Walking Through The Woods

Especially for Ian and Meg ! 
Waiting for this year's lambs to be born and I will try and get photos for you both !


The woods are lovely at the moment; they will be stunning in a few weeks when all the trees are in leaf......

I love all the little paths......

and the sun dappling the ground.



DD3 and Basil love them too.



Catkins !

Coming out of the woods, and looking at the colours.....

                                                                 

                                                       and the view is wonderful !

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Recently Read

Villages of Britain is enormous.

Seriously ! 

I did try to read my way through it systematically,

but it gave me mental indigestion,

so I would recommend it as a reference book,

or just one to "dip into".

Great book, nevertheless :-)

I love Faye Kellerman's books.

I enjoy the divergent strands of an Orthodox Jewish  Homicide Detective

and violent crime being drawn together, with the bad guys getting caught.

If only real life were quite that simple.....

Andy McNab - another perennial favourite.

The book of The King's Speech is superb; as soon as I finished it, DD3 has bagged it and is devouring it. DoomHamster is next on the reading list for it :-)

I am systematically working my way through my Georgette Heyer books - wonderful escapist reading.

Yes, Sister, No Sister was well worth every penny - a thoroughly absorbing book about a trainee nurse's life in the 1950s.

I am becoming increasingly fond of  Lindsey Davies' Falco character, and am grabbing every book which makes its way into the charity shops....

The most recent FK book, and one of the most satisfying and absorbing.

 I loved the resolution of this one :-)

Begat was bought for me by Mr & Mrs DoomHmaster,

and I have savoured every single page, limiting myself to one chapter a day

 as much as possible to make it last longer.

If you have ever wondered just how much influence the KJV of the Bible

 has had on modern culture, this is the book for you.

I really loved Bread Alone, and not just for the recipes ! 

A very clever novel, detailing the breakup of a marriage

 and a woman's quest for a new life for herself in its aftermath.

This is one of Andy McNab's teenager fiction books, and is very well-written.

The plots are complex and believable,  

and this one outlines the recruitment and manipulation of teenage suicide bombers.

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Jerusalem - The Biography

                                        Published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2010


I must admit that I would not have believed it possible to cover the history of Jerusalem in one volume. Enormous amounts of scholarly work abound for the serious student, but for the general reader interested in understanding the importance - and sometimes the furore- which surrounds this great city, there has never really been a book which adequately covers its immense and complex religious, historical, sociological and political history until now.

Simon Sebag Montefiore comes from a prominent literary Jewish family, and it seems very appropriate that has undertaken this vast project. His lyrical and poetical introductory chapter gives a surprisingly intimate and personal glimpse of the meaning of the city to him before he launches into a more detached and impersonal manner of writing to compress thousands of years of history into one book.

This 647 page volume was a pleasure to read from the first page to the last, covering the massive span of the city's history and its personages, both humble and prominent. It is succinct and well-written, although the chapters covering early Christian history tend to support the modernist Protestant party line relating to theological issues rather than the more traditional Orthodox and Catholic viewpoints, especially on the perpetual virginity of Mary.
That aside, for anyone interested in the Biblical history of the city, it is a treasure trove of information, sometimes too much so.......the brutalities of the sacking of the city by the Romans were described bluntly and without gratuitous detail, but nevertheless were really quite stomach-turning and reminded me vividly of Sir Steven Runciman's devastatingly heart-breaking depiction of the sack of Constantinople a millennium later.

 I learnt an enormous amount from this book, and I suspect it will take me much longer to digest and assimilate the information than it took to actually read it, and for anyone interested in this amazing city, revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, this book will be a must-read.

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What A Week

Today  marks Day 13 of one or other members of our immediate family being ill with this vicious and painful stomach flu bug. It has not been a pleasant fortnight, and fasting has been a disaster for me.

I have managed to stick to my daily Psalter readings, which have kept me focused and grounded despite the dreadful tragedy which continues to unfold in Japan. ..... the death  toll there is equivalent to more than the population of our small town  being wiped out. May God have mercy on us all, especially the suffering people of  Japan. When I was in college, a kind mature Japanese student named Toshio often gave us lifts to college in the mornings, and I pray God earnestly that Toshio and his family are safe.

