a gallimaufry

Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St John Mandel

(Nala recommends that you read this book...)

Olive is a novelist in 2203. Born and raised on a lunar colony, she is on a book tour of Earth just as a pandemic is spreading across the planet. In a lecture near the end of Sea of Tranquility, she utters one of the most consoling thoughts I have read recently:

‘ – and my point is, there’s always something. I think, as a species, we have a desire to believe that we’re living at the climax of the story. It’s a kind of narcissism. We want to believe that we’re uniquely important, that we’re living at the end of history, that now, after all these millennia of false alarms, now is finally the worst it’s ever been, that finally we have reached the end of the world. […]
‘But all of this raises an interesting question,’ Olive said. ‘What if it always is the end of the world? […]
‘Because we might reasonably think of the end of the world […] as a continuous and never-ending process.’

Sea of Tranquility is an elegantly constructed novel which encompasses almost five hundred years of human history with the lightest of touches. In 1912, Edwin St John St Andrew is a ‘remittance man’, a younger son of a wealthy British family sent off to the colonies to keep him out of the way, experiences something strange and inexplicable in a Canadian forest. This experience links him with Vincent in 1994, a young girl who films the anomaly, and her friend Mirella; with Alan, a violinist in an airship terminal in 2200; and with Olive. What can it signify?

The novel moves through time until 2401 when an investigation is launched. Then we move backwards again, with a new understanding of the earlier sections, until we reach the final revelation. The neatness of the structure, the resolution and the way the elements of the novel are related to each other create a lovely feeling of harmony. The book’s disclosures about time and existence are not exactly radical, but beautifully expressed through the stories of particular, fallible, likeable people. The sweep of history may be grand and impersonal, but what matters is us, always on the cusp of loss; the texture of our daily lives, our loves and griefs. I am still thinking about it. I like it a lot.

(... She has not actually read it herself, you understand)

 

of face masks, cats and magic hens

Excitingly, things are changing here in lovely Belgium. This week my daughter E, clutching her two-months’ pocket money, and I went to actual shops for the first time since everything closed down. This was a careful exercise as each shop had subtly different variations on the theme of safety. How many people were permitted in the shop? Was it obligatory to carry a basket? If obligatory, did you have to disinfect the basket yourself or use one which the staff had already disinfected? Could you pay with cash? (Generally, not.) If you were paying with a card, did you have to use a little ear stick thing to tap in your PIN code?

Furthermore, although we plan to make our own face masks my husband K had bought a box of disposable ones and I had decided that this shopping trip might be a good opportunity to try out wearing one (we have to wear them on public transport and I will at some point before the end of June have to travel on the bus to school). There were instructions on the back but what sort of fool needs instructions to put on a face mask, for goodness’ sake? This sort of fool, obviously. We encountered a former student of mine who is a trained nurse. He helpfully pointed out that not only should I have pinched it over my nose but I was in fact wearing it inside out.

Wearing a face mask was irritating. Perhaps because I had put it on wrongly, it seemed to poke my right eye rather a lot. But it also changed my behaviour, I later realised. I felt surprisingly free of any urge to be friendly or chat. I did what I had to do in each shop with just enough politeness, and left. It is a little bit like when you wear sunglasses and think you’re invisible. Nobody could see the lower part of my face and whether or not I smiled, so I didn’t bother, and then I didn’t bother with much else in terms of sociable behaviour either. I felt disengaged, very separate from everyone except E. I didn’t even feel like talking to my former student, or other acquaintances we saw; there was too much to say and nothing to say and I wanted to go back home. Was it just the mask? Was it also the effect of isolating at home? Will it persist?

Home these days is a bit like a furry version of the set of Kill Bill. Nala (I didn’t choose her name) our cuddly fluffy tortoiseshell pussy-cat, has gone full psycho-killer and every sun rises on fresh corpses strewn around the kitchen. This morning was a record five. We bury the dead rats in the garden but individual graves and funerals are now a thing of the past and there’s a mass grave behind the greenhouse. I know rats are not exactly the most desirable of neighbours although I have a soft spot for them (before you think Dark Thoughts about my housekeeping skillz I should point out that our house is attached to a barn wherein our landlord keeps dozens of hay bales and the food for his chickens and donkeys in uncovered bins, total rat heaven) and if Nala doesn’t keep the numbers down then our landlord puts out poison which is a horrible death, but I can’t help feeling depressed at this wanton slaughter. (She does sometimes eat them, which at least ameliorates it a bit.)

