Book Club

So, life must be getting back to something approaching normal, or at least settling in to a new normal, because I made it to my second book club all year. To be honest, the only reason I made it to either was because they both happened chez moi, but I'm getting there!

Not only was I there, but I had read the book as well! Goodness knows how many titles I've missed this year, but I'm glad I didn't miss this one. Now, I'm not generally a big reader of detective/thriller books, but last year one of you kind folk recommended Martin Edwards as a Lake District read, and we're hooked on that series now; now I fully expect to be hooked on the Back Road sequels too.

Like J. K. Rowling's Casual Vacancy this book revolves around a very well described cannon of characters. Unlike Casual Vacancy, however, it is not at all a waste of however long you spend reading it. In a more positive comparison, like Roasmunde Pilcher's Winter Solstice it has a house at the core of the setting that becomes as much a charcter as the people who move in and out of it. I like books with house you can nearly feel. Unlike Winter Solstice you don't feel the need to count the number of Belfast sinks, although you will end up obsessed with yellow roses.

The Back Road moves on from a very distressing opening chapter into some very intricate weaving of characters and plot. Deliberate red herrings will leave you nonplussed until the end, and the distress of the beginning blossoms into a clever twist. It's not Great Literature. My definition of Great Literature is a book that will open up your whole life to you. This is entertainment, not the whole plaire et instruire upon which my ingrained Moliere insists, but I'm becoming less of a book snob either as I get older or as holidays approach. Or both. Actually, the lure for these books for me is the relationship suspense. I only read on with the Edwards books to find out whether or not they've got themselves together. I turn out to be a sucker for a nice love story.

 A quick glimpse at the rest of the night. Book Club is all about the food and the wine ultimately, don't you think? We have some very clever folk in our little band. Themed food and drink most months, don't you know? So because the house in the book has a huge drinks party at one point, we obviously had to have lots and lots of canapes as well. You might even spot one sinister yellow rose in their midst.

And here are two of my partners in crime. I think my life would be not quite so much fun without these two characters. Apparently if you lend a book to someone you should take a picture of them with the book to remind you where it is. I wish I had done that with my very missing crochet books...

Top is Heather Boss. My one time Library boss, and now Hookery leader. She would like to state that her Agatha Christie, our summer read, is all her own. Below is Queen Niqi, domestic goddess who is quite aware that she is re-enacting a mugshot! The rest of us are borrowing Agathas from Helena. So, Helena, I have pictures of all of us and books will be returned!

Views from New Windows!

Well, this is strange! Joining with Jane's weekly international look out the window has always been about trees and streets for me. Not that it was at all a noisy street, but here one of the first things that struck us at night was the deep silence.

We have quite a big area to the front of the house now, so we are very separated from any traffic. Although there isn't a lot of that, as we are far into a development, as opposed to just a little removed from the main road. That has taken a bit of getting used to and I am too much in that car now!

Here is our meadowplace. You can see the original farmhouse from which the development gets its name. All the land around us to the back is what remains of the farmland, and last week we had cows! The rooster wakes us every morning, and entertains us all day long. Also, because we know the farm family quite well through the boys' school, we have even had some fresh eggs. And no, we won't be taking that up ourselves. Thankfully our lease precludes poultry. It's already about as rural as this city girl would want!

Here is the back of our new pad. The shot of the farmhouse was taken from the gallery room at the top of the sunroom. You'll like that very much when you come to visit- sunny calm by day (weather dependent), and excellent for stargazing at night. But look at that garden; not a strawberry in sight!

So here we are. Two months in and it's all good. I am hoping very soon to get back to visiting you all again. And yes, Frances, you can come and stay. Come one and come all! That's the spare room bottom right xx

ps Potential burglars take note: there's still nothing worth stealing inside...

Peekaboo

Hello! No more strawberries where now I live. Hoping to rectify that soon. But there are bats and birds and even briefly cows! Not bad for a move across the road!

We have been unpacking and installing and working out how to live in a new place- and also trying to work out what on earth was going wrong with Blogger. 'Twould appear that Internet Explorer 11 was what was wrong, so here we are on a firey fox, hoping to do better!

More to follow, if this works! Thank you very much for all your good wishes. We are very happy to be here in a meadowplace.

Mags x

And it's goodnight from her

Well, just two more sleeps in the house into which we brought our babies. And then we'll move to the house from which we'll presumably see them go. Wouldn't you think? God willing?


This has been our first marital home, the boys' only home, the third house I recall living in, and the second I have owned. On Monday I will have owned five cars and lived in four houses in my whole life.


It is a strange time. Exciting, exhausting, God-filled, and strange!


Thank you all for reading along with fraise lachrymose. Blogging has been a huge part of my life in this house over the last few years. Blogging coincided with my leaving full-time work and embracing the renaissance of the cult of domestic woman. Not that I was any good at it, but I did hug it happily!


There will still be fraise, if the computer survives the move. (If I survive the move.) I'm thinking more along the lines of A Partridge in a Pear Tree; bet you're singing that now!  That's what I got for Christmas this year- a partridge in a pear tree. The partridge (knitted chicken) came from MK, and the tree came from Prince Charming.


The pear tree, and the partridge, are coming across the road. The strawberry bed unfortunately has to stay. I'll be planting lots more strawberries along with us at By The Pear Tree, but they'll take a while to settle in. Maybe the strawberry analogy still works!


It's not such a lachrymose land, my land, anymore. Even given Mum's illness this year, Mattman's Big Test, Mum and Dad's moving last month, us moving this month. It has been hard work and it has been busy, but it's not so lachrymose as before. I think the difference is that maybe, finally, perhaps, I might be learning a little bit of faith.


Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.


Psalm 37 has been our story since February half-term. God speed with all your stories this weekend and beyond. We'll see you across the road- you might need to bring your own cup...

