May 5, 2021

More lessons learned in lockdown

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More lessons learned in lockdown

We may never get back to the way things used to be: the ‘new normal’ may well be here to stay, and in some ways, the year-long lockdown feels to me like a dress rehearsal for the real business of saving the planet, which means that we all have to urgently redesign our lives around low-impact living: using less, saving more of our stuff, repairing, mending and tidying, instead of taking the line of least resistance and first resort to high-gear newness.

The way things have been running is expensive – I don’t mean financially – careless and extravagant in ways we are finally beginning to appreciate. And too often, it is other people and creatures in distant places that are now paying the cost for our extravagance. So what more lessons have I learned during lockdown this year?

I’m now as much of a vegetarian as I can be, which is to say I avoid meat and fish, though when I feel the need to eat a portion of chicken curry that everyone else is having, I will do so, and I will eat sardines occasionally. I’m not a meat reducer and not a vegan, since although I avoid milk and cheese products, I do reserve the right to eat eggs. Vegetarianism feels like a release from the old tired expectations of ‘meat and two veg’ as I finally give myself permission to extend my usual range and eat the things I really do prefer: grapefruit and soya yogurt with breakfast, almond and cashew butter as well as peanut butter; more vegetables and greens, more home-made soup…It’s such a relief to enjoy my food more, and to enjoy cooking. Conversely, it is astonishing to see how quickly I turn away from meat. So there is, in me, no sense of hardship, nor any need to buy ‘fake’ bacon to fill some perceived longing or lack.  

I’m using bamboo products more, instead of traditional paper options so often sourced from wood-pulp and paper; and sustainable and natural fibre clothing wherever possible. There is of course a place for using recycled paper products, and those often made from rags and such like. But once I started looking at what can be made from bamboo – food to eat, clothes, cups, utensils – I had to ask myself what took me so long to clock on.

(To be continued.) Thanks for reading.

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April 29, 2021

Life as I know it

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Life as I know it

It seems that my life as I know it is about to change, though I have no idea when. My mother, who for several years has ‘enjoyed indifferent health’ – the kind of health that Georgette Heyer gifts to the hypochondriacal mothers of her feisty heroines, so my mother would appreciate the joke: she doesn’t enjoy her indifferent health at all – is on a steady decline. Another one, following several previous occasions when her life hung in the balance. It is testament to her strength of character that she has come so far, so often pulling herself back from the brink by sheer willpower and refusal to concede defeat.

And I’m grateful for the time we have had together, time which, I reflect, we didn’t have while my siblings and I were growing up. Sent off to boarding schools – two apiece, my eldest sister and brother to one, my twin sister and I to a different one – as unlike Mallory Towers as it is possible to imagine, we grew up apart, finding solace, I suspect, in learning, reading and books, much as my mother has always done.

The times when Mum was at home with us – school holidays, mostly – I remember her working hard at her typewriter / computer, in her own thoughts, in her workspace. Determined not to follow that particular example of absenting oneself from the rest of life, I have made a very conscious effort to set my work aside whenever I have company, and so far, the effort has paid dividends. I am not as work obsessed as my mother was, nor as I used to be, since I appreciate with fresh urgency how precious is time spent with other people. A realisation that has become crystal clear during lockdown.

Being in my mother’s company has taught me to be patient, and that there is always room for cheerfulness and optimism; being cheerful and optimistic is often the best thing we can gift to any situation. That is a lesson that will stand me in good stead, and for which I am immensely grateful. Why things are as they are, is often unknown to us; but we can appreciate the progress we make in each day, being kinder and gentler with one another. In being so, there is less to regret, less to worry about. A wonderful lesson to have collected from being with Mum.

Thanks for reading.

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April 26, 2021

‘Snap’ by Belinda Bauer

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‘Snap’ by Belinda Bauer

Where can you buy good books at the moment? Almost no-where is available for the impulse purchase. So the box of books at our local post-office is very welcome. Come and browse, take what you want and leave a donation. There is something about the handling of actual books that also makes it easier to find reading outside one’s usual range, and ‘Snap’ is the first book I have read by Belinda Bauer.

