Don't Be Ridiculous!

 We had a couple of forms to print and Bill had a book in, so after lunch, we were heading out to the library--now just over a mile away instead of a 1-hour bus ride! I was thinking that it would be weird to be going somewhere without my backpack when I stopped and had a stern chat with myself. "Don't be ridiculous!," I said. "You're going to the library and you do not have to rush in and out because they've already been to lunch! You will be wandering around looking at books. Of course you need your backpack!" I was telling Bill about this when he said, " You'll leave with some books." I did.

Walking up the little lane was as pleasant as it always was. The plants had gotten bigger in the few years we've been gone, but otherwise, the landscape was much the same--grey sky, lots of green, and a touch of gold.

We printed the forms. Bill waited to get his book because the librarian was issuing new library cards to 2 wee people--and in Irish. I was pleased to see it. And what did we leave with?

Bill's book was this one, which I plan to read after he's done with it:

He requested it after we read this excerpt in The Guardian.

I saw this book, which Bill listened to on audio a year or two ago and really liked. It won the Booker Prize in 2023.

I'm not sure why, but I did not want to listen to it. I thought maybe I'd find it in a charity shop one day and pick it up. When I saw it on the library shelf, I thought I might as well bring it home and give it a try. As far as I know, it's a dystopian novel about an Ireland that has been taken over by a fascist government. It's an interesting idea, because Ireland has a very tiny right wing, and they're still considered fringe. They have no elected officials in the federal government, although they ran some candidates. However, they are more visible than they were when we moved here and I suspect it's a matter of time until they do have someone in the Dail (parliament).

Finally, I saw this and thought it was a very nice object--it's a Virago Modern Classic:

There are probably stories in here that I've read already, but that's OK.

I expect some of my requested books to arrive later this week or early next week. Now that we're mostly settled, regular trips to the library will be part of our routine. Yay!

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Unexpected Gems

 I adore the British Library Crime Classics series. They re-publish books by authors that aren't as well known as some of the big names in classic crime fiction, like Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers. I've discovered several authors that are new to me through these books and I'm always on the lookout for more, whether at the library or in charity shops. I rarely find these in charity shops, but I have found a few. My most recent find was this one, originally published in 1864. I haven't read it yet, but it's up next.

Most of the BLCC books I've seen have been later than the Victorian era, often Golden Age or later. The first one I ever found in a charity shop was Murder Underground by Mavis Doriel Hay. I'd never heard of her, but I took it home with me and looked her up. Turns out she only wrote 3 mystery novels, all published by BLCC. Bill got me the other two, Death on the Cherwell and The Santa Klaus Murder, online.

Late last year, unbeknownst to me, he was looking for more of these books on ebay and he found a woman selling a lot of 5 in Ireland. He bought them, paid for them, and assumed they'd be arriving pretty quickly. Then the woman emailed him and said that she couldn't find them, so sent him a refund. A few days later, she emailed again to say she'd found them. Bill was trying to figure out how to pay her again, since there was no longer a listing and he couldn't do it through ebay. He asked her to send him an invoice so he could do it that way. She told him to forget about it. She sent them. They arrived a day or two later. I was ridiculously excited to see what books I had and when I opened the parcel, I was thrilled! I hadn't read any of them before. I read them slowly and didn't gobble them down all at once. There were a couple of authors I knew of, but had only read one or two of their short stories.

sorry about the weird haze on the photo

Then there were the new-to-me authors.

Margot Bennett wrote less than a dozen novels, along with a few screenplays. In this book, The Man Who Didn't Fly, a small plane crashes in the Irish Sea. All on board are killed. There were four passengers booked for the flight, but it's soon discovered that only three boarded the plane. Who was the man who didn't fly and where is he now? 

Ellen Wilkinson was one of the first women to be an MP and she wrote The Division Bell Mystery after she lost her seat in 1931 (she won it back in 1936). It's a locked room mystery in which a financier is found dead in the halls of parliament. 

I loved all of these books and they all had interesting plots, characters, and/or structures, but the best one of all, and one of the best classic crime novels I've ever read (so far) is Verdict of Twelve by Raymond Postgate.

The mystery is really well done and kept me on my toes right up until the last paragraph. The structure of the book is the other thing that made this book vault up to the top tier for me. Almost all of the story is told through the thoughts of the jurors deciding the fate of the accused. The book opens with the jurors' stories being told--and some of these stories are gripping in and of themselves. Readers learn about their lives and histories, as well as their thoughts about being summoned to jury duty. Some of the stories are more detailed than others and some chapters focus on one juror in particular while others focus on a group. Once the jurors are sworn in, the trial gets underway and we again see things from the points of view of the jurors as the witnesses testify. Then we're in the room as they're deliberating and when the verdict is given. I won't say any more about the book because I wouldn't want to give even a hint of a spoiler. What I will say is, if you're a fan of classic crime fiction, this is a book I can highly recommend. It's so good.