Safe to shore

Here's the latest from Rend, although huge as they now are in the States, maybe you've all already got your CD! Interesting spot of pier jumping towards the end. Alternative July activity for those not engaged in Recreational Rioting- our two national summer sports.


When I follow my link to "Leaving number 28", there'll be precious little to read. It's a precious time though. There will be pictures this week. For the strawberry archive! Before Prince Charming packs the computer...


For now it's all cardboard boxes and lots of Rend.

Celebrating St Patrick

Despite the fact that we are living in a box. A cardboard box. Life goes on! Homework has to be done- keep the pencil pots unpacked. Clothes must be washed, worn, laundered again- keep the clothes unpacked, and the clothes horses, the iron (ha!), the laundry baskets. Dinners must be made and consumed- keep the pots, pans, food, tea towels and kitchen sink.


I resist all attempts to pack up the boys' books. Mine are long gone, and I never resist pointing out the one tome that I could so happily have used right now, thank you very much, Prince Charming. Accompanied by wistful gazing in the direction of the cardboard mountain that is our dining room.


I will continue to resist until after Monday. We will be needing our dePaola, for goodness sake! And I know our felt St Patrick's brooches are at the bottom of the craft box at the bottom of the bed. Somewhere.


In honour of our patron saint, fraise has taken on his traditional colour. Yes, fraise has gone blue. I was at a truly fascinating talk last night by Tim Campbell, director of the St Patrick's Centre, in Downpatrick. He asserts that green became associated with Irish celebrations mostly after Irish immigration to America- post-famine obviously, but also prior to those disasters in the phenomenon of Irish Presbyterian emigration. Everyone missing the green fields of home in the midst of harsh American snow, and wearing their green shamrocks.


As it transpires, however, the colour associated with Patrick in his day was blue. It was a colour of the church and apparently also associated with one particular family who may have been his patrons.


So I shall be wearing blue on Monday. Not my only sign of rebellion. I have previously herein bemoaned the fact that our children never get any time off school for St Patrick's. Well! Now that I am working in an integrated school, and getting the whole day off, we are taking the strawberries out of school to go to the parade in the town of Downpatrick. Even before we got The Peace* Downpatrick was resolutely holding a cross-community parade, with all political symbols banned. Prince Charming and I have always wanted to go- though actually he played in a band once that was on a float in the parade, so it's really only me who really wants to go.


I would promise pictures, and indeed have identified the source of my problems as being cookies. I thought these were things that you ate in copious and gluttonous quantities. So now I just need to eat them all up. In the meantime I am leaving you with an apparently huge picture of The Land of The (sometimes tearful) Strawberries. It is all becoming increasingly emotional, and tears will be shed.


*The Peace. We do tend to talk about The Peace here in the Frozen North as if it was something we had caught, like The 'Flu. "Now that we have The Peace..." we will say. Secretly cynical, or perhaps just aware of how fragile Peace can be. Wishing you all peace in your land x

Are you sitting comfortably?

I'm going to tell you a story. It is the story of The Beds That Went Out in the Snow. It is not a picture story because I still cannot get pictures to work. This may well be the end of fraise, and it distresses me beyond measure. So here is the beginning of the end. It is actually the beginning of the end of the Land of the (sometimes tearful) Strawberries anyway, but that's The Moving Story, with which this tale connects. I think all good stories do...


Once upon a time there lived a grandmother whose grandchildren lived very far away in another land. Across two seas, and three borders, and many mountains. At that time there were three grandchildren, though now there are four.


Occasionally the parents of the children would journey back to the land of their birth and stay a while. Even more occasionally the children would stay there and perhaps go to school, because Other Things were happening in the far off land. The grandmother lived in a small house, so she had sturdy bunk beds brought for the two older girls, while Adam, the first-born son, slept on a little bed next to his grandmother. These beds carried the children safely and snugly through many seasons of their fledgling lives.


All children grow, however, and bump their heads on upper bunks that are suddenly much lower, and fight with the sister who was once such a close ally. Then of course Other Things led to a return homeward for everyone, and the houses of the families were now mere counties apart, instead of countries. Shiny new furniture soon replaced the worn pine bunks.


I think they stood there quite some time, those faithful bunks, not at all sure of what they could be without children, even transient ones. But they still glowed warm and hopeful.


Now it so happened that friends of this family were a wild and chaotic lot. They were small in number, and most of them were very small in stature. They made up for this, however, in noise and passion and fuss. High their principles may have been, but their ability to realise anything was limited indeed. The calm and experienced family had oft set a clear example to these floundering folk, and quietly stepped in when a question of new beds arose.


The bunk beds arrived one dark night in Strawberry Land. 'Twas the start of a riotous adventure.


In early times a canopy of blue and stars enfolded the high bunk, and under night skies at all hours of the day great conspiracies were hatched and empires forged. Later and below, dark dens of caves were formed from thick walls of quilt and at all hours of the day midnight feasts and ocean voyages and piles of books flowed far from adult eye.


All children grow, however, and bump their heads on upper bunks that are suddenly much lower, and fight with the brother who was once such a close ally. Then of course Other Things led to a looming move, and the brothers didn't want to share a room any longer.


They stood there quite some time, those faithful bunks, not at all sure of what they could be without children, even riotous ones. But they still glowed warm and hopeful.


Now it so happened that the Strawberries saw that someone was looking for bunk beds. Having ascertained that the calm and sadly separate family no longer had a use for them, the Berries offered them to a big family with four year old twins. The bunk beds left Strawberry Land in a fluster of snow and a billow of frost, and set forth once more into the dark night.


If one day you see them glowing warm and hopeful, with stickers of Lego men at head and foot, do smooth your hand along their worn pine sides and tell them we loved them!