books in 2011

My reading rate seems to have gone down in 2011. Unless, of course, I have forgotten to record some of the books as I finish them (always a possibility!).



Steve put up extra shelves this year to accommodate the collection. His own reading has added quite a bit to the bulk. We have both appreciated books as gifts, have bought quite a few second-hand and also from the rather wonderful "Last Bookshop" where everything costs £2. I have also bought full price books from bricks and mortar bookshops, notably Foyles, Blackwells and Waterstones.


I really don't want bookshops to vanish from the High Street and I won't be abandoning proper paper books, but I have also succumbed to the charm and convenience of the Kindle. It was my Christmas gift from Steve and I have read one e-book so far. I'm looking forward to the possibility of travelling with ten books in my bag, but just one rather snazzy piece of kit, resplendent in its own personalised Classic Penguin cover (designed and given to me by daughter no. 2) Here's this year's list with special favourites highlighted:


Sebastian Faulks, A Week in December
Penelope Fitzgerald, The Beginning of Spring
Helen Fielding, Cause Celeb
Penelope Fitzgerald, The Book Shop
Jonathan Coe, What a Carve Up
Karin Fossum, The Water's Edge
Henning Mankell, Italian Shoes
Helen Warner, RSVP
Penelope Fitzgerald, At Freddie's
Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
Sophie Hannah, A Room Swept White
Bella Pollen, The Summer of the Bear
Mary Kay Zuravleff, The Bowl is Already Broken
Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Salley Vickers, Where Three Roads Meet
Steven Benatar, Wish Her Safe at Home
Andrew Motion, In the Blood
David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
Graham Swift, Out of this World
Victoria Hislop, The Island
Chitra Divakaruni, Sister of my Heart
Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time of Gifts
Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Linda Grant, Remind me who I am again.
John Banville, The Sea
Tracy Chevalier, The Lady and the Unicorn
Maggi Dawn, Accidental Pilgrim
Nigel Slater, Toast
Kate Atkinson, Started early, took my dog
David Nicholls, One Day
Colette Rossant, Return to Paris
David Mitchell, Black Swan Green
Peter Carey, Parrott and Olivier in America
Paul Auster, Sunset Park
Helen Dunmore, The Betrayal
Anna Ralph, The Floating Island
P D James, Time to Be in Earnest
Jason Goodwin, The Bellini Card
Nicola Upson, Two for Joy

saved by monkey and robot

Well I really thought I wasn't going to have anything for the daily blog challenge today. Until I captured the moment when two little girls and their grandad

watched Susan Jameson
reading from Auntie Hannah and Uncle Felix's book "Monkey & Robot" for the CBeebies bedtime story.

retirement musings

I’m a little nervous about posting this as I don’t usually go in for so much self-indulgent rambling online, but writing it has been helpful to me and it’s not offensive to anyone, so I’m going for it. I should warn you that if you are easily irritated by other people’s navel-gazing, you really shouldn’t read any more! # It’s a year since I retired. Fortunately the kind enquiry “how’s retirement?” is beginning to dwindle, because I’m afraid the answer still has to be “I have no idea”! To be honest I don’t think I have adjusted yet, though as my daughter no. 3 wisely remarked when I voiced this thought a couple of weeks ago “What would that adjustment look like?” Well quite! # There have been some very surprising things. My job was moderately enjoyable and I did it reasonably well, but it was never what you would call a “career”. Yet I find that my image of myself was more shaped by my working identity than I realised. I worked from home as the part-time Finance Manager for a firm of architects, so I was used to being home alone and planning my time and getting to the end of a day and feeling that something had been achieved. There’s no longer an external discipline to make that happen.

