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This week we’ve been madly planning the church fete and panicking about the appalling weather forecast. By Thursday lunchtime it seemed obvious we must put up tents, if only so we could set up during the day: no good the sun coming out for the evening if we weren’t ready to go. The clouds looked billowy and grey periodically on Friday, but in fact I now have a ridiculous T-shirt tan that will take weeks of sunshine to loose. I’m not complaining you understand: the glorious weather brought out the village and its surrounds en masse and we had a great evening (well, I expect we did. I don’t know how much we made yet, was busy running my allotted stall and hoping the llama had turned up, but you know what I mean.) The llama was much admired ‘though I never met the kind owner with whom I now have an e-mail relationship. Must thank him! Packing up this morning everyone was congratulating one another on a great evening.
Also this morning I have packed Youngest off on her French Exchange. She suddenly got tearful and has been worriting. I suspect she isn’t sure she can keep up good or even merely tidy behaviour for a whole week. But I’m looking forward to hearing she’s having a lovely time and managed not to be sick on the journey. The photos are the two sides of a tea cosy which I have sent to the French mummy. (Her daughter bought her a teapot when she visited us.) I am very pleased with the ‘ensemble unique’ of it all!
Have just finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: I couldn’t put it down. And yes, there was lots of revolting violence.
I always have a book on the go. I love a well plotted thriller. I’ve read everything I could find by P .D. James and have to wait for her next. I’m now onto the other things Henning Mankell has written because I’ve read all the Kurt Wallanders. There was a time when I read everything by James Clavell, Ian Fleming, Robert Ludlum, Alistair MacLean, Wilbur Smith, Len Deighton…. They’re not all strictly crime writers, more adventure storytellers, but they have their share of graphic description of appalling human behaviour.
What I’m getting at, perhaps too heavy handedly, is that crime fiction is full of nasty crime. The first in the Millennium Trilogy is brilliantly plotted, full of interesting characters and largely well translated (I had issues with some odd sentences that didn’t sound quite right).
I love a mystery to solve, but I prefer to read about them: I don’t want to see the bloodbaths and brutality. My imagination is sufficient illustration. So I haven’t watched Luther, or Waking the Dead, Trial and Retribution, Silent Witness and Wire in the Blood which have exercised other people so much, and I doubt I'll go to see the Dragon Tattoo film. It’s not that I’m not prepared to see any violence, or a horrific crime scene, but I like something with an engaging narrative, the possibility that I could solve the clues and that isn’t relentlessly grim. I watched early Waking and Witness episodes and found them unlikely frankly. And I loved Bond and Bourne at the cinema! They were exciting films, although in these more graphic days some of the scenes were very hard to look at – I’d have been behind the sofa at home.
Will need to find out what next is in store for Lisbeth Salander, ‘though I suspect it won’t be any less horrible.
We found a fledgling in the garden on Saturday afternoon. A starling, lying on his side, very still. He tried to escape when we approached, but it was fairly half-hearted. When he was in full sun we moved him gently into the shade. When there was still no sign of his parents and there was no shade left, we scooped him up into a box and took him indoors. Youngest spent the rest of the afternoon and evening getting water and soggy bread into him. We did not expect him to last the night. There were tears.
On Sunday he ate little bits of hamburger and got stronger. He spread his wings, he stood up very briefly, he went round and round in circles on his side. And he chirped. But we did not expect him to last the night. She was braver.
A school day, so Husband and I spent the morning feeding him raw mince. We were rewarded by much more chirping. I rang a local animal sanctuary, the vet and the RSPCA. We now know we should have used mashed hardboiled egg and bread is not a good idea for young birds. According to the animal sanctuary the vet must look at wild animals for free. According to the vet you should call the RSPCA to get a log number so that they can be paid. And the RSPCA will log your creature and send you to the vet, but would like you to sign up as a member. I’m afraid I only promised a donation.
