February reads: a belated monthly contribution to 'The Year in Books'

As I had a busy week or two at the end of January, I never did get round to posting on my reading. Unfortunately my plan to read 'The Prince' by Machiavelli' just didn't happen.  I needed lighter, escapist reading to get through grim time, not classic literature, if you could call it that.  And so I skipped the book club choice.

But I did read two books in January.  Feel a bit ashamed to admit this on the Year in Books link because most others are reading serious stuff like 'The Goldfinch': my choice was the new Bridget Jones book, ' Mad about the Boy'.  I loved the original Bridget Jones book, which I remember reading at one sitting, and enjoyed the film, which I watched again with my daughter when it was on TV last week.  So I hoped that this book would be as good and ordered the Kindle version as I wasn't prepared to fork out for the hardback and the reservation queue in the library had 46 people in front of me.  Deeply disappointed, though; it was terrible. Entirely implausible plot with Bridget aged 50+ being pursued by a 30 year old toy boy.  And a large part of it consisted of text message exchanges with this toy boy which was really irritating.  Also it was obvious from early in the book who she was going to end up with.  Still, there were some funny bits like her response to the other mothers on the PTA  at her children's school and the way she kept checking to see how many followers she had on Twitter.  Sound like me checking on my Blogger stats.

My other January read was 'Where'd You Go, Bernadette?' by Maria Semple.  I've already blogged about how much I enjoyed this.  It was similar to the Bridget Jones books in some ways: the plot unfolds in a series of emails and other documents; it satirises the behaviour of PTA mothers; it has an implausible plot and it could be described as comedy.  But it is vastly superior -  it made me laugh but deals with serious stuff like mental health issues too.  I really cared what happened to Bernadette and there were loads of unexpected plot twists, keeping me guessing right until the end.  Plot really matters to me, you see.

In February I am reading 'The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry', which has a quote from Erica Wagner on the cover saying she 'couldn't put it down'. I'm finding it quite easy to put down and am getting a little weary of Harold's journey: am half way through and he's only just reached Bath from his south coast starting point - he's planning to walk to Berwick.  Feel a bit like he does about my journey through this book - it's a long haul.

Snowdrops at Ness Gardens

Am breaking my usual no family photos rule today to celebrate an unexpectedly lovely day.  Husband's car playing up this morning so he took an unscheduled day off.  And it's half term for us this week.  So persuaded idle teenager and hobbling husband (still recovering from ankle op) to accompany me to Ness Gardens on the Wirral peninsula to see the snowdrops.   Bribed them with promise of cake - best Victoria Sponge ever in their cafe.  Weather mild and dry with occasional blinks of sunshine too so a real treat.

The snowdrops were glorious.  Rest of the family amused at how smiley I was because of this.  Teenager doesn't get my fascination with flowers and says I am turning into 'an old biddy'.  Charming!

For once she allowed me to take a picture of her, as long as it was far away.  Can't understand why she objects to photographs when she spends a lot of time on Snapchat, sending unedited and sometimes unflattering images of herself to her friends.  In fact it seems to be the thing to pull silly faces to convey various emotions on Snapchat, which has pretty much replaced Facebook for her.  Fascinating really, the way teenagers use social media. I'm sure there's material for a PhD on this, though the data would be out of date before it could be written up.  Anyway I digress...

Found a small patch of this interesting variety.  Like little white crowns - just beautiful.

Can't help thinking, though, that the snowdrops will be out in Dad's garden in Ballyronan and no one is there to see them this year.

Tulips from Amsterdam

Florist in Zoetermeer

Well not quite Amsterdam but Zoetermeer in the Netherlands where I spent last week on a school trip.  We took a group of students to a Model United Nations conference there and had a wonderful time.  The students stayed with host families and I spent the week with Annet, another English teacher, who speaks flawless English and has bookshelves which resemble mine.  She and her family made me very welcome.  On the second night of our visit she also hosted a party for the 25 or so teachers from France, Spain, Gemany, Turkey and India, cooking typical Dutch winter food.  This consisted of pea and ham soup and then various mashes - potato and curly kale; potato and carrot were familiar from my childhood in Ireland, but not potato and apple!  We had a great evening getting to know each other - I even had a go at speaking French and a tiny bit of German remembered from school.

