Book Review - A Catholic Mother's Companion to Pregnancy

A Catholic Mother's Companion to Pregnancy - Walking with Mary from Conception to Baptism
By Sarah A. Reinhard

Ave Maria Press, 24th September  2012


We are all used to the typical pregnancy manuals, which tell you about what physical changes to expect and how your unborn baby is developing at each stage in the pregnancy, week by week.  These books are indeed good, but the emotional/spiritual side of pregnancy, with its delights, joys and fears is more often than not given very short shrift indeed.

This excellent book fills the gap brilliantly, covering both the physical changes in mother and baby as well as giving the reader much food for thought and reflection on all aspects of the spiritual side of pregnancy, birth and afterwards.

Based on the mysteries of  the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary,  and therefore aimed primarily at a Roman Catholic audience, it is also eminently suitable for  those of a high church Anglican/Episcopalian background. Some things are likely to be unfamilar to those outside the RC Church, such as Purgatory the chaplet of Divine Mercy, the Litany of the Sacred Heart and the Via Matris devotions.
 Reading it from an Eastern Orthodox point of view, I found much of beauty and value for Orthodox Christians too, especially those following the Western Rite who may well be more familiar with the imagery of the Rosary.

The author has a great love for the Mother of God, often addressing her affectionally and informally as Mama Mary. Chapters are based on the weeks of pregnancy, outlining what is happening with mother and baby, possible events such as ultrasounds and hospital appointments, followed by devotional reflections about how Mary might have felt at various points in the mysteries included in the Rosary devotion. Scripture is cited and a brief prayer relating to pregnancy rounds off each chapter. It is a simple but effective format.

There are also "hard" things that may need to be dealt with, and the author and guest writers do not shy away from these less than happy aspects of pregnancy. Miscarriage, eating disorders and depression in pregnancy, the diagnosis of major congenital abnormality in the baby,  stillbirth and those cases when labour does not go as expected or planned are all discussed.  Extensive suggestions for  spiritual preparation for labour as well as the physical aspects are given, as are  ideas for adapting to life with a new baby and the important task of preparing for the baby's baptism .


The only thing which did make me pause for thought was the mention of the author picturing the Holy Spirit as a spouse rather than the more traditional imagery of a dove or flame, which did strike a slightly discordant note to me as I am far more used to reading Christ described as a Bridegroom rather than the Holy Spirit, but it was obviously of value to the author in appreciating the work of the Paraclete.


I so wish that this book had been available when I was pregnant with my daughters as I would have greatly enjoyed using it !

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Book Review - The Struggle

The Struggle
by Wanda E. Brunstetter
Barbour Publishing, 2012


Marriage, parenting, family partings and bereavement are the major themes underpinning this remarkable new book by Wanda Brunstetter.

When his marriage appears to be in trouble and his wife is constantly turning to her mother for support and friendship instead of to her husband,  it seems to a worried Timothy Fisher that the best thing he can do to save his marriage is to move his wife and daughter from their tightly-knit Amish community in Paradise, Pennsylvania, to the area in Kentucky where two of his brothers have already settled.

His wife Hannah faces the move with despair and trepidation. Following her miscarriage, she has retreated into herself, turned away from Timothy and has become a sharp-tongued, unhappy, rather selfish woman who has problems interacting with other people and is focused almost exclusively on her own wishes and needs and not on what is best for her marriage or her extended family. Her attitude causes problems for Timothy's brothers' families,  her own parents and Amish friends alike.  Their Englisher friends also find their romantic relationships don't always run smoothly either, and there were several points in the story where I had serious anxieties as to how things would be resolved.

  Just when it seems there could conceivably be a happy resolution to their marital difficulties, a disaster of unimaginable proportions strikes Timothy and Hannah.  Can anything be done to salvage their marriage ?

I thought it would be difficult for Wanda to trump her wonderful "The Half-stitched Amish Quilting Club", but she has done so, and I can't wait to sit down to read and savour  "The Struggle" again very soon.

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Book Review - Eat The City

Eat The City
by Robin Shulman
Crown Publishing Group (NY),  July 2012

You know you are dealing with a truly extraordinary book when you see the jaw-droppingly wonderful subtitle :
A Tale of the Fishers, Trappers, Hunters, Forages, Slaughterers, Butchers, Farmers, Poultry Minders, Sugar Refiners, Cane Cutters, Beekeepers, Winemakers, and Brewers who built New York.

That is a tall order to fulfill, but the book achieves it easily, starting with modern-day efforts to grow food in urban areas on individual and collective levels, which in turn leads Shulman to wonder how people managed to provide food in the city in times past. The journey into the past proves to be fascinating for Shulman and the reader alike.

