While walking around Oxford yesterday evening — all the students are out with their families; restaurants and bars are sooooo crowded. Self is still wearing her mask but 90% of the people she sees aren’t — she saw this unusual iris! She’d never seen an iris this color before.
Posting for Cee’s Flower of the Day.
Back in Oxford! What a feeling. She arrived from East London and realized she hadn’t bothered to make a note of Lucy’s house number (She did know the street) because she thought she’d recognize the house at first sight. She ended up walking back and forth, back and forth, for half an hour. Conveniently, her Android told her “There is no wi-fi connection.” This is why she pays Verizon $239/month for the International Plan. So she can be stuck with luggage on a street in Oxford, with no wi-fi connection. Her laptop was completely out of battery, so no help there.
Tugging her luggage behind her, she started asking the neighbors: “Do you know Lucy?” She figured, Oxford is a small town, this is a small street. Everyone must know Lucy. Guess what: NO ONE KNEW LUCY.
Finally, she heard her name being called, and there was Lucy! Lucy had seen self pass in front of her house, trundling luggage. Probably wondered why self didn’t stop, since the front door was wide open.
Anyhoo, she’s arrived! Same room and everything! There was even the sweetest little arrangement of wildflowers on her writing desk!
Posting a picture for Cee’s Flower of the Day.
Going at a snail’s pace through Book 2 of the Ruth Galloway series, self is enjoying it so much. The last book series she was into was The Expanse (nine books and a TV series), and that was two years ago.
Anyhoo, she is within closing distance of the end, and there’s an annoying policewoman named Tanya who is everything Dr. Ruth Galloway isn’t — young, fit, eager, callow — and she might be having a wee crush on her boss, DCI Harry Nelson, who also happens to be the object of Ruth Galloway’s (unrequited) affection. This series does have angst. Of course, Ruth Galloway doesn’t see her as a threat, and DCI Nelson is too obtuse to recognize Tanya as flirting.
“Sir?”
Tanya’s head appears around his office door. He tries to discourage the rest of her from joining it.
“What is it?”
“I’ve found Annabelle Spens’ dental records.”
This is different. His tiredness vanishes and he rearranges his face into something more welcoming.
“Good work, Tanya. Show me.”
Praise makes Tanya expansive. “Well, it was really you saying about there being some fancy dental work done. I thought, maybe they didn’t get it done locally. So I contacted the London School of Dentistry. They’ve been around since 1911, used to be at the London Hospital but it’s now part of St. Bartholomew’s. Anyway, they had her records. They faxed them over a few minutes ago.”
— The Janus Stone, pp. 259 – 260
“Why don’t you live somewhere more convenient?” her colleagues ask. “There are some lovely properties in King’s Lynn, or even Blakeney if you want to be near to nature.” Ruth can’t explain, even to herself, how a girl born and brought up in South London can feel such a pull to these inhospitable marshlands, these desolate mudflats, this lonely unrelenting view. It was research that first brought her to the Saltmarsh but she doesn’t know herself what it is that makes her stay, in the face of so much opposition. “I’m used to it,” is all she says.
The Crossing Places, by Elly Griffiths, p. 15
Yes indeed, self did finish reading The Leavers. Last night. It messed with her heart big-time. The ending was good. Four stars!
She’s glad to be reading a mystery, The Crossing Places. Mysteries feel more in line with her state of mind, these days.
Stay tuned.
Slow Shutter Speed, the host of this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge, has picked WATER as the theme:
Self picked four from her archives, all taken during the last time she was in England, November 2019. Here are the locations: Canary Wharf (London), Lambeth Bridge (London), Christ Church (Oxford)
Cornwall. Always dreaming about Cornwall.
In 2019 I traveled to Fowey to attend their annual Festival of Art and Literature. While having lunch at a restaurant in town I noticed, on the wall to my left, a framed print of this Ernest Hemingway quote:
We ate well and
cheaply and drank
well and cheaply
and slept well and
warm together and
loved each other.
WORDS TO LIVE BY.
Stay tuned.
Was there ever any politician more ill-suited to the historical moment than Neville Chamberlain. The man had absoutely no imagination, couldn’t see beyond his tidy island.
Daniel Todman calls Chamberlain “brave” for flying to Germany to meet personally with Hitler. Chamberlain was accompanied by Harold Wilson. “While Chamberlain and Hitler were talking, Wilson spoke with German diplomats. They assured him that the prime minister was making a great impression as a strong man.”
“Convinced that he could use force without any immediate risk of outside intervention, Hitler became more aggressive . . . Gravely disappointed as he was by this belligerence, Chamberlain was willing to accede. A member of Chamberlain’s cabinet believed that “Chamberlain was quite calmly for total surrender . . . Hitler had obviously hypnotized him . . .” Another member of the Cabinet who could “see which way the cat was jumping — said that after all it was a question of ‘modalities’ . . . whether the Germans went in now or later.”
No one wants to go to war, after all. War means dying, and no one wants to die. If things can be settled by diplomacy, of course that would be the best choice. Self is skipping over all the stuff about Chamberlain. Which means — almost a third of the book. Self did not realize . . . oh well, if she had known Neville Chamberlain would be a major character, she would not have added this book to her reading list.
Now self has reached p. 213. Neville Chamberlain’s diaries reveal his conviction that the war, which finally seems inevitable, even to him, will not last long. Hitler will eventually realize, especially after the German home front collapses, etc. etc.
What. A. Stupid. Fellow.
Self never wanted to read a book about Chamberlain. But here she’s read 200+ pages about him.
On to the next book in her reading list: Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere.
Self is new to this Photo Challenge.
She thinks her post has to do three things:
(1) Show something starting with a “T.” See below: Trellis
Gamble House, Palo Alto
(2) Show a favorite that starts with a “T”: Christmas TREE.
(3) Show a Top of a Tree: Monterey Pines grow in Fowey, Cornwall, who would have thought??? The story goes that Fowey Hall used to belong to an old sea captain who traveled to California and brought Monterey pine seeds back with him.
The Past Squares Challenge ends tomorrow. Becky, who hosts the challenge from Life of B, announced that the next Challenge will be in February.
The very best Chinese food in Liverpool is directly across from the Liverpool Cathedral. Self has a friend who moved to Manchester, and this friend knows all the BEST Chinese restaurants in Manchester and Liverpool.
The Museum of Liverpool, on Albert Dock, is one of those must-sees. And here is self! Who rarely appears in pictures! She’s wearing a hat given to her by a friend in Philadelphia, who told her this would be the only way to survive an English winter! Thanks much, Anne-Adele!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Author Roderick Floud has something to say about how GDP is calculated:
Activities such as housework, looking after children, or decorating homes, together with the gardening or the value of the fruit, flowers, and vegetables that are produced from it, are not counted. When there were plenty of paid gardeners, their wages would be counted as part of GDP; today, when it’s largely done by the householder, this time and effort are not.
So the role of gardening in the economy is much understated because it is largely excluded from GDP. Perhaps equally serious is the fact that few people realize how much land is taken up by gardens, nor the value of that land if it could be used for other purposes.
England’s Magnificent Gardens, p. 345
Kanlaon 