Good evening everyone.
It's hard to believe that this time last week we had as much as a foot of snow even down here near the river, and that my friend just 5 miles north of here was virtually snowed in for days. Another friend whose house is at the end of a farm track only got it cleared at the end of the week - it was impassable until then even though she is pretty intrepid and drives a Land Rover Defender. She and her husband walked up the hill bear their house - she said it usually takes them an hour there and back, but in the deep virgin snow it took three. However, she loved it, took some beautiful photos, and said it felt more like a moonscape.
Fortunately for us, although the weather we had was extreme by recent standards, it was nothing as compared to yours, which sounds absolutely awful. Nobody I knew lost power at all, and although some houses near me did have no water for one day, that was because of a local burst water main, and water could be obtained from friends in other parts of the community, or indeed bottled from our shops. My husband was away for the whole thing, as he was right down in Hampshire for his late father's funeral. I didn't take my car out for 2 weeks, but that is because i am pathetic, as it is 4 x 4 and could easily have managed - but I really didn't need to drive anywhere, our local shops are good. I managed to walk each day, but none of my friends wanted to try it, so they were solitary walks, and much of the time I was just looking at my feet to try to avoid slipping. But the snow was truly beautiful too.
And now the temperatures have shot up, almost all of the snow has melted - and as a result, the Dee is overwhelmed with melt coming down from the Cairngorms, the river has burst it banks, the road bridge has had to be closed by the police, the path I usually walk has been submerged for days - but there are other walks. Yesterday I took the paths and backroads to Drum, and saw almost no-one apart from the guys at the farm. Today I met my friend at Castle Fraser and we had the most wonderful morning on the estate - blue skies, sunshine, birds singing madly. It does lift the heart. I even bought the first bag of compost this year on my way home (though this will no doubt guarantee rain for the next 3 months...) And another one of my avocado stones has grown a shoot - I have repotted it and soon it can join the one I did last year, which is now quite big and healthy. The instructions I found online say 'avocadoes love the sun' - well don't we all after a hard winter?! I've been moving them around trying to find the best spot, but like many newish houses this one has no decent windowsills - why do builders do that?
Anyway, back to the books!
I have been keeping up with the 28 Day reading challenge on twitter and have made the following choices:
Day 6:
a book you couldn’t put down.
RC Sherriff’s The Fortnight in September & Marghanita Laski’s The Village; loved them so much I could not bear to tear myself away.
Day 7:
a book that has your favourite colour on the cover. I’m not sure that I even have a favourite colour, but I do like these.
Day 8:
your favourite book title. So many! But I’ve managed to get it down to three that I find especially evocative:
William Trevor: The News from Ireland
Dorothy Baker: Cassandra at the Wedding
John Berger: And our faces, my heart, brief as photos
Day 9:
your current read(s!)The Alice B Toklas Cook Book
The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards
Broadiach to Bervie by Jim Fiddes
Scones and Scoundrels by Molly McRae
Day 10:
a book you bought off a recommendation.I buy numerous books recommended by my favourite bloggers, most recently;
Jane Oliver: Business as Usual
Penelope Mortimer: Saturday Lunch with the Brownings
Day 11:
the last book you recommended to someone.It was probably one of these two, though I appreciate the second is quite niche!
The Bachelor Brothers’ Bed & Breakfast by Bill Richardson (@StMartinsPress)
Brodiach to Bervie by Jim Fiddes
Day 12:
A book you read in school. We were forced through many books at school, most of which I loathed on principle. But I did enjoy LP Hartley's
The Go-Between, and remember sneaking into the cinema, under age, to see the film.
Day 13:
Your oldest book.
Josephine and Her Dolls by Mrs HC Cradock. I’m not sure if this is my oldest book or not, but it’s one I loved as a child (even though it was already old then, & the chances of me getting my dolls, or indeed anything else, sent round from Harrods as Josephine did were somewhat slim.)
Day 14:
A book that was turned into a film:
So many! But favourites include:
Patricia Highsmith: The Price of Salt (
Carol: Cate Blanchett & Rooney Mara, both wonderful)
Dodie Smith: 101 Dalmatians
John Buchan: The 39 Steps
C Dickens: Great Expectations
Day 15:
a book that should be turned into a film.
I found this one quite difficult. I’m going to suggest Fannie Flagg’s ‘A Redbird Christmas’, if only because I’d like to see the Alabama scenery. But I enjoyed the story too.
I've actually finished Scones & Scoundrels now. It is a cosy mystery set in a bookshop and cafe in a fictional Highland coastal town (reminded me of Ullapool). The cafe/bookshop belong to three American women and one who is Scottish but who has lived most of her life in the US. An writer who spent her childhood in the town, but has lived all her adult life in a cabin in the remote Canadian forest, is invited to spend three months in the town as a visiting author. attached to the school but also doing other events. Shortly after she turns up - and turns out to be very eccentric, demanding and rude - a young man is murdered at the back of the local pub. After that a few more murders take place. The four women (who apparemtly solved another murder in the first book, which I haven't read) set out to 'help' the police.
The premise of this book was not bad - although these days you would definitely need a secure private income even to think about opening a bookshop, especially in a town totally reliant on tourist trade, which is limited to the few months of summer (and this is without covid). But I do like books set in bookshops and libraries, so I gave this a go. There were, however, quite a few issues; the four women's characters were never really developed - you knew almost nothing more about them at the end than you did at the beginning; the language was smattered with American words, which was fine if it was one of the American women speaking, but not if it was the local teacher, who's spent her entire life in the town. British people do not say 'I'm having a party Friday' but 'I am having a party on Friday', a 'purse' in the UK is a small thing to keep your cash and maybe credit cards in. What Americans call a purse, we call a handbag. So she should not have another character. also locally born and bred, saying 'I must go back for my purse, it has my keys, my book, (etc) in it.'
But the worst error was a glaring one - we are told that one of the daughters of the shopkeeper is at 'St Andrew's University in Aberdeen'. Aberdeen is a city. It has two universities, one is the University of Aberdeen, the other is Robert Gordon's University. St Andrew's University is one of the most famous seats of learning in Scotland. It is in St Andrew's, a beautiful place in Fife (& home of the famous golf course). Prince William went there, and indeed met his wife-to-be there. It is extremely popular with American students and makes a great deal of money out of them. It is SIXTY TWO miles from Aberdeen. I do think the author should have checked this, and an editor should surely have picked it up?
These things really grate on me. There weren't as many slips as in the last GM Malliet novel I read, which really was appalling for this. And I do completely acknowledge that UK writers who set their books in the US also make mistakes - someone has pointed out to me that he read such a book in which the author persisted in calling an American sidewalk a pavement, and that is no more excusable - sloppy.
I've just started something completely different -
Little Plum by Rumer Godden.. When Madeleine was little she and I loved
The Doll's House, also by Godden, which is about the house's inhabitants, and features the extremely creepy Miss Marchpane as well as the sweet-natured Tottie. From an early age Madeleine always preferred the strange and subversive stories to the rather more mainstream stuff that he sister read.
Little Plum is concerned with two little Japanese dolls. I know nothing else about it but the cover is beautiful. I found it on my shelves and thought I'd give it a try. I have also taken down
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, which got good reviews when it first came out - but I see that some people weren't as enthusiastic as others. Has anyone of us read it?
I'd better stop now!
Hope everyone is restored to better weather, full power, and water in the taps.
Rosemary