(Nala, on patrol)

More cheerfully, we have some new hen friends. Frosty and Sparkle, the resident ladies (I didn’t choose their names either), had as good as given up laying in March. Sometimes an egg would carelessly drop out as they were strolling round, but like as not they’d tread on it. So a few weeks ago, when it was once more allowed, we acquired two pullets to keep them company: Dorothy Robin and Matilda Misty (no, nor their names). But Dorothy Robin turned out to be Not As Other Hens. Was she magic? Or was she just a supreme escapologist?

(Dorothy Robin and Matilda Misty at home)

As anyone with any chicken experience knows, introducing new hens is a fraught and upsetting time with bullying aplenty. Frosty immediately developed an intense hatred of Dorothy R and actually leapt on her (I’ve never seen that happen before). Then suddenly Dorothy was on the other side of the fence, looking surprised, among the gooseberries. How did that happen? Surely she could not have squeezed through one of the small holes in the fence?

(Frosty asks if you want some of this)

Over the next few days, Dorothy Robin kept appearing in odd places. We found her on top of the shed. We found her strolling through the potato trenches. We found her with next-door’s chickens, pretending not to know who we were. I did feel mean returning her to the run and we did separate the hens for a couple of days. On a few occasions, she took Matilda Misty with her, though Matilda didn’t like straying far from the run and would hang round the gate hoping to be let back in.

And then she just stopped. Perhaps, now that Frosty was being friendly, she felt no need to escape. Perhaps her magic powers wore off. Perhaps our alterations to the run thwarted her. But now she’s everyone’s best friend. And when the forces of evil next mass over Belgium, I think we know which little red hen will be the only one capable of defeating them.

(Dorothy Robin contemplates saving the world)

How are you all getting on? Are you reading, or not reading? Reading something different from usual? Far from getting stuck into all those demanding tomes I’d hoarded for years against some sustained reading time, I am unable to cope with anything more intellectually or emotionally demanding than selected vintage detective novels and children’s books. Worryingly, given that the Reading Week I’m organising is looming, I do not feel up to reading Sylvia Townsend Warner (she is just too disconcerting and too liable to slide a knife between your ribs for me at the moment, love her as I do). I’ve just rollicked my way through Alex Bell’s Polar Bear Explorers’ Club series, and am dusting down my elderly copy of Nine Tailors. I don’t seem capable of anything creative and I am still obsessed with reading the news to an unhealthy extent. Poor E has been finding it all very difficult and won’t be going back to school this term. For her, the Harry Potter audio books have been an absolute lifeline. She’s just starting book five but I am already worrying about what else I could find for her when she finishes them. Any suggestions (she’s ten) gratefully received.

some short reviews

Time has passed and I haven’t written here.

I’ve been busy gardening...

...collecting some odd eggs from the hens...

...releasing a frog back into the wild (don’t be like Some People in my family and bring them home, leave frogs be where you find them)...

...attending to the whims of cats...

...and actually working too.

I have also been reading! But since my reviewing energies are all focused on preparing something for Shiny New Books, I thought I’d just mention some other books briefly here.