‘Snap‘ starts out as standard thriller fare: Three children waiting in a car on a motorway hard shoulder, pregnant mother having gone to phone for help. She never comes back. An interesting set-up – and every driver’s nightmare – easily gets even a fairly seasoned reader like me hooked. The children grow up fast, and after their dad also walks out, basically spend the next three years fending for themselves, at home and guarded with surprising maturity by the eldest son, Jack. He takes to a life of petty crime, but has his own standards: He never burgles a house if anyone is at home, and he has no taste for junk food. The house is a mess, but the garden is always kept immaculate, since Jack knows that a tidy lawn will shield his household from closer scrutiny. Clever boy.

The other side of the narrative, featuring another pregnant woman and her husband, at first proceeds along fairly predictable lines, but gradually it dawns on this reader, that this story in two parts is part parable, part fable, unfolding with a gentle inevitability that one almost never finds in standard, gruesome thriller fare: Jack is helped by another petty crim whose specialism is knives and who has a baby son; Jack’s new neighbour is the mother of one of the investigating policemen; the homeless man whom Jack passes most days on his rounds, is his father, who cracked up after his wife was killed and went AWOL.

I’d guess that it’s intended to be humorous, which tells me that there is a larger message at play here: that “ordinary” life is full of quirks, we may unexpectedly run out of time any time, so it’s a good idea to be kind to each other.

I’m not entirely convinced that the two – thriller and parable – threads marry very well: Standard thriller fare is blood and guts, and we never actually know for sure what happened to Jack’s mother: there are no descriptively frightening passages that are otherwise such a gift to a thriller writer. The remainder of the book is liberally strewn with the kind of gentle improbabilities that tell me, before I’m very far into the story, that all will be well. And it’s this I ultimately warm to, and through which I notice the humour and enjoy the story and the writing.

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April 23, 2021

‘Harbour Ways’ by Valerie Poore

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‘Harbour Ways’ by Valerie Poore

‘Harbour Ways‘ is the second book I’ve read by Valerie Poore, (this is the first) and I’m in awe at her industry: how she has managed to move around the world, raise a family, maintain full-time employment and write such lovely books is a wonder. She reminds me in many ways of my sisters: multi-talented, able to put her hand to most things and energetic, yet modest withal.

Poore writes with an immediacy and warmth that I wish I could manage in my own work. ‘Harbour Ways’, one of several instalments of her memoirs, tells us all about her struggles to buy, mend and furnish a historic but much neglected barge which she still lives on today, in Rotterdam, Holland. Courage and the ability to make friends are two more of Val’s strengths, as she negotiates many hurdles and a language barrier in order to repair and furnish her new home with the help of the community of like-minded souls around her. 

It’s interesting to watch the author’s transformation from relative novice to experienced water traveller, and enjoyable to muse on the possibilities of travel for oneself. It may be that lock-down has made me nostalgic, but I’m also heartened to see how one’s life can be transformed through the discipline of a long, long series of challenges, mastered one step at a time. There are times when Val’s courage in the face of her challenges is humbling and inspiring in equal measure.

The book itself is interesting, well-written and engaging, and I wish I could listen to Val’s story-telling long after the narrative closes. Which is doubtless the only encouragement I need to read another in the series. Thank you for writing with heart, and giving one hope that rises above the confines of usual, normal life.

Many thanks for reading.

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April 20, 2021

‘Grown Ups’ by Marian Keyes – Concluded

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‘Grown Ups’ by Marian Keyes – Concluded

You can find the first part of this review here

‘Grown Ups’ feels like the first volume in a longer series. I would love Keyes to write a follow up as I’m keen to know what happens next to all the characters, chancers and sweet souls that people this novel. To see how Keyes brings each character to life and keeps them distinct and relevant is impressive, as the story weaves and comes to its conclusion. It’s a good, long read, with no wasted words and it’s obvious that a great deal of thought has been invested in crafting the narrative.