I know there are more unexpected gems out there in the British Library Crime Classics collection and more are added regularly. I will probably be getting them from the library in future, because the two charity shops where I've found them are ones that I won't be going to anymore. But I do have a local library again now, so it's all good. In the meantime, I still have a couple of charity shop finds on my pile, one of which I plan to pick up tomorrow. 

Whatever you're reading, I hope it's excellent! Life's too short to spend any time reading books that aren't your thing. Remember, it's OK to DNF and move on to something more to your liking!😀😏📘

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My Reading in June

 I didn't read as much as I usually do, but June was a busy month. I had a mix of print books, e-books, and audiobooks as well as an assortment of genres--mysteries, short stories, a dystopia, poetry, and a play. At the beginning of the month, before and at the start of the moving process, as we were back and forth between dwellings, I read a few books that I knew I didn't plan to keep. These have already been re-donated to the charity shop and last time I was there they were gone, so it looks like they have new homes, which is great!

Simisola by Ruth Rendell (charity shop acquisition which has been donated)

This is the 17th Inspector Wexford novel and involves a young Black woman who is missing. This young woman is the daughter of Wexford's doctor. During the course of the investigation, Wexford encounters racism and misogyny, including his own. This wasn't the best Rendell book I've ever read and at times it felt a little dated, but it did deal with some important topics that, sadly and horrifically seem to have only gotten worse since the book was published. 

Behold, Here's Poison by Georgette Heyer (e-audiobook borrowed from the library BorrowBox site)

I was aware of Heyer as a romance novelist and that's not really my thing, so I'd never read any of her work. Then I discovered that she also wrote 12 detective novels. Classic mystery may be my very favorite genre, so of course I had to try one out. BorrowBox has several of these, so I am listening to the ones they have and will see about borrowing the rest in book form from the library. I'm enjoying the audiobooks--the narrator is Ulli Birve and she's pleasant to listen to. In this book, Inspector Hannasyde is investigating the death of a wealthy elderly man who is the head of an eccentric extended family when it's revealed that the cause of death was not his high blood pressure, but poison.

A Blunt Instrument by Georgette Heyer (BorrowBox e-audiobook)

Inspector Hannasyde investigates the death of a well-respected and much liked gentleman who met his end when he was hit with--you guessed it--a blunt instrument. As usual, there are some very weird characters involved. This was a pretty humorous book--in places I laughed out loud. I can't say that Heyer's mysteries are the best classics of the genre that I've read, but they are enjoyable and perfect to sit and listen to while I do some stitching.

Not the End of the World by Kate Atkinson (charity shop acquisition, re-donated)

I first came across Kate Atkinson's work in a charity shop several years ago when I picked up one of her Jackson Brodie novels, One Good Turn. I fell into that book and was gripped until literally the very last sentence. After that, I picked up any Kate Atkinson book I came across, whether in a charity shop or in the library. I still have a few of her books to read, a couple of them here at home, which makes me very happy indeed. This is her first collection of short stories and it didn't disappoint. They're quirky, weird, and wonderful. They are loosely connected and some characters from earlier stories appear in the later ones--the last story circles around and continues the first story.

The Spy Coast by Tess Gerritsen (charity shop acquisition, re-donated)

I bought this book because Bill read it last year and has been telling me ever since that he thinks I'd like it. I did. The story revolves around a group of friends and former colleagues who were all spies for the US. They're now retired and have settled in the same small community in rural Maine. However, one of them, Maggie, gets sucked back into a case that she thought was finished when the body of a stranger is found in her driveway. As the book goes on, the story flips from the present to the past--mostly Maggie's past--as we learn the details of this unfinished case. Bill is a big fan of Tess Gerritsen, and I did enjoy this book enough to read the next one in the series at some point. But in the past I started a different one of her books and stopped reading before I was done with page 2. The book opened with a very graphic description of surgery and I had no desire to read on. So I'd advise anyone thinking of trying one of her books to be aware that her books are apparently quite different with regard to the level of graphic content. I think she used to be s surgeon, so it makes sense that she would include graphic descriptions in her books and I'm not suggesting this is gratuitous by any means. It's just not my thing. But The Spy Coast wasn't like that at all. There was violence, of course, but it made sense within the context of the story and didn't make me queasy.