Before I retired I did a lot of thinking about it, making lists of hopes and fears (which look remarkably similar to the ones Steve has enumerated in his thoughts on retirement). I think my biggest fear was of “drifting” – I’d always envisaged retirement as my opportunity to get on with the things that work prevented me from doing. I wanted to do more textile work and more “art” and above all I wanted to discover whatever it is that will really motivate me and make me feel alive. After a while I realised that like all of life’s major changes – marriage, parenthood, bereavement – no amount of planning and anticipation prepares you for the emotional journey of the real thing; you just have to do it. This fear has definitely been realised! I know myself well enough to know that given the chance I do just drift. I have always found it hard to motivate myself and I get easily distracted, rushing on to the next task before the first one has been completed (which is why I’ve always had such an untidy desk and the kitchen always looks as if the scullery maid’s on holiday). This would be fine if I actually enjoyed the drifting, but so often time is just frittered away on the computer. (I’ve given up solitaire for Lent which has been a great discipline, but I haven’t managed to bring my need to “just check my emails and have a quick look at facebook” under control.) I think to myself that I would like to go and visit the Museum and Art Gallery in Cardiff (a modest train journey) or to go to the British Museum (rather further, more planning required), but the days pass and I still haven’t done them. I haven’t done a great deal in the way of textile work either – and certainly no “art”. So, surprise, surprise – it wasn’t work stopping me from doing those things; it was me. Lack of drive, lack of commitment, these are the things I’ve always berated myself for, so why should I change just because I’ve retired?

#

Another thing which has surprised me is that retirement has felt more like an ending than I thought it would. Our move to Bristol, retiring at sixty – these were things that were supposed to mean that retirement would be a new start with lots of lovely things to look forward to, rather than an end. Over the past year there have been several episodes when I have felt I was balanced on the edge of falling into depression. This has both alarmed me (I really don’t want to go there again) and made me angry with myself – it seems so self-indulgent; my life is fine, I have people I love, who love me, I have things to do and things to look forward to, I am not without value – there is nothing to be unhappy about. And yet, and yet... I have come to the shocked conclusion that although it’s not something I believe with the conscious, rational part of me there is a deep subconscious part that has absorbed the prevailing world view that work and economic value are the things that make us worthwhile.

#

I recently heard an older woman say that she would love to see the northern lights and my inner-meanie said to me “Well that’s not going to happen, is it? She’s too old and she can’t afford it.” And then I felt ashamed and wondered when I started thinking that older people couldn’t have dreams which would never be fulfilled. I suppose a lot of life is about managing expectation – having dreams, but not being unrealistic. Over the years there are many things that we realise we can’t have or do because of money or circumstance or ability and as we get older more of the dreams of our youth have to go on the “never going to happen” pile. So has there been anything good about the past year? Yes, of course, lots of things. I went on a wonderful retreat/reading week at Sheldon, Steve and I enjoyed a brief holiday in Wales and lots of days out during his summer holidays last year. We have seen friends and enjoyed time with family. My days aren't spent entirely aimlessly because I look after our grand-daughters one day a week; I do Stu’s book-keeping, I’m treasurer of Malago WI, we have a weekly meal and discussion of faith issues with a group of friends, I’ve joined a community choir, I read and knit relentlessly and I have done some quilt-making. So actually life is full and rich, it just needs a bit more focus. # Coincidentally, while I have been drafting this post our great friend Si posted a link on facebook to a talk/blog post called Steal like an Artist. There’s some real practical wisdom in there and I am particularly attracted by the advice not to wait until you “know yourself” before you start doing the things you want to do and by the suggestion that you should project the image of the thing you want to be in order to become it. I had a conversation with someone yesterday who asked me if friday is my day off. When I said that I am retired she expressed surprise because “you always look busy and organised”. In the subsequent “what did you do when you were working” exchange she confessed that she had thought I was a psychologist! (I have absolutely no idea why and neither did she seem to). I’m obviously projecting some kind of efficient but empathetic image, which is a comfort I suppose! # I think it’s time I dusted down and resurrected my Fifty before Sixty manifesto and think about a new set of goals and targets. I need to dream some new dreams and make some of them come true. # PS. Blogger is having some serious problems with paragraph spacing at the moment (as others have observed). This is my third attempt at getting paragraphs where I want them to be and I don't hold out that much hope for it being right even now.

my year in reading - 2010

Forget the 100 books that the BBC thinks most of us won't have read. These are the books that I actually did read this year. As ever, it's not a particularly edifying list - a mixture of old and new; "literary" and trash; mostly fiction; a light dusting of "improving" books. For me, reading is less about learning and improvement and almost entirely about immersing myself in story - being the people, living the lives, exploring the places that one life on this earth (and my cautious nature) will not afford me. As I did last year, I have highlighted the books I particularly enjoyed.
There are a couple here that I thought were particularly terrible, but I'm not going to single them out!