My dear friend Mary has had bad news about her husband's health, and my Great-uncle Bob is ill in hospital, as well as my other Uncle Bob on the other side of my family.

So many friends are in trouble, sorrow, need and distress - may God have mercy on us all, and may dear St Patrick intercede for us all.

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Holidays Continued

Ten-Pin Bowling was fun....... DD3 gets ready.

DH in follow-through mode.....

An early-morning visitor was disturbed
by me opening the curtains..........
you can just see the hind-quarters of a sweet deer
through the V- shaped tree in the centre of the picture.

This little critter was a frequent flyer once he realised we put food out for him .

I know they are technically pests, but they are so cute !
By the way, feeding the critters with appropriate foods (sold on site)
is actively encouraged as it is a protected and enclosed Nature Reserve
.

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DD3 Hits The High Ropes

DD3 always likes to be doing something, so this was right up her street, though it took her way out of her comfort zone......

She is on the third horizontal log from the bottom on the right side of the picture, her instructor at the bottom in red.... I have to say, although she was fully roped and safety-harnessed, my heart was in my mouth at this point..... my baby was up there !

She always wanted to have a go at roller-skating,
so we opted for the nice warm indoor area after previous challenges outdoors.

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Activities On Holiday

DD4 went on an introduction to falconry course. 

Here she is with Floyd, a Peregrine Falcon, hooded to ensure he stayed calm.

This is Missy, a nine month old female Kestrel.

DD4 holding a stunningly lovely Barn Owl.....

DD3 trying out Quad biking......

....and DD4 doing likewise on a Junior course.

Much fun was had by both :-)

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Holidays !

This was the view from our patio doors :-) 

At various points in our stay, we saw rabbits, ducks, squirrels and roe deer walking across our patio....

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It Must Be Great Lent........

It must be Great Lent; the normal domestic mayhem worsens !

DD3 has picked up a stomach upset, and just as soon as she seems to be getting over it and can eat a little, she's ill again. Last night she was pretty poorly, with torrential outpourings from both ends, which was no fun for her, or for me doing the clean-up of the bathroom, and I ended up spending the night sleeping on the beanbag in her room. In the middle of all that, DD4 wakes up feeling sick and hurtles to the bathroom herself, obviously with the same bug, so round 2 of the clean-up commenced in the wee small hours. I'm in the middle of a  streaming cold which has settled on my chest and in my sinuses, so bending over is a nightmare, and I have to stop every few minutes, no matter what I am doing, to blow the faucet that was formerly my nose....

Other news:

We actually managed to all go away on a family holiday last week :-)

I was so scared of jinxing it that I deliberately didn't mention  it all, in   case Mum became ill and had to go into hospital again, like last summer. ..... mercifully, she remains stable and we were able to go away. We had a great time and  as soon as DH uploads the photos from his camera, I will post more about the holiday.


I had a hospital appointment with the Opthalmologist on Monday; the problems I am having with my sight appear to be the early development of a cataract in my very short-sighted eye and what appears to be the beginning of glaucoma. I am having further tests over the next few weeks, but I seem to have had some peripheral vision loss in both eyes as well, which is likely to be irreversible and a bit of a bummer, to be honest.......

My Uncle Bobby (my Mum's cousin) has been admitted to hospital and initial scans show a lesion on his brain which is causing him to lose physical co-ordination on one side. He will be having a biopsy soon to determine exactly what is going on, but it does not look wonderful. His wife has asked me not to tell my Mum at this stage until there is more concrete news, and I am the only person from our side of the family who knows. 

Kyrie eleison !

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"Outlive Your Life"

“Outlive Your Life” by Max Lucado

Published by Thomas Nelson

It is horrifyingly easy to insulate ourselves from the problems of those around us, and even easier to insulate ourselves from the global problems of poverty, hunger, disease. The early Church members did not insulate themselves; they cared for the sick, the hungry, the widowed, orphaned and elderly......and so should we. This message has been echoed by the Saints throughout the ages- St John Chrysostom said that for us to hoard what we have instead of sharing with those in need is as bad as stealing from those in dire need.

Max Lucado has written this book as a call to action, not just to sentiment. God wants passion and fervour, not experience and qualifications. God wants us to care about those in need , and then to do something about it.