New York has always been  incredibly cosmopolitan, attracting entrepreneurs and impoverished immigrants alike, all drawn to the prospect of a better life or of making a fortune. Food related areas are shown on historical maps with names evocative of long ago, but people do indeed still grow food, rear livestock and produce beer and wine within the confines of the bustling city,  through the determined efforts of citizens wishing to improve their areas and use vacant lots to grow food rather than be used as hideouts for hoodlums.

The chapter about meat production and butchery is a bit gruesome in places which rather made me wish I hadn't read it immediately after eating my lunch . I particularly enjoyed reading about Andrew Cote, an urban beekeeper who has hives on the rooftops of buildings and helps an enormous variety of other people to set up their own urban hives, producing unique honey which takes its flavour from the plants growing in the area. The mystery of the glowing bees and the bright red honey was fascinating and could even have been the subject of a detective novel.

This was an engaging and absorbing book, and one I thoroughly enjoyed reading.

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Book Review - Adventures Among Birds

Adventures Among Birds
by W H Hudson
Published by Collins  2012  (HarperCollins UK)

Written by an outstanding and dedicated ornithologist and conservationist who truly delighted in all aspects of the natural world, this remarkable and absorbing book was first published by Collins in 1913 and now is re-issued with a superb and affectionate introduction by Robert Macfarlane.


Hudson, born in 1841, was unabashed about forcefully expressing his point of view, making his writings frank, refreshing and disarming. The book is primarily about the variety of relationship between humans and birds, and is divided into chapters covering different birds and their habitats although there are several references to animal species too. His unusual childhood (he was born in Argentina) saw his love of birds begin with the gift of his captive Cardinal bird, whose attempts to escape taught Hudson a salutary lesson, that even to a bird, freedom is a goal and a blessing.

Hudson's descriptions of places are very evocative and almost poetic in their beauty; I have visited Wells-Next-The-Sea myself on a few occasions, and he captures the spirit of this remote Norfolk spot wonderfully. One of his favourite places, it was and still is a veritable haven for all wildlife and is especially good for observing coastal and migratory birds.  It is wild, untamed and contains a large variety of habitats in a fairly small geographical area, yet Hudson delights in observing and describing the locals and visitors to the area as well as his painstaking and wonderfully detailed depictions of the birds, and he does this throughout the book to a pleasing result. Many snippets of history and folklore are mentioned, and apt excerpts from poetry both well-known and little-known appear at intervals throughout the book.

Hudson proved himself to be good at understanding what motivates much of the human behaviour he has observed, and although understanding and sometimes truly sympathetic, his ability to produce often caustic wry comments  regularly made chuckle.

One chapter stands pre-eminent for me, and that is the chapter about the common blackbird entitled Avalon and the Blackbird. Hudson dexribes his meetings with  Mr Blythe Bond, responsible for the restoration of Glastonbury Abbey who had carefully chronicled the variety  of songs and calls made by  his local blackbird, which leads Hudson to investigate in greater detail and outline the research done by others into the wide mimicry of which birds are undoubtedly able, and to discuss whether or not they are capable of true innovation and evolution of their own song patterns as opposed to the simple mimicry of other sounds in their environment.

However,  it is his commentary on the way birds were persecuted and hunted almost to extinction even during his own lifetime which tugs at the heartstrings.  Hudson was a founder member of the RSPB  and a fervent supporter of attempts to introduce the legal protection of threatened species and efforts to secure tracts of land which would be able to act as nature reserves in a determined attempt to halt the seemingly wholesale destruction of iconic species. His passionate commentaries about the need to regulate the hunting of birds are thankfully nowadays to a large extent at least partially redundant due to the introduction of conservation legislation into the UK.

He travelled widely and had an enormous wealth of knowledge of birds. His observations of the natural patterns of behaviour of many species are accuarate and insightful, and although almost a hundred years old, this book continues to be of inestimable value to any admirer or student of birds, people's attitudes to birds or of a way of life which, in Britain, is long since gone.

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Book Review - Need You Now

Need You Now (Part 1)
by Beth Wiseman
Published by Thomas Nelson, 2012

Darlene Henderson and her family have moved to the country, to the small farm previously owned by her grandparents. Her children find the move from their old friends and lifestyle hard, but gradually they all begin to make new friends. One of their biggest surprises is when they find their nearest neighbour is a wealthy but unhappy former Hollywood film star.