• Bath Tangle, by Georgette Heyer – If Heyer ever wrote an anti-Heyer novel, this is it. Her hero is so atrocious that you are simply begging the heroine not to marry him, quite opposite from the usual dynamic. He shares characteristics with some of her other, more likeable, heroes, but here we see only the dark side of them. Arrogant, rude, snobbish, bullying and guilty of sexual assault if not worse (his crime is alluded to in rather vague terms), Rotherham has not one redeeming feature and after reading this I doubt you will be able to look at Avon, Beaumaris and Alistair quite so indulgently ever again.
  (Though I did always worry about Avon and Léonie, even as a teenager that struck me as rather a dodgy relationship...)
• The Immaterial Murder Case, by Julian Symons – A rather brittle but engaging spin on the detective novel which pokes fun at the art establishment. Immaterialism is an art movement that believes in the value of what is not there, so the subject of a painting is what is omitted from it. During the opening of an exhibition of Immaterial art Stephen Follett, a universally loathed art critic, is found murdered.
  The case is narrated in turn by one of the suspects, a fairly dreadful amateur detective and a professional detective, somewhat in the manner of the multiple narratives of The Moonstone. The comedy is occasionally a little heavy-handed but I enjoyed Immaterialism a lot.
• Waiting for Willa, by Dorothy Eden – I started this hoping for something Mary-Stewartesque and it had a good premise: Grace receives a letter from her cousin Willa, who now lives in Stockholm, which is signed with their childhood code for ‘help’. When she arrives in Sweden, Willa has vanished.
  Overlooking the rather leaden writing and uninspired characterisation I read on but the dénouement was disappointing and basically everyone was an idiot. The only surprise was Grace’s callous victim-blaming at the end. Eden seems to have been very popular so perhaps this is not representative of her work?
• The White Witch, by Elizabeth Goudge – I read this over quite a long time as it has a slow pace and bears being put down and picked up again well. It’s a historical novel set during the English Civil War, and explores how a group of characters are tested by the conflict: Robert Haslewood, the squire; Froniga, his cousin and the white witch of the title; and Francis, a nobleman masquerading as an artist in order to spy for the Royalists.
  Goudge shows how courage on the battlefield is only one sort of courage, and that those without much power – children, women, gypsies, the elderly – are no less brave than the rich men who are prepared to die for their ideals. It was very soothing while Brexit madness was whirling about and a helpful antidote to cynicism.
• Gingerbread, by Helen Oyeyemi – As ever Oyeyemi’s work defies expectations, categorisations, and cleverly seduces you into accepting whatever she throws at you. A country that may or may not exist? Gingerbread that tastes like revenge? A childhood friend who might be secretly influencing every step of your life?
  I can’t even begin to summarise this novel and am still reeling from finishing it last night, it’s rich, playful and mysterious to the end.
• The Diaries of Sylvia Warner, edited by Claire Harman – I am slowly reading these for Sylvia Townsend Warner week and they are wonderful.

Friday evening and a glass of wine are calling. Happy weekend everyone! Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them?

what happened in september

(Fluffy Chicken ruling the roost)

Well. That was a busy few weeks. Going back to work after the summer holidays is always a shock to the system (yes I know your heart bleeds for us poor teachers) but it’s been extra specially busy this year partly because I stood in for a colleague who had paternity leave and partly because our school is merging with two others and this involves synthesising all our ways of doing things, which basically boils down to a lot of extra paperwork, never my strongest point.

As I glare at the computer screen and try to look brave in front of new students, cobwebs and cat hair have silted up round the house, there are muddy pawprints in the bath and on every flat surface there seems to be a pile of paper, a miniature stable made from cardboard boxes, a plastic-bottle spaceship or a doll’s encampment. I have also blown up my lovely new food mixery thing, which I bought after this unfortunate incident, and had a first driving lesson which was pretty terrifying for all concerned including the trees.

Meanwhile in the garden, all those weeds who were discouraged from sprouting by the horrifically hot summer have now burst forth with a vengeance everywhere. Last night on Gardener’s World Monty Don told us we should never let weeds get out of hand but should tackle them a little and often; I had to sigh and eat some cheese.

(A rare flower among the weeds)

When I have time to read, it’s mainly been detective novels I’ve purloined from the charity shop and I don’t have anything particular to say about them. I’ve also read Saplings by Noel Streatfeild, The Outcast by Sadie Jones (both of which treated the effect on children of a parent’s sudden death), Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood and The Changeling by Victor Lavalle. The first two explore the effects on children of a parent’s sudden death, the third examines father–child relationships in a clever retelling of The Tempest, although it’s not the main theme of novel, and The Changeling explores the darker side of fatherhood. I hadn’t thought about these connexions until now but they are there. I have written half a confused post about The Changeling but I don’t know if I’ll ever finish it.

Meanwhile, Frosty Chicken spent most of her days brooding.

However, last week she finally left the nest box and returned to the world of general hen business along with the others.

(Clara, Not Speaking to anyone)

In cat news, Clara remained aloof for a week or so but has slowly thawed, at least to Nala. The two of them play with each other, though it’s usually a chasing game that looks as if it teeters on the edge of not being a game. Clara continued to hate Olaf for much longer and I cannot say they are best friends now but all three cats will sleep on the same bed or in the same room together so I feel that all will be well.

