The Travelling Cat Chronicles - Hiro Arikawa

 A friend lent me this - and what a lovely lend it was. If you are an animal lover, you will soon recognise the close bond that is sometimes formed betweeen an animal and it's human. 

Here, Nana the stray tomcat is found and adopted by Satoru, and they lead a very pleasant life together. And then one day they set out on a journey all over Japan meeting friends of Satoru in the hope that (due to his changed circumstances) they will adopt Nana. No such luck, so he presses on to his Aunt's home - the Aunt who looked after him when his parents died. Now she has to make friends with Nana...... and she doesn't like cats. I won't insert a spoiler, this book is best read without knowledge of the changed circumstances of Satoru....... but I have to say I did have a lump in my throat near the end.    A Lovely little book, simplistic but not boring.

            

Goldfinch in the garden today

Look!  saw this in the garden this afternoon

Came to have a drink of water.... can't say I have ever seen one in the garden before, but in these strange times, it is our habit to sit in the garden, have lunch, read a book, or perhaps do a spot of weeding.  Today I was clipping dead  twigs from my Acers, and suddenly, with a flurry of wings he flew straight past me and arrived!

What joy we are having this Spring, seeing things we never gave the time to before.  I may not have ever seen one, but surely they have always been there!  What about you?  What are you spotting in these quiet times?

Shamelessly stealing....... post 10

Short and sweet today, and cannot even tell you where this came from, as I stole it from a friend and she didn't say where she found it....but anyway, what a lovely  thought this is -


We are not all in the same boat,
but our boats are all in the same storm and we will come out the other side. 

My Absolute Darling - Gabriel Tallent

It isn't often that I use the word Warning when reviewing a book, and if you read me regularly, you'll know that I don't mention books I have not enjoyed.  So why the warning?

sychpath

This book is one of those that describes the crimes involved sparsely, but uses much longer and rambling sections to get the reader inside Turtle's head so that we know how she feels to the nth degree.  Turtle is 14, hates school, can clean a gun quickly and well, and lives in absolute poverty with her father.  If I said that  Martin, her father, was a psychopath and a child abuser, some of you would stop reading right now and never give this book a second chance.  But maybe you should read on.  You see Turtle loves her father - although not in the way we want her to.  She swears constantly, in her head.  She calls herself dreadful things, the kind of names that misogynists call women.  And why would she do that?  Because those are the terms her father uses.

Turtle is a loner, for many reasons, but she makes the acquaintance of a couple of boys her age and their families, and this is the start of a voyage of self-discovery which may or may not end well.  It is only when she meets a ten year old child who has run away from home and her mother's boyfriend that she starts to think about her own life in a different way.

I don't want to put anyone off, but this is a harrowing read, and Martin is the only character in any book I have ever read that I despised with my whole heart and found myself wanting him dead as soon as possible.  This is not part of who I am - so the author found a way to make me really "sit up and feel" whilst reading this book - and what a debut he's pulled off.  

If the subject matter is not something you can cope with (and I understand that), perhaps this one is best left alone - but once started, I had to read on, and in doing so found a little more about why people stay with abusers.  "Walk a mile in my shoes" is the kind of statement that we often dismiss.  But in this case, I walked many miles in Turtle's shoes and wanted so much for her to get some kind of happy ending - because she deserved that.

Holly Blue butterfly spot in Dorset garden (May 2020)

Holly Blue Male


Now here's a puzzle!  a very small blue butterfly flitting about this afternoon.... and there are 3/4 different kinds.  Was it this?  yes it was!  Because the underside is very plain and a sort of white colour, so when he settled for a while, I spotted it!

It was only this morning I was walking past the Holly tree and spotted the flowers.... I have never seen holly flowers in my life (seen plenty of berries of course!) but during lock down life has a slower, nicer, quieter pace in the garden and somehow, there is more time to inspect the borders!

That's the third "first time spot" for me this year, and I saw an orange tip again this same afternoon.

Mrs Mac Suggests - what to read in MAY 2020

We've had several lovely weeks of sun, which has helped with lock down because it sort of lifts your heart.  Especially folk like us who are lucky enough to have a garden.  Now we are into a third day of rain - with sunny intervals.  How are you coping?  Mr Mac is an "at-risk" kind of guy, which makes me persona non grata too, out there in the big world.  So small projects round the house are on the cards, and so is reading (of course!)

In the book reading world, I know that some of us are finding it hard to read the books we thought we desperately wanted to before this rubbish virus took over the world.  My own comfort level has always been around 400 pages (so Pillars of the Earth will always be a no-no for me!) but of late I am looking on my  bookcase for "thinnies".

I know I have readers for this particular monthly post, because I can see the figures.  But I have no idea at all who you are and if you enjoy the book I suggest because you don't comment!  Ah well, plenty of lurkers means somebody loves me!!  Moving swiftly on........

I am in other places on the internet, and in another place I suggested to a group of bookie friends that 

a  children's classic 

might be a good choice.  For me it will be a re-read, but a wonderful one and at only 152 pages I think I can concentrate that long!  The new Puffin edition cover has actually used the back cover illustration of the 1958 edition (although I think the original front cover was better, but what do I know!)  Anyway, let me welcome you to the world of

The Borrowers - Mary Norton

Bedroom lock down project for a rainy day

     
Well, you have to do something, don't you?  For the first time in several weeks, no sun and it rained all day and  by late morning something had to be done!  I am revamping our bedroom, little by little, and last night the bulb blew when I switched the light on.  This morning was a failed attempt to find a bulb in the house for this particular light fitting, and that was a big fat FAIL! No bulb until Amazon delivers, but on the other hand...... I saw the light (groan!) and decided that our skeleton chandelier needed tarting up a bit.  For what is lock down for, but to encourage a bit of bling into a grey day?

I have been helping my local charity shop clean and remake where necessary, old jewellery, which means that lots of junk necklaces get taken apart and reused.  Sometimes you find something that you have no inspiration for, so they stay in the tin.... or they did, until today!  Lots of "drop" faux pearls.  Just what we needed!

Washed, and as it was (with the exception of two pearl drops for a try out).   The white pieces are just washed sea shells and this is how we bought it.   This has survived two bedroom redecorations so far and we still think it's fun.... but not fun enough any more.  Needs some bling!

And now with added jewellery!  Added drop pearls to all the hanging shell pieces, including a row of pink ones half way up - originally all the trim that hung down was only shells but now she's rather glamorous, isn't she? 

Now back in place with added glamour!

So a few hours with a pair of pincers and a pile of junk pearls and there you go!  I had to lay down for 5 minutes to truly appreciate what I'd done but I'm OK now!  So a much loved skeleton chandelier has been bejewelled and  made into a lovely lady.   


Lock down made me do it......