A Year in Books;'The Hedgehog' and 'The Prince'

I'm joining in with lots of other bloggers I read with the Year in Books project which was started by Laura at Circle of Pine Trees.  I like the idea of picking up ideas for books to read from other people as I've found some of the best books I've read in this way.  One of my favourite writers is Patrick Gale, discovered because someone chose his 'Notes from an Exhibition' in the bookclub I was in at the time.  My favourite last year was 'Cutting for Stone' by Abraham Verghese again passed on to me by a friend who'd read it with her bookclub.  And I've recently acquired 'Stoner' on the the Kindle by John Williams because Older Mum in a Muddle had mentioned it.

Like Mairead at As I Roved Out, I prefer real books to Kindle versions and so I get most of mine from the local library.  You can get pretty much anything by reserving for £1 and this means that I can try lots of books.  No longer do I force myself to read things I am not enjoying, be it classic, trash or a Booker prize winner.  The only disadvantage is that occasionally someone else reserves before I finish and so recently I had to return 'The 100 Year Old Man who Walked out of the Window' when I was only half way through.

I am a member of a bookclub too so many of my choices for my monthly book will be determined by this. Our regular monthly meeting was last Tuesday and this time we went to a film version of a novel the group had read last year, 'The Elegance of the Hedgehog', which was being screened by Chester Film Society. What a wonderful film!  It's about an emerging friendship between a 12 year old girl and the rather grumpy middle-aged concierge in her Paris apartment building ( It's a French film; we watched with subtitles).  The concierge has a secret which the young girl discovers: she is not the uneducated TV addict she pretends to be but instead spends her free time reading everything from 'Anna Karenina' to philosophy while drinking tea and eating dark chocolate - stacks of spare bars in fridge.  Sounds perfect to me, so I wasn't that happy when the little girl encourages her to drop her prickly exterior and look for love.

Next month's book choice is very different - 'The Prince' by Machiavelli.  Husband has read this so will be interesting to share my views with him.  Hope also to have time to get going on my pile of library books.  And I'm waiting to get hold of 'Parallax', a new anthology of poetry by Sinead Morrissey who won the T. S. Eliot prize this week.  Just caught the end of her performance on Newsnight and thought she sounded good. Another voice from Northern Ireland.

Now have to tackle the kinky linky (whoops spellcheck does strange things sometimes)  Not exactly comfortable with the technology of blogging.





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My Blogging Year

I celebrated my blogging birthday on New Year's Eve.  Started a year ago with the vague intention of blogging about fashion like some of the blogs I'd been reading. That didn't last long.  I had other things to say and wasn't keen on too many pictures of myself anyway.  I've kept on blogging though, even if less regularly than I originally intended.

This is post number 80, so quite an achievement.  My other statistics aren't that impressive.  Ok, I've had 4416 pages views, but I suspect quite a number of those are me checking my own pages.  And the most viewed post is one about handbags, mentioning designer Michael Kors - 444 views last time I looked.  No comments on that post though - reckon those who did look at it were fairly unimpressed.   I have 10 followers, not a huge number compared to the hundreds many of you other bloggers have, but I really value those of you who do read and comment here. And reading the blogs I follow is a real treat: blogs about fashion, minimalism, motherhood, craft, cooking, gardening.  I also love the blogs which show beautiful photographs. I love reading about other women's lives and I've really enjoyed connecting with other people - people like me from Northern Ireland, but also those who have lives which are very different from mine.

Looking back over the posts for 2013, I am struck by how many are about loss.  In addition to Dad whose phone call I still wait for every Sunday evening, I've blogged about the loss of others who have influence our lives: Seamus Heaney,  Iain Banks and even Margaret Thatcher (who may not have been such a positive influence). It does feel like the end of an era.

Yet there was much happiness too in 2013 and I begin 2014 in a fairly hopeful and positive frame of mind. My blog is a sort of online journal, I suppose, a companion to the journals I've been keeping for years.  I got a new 2014 one from Paperchase for Christmas and a pen to go with it from my lovely girl. Blogging is, like journal writing, a habit now and one I'm going to continue, even if posting much more than once a week is unrealistic.  So please keep reading and commenting when you can.

New Year; Kate and the Big Boy Cousins

When Kate was younger one of our favourite books to read at bedtime was the 'Katie Morag Island Stories' by Mairi Hedderwick. So we were pleased to hear that a television adaptation of the books was being shown over Christmas on CBeebies.  It's great - the little girl playing Katie is very convincing and the Island of Struay looks just as it does in the books.  The two grannies are also portrayed perfectly.  Completely charming, just like 'Balamory' which we watched when she was small.  Programmes like these make me grateful we still have the BBC.

Our favourite story was this one, 'Katie Morag and the Big Big Boy Cousins', who visit the island and get in lots of trouble for playing Chickenelly - knocking on doors and running away.  We liked this one because Kate also had some big boy cousins who were equally naughty. And one was a redhead, just like Katie's cousins.  Here she is with them at Christmas 2004.

Today is the bigger boy cousin's 21st birthday.  Last week I returned to Northern Ireland for a few days to spend time with my sisters at Dad's house in Ballyronan, where this photo was taken.  We lit the fire; cooked a chicken with stuffing the way he did it and played Scrabble like we used to.  And on Saturday night we celebrated Cousin Dean's 21st birthday.  Now at university in Dundee, he's still fairly naughty:  he certainly enjoyed his party.  Before we went out he showed off his newly acquired skill at university and made me Strawberry Daquiri.  Happy Birthday Dean!

