The English Armchair Abroad

A good read

A short time ago I did a post called Stop the World, I want to get off and my friend Polly wrote a comment that made me think a little more about the subject of intersexuality.  By coincidence, I was talking to a friend the same evening and she lent me a book (a novel) written from the viewpoint of someone who was born a hermaphrodite.  Well it was certainly food for thought and perhaps I was a little too quick to condemn.  As Polly said, let's hope the child copes with his/her unusual beginnings.

The book was excellent and I recommend it to you as an unusual but good read.  A little slow at first but suddenly you're galloping along and the pages seem to turn on their own.  It is called Middlesex and is written by Jeffrey Eugenides - he also wrote The Virgin Suicides which I haven't read.  "Middlesex" was the 2003 Pullitzer Prize winner so I guess I'm not the only one who's enjoyed it!

What to read next?  Well that's easy thanks to a trip to Paris last week and killing time waiting for the train in a bookshop that happened to have a very few "foreign" books - or in other words, as far as I was concerned, books in English!

Ever since I was a teenager I have fallen in love with Darcy, suffered with Eleanor and been fed up with Fanny.  Who else but Jane Austen could write such delights.  I must know Pride and Prejudice off by heart (the first sentence anyway!) as I have read it approximately a zillion times - my record being three times in a week whilst I was pregnant and not sleeping well.  At some point my Jane Austen books have all vanished.  Either in a house move or perhaps visitors have borrowed them.  I'm left with Emma and she is fine up to a point but Knightley is nothing compared to Darcy.  So imagine my delight in finding all the Jane Austen books in one in this foreign section.  I have started Sense and Sensibility and am looking forward to hours of pleasurable reading in the next couple of weeks.

As usual, all these books, and more, can be found in my bookshop which is operated by Amazon.  Any books you buy via this link earns me a small commission for which I am very grateful.

To my daughter in France...

I have taken to reading Mr B's Blog where he describes his life in France - no prizes for guessing what I feel it has in common with mine!  I rather like his rambling way of describing his day to day life.  Anyway, his last blog was about waking up early and not being able to go back to sleep.  This is something I am all too familiar with.  Unlike Mr B though, I don't suffer from the "Now I must get up and do something for two hours" syndrome.  I am lucky in that respect!  No, I am an avid reader and read whatever is at hand.  Sometimes this has the effect of sending me back to sleep - oh joy!  Not because the book is boring but simply because the black on white has that effect.

At the moment I am reading "To My Daughter In France" by Stephanie Keating and Barbara Keating.  It was leant to me by a friend (another consumer of books) who picked it up at a booksale locally.  I took it reluctantly thinking it might be yet another travel book about France.  How wrong I was.  I am gripped by this novel which describes the lives of two families linked by the words "To my daughter in France I leave the remainder of my estate."  A shock, it seems, to all the people concerned.  It has a bit of everything:  wartime romance, intrigue, goodies and baddies and endless conflicts that need resolving.  That it takes place partly in France and partly in Ireland (Connemara) is an added bonus.   I am just over half way through and it is all I can do to get up in the morning...Mr B would not approve of my idleness!

Now of course I have added this book to the Grand Gennetay Bookshop or you can, if you feel so inclined, buy it by clicking the picture below. If you are good enough to buy it via this website Amazon rewards me with a miniscule percentage for the service.  I've so far earned an entire 34pence and would love to up it a bit just to prove to my children that it is worth it!  When I've finished this book I intend to try and find the Keatings' other books.  This one has whet my appetite for more.

           

Books ...for the adventurous

I have always been a reader.  I devour books which is not necessarily a good thing although, due to insomnia, I am happy to re-read a book if necessarily.  One of the few disadvantages of living in France is not being able to wander into a bookshop whenever I am in need of a good book (an English bookshop, obviously!).

Fortunately, friends coming to stay nearly always bring out a book or two for their holiday reading and are kind enough to leave them behind when they leave - we are not too proud to accept second, or even third, hand books!  And of course Amazon, that wonder of on-line bookshops, is another source - I sometimes wonder if it's our custom that keeps Amazon going!  As a result of the postal charges we tend to buy several books at a time so we go from famine to plenty and back to famine again where reading matter is concerned.