During the Second World War, a young Briton named Nicholas Winton went to Prague to try to save Jewish children. He found British families willing to help and worked hard to raise funds, taking enormous personal risks to get Jewish children safely to Britain. As a result of his courage and determination, some 7000 descendants of those children live on.. .... he was simply an ordinary man who felt passionately about a cause and acted upon it, and made such a difference to so many lives!

The Protestant theology of atonement does not sit within Orthodox theology, but the call to action must certainly does, and I found this book valuable indeed. It has been read several times already, and repays prayerful study.




Disclosure of Material Connection:

I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze book review bloggers program.

I was not required to write a positive review.

The opinions I have expressed are my own.

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Sad News

Dear friends,
Of your charity, please pray for Jeff, the husband of a dear friend, who died suddenly on the weekend, and for his wife Sue and all their family.....

Memory Eternal......

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Beethoven "Für Elise" Valentina Lisitsa Seoul Philharmonic

Sheer magic........

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Today's Word

nompion : one posessing more knowledge than the common people.

A Lancashire dialect word, defined in 1898 by Joseph Wright.

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Out Of The Mouths......

I had a short, sharp reality check the other day, and it took me totally by surprise.

DD3 and I had been shopping, visited the local book fair and had just stopped at a food shop to pick up a cheap snack for our lunch. I had one large tote bag (full) over my shoulder and was carrying three other bags full of books, DD3 was carrying another bag of books. We had just come out of the shop clutching our snacks in paper bags as well, and as we were walking down the street, there was a homeless person selling The Big Issue magazine. I usually make a point  of buying a magazine from these sellers, who are are doing their best to get themselves out of being homeless/vulnerably housed by selling magazines rather than begging.

The thought did cross my mind that I should buy one, but I dismissed it so very easily,  thinking about the fact I couldn't easily access my purse, I was tired, we only just had enough money to get the bus home anyway and I didn't relish the idea of walking home with all these bags of shopping. All feeble excuses so I would not have to put myself to any physical effort or financial loss.........

I walked on, continuing my conversation with DD3. After we had walked about ten yards down the street, she turned to me quietly and said:
"I've never ever known you not buy a Big Issue from a seller, Mum. Did you already buy a copy when you came up to town earlier in the week?"

Talk about out the mouths of babes and sucklings !  I looked at her and said honestly that I had thought about it briefly, but if we did buy a copy, we would have to walk home with all these bags (about 45 mins walk). She just looked at me and said that she was happy to walk home. I was so proud of her, and so woefully ashamed of my own selfishness, laziness and greed.

I unloaded all my shopping on the floor and she stood guard over our mini-mountain of bags so I could scramble for my purse and find the requisite amount of money for the magazine, and a small bit extra to give to the seller, as I normally do. The vendor greeted me warmly and was very grateful for my purchase. I returned, brandishing the magazine and saw DD3's face light up with pleasure. We picked up our bags and made our way home, tired but happy.

What made my heart sing was that my 12 year old daughter had compassion on that man, wanted us to help him and she was not afraid to respectfully tackle me for *not* helping. When my behaviour was not up to what she considered to be my normal standard, she reminded me about it, and that took courage on her part.
I am proud of her, and glad that she stood firm in her belief that we should help him, even if we did have to walk home with all those bags rather than riding the bus in comfort. I am keeping that copy of the magazine as a reminder to myself how easy it is to slip back into meanness, laziness and selfishness, rather than put myself out to help someone.

I'm glad it is Lent; I need the discipline and the reminders.

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Recently Read

Bluestockings  (Jane Robinson, pub 2009 by Viking) was a delightful and engrossing read about the first woman to storm the bastions of English Universities and fight for the right to get a degree. Fascinating, heartbreaking and quite frighteningwhere it describes the intense pressures put upon so many young women at that period.

Charity shop finds !  I love Star Trek , and another Andy McNab book is always welcome.

A second "new" Andy McNab is even more welcome...... and words fail me when it comes to Robin Jarvis' The Whitby Witches. First in a trilogy, and marketed for young teenage readers, I still find it riveting and terrifying, even though I must have read it at least twenty times in the last fifteen years. St Hilda plays a starring role in this tale of good versus evil. It makes the Harry Potter series seem tame by comparison.

Doom Hamster much preferred his Deptford Mice series, but I could never get into that series at all; it always interests me how greatly tastes can differ within a family of a voracious readers :-)

Two more charity shop finds; I am slowly collecting the whole Falco series by Lindsey Davies.