Things I made for Christmas

I don't make a traditional Christmas cake.  Previous attempts haven't been that successful - no one at home likes it except me and I can't really eat a whole cake myself. So instead we have started our own tradition of making a house cake.  We started off with gingerbread houses (see below for the 2011 one) but again I found that most of the cake was thrown out when the sweets had been eaten off it.  (Small boy nephews and niece did a good Hansel and Gretel job).  I don't like wasting food so we invented our own version using Mary Berry chocolate cake baked in a tray, cut into layers and then built up using butter cream with After Eight mint roof tiles and mini roll chimney.  Doesn't look as good and it kind of collapsed not long after the photo was taken.  But Kate and I had fun making it.  And we've eaten most of it.

I also made my sisters' Christmas presents this year.  I've talked before here about writing a memoir and when Dad died I kind of got on with it.  I enjoyed writing about our childhood in the 1960s and 70s, looking at the old photos and remembering.   I used Blurb bookmaking software and was impressed with how easy it was and the results were good even though I used photos of old photos rather than scanning the images in. Yesterday of course they opened the presents.  Although all four of them cried when they read the dedication, I think they liked it.  The picture on the front shows me and my sister aged 3 and 2 outside our house in Ballyronan in 1962. 

Cold Callers at Christmas

Cold callers, those strangers who turn up on the doorstep or on the phone offering their services or flogging their wares, aren't usually welcome here.  Part of my husband's job involves protecting vulnerable people from unscrupulous callers who con them out of money by fixing things which don't need repair or distract them and then steal their purses.  So he is always wary and often rude to any stranger who rings the doorbell.

So it was a good job I answered the door to the first cold callers we had last weekend, an elderly couple offering me a copy of Watchtower and drawing my attention to its message 'Do we Need a God?' I was polite; accepted their magazine but affected a busy, distracted manner to avoid engaging in further discussion. My faith in an eternal being, who could sort out the mess in this world and provide a happy afterlife for the chosen few, has long since evaporated, despite many years of Sunday school as a child.

Then on Sunday afternoon we had another caller.  A teenager on a bike carrying a green bucket.   Struggling a bit with his words, he offered a 'pay what you like' hand car wash. My first reaction was to send him packing: he looked a bit dodgy and might be checking to see if we were in before pinching something. But it was nearly dark and freezing; he had a nice smile and didn't look much older than my daughter. She was sitting in the warm on the other side of the glass watching 'Nativity' while simultaneously stalking her schoolmates on Facebook.  It was a real 'no room at the inn' moment.  So I got him a bucket of hot water and let him loose on my grubby car. Not much cash in the house: I'd spent it all on buying presents of chocolate from Thornton's for Kate's friends which they don't need or want much.  We managed to gather up £4.88, some of it in 5ps.  He was pathetically grateful.  And he'd removed a layer or two of grime from the car even if it wasn't exactly a professional job.

Am questioning my motivation for including this in my blog.  Am I trying to portray myself as some kind of Samaritan in a world full of greed?  No - I'm as selfish as the next person, walking past the Big Issue seller with only a glimmer of guilt on my way back from Thornton's to meet husband in Costa earlier that day.  But the whole Christmas greed thing does start to get to me at this time of year. The queue outside the Pandora shop on Sunday morning snaked right along the street. Past the doorways where it's not unusual to see a homeless person sheltering in the streets of this affluent town.  My first cold callers were right.  We do need a God. But where is he?

Christmas Pinks and Blues

Inspired by beautiful skies and glorious photographs taken by Mairead in her blog As I Roved Out,  I got the camera out early one morning this week.  Can't match the quality of her photography but thought I'd share these pictures.

Pink and blue is also the colour scheme for our tree this year though I'm not that fussy really and we add things that Kate made at primary school too.  And love my little flying goose which I get out every year.

Happy Christmas to you all.

Christmas Carols with the Songsmiths

I haven't really felt much like preparing for Christmas this year.  I'm missing dad and as we are staying at home, it may feel a bit lonely with just the three of us.

But one thing has helped  me feel a bit more positive has been taking part in several performances with my choir, The Songsmiths.   Christmas is our busiest time and we've performed at three events in the last couple of weeks.  The first event was the Tree of Light Service organised by the local hospital for people who have lost friends and family.  It was a bit of an emotional occasion and I was doing fine, singing all our prepared choir carols, until we all sang 'Away in  a Manger'.  Must be the association with childhood.  I wasn't the only one who got a bit tearful, so it didn't matter so much.  Good to remember.

We also sang on the bandstand by the river in Chester last Sunday for the Santa Dash,  in aid of a local hospice.  Loads of people dressed in Santa suits waving as they went past. Then there was a charity carol service in a local church for the Countess of Chester Babygro appeal.  We enjoyed singing and our audiences responded positively too.  Our repertoire ranged from 'O Holy Night' to 'AWinter's Tale' by David Essex. Other favourites include 'Hallelujah' and 'Let it Snow'

It's a lovely choir - not too serious.  We have words, usually, rather than sheet music and our talented leader works out harmonies by ear.  We are loosely divided into Highies, Lowies and Tune.  I sing Tune, the easiest option of course.  I have no illusions about my musical abilities but absolutely love singing.  You can find us on You Tube by looking up Songsmiths, Chester.

Tonight is choir Christmas night out so I'm going to put on my new sparkly jumper from M&S and join the others for some food and wine and a bit more singing.

The Songsmiths performing for the Babygro appeal last year