In common with most authors writing this year, Keyes has faced a dilemma: the story is firmly set in 2020 and so Keyes has opted to assume that the pandemic is not happening. To that extent, all writers face a choice: to write a story within a pandemic backdrop – because that is what this year has been – or to assume, as Marian has done – hey, it’s fiction – that the pandemic exists in another kind of reality that has no bearing on the Casey’s family story. And, though I have swithered on this point, it is refreshing to read a story that is up-to-date but which proceeds blissfully outside the common reality of closed theatres, empty festival venues and shut shops. It’s nice to get simple, vicarious thrills from a novel.

All credit to Keyes for a generous, vibrant and heart-felt tale, beautifully written as always and thoughtful. There are some very sobering threads of narrative – middle wife does well to come out of her traumatic experiences with her life intact – mostly about the importance of communication, honesty and trusting. I always feel I learn a lot about life from reading a Keyes novel; and this offering continues the trend in my – very willing – education about life, the universe and everything else besides.

Thanks for reading.

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April 18, 2021

‘Grown Ups’ by Marian Keyes

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‘Grown Ups’ by Marian Keyes

Published and set in 2020, ‘Grown Ups’ by Marian Keyes is the story of an extended family, in which it steadily becomes apparent – to me, at least – that the grown-ups behave with varying degrees of childishness, and the children, with surprising maturity. In this family, the materfamilias Jessie, wife of the eldest brother of three, is energetic, opinionated, and since she does a lot of the decision-making and organising – her husband Johnny acting as her good-natured sidekick to hustle the orders and keep things running along smoothly – the family largely accept her lavish extravagance, her controlling ways, her certitude.

It must be hard to keep any large family on track; but then, I suspect that many of this extended family’s problems are, if not caused, at least exacerbated by the constant – and finally irritating – expectation that they gather all the time and show a jolly united front: birthdays, first communions, anniversaries, Easter and Christmas – no-one is exempt from the expectation that they turn up and hang out together for a few days, getting well fed and progressively drunker and spending their time, at Jessie’s insistence, in the lap of understated luxury, because, after all, it’s a special occasion.

That insistence and the way that it warps the normal, more human responses and everyday rebellions that most of us would hardly notice – will anyone ever get up the courage to utter a simple, “No, thank you, I’m busy,” or “Actually, I can’t, I’m doing something else that weekend”? – naturally acts as a catalyst for a spectacular falling out, which ends with a reality check all round and with life restored to a more sustainable and realistic normality: Life shaken up, love and loyalty tried and tested, so that the weak and arrogant are finally seen in their true colours and the young take their chance to be happy.

(To be continued)

Thanks so much for reading.

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March 31, 2021

‘Me Before You’ – concluded

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‘Me Before You’ – concluded

I can testify that there are few things more soul-destroying than the awareness that one cannot do physical, active things one yearns to do; a realisation that dogged me for decades and which frequently left me suicidally unhappy, burdened as I was by so many conflicting hopes and realisations, dreams and disappointments. That I am still alive today is testament to the love of those around me, and to my writing, which have enabled me through the years to gain and keep a kinder perspective on life in general and my good fortune in particular.

That Will Traynor chooses to end his life while he was still young may be considered a pity. Perhaps if he had grown old, he too would have become reconciled to his limitations. But there are shadows all around him: His life is endlessly monitored, his health is fragile and I gain the impression that, if Will is lucky, he may manage to claw his way through a few more years of precarious life in considerable pain. Some commentators object that the story portrays impairment as burdensome, bothersome to families and in such a light that it might encourage others to think of suicide as a way to escape. Actually, I sincerely doubt whether the film is this powerful. Nor do I think that life and its lessons are so easily snuffed out.

Two of my close family members opted for euthanasia, my brother in his final hours finally succumbing to his illness so that euthanasia proved un-necessary. It does seem to me that, where one has endless choices to make and is free to make them, the rest of us will do well to look with compassion on the complex dilemmas that euthanasia presents us with.

In ‘Me Before You‘, in both the book and the film, Will’s physical pain – and indeed the unattractive aspects of being wheelchair bound – are somewhat glossed over. But why should the characters not keep their dignity? There may be a patina of unreality in the whole story too – The Traynor Family own a castle, for goodness’ sake, and are described as very wealthy, so we don’t have to witness any grubby realism, the poverty that so often accompanies disability. And I have wondered, if Lou Clark’s family so need her income, where does she find the money to dress with such panache?