Val McDermid, The Wire in the Blood

Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

Meera Syal, Anita and Me

E Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

Muriel Spark, The Girls of Slender Means

Penelope Wilcock, The Wounds of God

Jennifer Johnston, The Captains and the Kings

Paul Auster, Travels in the Scriptorium

Wm Paul Young, The Shack

Cormac McCarthy, The Road

John Bell, 10 Things they never told me about Jesus

Mary Lawson, The Other Side of the Bridge

Alexander McCall Smith, The Comfort of Saturdays

Barack Obama, Dreams from my Father

David Lodge, Deaf Sentence

Peter Owen Jones, Letters from an Extreme Pilgrim

Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

Maeve Binchy, The Copper Beech

Elizabeth Knox, The Vintner's Luck

Elinor Lipman, The Pursuit of Alice Thrift

Jane Brocket, The Gentle Art of Quilt Making

Adrian Plass and Jeff Lucas, Seriously Funny

Arthur Japin, The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi

Ian McEwan, Amsterdam

Rose Lynas (ed), Votewise Now

Patricia Cornwell, The Scarpetta Factor

Elizabeth Noble, The Reading Group

Deboragh Moggagh, Smile

Mary Ann Schaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Iris Murdoch, The Unicorn

Nicola Upson, An Expert in Murder

C P Snow, The Affair

Ian Adams, Cave Refectory Road

Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology

Mitch Albarn, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Alexander McCall Smith, The Lost Art of Gratitude

A S Byatt, The Children's Book

Richard Holloway, Looking in the Distance

Kate Atkinson, When Will There Be Good News?

Agatha Christie, Postern of Fate

Agatha Christie, The Clocks

Chris Stewart, Driving Over Lemons

Julian Barnes, Cross Channel

Madeleine Wickham, The Gatecrasher

Joanna Trollope, The Girl from the South

George Eliot, Silas Marner

Roddy Doyle, Paula Spencer

Anita Shreve, Testimony

Barbara Kingsolver, The Lacuna

reality and unanswerable questions

As she was drawing the other day, Iris idly asked me “why are we real?” It seemed unfair to ask a three-and-a-half year old to define reality, but I did ascertain that she meant “real” as opposed to dolls and toys. I suppose I could have explained that dolls and toys are real – real plastic and wood and so on, but the difference is that we are living sentient beings. However I didn’t think of it at the time because I accepted that her question was really the more philosophical question – why am I me? It took me straight back to my own childhood wonder at the fact that I was me rather than someone else and to my later questioning of the fact that I had been fortunate to be born in the relatively well off UK as opposed to, say, a poverty-stricken warzone. These are the questions that lead to “who made God?” or “what came before the Big Bang?” I’m afraid I ducked the discussion that we could have had by saying that I didn’t think that any of us really know the answer. Thinking about it since I think my answer was true, if maybe a little unhelpful to a child trying to make sense of her world. Indeed I’m just embarking on a book by Richard Holloway (formerly Bishop of Edinburgh – now largely faithless) Looking in the Distance which explores these very questions. Maybe I’ll be better equipped for the discussion next time!

the photo is one I took on my recent retreat in Devon

reading list 2009

For the first time ever I decided to record what I read this year. As part of my 50 before 60 manifesto I set myself the task of reading at least two books a month, with the additional challenge of making one in five of them something a bit harder – non-fiction or maybe a classic I’d never got round to before. The first part was fairly easy, but I’m not sure that I actually achieved the second part. Although I’m a fairly prolific reader, I’m basically lazy – preferring a story to an intellectual challenge.