(The only time Nala is still enough for a photograph is when she is asleep)

(One of Nala’s collections) (She didn’t arrange it, I should add)

Nala has turned out to be a big baby; she rushes about crazily and then falls asleep on someone and then bounces up again and bounds away. She collects things. She wags her tail like a puppy and is the most frightful thief and greedy-guts. She ate a frying-pan full of bacon which K had foolishly left unattended and will creep up on the unwary and try to bat food out of their hands with a sneaky yet very effective paw.

(Olaf, pretending he hasn’t just embarrassingly fallen out of the walnut tree in front of lots of people)

Olaf, apart from a disturbing taste for cellophane, is more discriminating in his eating habits. He rather views himself as Nala and Clara’s lord and master and simply expects to have the best place on the favourite blanket and first dibs on any food that’s going. However, he is also completely craven when it comes to children. He adores my daughter and loves being petted and spoilt by her and her friends, hurrying up to them when most cats flee in horror at the prospect of being clasped, kissed, bellowed at and bossed about.

(Spot the cats) (There are no prizes though)

Life is easing up a bit and I am feeling more chirpy; I still have to vanquish the combined evils of digital and planning but I am sure the forces of light are with me.

cat business

After the death of Mister Puss, we decided to look for a new feline friend for our remaining cat, Clara. Clara is a much more sociable creature than Mister Puss; she enjoyed teasing him (he hated it) and often tried to play with him (occasionally he did play but he was more likely to swear at her or give her a clip round the ear). And while Mister Puss would be furious to think of any other cat on his patch, and so soon, we started this search very quickly. Quite apart from being able to offer an animal a new home sooner rather than later, we were conscious of there only being one week of school holidays left. Cat introductions are not always easy, it seems, and we thought it would be best if we were able to give everyone lots of attention. Also, to be honest, it distracted from missing Mister Puss and his ginger ways.

As luck would have it we discovered an animal rescue centre very near to where we live, and they had kittens! We made an appointment to visit. The centre re-homes all its kittens in pairs, so there would be two new friends for Clara instead of one. I was pleased about this, I think being a kitten and being removed from both your mother and your siblings must be tough. (Though perhaps I project too much.)

Once we’d explained what we were after, Sonja, the lady in charge, told us that they did not recommend introducing kittens to a household where there was already a cat. I was surprised! She explained that it’s hard to tell very much about a kitten’s character, especially as to whether it will be a sociable cat or not, and if it happened that one of the kittens turned out to be aggressive with other cats (it seems there is a genetic factor here, so one sibling may be friendly and another not) then there would be trouble down the line. Instead, she recommended a sociable cat closer in age to Clara.

Or, in fact, two, because we’d sort of forgotten that there was the option of just adopting one cat. Sonja introduced us to some pairs of cats of Good Character. I did have the wit to ask whether she thought bringing two adult cats home would freak Clara out more than one, but Sonja thought not. And of course we were charmed by these sweet-tempered, friendly cats. So Olaf and Nala came home with us.

Olaf is enormous and very curious. He has climbed up every cupboard in the house, not always with very pleasing results, and if you open a drawer or a door his black-and-white face appears at your elbow, having a good nose inside. Sometimes he sits beside me and presses a paw against my chest. I am not sure what this means. The first night someone managed to knock over the cake tin and gnaw on a fruit scone, and I think it was him.

Nala, a little tortoiseshell cat, is more nervous and shy. She loves being stroked and cuddled, and she’ll climb onto your lap but then go completely loopy and knead your legs frenetically and bounce on and off again many times before settling down.

The two of them have played all over the house and spent yesterday evening both sleeping in my lap while I tried to read. They seem pleased with their new home, as far as I can tell, and are settling in.

But what of Clara? Well, she is not exactly overjoyed to say the least, and it is painful to see her avoiding her own home. However, she has taken it much better than Mister Puss did when she arrived three years ago. She stays mainly outside but pops in and out to give the newbies Hard Stares and they stare back. Clara growls a bit at Nala but I think she’s intimidated by Olaf. That may not seem good but I am actually hopeful: I think that these situations are always difficult at first but get better. Still, if anyone has any tips on smoothing the path to kitty friendship, I should love to know them...