The Fell by Sarah Moss (e-audiobook from BorrowBox)

During the pandemic, a single mother and her son are in isolation because someone at the mother's workplace had COVID. As someone who has a need to be outdoors a lot, this woman is struggling and decides it'll do no harm to go for a walk one autumn evening at dusk. She knows the area inside and out, after all. She tells no one where she's going or even that she's going, but her neighbor, an elderly woman undergoing cancer treatment, sees her walking by. As darkness falls, this woman knows she should go home, but can't bring herself to turn around. When she finally starts for home, she falls and injures herself. Rescuers are called out, but will they find her in time? The story alternates between the points of view of the mother, the son, the neighbor, and one of the guys on the rescue team. This is a short book which I found gripping from start to finish.

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton (charity shop acquisition, will be re-donated)

There's been an earthquake in New Zealand and an area of the country is very difficult to access. In this area lies a farm, inherited by Lady Darvish. She and her husband decide to sell part of the land to a tech billionaire, Robert, who wants to build a bunker to survive climate catastrophe, among other things. He meets Mira, one of the founders of Birnam Wood, a guerrilla gardening collective who plant crops on unused land, with or without permission. Robert makes Mira an offer she can't refuse and some members of the collective move to this farmland--not yet officially Robert's and unbeknownst to the Darvishes--and start to plant things. One of the collective, who is just back from teaching overseas, is an aspiring journalist and he sees trouble ahead. There's clearly some shady stuff happening, but what is it and who's behind it? The story goes on from there. I must say, I was not expecting that ending!

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (re-read in installments on the Serial Reader app)

One of Christie's most well-regarded works. As the title says, Roger Ackroyd has been murdered. Hercule Poirot, new to the village and retired to grow vegetable marrows, happens to be on the spot to investigate. One interesting facet of this book is the character of Caroline Shepherd, who may have been a precursor to Miss Marple.

This Crowded Earth by Robert Bloch (read on the Serial Reader app)

One of the fun parts about Serial Reader is finding these older dystopian novels that I might not want to sit down to read cover to cover, but are quite fascinating when read in small daily chunks. In this book, as the title says, there are too many people around. This is because nuclear weapons have ended the threat of war (!!!) and advances in food production and medicine mean that people don't get sick and die like they used to. But people are unhappy nonetheless. There's no room and no access to nature--or is there? Frank is slowly going mad at the situation and one day propels himself out of a window at his office. When he wakes up, he's in a mental hospital where there is green space everywhere. After a while, he starts to wonder why he is still there and why some other things are happening. The book goes on from there. The book was published in 1958 and I find it interesting to learn about what some people thought the future would be like.

The Anchorage by Bernard O' Donoghue (e-book from BorrowBox)

A poetry collection by an Irish author. Here's a blurb from the publisher:

'Poetry of how we shape what is lost or past, and how it shapes us. Bernard O'Donoghue investigates anchorage as a place we build for ourselves out of memory and story. The Ireland of his youth is rich in colour and precise in detail, and while he acknowledges the power of the past, he also brings it into question: 'I wish I'd never started on this story; / It may have been a dream, or maybe not . . .' O'Donoghue's informal and at times playful tone is that of a poet disarming themselves as well as their reader. Here are the paradoxes at the heart of human nature: what we are most attached to can be, in the end, what ties us down; the reluctance to return can arise out of the fear of finding ourselves locked out.'

The Brightening Air by Conor McPherson (e-book from BorrowBox)

In this play, we meet a brother and sister living in a crumbling house in rural Ireland with the housekeeper. A relative, who is a priest with unconventional views, shows up to reclaim the family property. A cast of supporting characters enters and exits the scene. Sad, but hopeful.

That's my June reading. Onward into July!

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Woolf-ish

 Last year, I found three Virginia Woolf novels in a charity shop. They all came home to live with me. Although I've read them all, it was a couple of decades ago, I think, so reading them again would be almost like reading them for the first time. I was especially thrilled to find two of them in the black Wordsworth Classics edition. I particularly like the introductions in those, which I always read after reading the book because of spoilers.

Later in the year, I was reading a different book that made reference to her final two novels. I was intrigued, so Bill got me a copy of both in one volume, which I read in the early autumn.

Just before I read these, I read Jacob's Room in installments on the Serial Reader app. 

A few months ago, as I started seeing various articles about the 100th anniversary of Mrs Dalloway, I decided it was time to start reading more of Woolf's novels. I planned to start with her first one, The Voyage Out, where Mrs Dalloway first appears. Then I realized that she only published 9 novels and if I bought that one, * I'd own 6 of them. Bill went looking around online and found the others, so now I have them all.