At the moment I am reading John Simpson's "Not Quite the World's End:  A Traveller's Tale".  It's strange to think that Simpson was reading the news when I was too young to watch it but there we are!  Unlike Richard Baker (remember him?) who retired a number of years ago, Simpson is a name that I have grown up with.  This book is a wonderful series of sound bites - except of course they are chapters - on the places he has been sent to by the BBC.  I don't know if he's always been outspoken but it seems as though he's got to a point where it no longer matters.  He doesn't hesitate to voice his opinion regardless of what his employer (the BBC) or the government think.  He has found a new lease of life, quite literally, in the birth of his son Rafe and is straightforward and honest about this changing his view on the things he reports on - most notably the war in Iraq. The Traveller's Tales are not written in chronological order;  rather they are are chapters on different countries or parts of the world.  War zones are his stamping ground and he certainly makes you realise that reporting from Baghdad is not a cushy number.

By chance my husband is reading a book by a good friend of John Simpson and another traveller:  Ranulph Fiennes'  "Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know".   I've read about some of his earlier adventures and this one is next on my list.  Frankly, the sort of places Fiennes goes to are lacking in one of my must-haves:  warmth - not heat necessarily but above zero generally!  However, I also have a sense of adventure and this is what appeals to me.

There is one more book that I want to mention here:  Aran Ralson is not a natural writer and never intended to write "Between a Rock and a Hard Place";  but then again he never intended to have to cut off his own arm.  He is a climber and a rock fell on his arm trapping him.  After several days and suffering badly from de-hydration and hunger he knew that he had just one chance to survive:  cut off his wrist.  He explains it all...in detail.   This is the story of how it happened, why it happened, how he survived plus an amusing conversation with the nurse in the hospital who wanted to give him an injection.  If you haven't read it already I highly recommend it.  It must come with a warning:  if you are squeamish (and perhaps even if you are not!) you will squirm! 

All of these books are available (from Amazon) in the Grand Gennetay Bookshop or you can click on the image(s) below and be taken direct to Amazon.

       

Sallygardens Guide to Rearing Weaners for the Table

Rebecca, from Sallygardens Smallholding, sent me a copy of her Pig Rearing e-booklet to review.  She wrote the book because so many people who knew about her smallholding in Ireland had contacted her to ask advice on pig rearing.  Books are of course available but in my own experience (and admittedly I am not near an English bookshop) pig books are not always available.  I'm still waiting for mine to come from Amazon an amazing FOUR WEEKS after ordering it.

I want to say straight off that I do NOT yet have any pigs but that our weaners are arriving in the middle of April.  Rebecca's book is aimed at people like me who are just starting with pigs and want a few inside nuggets to help them through the first few weeks of pigdom. 

So often, when you take up something new and perhaps go on a course to help you get started, it is the off the cuff comments that are especially helpful.  I have had experience of this in my own work and also in other areas of our life.  Also the questions that OTHER people ask.  I learned the hard way about wearing welly boots and not trainers when inspecting our bees but I was able to pass on that seemingly obvious piece of advice to a new beekeeper  the other day.  And this is where Rebecca has come up trumps.  For example, when you go to collect your pigs she tells you to : 

"Ask the breeder the brand of the treatments they have used. The information may be useful to a vet if you have any future problems."

OK, it's obvious - but it never occurred to me to put it on the list of questions.  Careful and thorough interrogation of the breeder is essential and for those of us venturing out for the first time any help at all is welcome!

She touches on which breeds are easiest to rear on a smallholding and the different characteristics of these breeds.  Realistic to a fault she includes a detailed cost sheet of how much she and her husband spent during the first year of owning pigs and then again the second year - the point being that set up costs are not repeated.  It is an exercise worth doing before embarking on this new adventure - the amount pigs eat is not insubstantial and the rising cost of feed may be enough to put some people off!

Inevitably, if one is rearing weaners with a view to eating them the slaughter day will arrive and here again Rebecca is characteristically honest;  after slaughtering your pigs she says:

"You will either delight in a culinary experience you’ll never forget and will want to repeat, or you will become a vegetarian."