(The first three photographs are of Clara, the next of Olaf, the last of Nala)

Mister Puss

(Drinking from the paddling pool in happier times)

Our beloved Mister Puss is no more. He became ill and there wasn’t anything we could do for him, so he was put to sleep yesterday. We gave him a beautiful funeral: he was buried in a Cornish Hamper box (the most glamorous cardboard box we could find) decorated with pony stickers and surrounded by flowers we picked from the garden; songs were sung and a cross has been raised on his grave.

Not everyone will be sorry at his death; the local rats and birds are probably dancing with joy.

We miss him and his sweary, bossy ways a lot. Our other cat, Clara, seems slightly lost that she has no one to tease now, although Mister Puss disliked being teased on the whole. Not the friendliest of cats, when he was younger Mister Puss used to hunt my toddler daughter, and gardening was always a scary experience as at any moment a tiny ginger tiger might leap out from a shrub and lacerate my arms, squeaking fiercely. However, he mellowed a lot as he got older and occasionally permitted cuddles, although he remained a cat who was happier outside, having a rumble with the neighbouring cats and slaying and eating the local wildlife (he would eat every last whisker of a rat and even the claws and beak of a crow, though this did give him tummy ache afterwards). During the cold winter evenings he enjoyed coming inside to watch the football with K, sitting on his favourite pink blanket on the arm of the sofa.

We have lots of happy memories of Mister Puss, the first cat I have ever ‘owned’ in so far as one owns a cat, and I wish he could have been with us longer. However, with what may strike some as unseemly haste, we have already made an appointment with a nearby animal rescue centre to look for a new friend or friends for Clara. There are a lot of cats looking for homes and it seems silly to make any of them wait longer than they need.

Thanks for everything Mister Puss, and lots of love.

(A last photograph, taken in a favourite spot)

cats, salt, mermaids

There’s a thunderstorm cracking on at the moment, bringing welcome rain and cool after some very very hot days. ‘Isn’t it dangerous to be working on a computer during a thunderstorm, Helen?’ I hear you cry. I expect so, but it’s all in a day’s work for a book blogger. If I disappear mid-sentence, you’ll know my house has been struck.

Not everyone is welcoming the storm though. It seems to have made the cats bad-tempered, and they actually fought in the kitchen a few minutes ago. Poor Mister Puss, erstwhile tough guy, hid under a cupboard, hissing, while Clara, puffed out to almost the size of a normal cat, stalked up and down with lashing tail.

Here she is on Saturday morning demonstrating her strange attraction to our paddling pool. (This is the second paddling pool we have owned, since she riddled the first one with punctures from her tiny claws scrambling up it – what cat seriously climbs up paddling pools don’t they all hate water? – and even this one has been patched a few times due to her insatiable but spiky love.)

In the chicken coop, friendship has triumphed. Fluffy feels no further threat to her queenship and stopped being mean to Frosty some time ago. Phew.

Anyway, moving on, some of you probably already know that the independent Norfolk publisher Salt has asked readers for help: if you’ve ever considered buying one of their books, now is the time to do it. Here is the page with the explanation and a list of fifty of their highlights. You can order direct from them or from a bookshop. They have a really interesting list, including fiction, poetry and literary criticism, with a crime fiction list, and their better-known authors include Meike Ziervogel and Lesley Glaister, plus Christina James’s series about DI Tim Yates.

I’ve ordered a copy of Simon Okotie’s In the Absence of Absalon, about an investigator looking into a series of disappearances. Nicholas Lezard, whose taste in books is always impeccable, wrote about it: ‘This is literature as insanity, the mind stuck in an endless loop – focused, it would appear, too closely on the job at hand. The detective story as existential crisis took form with Beckett’s Molloy more than 60 years ago; and the concept of the novel as crazed digression was first incarnated in Tristram Shandy, over 250 years ago. Okotie is in very good company – and has also set himself a high bar. He succeeds. Superbly.’ So if you feel like taking a punt on an author or book you haven’t previously come across, today’s the day to do it...