My plan was to begin with The Voyage Out and read the novel in publication order, not necessarily one right after the other, but maybe one or two a month. I figured that by the time I got to Jacob's Room and the last two novels, it will have been a year or more since I read them and she's the type of author that can be enjoyably re-read anyway. I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of my books so I could get started in May when suddenly we learned about the cottage and we were running around preparing to move and then moving. The books arrived on the day we went to view the cottage and things have been busy since, but when I unpacked books, I put all of these together on my dresser, ready to be picked up when the time was right. That time (finally) arrived the other day and I started The Voyage Out. I should probably finish putting away the last few things that I have left. But it's a beautiful rainy day, there's coffee in the pot, and I think it might be a perfect day to spend some quality reading time immersed in a good book. Yeah, that sounds right.

*Some of Woolf's novels and other writing can be found on Project Gutenberg and Faded Page (Canada) and probably elsewhere online. While I do read e-books from various places on my e-reader and/or phone, there are some books I'd prefer to read in physical format.

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In the Rear View

 We finally got to the end of another life chapter yesterday, as we went to Glenties one more time to meet with the letting agent so he could do a final walk through of the apartment and we could give him back the keys. It was a long day for us, involving 4 buses and a lot of waiting time, but we did errands and had some really enjoyable moments. One of those enjoyable moments was riding out of town on our third bus of the day. Even after a decade spent in rural Ireland, I am still amazed sometimes at how much bus service there is. Glenties was perfectly adequate in that regard, but not as good as the other places we've lived. Locals in every place we've lived have grumbled about the bus service, but we always tell them that where we came from, it wouldn't be possible to go anywhere on the bus because there simply weren't any buses. But I digress. 

As we were waiting for the letting agent, a new issue popped up in the apartment. It was lashing down rain and I started hearing drip, drip, drip near my chair. I looked around and saw water dripping from the edge of the window well. I had some paper towels, but they weren't going to be adequate. Of course, we had no bowls or pots left in the apartment and unlike every other place we've lived, this one had none of that stuff when we moved in, so I grabbed the crisper drawer from the fridge and placed it on the windowsill, leaving it sticking out a little. That worked. When I showed the letting agent, he seemed unconcerned. We'd already told him that it seemed like water was getting into the building somehow and he said he'd tell the owner. I suspect they need to do some work on the roof, but thankfully, this is not my problem.

By the time we left the apartment, it was still raining, but not as heavily, which we were grateful for. Still, we and our full backpacks were getting wet, so we sought shelter as best as we could. Because it was early evening and Monday, the one or two cafes in town were closed, so we couldn't spend some of our 2-hour wait time having coffee or anything. The grocery store was closing and they pulled down the gate that leads to the car park in back, leaving a small overhang above. This offered a little bit of protection from the rain so our packs didn't get any wetter. There we stood to wait for the bus. At different times, women stopped to see if we were OK because they were concerned seeing us there and wanted to know if we needed a ride. It was very kind of them.

The bus came, we got on, and took a ride to the next town on our itinerary, where we had another 2-hour wait. This time, we went into the Apache Pizza which was right at the place where the bus let us off. It used to be a different restaurant and is right next to where we used to live. We figured that, given the size of the old restaurant, there must be some tables where we could sit and get some supper, even though Apache is mostly a takeaway. The guy said he'd open up the dining area for us. So we sat there for over an hour and were thankful to be able to do so. Neither of us had pizza. Bill had fish and chips and I had a chicken thing. Both really hit the spot on the day. The bathrooms were not as clean as they could have been, but at least they were there. I thought I was locked in for a minute when I was leaving, because I tried a door and it was locked. Then I realized I was trying to open the wrong door and was relieved when it opened. The short hallway was totally dark, but I got out OK.😂

As we were waiting for the last bus of the day, a guy came to wait for the same bus. We struck up a conversation. He said he was from Africa (he didn't say which country in Africa) and has been in Ireland since 2023. He commented on how great the people and the landscape are--we wholeheartedly agreed--but the weather is still hard for him. He's used to a much hotter climate. We were the only three people on the last bus out of town. The driver is a guy we knew from our last time living in this village and he's great. He pulled up right at the entrance to our front walkway, took our backpacks down off the bus, and went on his way. We were so happy to be home. We got our damp, tired selves inside and I put the kettle on. It was almost 10:30 pm. It was one of those times when a big mug of strong, hot, black tea really hit the spot.

