Tuesday, May 01, 2012


I thought perhaps I should write about knitting today, for a change: but nothing comes to mind. Nothing on-line seems of any interest. I should finish the snood this evening, and make at least a good start on Kitchener’ing it to itself. I look forward to a bit of sock to follow, before starting the Tulip Cardigan.

I forgot to do yesterday’s Sky Scarf stripe in st st, to mark the change of month. So I’ll have to do it today and tomorrow instead.

I tried to think of a knitting treat I might promise myself, when the dining room is restored to its former glory. But I am so self-indulgent in the normal way of things that I can think of nothing just-out-of-reach I could make an exception and get.

Ah! Not knitting, but what about a Thai takeaway, if I’m here on my own the evening of the day the ceiling comes down?

The furniture was taken off (expensively) into storage yesterday. I tried and failed to establish a date for the Event. Today I’ll leave that one and try to get an estimate from the furniture restorer who visited last week. Then I can pass it on to Upstairs’ insurance people and begin to discover whether we have a fight on our hands.

Upstairs has a distinctive surname. I think he told me once that he is the nephew of the well-known Edinburgh financier of the same name who is =27 on the current list of Scotland’s Richest, if you still have yesterday’s paper. Name begins with G.

Joe will be here tomorrow, to help wrestle the last few things out of the dining room. He can only stay one night, as he has a job interview on Friday. He couldn’t come sooner, because today is his girlfriend’s birthday. One night should be enough. It’ll be great to see him.

I shall tell you about the books I’m reading. Kristie thought there might be a way to knit a scarf based on the type of book one had read in the past week. Wouldn’t work for me, who seem to read nothing but escape these days. I  have three on the go at the moment, an indulgence I wouldn’t countenance in knitting.

First is “Fear in the Sunlight” by Nicola Upson. It is what I think would be called a pastiche, with real characters – Alfred Hitchcock, Josephine Tey – mixed up with presumably fictional ones. I am having some trouble keeping the minor characters straight, and am halfway through without anything much having happened. But I’m not quite ready to abandon it.

Next comes “Tony and Susan” by Austin Wright. This one is good. A woman is sent a mss by her ex-husband from 25 years ago. He always wanted to be a writer. She reads it. So you have a book-within-a-book. The mss turns out to be a thriller, and a gripping one. Every so often she stops reading and we hear about her current life which is uneventful so far. I’m pretty sure I’ll finish this one.

But the actual page-turner, at the moment, is “The White Lie” by Andrea Gillies. It has all I most enjoy for a setting – big house, lots of family, overgrown rhododendrons, faded upholstery. With plenty of love and death and unusualness, well constructed. Amazon suggested it to me a couple of days ago. It is unnerving to think their algorithms are that good.   

5 comments:

  1. Catriona1:13 PM

    Commiserations on teh post-flood. horror. We are currently going through something similar ourselves, but it's only hour house that is affected, and the flood was my fault (post-chemo brainless moment of leaving the bath taps running. Will. Never. Do. That. Again).

    Alarmingly we are now into Month 6 of things not being fixed (the downstairs subfloor was damaged and had to be dug up, relaid, then re-oaked. They messed up and are very loathe to come fix their awful work. However the ceiling replacement was very clean & quick!

    Also: The electricity cost of the dehumidifiers should be noted an presented to your neighbours too - it was enough to push our Direct Debit up by a further £25/month!

    If you haven't already read it, I think you might like The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Song-Achilles-Madeline-Miller/dp/1408821982/ref=tmm_pap_title_0)

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  2. GrannyPurple1:26 PM

    Interesting, I also had been thinking that reading material could provide a theme for a scarf--was considering using book cover colours, and of course, the longer it takes to read the book, the wider the stripe. Have been revisiting ancient Penguins in a shelf that moved over from my mother's apartment 24 years ago, and thought what a bright scarf they would make--green, orange, yellow! Maybe with a bit of black and white (or when they're this vintage, pale ochre...)

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  3. I was curious about the "richest" list - still available online:) didn't know that j. rowling is scottish... most of the names mean nothing to me, but I always wonder how they calculate the "means" of people.... I hope for you that the nephew of someone famous has insurance - and that the whole ordeal will be over soon!
    good luck from ireland
    Bettina

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  4. Hi Jean, since you spent part of your childhood in New Jersey, I'm saying First of May Petticoat Day. No one except other people from New Jersey know this one. Do you?

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  5. My wife was delighted to hear about Fear In the Sunlight. Always glad to pass recommendations along to her so thank you for posting about books, Jean.

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