Darlene and Brad consider their marriage and family life to be happy and rock-solid, founded on their deep religious beliefs and lifestyle, but what Darlene doesn't realise is that things are very far from right with Grace, the one of their three children who has never previously given them any cause for concern other than her initial health issues as a premature baby.

When Darlene starts a new job as a teaching assistant at a small school for special needs children, she meets the lonely father of one of her charges. Because of her job, her own children are left to their own devices at home far more than they ever previously were when they lived in the city...........and soon, everything is at risk of changing. Brad is unhappy that Darlene stayed out very late at a charity function with their famous neighbour, Grace is unhappy and self-harming, and there is huge potential for disaster in this once-happy family.

To say it whetted my appetite to see what will happen next is an understatement. Nicely paced and well written, the characters are thoughtfully portrayed. A thoroughly enjoyable piece of contemporary fiction !
The whole story is now available  as an e-book, and I can't  wait to find out whether disaster will strike this likeable family, or whether they will all pull together and sort out their problems  :-)

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Book Review - Confessions Of A Male Nurse

 Confessions of a Male Nurse
by Michael Alexander

Published by The Friday Project (Harper Collins UK), May 2012

As I have had the misfortune of needing four operations already this year, I have spent a goodly amount of time in hospital, and this was one of the books in my Read & Review list.
 The book consists of short chapters, ideal for intermittent reading .I am so glad I read it, as it was one of the most thoughtful books I have read this year. 

Having worked in a hospital myself,  it rang so authentically - and in some places, horrifyingly - true. Understaffed wards, sometimes insufficiently trained medical and nursing staff and unsupportive management are the things all hospital staff deal with at some time or another, and this book, although rip-roaringly amusing in places, pulls no punches at all about the quite dreadful impact these scenarios can have on patient care and staff safety alike.
  Despite this sobering aspect, the camaraderie, team spirit and good humour the author encounters in the hospitals in which he works provides some heart-warming episodes too.  Parts of the book are quite literally hysterically funny and made me loud out loud on many occasions.

The British NHS has many good points , but it did not surprise me that eventually the author decided to go back to work in New Zealand where nurses are valued more and work in better conditions.

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Book Review - A Season Of Love

A Season Of  Love
by Amy Clipston

Book 5 of the Kauffman Amish Bakery series.

Published by Zondervan, 2012

Katie is helping her pregnant Aunt Rebecca  while one of her own best friends, Rebecca's niece Lindsay, is in the Englisher world helping care for her brevet-aunt who has had an accident. The focus is very much on Katie in this book, starting with her decision to tell Lindsay about Rebecca's delicate state of health with a complicated pregnancy.


Katie, Lindsay and Lizzie Anne are delighted to be reunited again  and Lindsay decides that she definitely wants to be baptised in the fall with her friends and also finds herself  developing a romantic relationship with her dear friend Matthew. 

Katie feels very left out as she has no boyfriend and when her brother Samuel proposes to her friend Lizzie, she is bitterly hurt. She becomes closer to Jake, a distant Mennonite family relative but she knows a relationship between an Amish girl and a Mennonite boy will be unacceptable to her family especially as she has now been baptised into the church and is expected to abide by stricter rules of conduct than before...

What the Englisch would regard as unremarkable is not necessarily acceptable to the Amish when such behaviour is regarded as drawing attention and remark to oneself or one's family. A series of innocent mistakes and mishaps causes great family tension and misunderstandings; Katie's father has not been the most tolerant character in the previous books and he comes across as insecure and rather aggressive and domineering at times in this one. He may be a good provider for his family, but he is not a good father; his mishandling of the situations means that poor Katie's life veers from bad to worse in a short space of time and the tension affects every member of the extended family, whether directly or indirectly..

Unhappy, confused and feeling totally misunderstood, Katie struggles with the restrictions placed upon her, and even her close  friendship with Lindsay is seriously threatened by the events which unfold. I don't want to spoil the story, so I will not divulge the denouement.........

The book focuses very much on the younger members of the extended Kauffman family, and it is lovely to see what happens to these three dear friends as they mature and make decisions for their adult lives.
As always, the recipes insterpersed in the book are a delight.

A  throughly enjoyable read and end to the Kauffman Bakery families' story.

 Thank you, Amy !

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A Summer Walk

             I thought you might enjoy sharing a typical summer walk with Prince Vasyl.

As we reach the brow of the hill, we see a garden with sweet-scented lavender,

red and purple fuschias and pink hydrangeas hanging over the wall. 

We always stop to admire them !