It’s a fairly hotch potch list – some of which is almost embarrassing to publish! There’s a fair amount of crime fiction in there which I always turn to when I don’t know what else to go for. There’s at least one book in the list that I can no longer remember reading and a couple that were accidental re-reads, discovering partway through that I had been here before, but couldn’t really remember how it finished. I acquire my reading matter in several different ways – presents, occasionally buying new, sometimes buying second-hand from GreenMetropolis or charity shops, sometimes borrowing from the library. I belong to a reading group, so 8 or 10 books each year are read for discussion; I follow up recommendations from friends and reviews I’ve seen, but charity shop books can turn up some unexpected treasure (as well as a lot of trash). Kat Pomfret’s Paradise Jazz was one such jewel, read late in the year – I’d never heard of her, but found myself beguiled. Others that I enjoyed enough to recommend are highlighted below:

Barbara Kingsolver: Prodigal Summer
Muriel Barbery: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Penelope Lively: Consequences
Kate Atkinson: Case Histories
Anne Tyler: The Accidental Tourist
Melvyn Bragg: Credo
Anne Tyler: A Patchwork Planet
Tom Wright: Surprised by Hope
Stef Penney: The Tenderness of Wolves
Sebastian Barry: The Secret Scripture
Whitney Otto: How to make an American Quilt
Peter Robinson: Playing with Fire
Lillian Harry: Dance Little Lady
Iain Pears: An Instance of the Fingerpost
Barbara Vine: The Chimney Sweeper's Boy
Stieg Larssen: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Gail Godwin: Father Melancholy's Daughter
Dan Rhodes: Gold
Barbara Trapido: Brother of the More Famous Jack
John Drane: Do Christians Know How to be Spiritual
Sophie Parkin: All grown up
Barbara Trapido: The Travelling Hornplayer
Jill Dawson: The Great Lover
Cecilia Aherne: Thanks for the Memories
D S & M Linn: Sleeping with Bread
Libby Purves: Shadow Child
Bella Pollen: Chasing Unicorns
Joanne Harris: The Lollipop Shoes
Rob Bell: Velvet Elvis
Debra Adelaide: The Household Guide to Dying
Bella Pollen: Midnight Cactus
Michael Dibdin: The End Times
Guillermo Martinez: The Oxford Murders
Iain Pears: Giotto's Hand
Jamila Gavin: Coram Boy
Lauren Weisberger: The Devil Wears Prada
Sebastian Faulks: Engleby
Chris Sunderland: The Dream that inspired the Bible
John Irving: A Prayer for Owen Meany
Paulo Coelho: The Pilgrimage
Rosie Thomas: A Simple Life
Sarah Harrison: Heaven's on Hold
Kat Pomfret: Paradise Jazz
Ian Rankin (Jack Harvey): Bleeding Hearts

star chart two

OK, here's the second instalment of my 50 before 60 progress:

15. Increase loft insulation: this is definitely on the shopping list.

16. Grow some vegetables and herbs: YES! This has been a great experience and we are eating salad leaves from the garden and strawberries and generally watching everything get green and lovely.
17. Take part in Earth Abbey’s GrowZone: I reported on this in May. It was just brilliant and such a great kick-start for the garden. It also means that I’m not being too discouraged by the things that are failing. Quite a number of things have just been demolished by pests and in the past I would just have gone – oh, I can’t do that then, but the group is providing encouragement to put that down to experience and plan for the next harvest.
18. Start a wormery: not done yet, but I have talked to one son-in-law about creating one and am also hoping to do a permaculture course in the autumn which includes stuff about creating wormeries.
19. Make bread once a week: I’m not up to speed on this one, largely because the bread I was making with the Magimix wasn’t turning out that well. A hand-kneaded loaf last week was great, so I’ll have to do a few more of those.
20. Take grandchildren on the miniature railway at Ashton Court: not yet, but maybe when Alice comes down with Dan in August.
22. Read two books a month: This I have achieved quite easily and have very much enjoyed giving myself permission to read lots. I have been recording titles and authors and already looking back can’t remember some of the books I’ve read. Does this mean they were unmemorable, that my memory is bad, or that I should be writing "book notes" as well?
23. One book in five to be a challenge of some kind – maybe a non-fiction book or a classic I’ve never got round to: I’m just about achieving this, but as I said in no. 9 I struggle with anything that isn’t a "story".
26. Conquer lace knitting: this is on my needles at the moment and I’m loving it.