Rebecca's very affordable (8 euros) book touches on all the absolute necessities of pig rearing:  food, acreage required, housing, legalities of buying and slaughtering, how to find a butcher, processing the meat, cost and so on.  It's a book that will compliment your other pig husbandry books. 

Does it stand on its own?  I don't know yet but if Amazon don't come up with the goods it will have to!

If you would like to buy a copy contact Rebecca at  Sallygardens - if you haven't read her blog before you will be hooked!

Christmas Presents

For Christmas one of my nieces gave me an Amarylis bulb.  We did all the necessary as per the instructions and low and behold.  What a stunner!
Thanks Minca!

                                  

Other presents included a book by Kate Adie - I think her latest one - called "Nobody's Child".  It seems that people either love Kate Adie or hate her.  Personally I think she's extraordinary.  This book is about foundlings and the history of foundling homes.  It is something about which I've never thought beyond hearing reports on the radio from time to time.  She has mixed the history with copies of documents from the 1800's onwards and also with interviews of foundlings still alive today and how being a foundling has effected them.

For this book I must thank Granny!

Some of you have been kind enough to ask about my running.  I has come to a grinding halt.  A few weeks ago now and just after the gruelling 13k run, my right leg developed a sharp pain whenever I ran and to begin with when I walked.  The physio doesn't know what it is but it comes and goes.  Not a good ingredient for a half marathon and sadly, once again, I've had to give up any hope of taking part in the race on 9 March.  The school team is still training though and I will post photos of the day itself.  And if anyone wants to sponsort them....?   

Driving Over Lemons

I've just finished reading this.  Really good fun. If you enjoyed Peter Mayle's books about moving to France you'll almost certainly enjoy this one. Chris Stewarrt describes the everyday ups and downs of buying, living and running a farm in Andalucia.   He has written a sequel which I haven't read but which is on my birthday list!  Anyway, both books are in my bookstore together with some of my other favourites.

Back to work????

Oh dear, it's already Wednesday and all I have to show for it is five hours in the workroom!  Still, the chair is now ready to be stitched - tomorrow will get that under way.  Yesterday I got distracted by the bee frames. 

We became beekeepers last year - a really bad year to start with all that rain! - and I would really like to expand from two to five hives this year.  I manage to find some secondhand hives which I've cleaned up but I decided to replace all the frames in the body (where the bees live and put honey - for them) and the supers (where they put any extra honey - for us).  Getting frames ready involves threading wire through them and then melting a sheet of wax onto the wires.  On the picture below you can see the bees beginning to work up the wax foundation into something they can store honey in.  Now my wonderful husband is going to try and make a contraption that will heat up the wires to let the wax melt.  Last year we used the car battery and a Heath Robinson set up involving a couple of planks of wood on the wheelbarrow and a cold barn.  Oh, and a lot of swearing!  I'm hoping this time it will be a little more straightforward!

I don't need the frames until March but I suspect if we don't get it done now it will be left until I need them in a panic and it will be back to the Renault 5 set up!

We "discovered" the idea of beekeeping at a local agricultural fair.  It's a fair that shows how it "used to be done" - so horses pulling the plough, men instead of combine harvesters and so on.  They had an exhibition area and there we found the bee man.  Our son then was only 11and he was fascinated by the see-through hive and of course the bee-man, who is about 70, was thrilled to see young blood taking an interest and really took the time to talk to him and explain things.  And that's how we got started.  When the bees finally arrived late last May we were filled with trepidation.  But they had obviously been warned about nervous beekeepers and were remarkably calm around these buzzing human beings.

Since then we've discovered the wonder of how a bee colony works and is organised.   We've learnt to stay calm and move slowly when we open the hives up to inspect that all is well.  We've started to notice their moods - and react accordingly!  But we know there is still plenty to learn.

In the summer we love watching the bees in the garden and grow flowers and vegetables according to their needs as well as ours.  In fact we are about to plant some hedges and have asked the supplier specifically for bee-friendly hedging!

If anyone is interested in finding out more about the the subject I have a couple of books listed in my bookstore.