung , sowing and harvesting vegetables and collecting seed.

It is going to rain tomorrow. It is going to teem and lash and blow for it is Monday. Now I don't know if anyone else from Cully has noticed this but it always rains on Mondays, usually in the afternoon. I think it might have been fine for a couple of Mondays in May but not since. Even after a pleasant spell, like the past three days, I can be sure it will rain on Monday.

The reason I can be certain about this is because my oldest daughter and her family always come out here on Monday afternoons to work on their vegetable plots. And it is always raining when they are here. Luckily, for them, a good part of their plot is in the poly tunnel, so they don't get too disheartened.

I'm just sorry I cannot go blackberrying tomorrow. It is very fine and pleasant to wander up the hedgerows listening to Sebastian Faulks' 'Birdsong' with Judy at my heels and a bunch of cattle ignoring me.

Bert said,

That wee black bull. He wasn't harrassing you?

The wee black bull? Would he?

Aye. He's getting very belligerent.

I don't think I'd have been in that field with Judy had I known that the wee black bull was getting airs about himself.

So there it is. Two days out in the open air. Working! And I feel a lot happier even though I've got a sore shoulder (right side), a sore elbow (left side) and sore knees (both). At least I didn't get attacked by the wee black bull. That would have been hard to take and it only two weeks since I got tossed and trodden on by that pig.