The vet himself was sympathetic and complimentary of the care given, but on closer inspection found that the ‘poor little chap’ had a claw wound in the side of his head. We thought he had fallen from a nest on the roof of our house, but it seems he had fledged but got caught by one of the local cats. The vet felt that he might live, but he could never be a self sufficient starling. A lethal injection was administered. A quiet death and he had had some comfort, not a brutal end alone. I don’t think a cat counts as a natural predator. I don’t like it when the sparrow hawks pinch a sparrow from under our noses, but I’m very excited to see them!
The garden is full of wildlife at the moment. There are birds everywhere. The nests we know about include the starlings, some blue tits in a nest box in the pyracantha and ‘our’ house martins are at home. Last week we were playing spot the frog, this weekend there were half a dozen in the pond. The tulips are over, but the lilac, irises and aquilegia are in full bloom and the roses are covered in buds. Life goes on.
Looks like they’re going to try and play nicely after all. I don’t suppose the media will help that last.
Yesterday Husband and I went shopping. Five years ago, when it became clear he needed civilian shirts and suitable attire for dress down Fridays in his then job, we went shopping for chinos, cords and stripy shirts. This time we bought jeans and casual trousers suitable for being a current student and a future student teacher. Of course we still needed stripy shirts and a tie or two that doesn’t have military meaning. (Army officers can find one another even out of uniform!) As Husband wisely remarked, and with some relief, we won’t need to go shopping again for another five years.
The apple blossom looks promising for a bumper crop - and pretty too.
What I feel they need is a Mummy to bang their heads together!
The election has been notable for its lack of women, and the resultant ‘our party’s better than yours’ seems to be the inevitable consequence. Where are those compromising women to pour oil on troubled waters? The electorate may have got what it wished for, a hung parliament, but they can’t have understood that would mean this ridiculous muddle surely? And having made us think we were indeed electing a leader for the country the politicians are now going to look madder than ever if we end up with someone who didn’t take part in the leadership debates. I know that, constitutionally, it’s perfectly normal for the MPs to decide on their leader, but that won’t stop it seeming like the PM is ‘unelected’, as indeed the present incumbent knows to his cost!
I seem to be glued to Radio 4 even more closely than usual.
She has gone. Youngest is exhausted from the constant company, but they have had fun together. They got a lot of practice of vocabulary playing Uno using a Duplo train set to pass the cards! Lots of giggles. They enjoyed one another’s company, but there is no let up, no space. Youngest missed her chill out time prostrate in front of the TV scoffing yoghurt or biscuits between meals.
And I have a new friend with whom it has been fun exercising my school-girl French via e-mail. Nuance is a very tricky thing, and translation via a dictionary isn’t always what you meant to say! We are working on exchanging our big girls once they’re through their exams…
I have always voted. I don’t take my vote for granted! Women went through hell to get the vote for me, and I shouldn’t waste it. But what if it is wasted?
It seems that we are being asked to vote for who we’d like to be Prime Minister, not which party we’d like to be in charge. I fear we’ve got what we deserve: none of the political classes can say anything from the heart. It might be right, it might be wrong, but it will still be news and they’re bound to offend someone whatever they say. If they’re not spinning for themselves, they’re being spun by the opposition or the media.
Tomorrow will be interesting! I wonder if anyone will win?
I have performed my civic duty: I've voted anyway.
Little French girl is a delight! She understands lots and responds with short English sentences or phrases. She’s a year older than her sister was when she visited, but I still think it’s pretty brave to come and live with a bunch of foreigners.
We mothers put up with a lot don’t we? Monday’s request went something like this:
“I need a steering wheel for the bus.”
“?”
“We’ve agreed it will look better, and I need it for Friday at the latest, ‘though it would be better for Wednesday’s rehearsal.”
“Rehearsal?”
Then the Look! I produced a wire ring from a lampshade that for some reason I had thought might come in useful, but it would need a transformation, and a proper wheel would be better.
The lovely man at the Mini restoration garage on the edge of the village produced a grubby white leather steering wheel and said it would cost me 15 quid unless I promised to bring it back. Eldest looked down her nose, “It’s very dirty.” I wiped it down and offered to do a more thorough job if they decided to opt for it rather than the ring.
The rehearsal was OK I gather and the gang want the real thing. Their GCSE performance for the examiner is on Friday. I’m washing the costume shirt. Fingers crossed.
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