Corona Virus thoughts......

Corona?  When I was a kid that was a fizzy drink (soda pop)!!  And now, here we are with the world in lock-down with the Corona Virus.  Horrible, but we can't stop it until it runs it's course, so like other bloggers I thought I'd post news and other's views.

Let's not involve politics of any kind at all people!  Let's say a big thank you to all those who will endeavour to keep your country running, wherever you are in the world.  Let us be kind to those who need assistance.  Let us not be too greedy (especially over toilet rolls!).

And now I'm including some comments from a blogger in Minnisota USA who I follow because there was some great stuff in her latest post plus a lovely summer rose from my garden to cheer up my readers :

"As Bloggers, Influencers, etc. I feel we have at least some moral obligation to stop what we’re doing for a second and acknowledge what’s going on in the world. I also believe we absolutely have the obligation to spread this right now: DON’T PANIC! Currently, in my home state schools are closed and it seems pretty much everything else that is not mandatory is already closed or not far behind. Its time to go home and stay there (if you possibly can) and binge watch Netflix for a bit.

I can’t personally do that entirely but I can MOSTLY. I don’t need to go the grocery store or go out to eat or go out to a bar. I don’t need to do anything currently but go to my day job and go home. My day job has five employees and we’re not hugging each other lol.

When I close up at the end of the day I hit every door handle, light switch and surface with a disinfecting wipe. I don’t feel we’re being silly or idiotic.  Our boss (my Mom) is currently going through chemotherapy treatments and we have banned her from all public places. I will be getting her needs from grocery stores etc… its not negotiable lol.

PLEASE think of people like my Mom before you decide that this is all hype. It won’t hurt anybody to stay home a bit more than usual and wash their hands…
I know people are being idiots. I know the media is to blame for a lot of it. I know that if my Mom gets sick (with the measures we’re taking) it will be most likely me who gives it to her.

SO I’M STAYING HOME.
I’m limiting my social contact.
I’m doing this because I love my Mom. Her health is not something I’m going to take chances on. And its not like staying home is such a burden good grief!

Seriously, only buy what you need. NO ONE will need twenty years worth of toilet paper. Packaged foodstuffs - If it has a best before date you really can eat it for a few days after; and you can also freeze it,. But if it will most likely expire before you could possibly eat or freeze it please don’t buy it, leave it for someone else.

If you have more than you need PLEASE DONATE IT.

Stay home all that you possibly you can. (Going to the movies or the shops with your kids entirely cancels out the point of all of this). The only stop I’m making is a stop at the liquor store on my way home. Everything is gonna be all right. 
Now, Grandma’s House DIY will return to our regular scheduled posts 🙂"

So that's what Tarah wanted to say, and I'm sure that loads of other people on other blogs are saying the same thing or similar.

You can reply to this or not, you can comment or not, but as long as any reader feels a bit better because other people think like you, well - that's the whole point.  Don't feel lonely out there if you are self isolating.  Pick up the phone, or send a lovely chatty email letter to  someone on your Christmas card list every day.  Do some exercises (tin of baked beans in each hand for example - 20 lifts each  side.  Walk upstairs 2/3 times more than normal.  Eat a little less than usual if you are healthy.  Is this the time to give up smoking?  Well, you could try!  And even if your garden is only a little courtyard, make the coffee and sit out in the fresh air for an hour.  

Bless us all, eh?

The Highland Falcon Thief - M G Leonard and Sam Sedgman

Great adventures aboard a steam train on it's last journey! Aimed at 8 - 12 years, I loved this and I am ancient!  It would also make a great "read-aloud" book.  It's the first in a series (Adventures on Trains) of adventures with Hal and his journalist uncle Nat. 

Uncle Nat is covering the last journey of this lovely steam engine, pulling a royal train on a rail tour of the UK before going to a railway museum. (For train enthusiasts, the Highland Falcon is based on a real steam engine, The Mallard).  Even if you have no interest whatsoever in trains, if you like a mystery this will do it.  If you like mysteries on trains, this will do it.  If you like jewel robberies, this will do it! 

Hal doesn't really want to go, but his Mum is just off to hospital to have a baby, and   Uncle Nat has arranged for a ticket for Hal to join him on this adventurous journey.  So I guess he'll just have to make the best of it...... and it isn't very long before he discovers a stowaway, and a jewel is stolen.  Who?  What?  How?   Just like the very best mystery on a train tales, this has everything, including lovely illustrations which are from Hal's sketchbook, as he draws things he doesn't really understand to work them out.  There are clues, but although I thought I knew "who" halfway through, I certainly didn't know "how" until Hal and the stowaway produced the evidence.  Some great characters here, including a chubby man with fingers like pork sausages; a man with a scar on his upper lip who obviously looks like a criminal; an actress who is not very bright and then of course Uncle Nat who helps Hal solve the mystery by asking the right questions, and not telling Hal that he mustn't do this  that and the other like a parent would!  Great stuff!