Finally, look look! After 150 years I finally finished sewing a mermaid doll for my daughter. I call her Rasta Mermaid, but she has now been named Stella, which I fear is only going to lead to trouble in E’s bedroom since her purple unicorn is also called Stella. The curious thing is that I made her from a pattern (in Jane Bull’s Crafty Dolls, though I made her hair using the method described here) and yet she is still bizarrely wonky. Truly, I am terrible at sewing. She is wearing a jacket made from a pattern in the same book. My mother says that mermaids don’t wear jackets; she is quite right but dolls are more fun with clothes. I wanted to give her a brooch too but E felt that was overkill.

Here she is again with her little sister, also modified from a pattern in that book, but this time (mainly) by E. I helped a bit. Instead of 150 years, she took us about an hour. The little sister has had about five names, I can’t keep up. I’m now working on a home for them, a tarted-up cardboard box, to be honest, but fortunately E is easily pleased.

what shall helen read? May edition

The sun is shining, the birds are singing and my roses are blooming! In the chicken run, peace and joy (mainly) reign. Daisy and Fluffy now positively like Speckle and no longer positively dislike Frosty; nobody has been chased for a while and languid communal dust baths are a frequent occurrence. Excitingly, Speckle and Frosty have started laying eggs. Their eggs are still quite small, here is one beside one of Fluffy’s productions:

Clara, as you see, is very busy. (Actually, if anyone has some advice on what to do with cats who over-groom, please give it! Her poor tummy is getting quite bald.)

Anyway, it’s definitely time for the May edition of What Shall Helen Read?, and this month we’re travelling back to the 1980s. Here are the candidates:

Oscar and Lucinda, by Peter Carey – a young Australian heiress bets an Anglican vicar that he cannot transport a glass church from Sydney to a remote settlement called Bellingen.

Morality Play, by Barry Unsworth – set in the fourteenth century, a group of travelling players stops in a village and stages a play based on a local murder: the killer has already been found but through the play it becomes clear that the facts don’t fit and that someone else is responsible.

Dictionary of the Khazars, by Milorad Pavić – this is difficult to describe but it consists of three cross-referenced mini-encyclopaedias, each based on one of the Abrahamic religions; in the introduction the author explains there is no chronology and that it is like a mirror, you will get from it what you put into it, for ‘you cannot get more out of the truth than you put into it’.

The Shawl, by Cynthia Ozick – this novella describes the march of three characters to a Nazi concentration camp and their internment there.

What should I read? Have you read any of these?

what shall helen read? April edition

A brief moment of sunshine here in Belgium! Everyone got very excited and rushed into their gardens; the air rang with the sound of lawn mowers and children, and in the evening barbeques were lit and cold beers enjoyed.

I planted some pansies from the market and did battle with weeds; I also washed a chicken bottom (Daisy’s, should you be interested). Clara pranced about with a pigeon’s tail-feather in her mouth, the closest she has ever got to actually catching one and you’d have thought she had slain an army of eagles the way she was carrying on, rushing up to people waving the feather at them and squeaking. She has now left the feather ostentatiously in the middle of the lawn and has been walking past it and then acting surprised and catching it again. I have not spotted the denuded pigeon yet.

 

So, back to ‘what shall helen read?’ The idea behind this reading plan is that every month I dig out a pile of books I’ve had for ages and never read, and you all vote on which one I should read. Then I read it and write about it here. I’ve been working in decades, starting with the 2010s (for which I read Hot Milk by Deborah Levy); last time was the 2000s and I read Andrea Levy’s Small Island.

Somewhat to my surprise this project has been encouraging me to read a lot more of my TBR books, not just the winners. I’ve now read two more of the 2010s novels (After Me Comes the Flood by Sarah Perry and Small Change for Stuart by Lissa Evans: I enjoyed both of them) and one of the 2000s (Half in Love by Justin Cartwright, which was so good that I am keen to read The Song Before it is Sung). On the other hand, Olive Kitteridge is on the charity-shop pile: I have read a little and didn’t feel terribly excited by it, and I am sure that I can find another copy fairly easily should I ever change my mind.