I’ve read literally hundreds of novels and seen dozens of films based around novels, in which the characters are all unfeasibly rich, beautiful and extraordinarily talented, able to pick up prestigious jobs and an amazing array of abilities with consummate ease… And that, I conclude, is all in the nature of novel writing and film-making. ‘Me Before You’ does at least offer us the reality of Will’s spinal cord injury which will never mend. I think – though I may be wrong here – that few of us often question the able-bodied world’s embrace of dreamy unreality that often stretches credibility to the max. The community of the differently-abled also deserves some escapism.

Not all portrayals of impairment are duty-bound to be ‘gritty’, ‘true-to-life’ and ‘inspiring’. If Will Traynor and Lou Clark can offer me a thoughtful view of life lived well on a small canvas, I accept it with open arms. The best thing about this story is that Lou actually does love Will and hardly considers his disability when dealing with him. She holds him up to the same standards of decent behaviour as she would anyone else, and her blindness to his impairment is what finally gives Will some zest for living: Yes, he can be kind, he can be courteous even when he is depressed and even though he may be in a lot of pain. It is heartening indeed to see a Will and Lou fall genuinely in love; and however Will’s impairment is – or is not – portrayed, that simple message of hope is worth a lot to me.

Thanks for reading.



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March 29, 2021

‘Me Before You’ by Jojo Moyes

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‘Me Before You’ by Jojo Moyes

I’ve read ‘Me Before You’ by Jojo Moyes, and seen the film, several times now. Indeed, I bought the DVD last week and have been watching it. And I’m puzzled I haven’t reviewed the book or the film yet, given that the story very obviously features a disabled main character. So, despite the controversy – or perhaps because of it – here goes.

I wasn’t even aware that there was any controversy around the book and film. The portrayal of a disabled character by an able-bodied actor raises a few hackles, as, does the – apparently – underlying assumption that ‘living with a disability is such agony, it’d be better not to…’ I’ve heard these arguments before, and listened to them; and at different stages in my life, they have hit home very hard.

The story concerns a formerly able-bodied, now wheelchair-bound man, Will, who was injured in a collision with a motorbike and is now paralysed from the neck down. Louisa is employed by Will’s mother to provide some hope of hope for her son. Despite their subsequent obvious love for each other, Lou does not change Will’s mind that he wishes to die. And so, Will goes to Switzerland and ends his life, as he planned to do before Louisa ever came on the scene.

I know that many disabilities, cerebral palsy included, often shorten an ordinary life-span. I also know that being disabled, one has to live with and through lots of painful assumptions, such as – and I’ve debunked a few of these in my time – ‘I thought all people with CP were, you know, mentally retarded’, ‘It’s easier for you because you were born disabled’, ‘She’ll not amount to much’ and, ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t want to live’… which are a painful mix of tosh and ignorance.

When it comes to fictional portrayals, I don’t think there is any need for hostility around either the book or the film. Certainly, the author makes assumptions about disability, but so do many of us, whether able-bodied or disabled. If Moyes’ novel is to be (a) shorter than ‘War and Peace’ and (b) entertaining and enlightening in equal measure, she has to cut a path through the complex maze that is reality and realism, and leaven it with fictional lightness that will make her book good reading. And I think she manages the tricky balance well enough not to be accused of insensitivity. Humans being complex and varied creatures, there is nothing unfeasible, unrealistic, patronising or unattractive in an – admittedly young – character deciding to end his own life because he was formerly very independent, active and sporty and because he finds the prospect of now living with unremitting pain hard to bear.

(To be continued)

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March 19, 2021

‘The Other Bennet Sister’ – Concluded

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‘The Other Bennet Sister‘ – Concluded

In the second part of my review of ‘The Other Bennet Sister’ by Janice Hadlow, we find Mary Bennet, of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ infamy, in the company of the cheerful Gardiner family.