The Catholic Martyrs of Wales by T.P.Ellis, pub by Burns & Oates in 1933 was kindly obtained for me by the local library from the main Reserve stock.  One of the Catholic priest-martyrs was captured only a very few miles away from my home, and I wanted to read more about that very troubled period of history.

The Jane Austen Book Club is something I have been meaning to read for ages and never got round to buying it. It was also always out on loan at the Library, so when I saw it at my favourite thrift shop, I leapt at it. I am so glad I did :-)

An Intelligent Person's Guide to Judaism is a scholarly, insightful and thoughtful read. Of particular interest is the chapter on anti-semitism, its developement and possible causes.

DH bought this book. I have read it but not yet cooked anything from it; full reports when I do get round to making something, I promise !

Germania is another library book, by Simon Winder, pub 2010 by Picador. 

 It is his own idiosyncratic view of  German history and describes his own visits to Germany.  He obviously loves the country but  by his own admission speaks virtually no German, which I would find a considerable impediment to travelling extensively in a country.....

There are occasional flashes of brilliance, especially his descriptions of Bamberg and one section entitled "More competitive tomb-building", but on the whole I found it quite tedious. I certainly wouldn't bother buying it even from the charity shop.

Also read (on my e-reader):

Laurie King's magnificent O Jerusalem, Justice Hall, The Game and Locked Rooms.  I devoured them all with the utmost enjoyment and strongly recommend them.

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Sleeping Baby

 A recent photo of my sleeping baby :-)

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Recently Read

Down Among The Dead Men was an absolutely fascinating if somewhat ghoulish insight into what goes on at a hospital mortuary, though I must admit that I could not stomach reading it whilst eating my lunch......I am glad I read it, but I don't think it would merit reading again. 

The Winter Of Our Disconnect is a very cleverly written book, outlining how the author and her teenaged children survived a whole winter (in Australia) without having electrical/electronic media in their home, interspersed with references to academic work showing what effects TV, iPod, games consoles and the like can have upon the socialisation and habits of children and adults alike. I really enjoyed it, even if I would have been given her fifteen year old son a right tongue-lashing if he had been a child of mine for saying "WTF" to me :-)

 Definitely one I will be buying, after borrowing it this time from the library.

Three Cups Of Tea was  heartbreakingly sad and incredibly inspiring in equal measure. I had never heard of it before, and it is one of the books which I am incredibly glad I have now managed to read. It paints a very vivid picture of life in the very remotest areas of Pakistan, and of Greg Mortenson's work to provide good schools for children in this harsh part of the world.

A Dying Light In Cordoba was an interesting read. I still find the author's Falco a very dry character to read, but the plots are clever and I have since managed to get a few more from the local charity shop, which I shall read in due course :-)

This book, The Sign Of The Cross,  is no better a read the second time round.

 How on earth someone can claim to be writing a book about travelling in Catholic Europe when his ignorance (as a disaffected Catholic) extends so far as to wonder whether Protestants use incense in services and then not even bother to find out and comment on it , defeats me. Far too much of the book details his rather bizarre psychotherapy relating to the death of a relative, and I cannot in conscience recommend this book to anyone. I am glad this was one I borrowed from the local library as I would have felt robbed having to pay even 50p for it in a charity shop. Yes, I did dislike it that much, and resent the waste of precious hours reading it....... I still can't fathom why I read it a second time - perhaps I could not believe that a publisher actually paid for this book......

I have also been reading  Laurie King's "Mary Russell" series of detective fiction on my e-reader, hence the lack of photographs of book covers !

If you  haven't already encountered Miss Mary Russell, I strongly advise you to make her acquaintance :-) 

What is there not to enjoy about a teenaged feminist Jewish girl with strong scholarly tendencies becoming an apprentice detective to the great Sherlock Holmes after he retires to keep bees on the Sussex Downs ?

 Lots of Jewish / Christian interest has been woven into the stories,  and so far I have absolutely loved reading:

The Beekeeper's Apprentice   { an excerpt available here}

A Monstrous Regiment of Women   {an excerpt available here}    
A Letter of Mary   {an excerpt available here}

The Moor  {an excerpt available here}


Enjoy !

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