As we were on our way home, the rain stopped, the clouds parted a little, and the sun was setting. This seemed appropriate--not only was the sun setting on another day, but it was also setting on the almost three years we spent in Glenties, which had a few bright spots, but was often highly stressful. I wasn't sorry to leave.

Now we can concentrate on finishing the things that need to be done regarding the move. Today I closed the old electricity account. Tomorrow a new window is being installed in the bedroom. As always, I wait and see if action matches the words that are said to me. The window was supposed to be done before we started to move in, so I hope it actually gets done. I'm looking forward to getting all these little tasks done so I can settle into a new routine. 

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Woo-hoo!

 Every summer, I count down the days to the solstice. I know there's lots of summer left, but I get a psychological and emotional lift knowing that the days where I live have stopped getting longer and will, ever so slowly, start to shorten. This year we've been so busy that I haven't had time or headspace to be quite as obsessive about this as I usually am, but this morning I woke up knowing that I didn't have to go anywhere, remembered what day it is, and felt myself smiling. Happy, happy solstice, wherever you are!

There's still a lot to do, but yesterday I took a bit of a break. I was walking yesterday morning before breakfast and had just raced up a hill when I felt my calf cramp up and there was a bit of a burning feeling. The burn left after a while, but the muscle still feels like it's tensed up. I limped around for the rest of the day. We went to Falcarragh because their market day is Friday and there's a veg man there. It's a nice ride there--beautiful scenery. I didn't take any pics yesterday, but I have some from the same route, that I took a few years ago when we lived here the first time. These were taken in December 2021 out the bus window. It looks somewhat different in the bright sunshine of a hot June day, but you get the idea. It's beautiful whatever the season.

We got our veg and a few other groceries and I hobbled back to the bus stop with my heavy pack on my back. When we got home, I put the coffee on and decided not to do too much more in the way of unpacking and putting things away. I was even able to start a new book last night, which made me very happy indeed. I've been too busy during the day and too tired at night to settle in with a good book and I've missed that. I've been reading my Serial Reader installments every day and listening to audiobooks at night and that's been great, but I do like holding an actual book in my hand and turning real pages. Of course now I'd like to sit and finish the book this afternoon, but I will get some work done first. There will come a day when all of this is done and I'll be able to plan ahead for a day devoted to some reading projects I have planned, but that day is not today. Something to look forward to.

And now, it's time for more coffee. Enjoy your weekend, everyone!

 .

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Almost!

 We're heading towards the finish line with this move. Just about all of our stuff is in the cottage as are we. There are a few things left in the apartment--just small things and cleaning supplies. We'll be going back a couple more times to clean and move furniture back to where it was when we moved in. Yesterday, a friend came and loaded up his car. He and I came to the cottage and, while the coffee was brewing, we unloaded the car. Then we had some open-faced sandwiches with some homemade bread he'd brought with him, given to him by another of his friends. Before we poured the second cup, we walked up to the bakery where I got us some quiches for supper later in the day, some sweet treats, and a Cornish pasty for Friend, who loves the pasties from that place, and one for me to try. We came back, had that second cup of coffee with dessert, then went back to the apartment. Bill had an appointment and we got back just as he was leaving. Friend brought me to the bring bank so we could recycle our glass. Back to the apartment where there wasn't much else to pack into his car, but there was our very large jade plant, given to us when it was much smaller by a different friend. I'm glad we got to bring it. Now we have to figure out where to put it. When Bill returned, we headed back to the cottage. More coffee was made, the quiches were consumed, and the conversation continued to flow, as it had been doing all day long. In spite of the work and the disarray in the cottage, it was a fun and enjoyable day. We were quite tired by the end of it and were looking forward to today, when we could sleep as long as we wanted in the morning and could concentrate on creating some order out of the chaos, even if at a slow pace. LOL, as it turned out.

Bill and I were sitting at the kitchen table having a cup of tea and some more sweet treats from the bakery when we looked at each other and suddenly began having a conversation about the garbage in the apartment. We were both aware of the bag in the kitchen and we both intended to take it outside and bin it, but we realized that neither of us actually did it. I closed the windows in the apartment before we left and as it's upstairs, it tends to be warm in there anyway, but the weather is expected to get quite warm for here over the next few days, so it'll be unpleasantly warm and stuffy in there. We won't go back until next week and we couldn't leave it there until then. So to avoid having it smell up the place, I heated up my Cornish pasty at 6:30 this morning and had it for breakfast. It was really good and I'll probably get one again some day. We got on the bus at 8 to begin our journey to the apartment and back, using some of our wait time between buses to pick up some groceries. It was a very long day and sooooo nice to get home, even if home is a mess right now. Tomorrow, I tackle the kitchen!

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