Mrs Mac Suggests.... what to read in March 2020

Have I ever said this before?  March is my birthday month.... Bossy Aries lady here!  And with the end of a chesty cold, which has taken away my taste as well - don't eat so much if you can't taste, so is that a good thing?

As well as my birthday,  March has St David's Day and the first day of Spring too.  So I have a springlike feel about the whole thing and my garden is full of miniature daffodils in full bloom.

Spring though, has nothing to do with my suggestion this month.  I've been thinking, and may I suggest you find and read

an author's first book?

..... and when I say a first book, I mean that, not an author's only book so far!!

I'm going to read the first book of an author I have read before, set in the USA, and it's

The Next Step in the Dance - Tim Gautreaux

Enjoy your reading this month... maybe you can get outside for an hour or so if you are in the Northern Hemisphere - a coffee and a few pages of your book is such a treat in the sunshine.

After the Party - Cressida Connolly

This was not recommended, I had read no blurb, no reviews on Good Reads.  I just spotted it in Waterstones bookshop and it looked interesting.  Oh! readers - it was!!  This is the story of a youngish wife and mother, married to a British businessman 20 years older than she, who returns to England when her husband's postings to places afar stop.  Soon the company pays him off, and he has nothing to do.  It will not be long before the three children are off to boarding school (as most upper class children were, back a few years (this particular books starts in 1938, a year before the beginning of WW2.  So very soon she will have nothing to do either.  One of her sisters runs Summer Camps for the group she belongs to, but until page 70 or so we have no idea of the who what and where of the group in question.   She's delighted to help out, and her children will have a lovely summer at the camp, and then all hell will break loose.  A great insight into the manners and snobbery of the English upper classes at that time, a glimpse of very real British history, and every two or three chapters, a look back at what happened that summer told in the first person fom a distance of 40 years. 

The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein

This one was very popular a few years ago, and I even had it on my shelf ready to read. Then, in a fit of "who wants to read about a dog who likes racing cars?" I gave it away.   Silly girl, because some time last year I spotted a comment that made me want to read it, so I put it back on my wish list, and last Summer a kind book fairy sent it to me. So Glad!    Some years ago I read Fluke, by James Herbert which I liked - again because the dog told the story, but this is the superior read, I feel. Enzo is a dog who believes in reincarnation, and in his next life he is certainly coming back as a human.  To this end, he explains why he understands human speech whilst most other dogs just have the usual (sit, fetch, bad dog etc.).  Denny his owner,  has a day job, but when he can, races cars. He and Enzo have spent a lot of time watching movies about racing and recordings of Formula 1 races. Denny also has a wife and a little daughter, and Enzo tries to look after all of them - sometimes it's not possible and thereby hangs the tail (sorry, tale!). And then something very sad occurs, and circumstances change.   Enzo is always there, showing support as best he can, which is sometimes difficult when all he can manage is a tail wag or a bark. But inside his head, his vocabulary is massive! He'll tell you all about his and his family's life, and you may need to blow your nose towards the end. I loved this. Enjoyed the read so much.

Mrs Mac Suggests..... what to read in February 2020

Busy, busy me!  Stuff to do, stuff done, and more stuff.  However, still time to pop on today and amidst all the Brexit furore which I am totally ignoring,  to suggest a read for February.

So for this month, find yourself   

               A book written for children.

I really enjoyed The Boy at the Back of the Class by this author last year, and so look forward to

The Star outside my Window -

Onjali Q Rauf

John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley

I don't read many non-fiction books a year, but I do really like Steinbeck, and so when this one crossed my radar, I took a chance on it.  That man had a wonderful way with words, and I was pleased to travel across the USA with him, on a trip when he got itchy feet and wanted to take that journey, and have a look at America, and acquaint himself with some fellow-Americans.  What he found, back in the 1960s, forms the basis for this short (just over 200 pages) and very readable book.

He had a early form of recreational vehicle made, a sort of caravan (trailer) on a flat-back truck which he christened Rocinante (with a nod to Don Quixote) and off he went.  His descriptions of the geography he passed through, and the folk he met, made this first an entertaining read, second, a book with a few home truths, and third, a book which was excellent for reading aloud - which I did whilst Mr Mac did the driving.

From the East Coast across to the West, including his hometown Salinas, California, and then down to Texas and then the  deep South.  He and Charley mostly slept in Rocinante, stopping every few days at a motel or hotel so that a bath could be had.  His laundry was done on board, a miracle of DIY is described..... and a bottle whiskey always available in case he met someone who he could be neighbourly to - and he often did.  He found out things about himself.  He found out things about fellow Americans, and he made me think, hard!  How towns grow and sprawl, how highways get ever busier, how little town high streets die and why.  He could be describing the UK right now, even though his journey was 60 years ago.  And I had to keep reminding myself that it was 60 years ago and not last week.  Some sad stuff, some funny stuff, and some bad stuff too (I remember that first little black girl attending a white school,  and remember Norman Rockwell's painting at the time).  Do find a copy, and enjoy the journey with John, as I did.