Faced with their easy kindness and general optimism, Mary Bennet quickly realises that growing up means, rather paradoxically, learning to present a buoyant and kind exterior; and, whatever one’s personal doubts and feelings, consciously making the best of whatever positive attributes one has to one’s credit: a tidy figure, lovely eyes, a kind smile, a willingness to work hard… Twin themes with which I identify quite closely, occasional glimmers of wisdom in the text catching me unexpectedly and leaving me feeling wistful and gratefully wiser: The notion that happiness is a choice comes through loud and clear.

There are many dangers in attempting a work of this nature. Not only the obvious problem of repeats and the realisation that P & P is one of the best-known novels of all time and that its devotees can probably quote large parts of the book. The reach back to more formal language is also fraught with difficulty: how far should a modern re-telling attempt to ape the language, flavour and wit of the original, and to what degree must a modern version use more accessible English?

There is also the problem of plausibility. It has often occurred to me that Mr Collins, in searching for a wife, was looking in entirely the wrong place, and that his helpmeet in life might well have been Mary. And indeed, in TOBS we have a fleeting, mutual regard between Mr Collins and Mary – prompting a jealousy in Charlotte Collins which does, at least, galvanise her to be kinder to her husband – followed by a dance with two younger, far more suitable men in the Gardiners’ entourage, one of whom is, admittedly, not handsome.

It’s a curious twist that Mary, cast as so plain and pedantic and without any fortune to call her own, should now find herself with a choice of two entirely eligible suitors. Does the ugly duckling become the swan, or are the feelings roused in her two vying suitors more likely the consequence of jealousy, the ‘you have it, I want it’ feature of possessiveness? Mary chooses her suitor, and chooses, therefore, her life, buoyed by happiness and by the joy of having, and running, her own home. It hardly occurs to her that in electing to enter the married state she is, in many ways, electing one form of servitude over another. Perhaps a more comfortable one. But it speaks volumes for the aspirations of Georgian and Victorian women that they aspired so ardently to marry, thus exchanging the service they owed to their fathers and brothers, for that which they will offer to their husbands.

All in all, a very creditable novel, painstaking and carefully written and even, dare I say it, educative!

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March 18, 2021

‘The Other Bennet Sister’ by Janice Hadlow

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‘The Other Bennet Sister’ by Janice Hadlow

Though I hesitate to buy books at supermarkets, I picked this up quickly: where else, at the moment, can we buy new books? Needing something to read, ‘The Other Bennet Sister’ looked a safe bet. I love Jane Austen, for her wisdom and her wit, and have read all her books, seen the films… And ‘Pride and Prejudice’ is my favourite.

TOBS is a good book, an interesting story that does very well to graft itself into the original story while keeping some of the original flavour and not being unduly repetitive.

It quickly became apparent to me that, in order for TOBS not to lean too heavily on the work that inspired it, the first part of this retelling is concerned with a reprise of P & P from Mary’s point of view, only then moving forward to what happened after we leave Elizabeth and Jane contemplating their own versions of married bliss. In this, the author does a good job to weave a path for Mary through an earlier narrative which leaves her almost no room, and indeed, casts her as a colourless and unpromising pain in the bahookie.

Managing Mary’s emergence from the low expectations of her family – and indeed, of Jane Austen – while honouring the original story is a significant achievement in itself and must have presented the author with a fair nightmare of checking and double-checking for internal accuracy and consistency. Indeed, so painstaking and careful has this process obviously been, that I can almost hear the author sighing with relief when Mary finally sets out on her own path and a fresh aspect to the story can be crafted without constant reference to what went previously.

Through suitably juvenile reflections and dawning awareness, Mary must concede the unenviable choices facing her: she must marry. And if that proves elusive, she must either live as an object of charity with Jane and their mother who is horrible to her, or become a somewhat unwelcome addition to Lizzy’s blissfully happy household. If all that fails, she can go into servitude as a governess. In realising that her choices are so limited, Mary does finally find a home with the Gardiners, her mother’s brother being a far kinder person to her than Mary’s mother could ever be. From the warmer embrace of her uncle’s home, Mary sits and waits for a miracle.  

(to be continued)

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