Decided to start with a straightforward rectangular shape rather than the triangular shawl with complicated stitch markers that I was trying last year.
27. Use the screen printing equipment I bought two years ago: well I’ve got it out of the box and used it, but can’t claim to have done anything very special.

birthday list

No, not a list of the presents I want! This list is about a different kind of hope.

Some time ago my friend Gai blogged about the 49 things she wants to do before she’s 50. I found it a very inspiring list - a mixture of treats, challenges, resolutions and plans; things that can be ticked off in one go and things to incorporate into regular life. I thought I’d have a go at my own list. Trouble is I’m ten years older than G, so I decided to make it 50 things to do before I’m 60. It’s my birthday this week, so I’ve got a year to do all the things on my list.

I well remember that after I passed my fiftieth birthday I got a bit gloomy, feeling that there wasn’t much to look forward to, just the downhill slope towards old age. In fact that was untrue, the past nine years have brought lots of wonderful experiences, including a major move to a different part of the country, a lifestyle shift and the birth of three grandchildren. But I know that in my low moments I can lose sight of the good things and forget what it is that I enjoy doing. So this list is to remind me of all the stuff I have to look forward to and remind me that I can still make a contribution to the world.

1. Visit Cambridge
2. St Ives holiday with all the family to celebrate our 60th birthdays
3. Walk (part of) the Kennet and Avon canal
4. Make a daisy chain
5. Increase exercise to 10,000 steps per day
6. Reduce BMI to a healthy level
7. Find a tai chi, yoga or pilates class
8. Practise meditation every day
9. Learn more about meditation and other spiritual exercises
10. Keep a thankfulness diary
11. Plan a retreat
12. Take some kind of pre-retirement course or life coaching
13. Reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill
14. Where reasonable, avoid buying plastic
15. Increase loft insulation
16. Grow some vegetables and herbs
17. Take part in Earth Abbey’s GrowZone
18. Start a wormery
19. Make bread once a week
20. Take grandchildren on the miniature railway at Ashton Court
21. See theatre regularly
22. Read two books a month
23. One book in five to be a challenge of some kind – maybe a non-fiction book or a classic I’ve never got round to
24. Go to a couple of major exhibitions (maybe in London)
25. Give myself a weekly treat
26. Conquer lace knitting
27. Use the screen printing equipment I bought two years ago
28. Take an art or textile course
29. Get my Central Park embroidery professionally framed
30. Get properly fitted for a bra at Rigby & Peller
31. Clear cupboards and recycle junk
32. Learn how to make an egg custard with confidence
33. Continue to explore faith and doubt with my spiritual director
34. Do work filing once a month instead of a marathon when life becomes impossible
35. Make a simnel cake
36. Go to cinema once a month
37. Finish my "cortona" quilt
38. Research what I need to do to complete my OU degree
39. Make a range of "earth friendly" cotton shopping bags for the Arts Trail
40. Finish my mother’s florentine canvaswork. This was started in the 1960s. It’s never going to be the rug that was originally intended as some of the wool has run out, but could be a substantial floor cushion
41. Have a pedicure
42. Write up detailed job notes for my successor at work
43. Start an Etsy or Folksy shop to sell my handmade items
44. Apply for my bus pass, so I can go on jolly jaunts on local buses around the country
45. Get an indigo vat going and do some dyeing
46. Invite someone else to join in the fun of indigo dyeing
47. Try to save up some money to get my grandmother’s old armchairs reupholstered
48. Reawaken my interest in wildflowers and foster my granddaughter’s existing interest in flowers by teaching her the names of wildflowers and collecting some to press
49. Sort out the hopeless tangle that is my "jewellery box" and put things neatly (if temporarily) in nice new boxes in tidy little compartments
50. Make another list ready for next year!