We’ll skip over March, which never happened, ahem, and glide on to April and the 1990s. There are no Levys in this pile, which consists of:

• George Mackay Brown, Beside the Ocean of Time. I actually have no idea why I have never read this as it is exactly my cup of tea: ‘Thorfinn, a crofter’s son living on the remote island of Norday, is a dreamy boy [...] Closing his eyes in the 1930s he dreams of crossing the ‘fish-fraught’ ocean with Viking raiders. Falling asleep to the monotonous tones of a history lesson he finds himself running from the press gang into the arms of a beautiful seal-maiden who longs to return to the sea. War and adventure, the struggles of great men and the everyday toil of the fisherfolk, Thorfinn dreams the sweep of Norday’s history, its life and its inevitable death...’
• John Fuller, The Worm and the Star. According to the blurb, this book ‘pioneers a new literary form: the book composed of very short stories’ which ‘rove, with hurtling changes of perspective, over myth, sex, science fiction, the Middle East, boredom, beauty, grossness, global history, childhood, music and death’. Intriguing! But, it seems, not intriguing enough for me to have read it. Yet.
• Dominique Sigaud, Somewhere in a Desert. This takes place at the end of the Gulf War. ‘In prose of extraordinary clarity and power Dominique Sigaud tells [a] soldier’s story and those of the people who have encountered him in his last hours of life and in the days that followed his death. The mystery and horror of war are revealed through the eyes of this Unknown Soldier.’ I bought my copy from Ipswich Library for 30p, I see; its enthusiastic puffs include one by Beryl Bainbridge but my squeamishness has so far held me back from reading it.
• Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres. I don’t suppose this needs an introduction; it’s Smiley’s Pulitzer-winning re-telling of King Lear. I think I bought it (from a remainder bookshop!) because everyone else told me it was brilliant and not because I actually felt a great urge to read it. But perhaps now is the time to get on with it?
• William Trevor, After Rain. William Trevor was a Big Name in the 1990s; like A Thousand Acres, this book was bought because I felt I ‘ought’ to read it. Also the cover is very pretty and I have always been a fool for a pretty cover.

So, which of these should I read? All of them look good and I feel much more enthused about them than about the 2000s contenders I listed last time.

new friends

I haven’t written about the hens here for a while. Sadly, my favourite (don’t tell the others) hen Flower died last summer, leaving Fluffy and her foster-mother Daisy. Now that Daisy has decided to retire from laying, we have been relying on Fluffy for all our eggs, and demand has easily outstripped supply (especially since cold wet winter days do not seem to be days on which hens feel any great urge to pop out an egg).

So on Tuesday we introduced some new chicken friends to the run. Daisy and Fluffy gave them the traditional hen welcome. It is not much fun receiving a traditional hen welcome. A traditional hen welcome is a welcome that shows you who is boss hen (not you) and what your place in the pecking order is (the bottom). This makes acquiring new chickens a rather bittersweet experience.

Here are Fluffy and Daisy, on meeting their new friends. See that mean look in their eyes? They were not pleased.

Here is Frosty.

And here is Speckle. She was so terrified by her new home she could hardly stand up at first. Then she hid behind the hen house. (Don’t worry, she does actually have two legs.)

(I did not name them. Nor did I name Daisy or Fluffy. Just to be clear about that.)

Fluffy was very aggressive and pecked and attacked both Frosty and Speckle that first evening. Frosty did not appreciate this and soon there was a lot of shouting, hen and human. Speckle fled from everyone. Fluffy calmed down. Everyone with feathers went to bed in the hen house except Speckle, who wandered around in the gloaming, moaning gently to herself. I put her in the hen house with the others but she continued to wander around in there, whinging. NB It is not a good idea to keep bullies awake by wandering about whinging, and pretty soon Daisy and Fluffy were making cross noises. I shut the door so that no light could enter the hen house, and everyone was quiet and still.

Shutting the hens in meant rising early to let them out again. Fortunately in this I was assisted by the roofers working on the house next door, who thoughtfully arrived with their radio and crane at 6.30 am.

Since then I am pleased to report that there has been an uneasy peace in the chicken run. Frosty and Speckle keep their distance from Fluffy and Daisy. Fluffy ignores Frosty and Speckle. Daisy makes the odd darting run at them just to remind them of their place. Frosty strolls about, curious about everything, and shouts at Daisy. Speckle mainly hides behind Frosty, or even under her, and nearly had a nervous breakdown when a pigeon flew overhead. I do worry a bit for Speckle. Just now, however, she had relaxed enough to take a dust bath.

Mister Puss has been keeping an eye on these chicken shenanigans, but experience has told him to give hens a wide berth.