Home Alone

For the first time in years I am home alone this weekend. The rest of the family are away, doing and seeing.  I deliberately haven't booked anything, I haven't arranged a thing, the weekend stretches out ahead of me in a lovely expanse of unfilled time. I can go see a film,  read a book, meet friends or stay home and wallow in the silence.  I'm not sure yet what I'll do, but I'll appreciate every minute of it until the dirty washing and noise comes home on Sunday evening. Enjoy your weekend whatever you are doing.

Something For The Weekend

As someone who loves looking at what others have done to their houses I thought I would share our own renovation.  Those who have read my blog for a while may remember me bleating about a broken boiler last January, and being a wee bit cold.  After suffering a cold house for 4 days I resolved to install a fire place by the time next winter came around.   At the time we had this hole in the wall filled with logs, when we bought the house it 'boasted' a gas fire with a wooden shelf, supported by curly iron brackets as a mantlepiece. Not attractive.

The fire place had never been used for a real fire, so we had the chimney swept and tested.   The sweep didn't look a bit like Dick Van Dyke, he didn't dance, at all.  I'll admit to a certain disappointment. He was also camera shy...

  Then the day came for our fire to be fitted. It was a messy. 

The house was built in the 1950's, the room itself is not large, so a contemporary plain fireplace was chosen. I know wood burning stoves are the thing right now, but for this old romantic nothing beats an open fire.  

The finished result looked great, the rest of the room did not. It needed a bit of TLC.

The original Mahogany floorboards - previously covered with carpet, were repaired, sanded and lacquered, the walls were painted a colour that warms up the north facing room.   The hearth rug came from a Scottish  company called Anta,  recommended by http://semiexpat.blogspot.com/2011/10/shopping-hunting-gathering-and-cooking.html. on my post http://lilacinmay.blogspot.com/2011/05/rugs.html.   The wooden coal scuttle you can see by the fireplace was a bargain find on e-bay.

I've had fun arranging things on the mantlepiece.

 It makes such a difference to the previously cold, bland room.  It almost makes me look forward to the colder months.  Winter weekends will never be the same, and if the boiler should break this year (heaven forbid!) I will have my lovely fire as a stand by.

  

 Have a grate weekend.

Case Closed

I hope that if you ever needed to change your mobile phone and sim card, and in the process ended up losing friends mobile numbers, and before ranting about the telephone manufacturer, network provider and swearing (loudly and literally) that mobiles are the devils instruments, you would first of all check the door onto the garden is shut, and that your brand new neighbours are not out in the garden.

I didn't.

You pierce my soul...

I am currently rereading Persuasion by Jane Austen for the second time, and following the blogs of others rereading too, it is like being in a virtual bookclub .  As well as Persuasion being my favourite Austen book, Anne is my favourite Austen heroine.   I envy Annes restraint and generosity of spirit.

Persuasion is a subtle art of genius.  Things unsaid can be detected by what the characters describe not what is heard, not easy in a novel, so much easier to show in the filmed adaptations.  It is a mature book which bears out the fact that it is Austens later work and reflects her own loves, losses and disappointments.  Except in Persuasion she writes the romantic happy ending that I am sure Austen would have liked for herself.

I'll let Cassandra, Janes sister, have the last word.  Cassandra wrote in her own copy of Persuasion, which is now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, "Dear, dear Jane!  This deserves to be written in letters of gold."

http://booksasfood.blogspot.com/2011/09/he-ought-not-he-does-not.

http://bookssnob.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/persuasion-week-2-emotion/

http://vintagereads.blogspot.com/2011/09/louisa-musgroves-fall.html

It's hotting up!

My book shop on Etsy is starting to warm up in time for the word that I refuse to utter until October!

My lastest sale was to a lady in the US, who bought a copy of Baedeker's Northern Italy and asked me to ship it to her wedding planner in Florence, Italy.  It sounds very romantic, I would love to know what part the book is playing in the proceedings.

Brighton-ing up a day

This last weekend we went to Brighton for the day

we walked along the pier

ate fish and chips

enjoyed the stoney beach

watched a fishmonger empty his scraps into the sea, and the frenzy of gulls that ensued

checked out the street art in the lanes

browsed amongst some of the more unusual shop offerings

ate Brownies and Sherry Trifle ice cream at our favourite cafe - Scoop And Crumb

I recommend it

Twitterature

I thought I would do a Twitter style book review of my summer reading, keeping each one to 140 characters or so.  Here goes;

Please Look After Mother - Kyung-Sook Shin.  Haunting tale of a rural Korean family taking Mother for granted, until she disappears. Her family reflect on her contribution to their happiness.  Wonderful.

The Painted Veil - Somerset Maugham.  A beautifully crafted story about the turbulent life of a young married English woman who has an affair in Colonial China.  Such a pleasure to read, I loved it. 

Red Tails In Love - Marie Winn.  Terrible title.  True story of birds & their human followers in New York's Central Park.  Red Tail Hawks nesting outside Woody Allen's apartment. Charming tweet Lit.

Shakespeare - Bill Bryson. Bryson fleshes out the few facts we know about the Bard with his usual vim and humour.  Did you know Shakespeare's work contains 1st recorded use of 2,035 words? Rollicking.

Shakespeare's Wife - Germaine Greer.  Greer sweeps aside hackneyed 'facts' that appear to be based on misogyny, & dares to say, what if Anne Shakespeare was a woman of substance? Scholarly and bold.

The Slap - I felt like I needed to slap someone after wasting my time with this turgid nonsense. Less about a slap, more about crude & unsympathetic soap-style story lines & characters.  Don't do it kids!

If I had to pick a favourite it would be The Painted Veil.

Wimp Of The Week

My last post was about my tbr pile, but I thought I ought to report 'mid duty' that I have wimped out of reading one of them - The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters.

I am scared of the dark,.  So what was I thinking when I picked up Waters gothic, ghostly tale, set in a dilapidated mansion in England during the 1940s?  I'll tell you.  I was thinking how scary can a book be?

I once watched the Shining (gotta love Jack doing his demented Johnny Carson impression), on my own, in the top floor flat of an Edwardian mansion, late at night, so I don't consider myself a complete scaredy cat.  So I started, but unlike the late great Magnus Magnusson, I wont be finishing.  I only got a short way through, the suspense killed me.

Has anyone else managed to read it?

My summer holiday tbr pile.

My summer 'to be read' pile originates from a combination of books acquired from my bookclub, the charity shop, a gift and recommendations.  I doubt I will finish any of them as quickly as I finished Caitlin Moran's How To Be  A Woman, my last book - and a spanking good read, or as slowly as Colin Thubron's excellent In Siberia, the book before that.  Some books are destined to be snacks - consumed in a dash, others savoured and relished like a great meal. I just hope none give me word-induced indigestion.