Our students, a party of year 10s and a couple of sixth formers, joined in the conference enthusiastically after getting over initial shyness.  They each represented a different country and they helped draft resolutions on human rights issues and then debated and voted on these. I was very proud of them - these were girls of all abilities (and one boy) - yet they all contributed.  As the Secretary General ( a sixth former from Alfrink College) said, the conference won't change the world, but it did change those who took part.

 We also visited The Hague, which proved to be a more attractive city than I'd realised with a historic centre and many beautiful buildings.  While we were there, we went to Humanity House, a museum owned by the Red Cross which promotes human rights issues.  There we heard a speaker from the Democratic Republic of Congo talk (in French again) about his experiences as a human rights activist there and how he was lucky to escape with his life.  He and another speaker from Kenya reminded the 'delegates' at the conference that they were the 'happy' 5% and that most people in the world don't have the same rights and privileges as we do.

On our final day we squeezed in a short visit to Amsterdam en route to the airport.  Some of the students very excited about this because it's the setting for some of the novel 'The Fault in our Stars'.  We had a walk around and looked at Anne Frank's house from the outside.  Queue very long and we hadn't booked.  But it was a fitting ending to our trip, seeing the house of a girl their age who was treated in such an inhumane way.

Next year my daughter will be in the year 10 and will, I hope, get the chance to go on this trip. It was a real education for those involved.

An Inspector Calls

Saw this excellent production when it was touring about 5 years ago

I'm teaching J. B Priestley's famous play at present and it seemed particularly apt this week as an inspector did indeed call to my lessons.  Three times.  Banned from saying too much but thankfully seemed to have survived the experience with my self esteem intact. But it was a tough week- have been very grumpy with everyone at home and have spent this weekend making up for that.

Then, on Sunday morning, saw Michael Gove on 'The Andrew Marr Show'.  Now I usually avoid making personal remarks about people's appearance, but what planet is this man from?  He's got some great new ideas for improving school discipline: making badly behaved pupils write lines or pick up litter.  Never thought of that Michael!

He was also defending his decision to sack the current head of Ofsted.  She's a Labour peer, you see, though he said that wasn't the reason for his decision.   Next thing we know he'll be banning us from teaching 'An Inspector Calls' because Priestley was a Socialist.

'Where'd you go, Bernadette:

Just finished this ignoring husband, child, washing up and impending school inspection to do so. Loved it. Plot driven and different.  Usually not keen on American stuff with references I don't get but this was an exception. Thoroughly recommended.

January Treats: tulips, bird-watching and Asda chocolate

It's not been a great week.  Miserable weather; work pressures and everyone sniping at each other at home as a result.  So have tried to cheer things up with a few treats:

Spring Flowers - love white tulips.

A new bird feeder. So this morning attempted the RSPB Garden Bird Watch while washing up.  Not a terribly accurate count as I wasn't writing it down or fully concentrating.  But I did spot lots of blue tits like this little chap which I managed to snap through glass; several great tits; a blackbird or two; some robins or maybe the same one revisiting his patch as I think they are territorial; some brownish ones which were probably sparrows and, to my delight, a pink and grey nuthatch, a rare visitor to the garden.  And of course lots of pigeons and big black crows or ravens or both who congregate on the trees at the back of the house and make a huge raucous racket.  But no pretty goldfinches like my dad always did on his peanut feeders in Ballyronan.

   

And last night had a lazy night in front of the fire with teenager watching television and eating M&S chinese takeaway.  Crispy duck and pancakes  - our favourite.  Watched Corrie which we both like and then attempted to show an interest in Celebrity Big Brother.  Fell asleep - don't recognise any of them except the Nolan sister (who was evicted and then booed at by the crowd - lovely)  and Jim Davidson. More food treats purchased today - some Asda organic dark chocolate. Not quite Green and Blacks but not bad.

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.





I