The village is ancient; the Church was started soon after the Norman Conquest

and many of the cottages around it have very old foundations

 even if the later additions are Tudor......

Some of the new buildings are in mock-Tudor style,

 but don't quite manage to deceive :-)

I have been told this is an historic fire insurance plaque.......

The view of the sea from the top of the hill.

And the view of the Norman Church tower, which dominates the village.

The view of the North and Eastern aspects of the Church

 through the iron gate into the churchyard.

One of the Celtic Cross stones, though of relatively recent date.

Local folklore is adamant that Dick turpin's family are

 buried in this set of graves

 directly under the ancienty yew tree.

I have not done any research to say

 yea or nay to this popular belief :-)

The view from the Turpin graves is a tranquil one indeed !

The churchyard is completely full and only families with

an existing grave with space left in it can be buried here. 

 It is possible for cremated remains to be scattered in one small area.

All other burials have to take place in the municipal cemetery.

I love the angel graves.

This evening primrose plant has seeded itself and also

established itself  near adjoining graves.

 It looks and smells wonderful.

The grave plot of an Italian family, which is very ornate

 for a simple Anglican country churchyard

I love  this one.

And this marks the entrance to an underground burial vault.

This one is right next to the boundary wall

separating the churchyard from the children's playground.

This one makes me think of giant chess pieces.

And this one has fallen into disrepair and had

 to be dismantled and laid flat for safety reasons.

This one is completely overgrown with foliage.

The buttresses of the massive tower are very impressive !

The crenellations of the tower were invaluable for defence in troubled times,

 as were the narrow arrow-slit windows.

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Harvest Begins

Harvest has begun in the fields near us.

Hay bales are appearing.....

The farmer had finished for the day, leaving the machinery

 in the field to provide a nice block of colour.

Looking down the sloping field.

The dune system, the beach with the tide out

and houses on the other side of the bay are visible.

The view through the hedge separating the field from nearby houses.

My favourite of the photos.

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Letting Go

We are putting our house up for sale.

Not a decision taken lightly, but we need to "downsize" a little to save money, and it will also be a chance to get a house in a slightly quieter location as we do get a huge volume of traffic rushing past our front garden, day and night. Although my rational mind accepts and acknowledges the validity of our decision, my heart does not. I find myself  wandering round the house, my hands gently touching the things I see, and then invariably heading towards the kitchen door.

Opening it is almost like opening  the door to a different world. My beautiful back garden is filled with the hum of contented bees as they buzz around the plants and herbs, many of which are in flower at the moment. The smell of the garden is indescribably wonderful; early in the morning when the dew is still present as it potentiates the heady smell of the lavender, honeysuckle and raspberries growing in close proximity to each other. If I brush past the bay tree, the heavy scent of the leaves is almost intoxicating, and further up the garden is my beloved white rose tree which smells so fragrantly of Turkish Delight and never fails to bring a smile to my face.

I shall miss it so very much. The sadness I feel is so strong it produces a physical pain. Every day brings a procession of varied birds to the feeding station visible from the window, who like the shelter the garden provides as well as the fruit and berries for their delectation. It will take many years to build a garden similar to this one, many years of relative barrenness as the trees, plants and shrubs I hope and plan to plant will slowly, so slowly, grow their way to maturity.

I wish I did not have this inbuilt resistance to change, this inability to live for the moment, enjoy and then let go gracefully and embrace what new things may lie in store.

I will not mourn the house, but I will mourn for the loss of my precious garden and its living things. Even the creep-crawlies.

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Book Review - A Promise For Miriam

A Promise For Miriam
by Vannetta Chapman

Harvest House Publishers, 2012

This is the first in a new series, The Pebble Creek Amish.

The story starts with a tragedy. When five year old Grace Miller's mother dies, she is savagely berated for crying by her grandfather. The normally articulate child becomes introverted and simply stops speaking at all.
Her father Gabe eventually decides they need to make a new start, and he and Grace leave their Amish community and move to another community far away in Pebble Creek, Wisconsin.

When Grace starts school, her teacher, spinster Miriam King, is nonplussed by this unusual little girl and her taciturn and inward-looking father. Miriam is a a rather more feisty Amish heroine than we have come to expect, but her attempts to take matters into her own hands and get Grace talking again are met with pasive and then active resistance from Gabe, who is content to leave Grace come to terms with things in her own way and in her own time.

Gabe finds the demands of running the farm and trying to renovate the almost derelict house and buildings on his own to be an all encompassing task, especially in the bitter winter, and tragedy almost ensues when Grace is left alone in the house......

Will Gabe give in and accept the help offered by his neighbours? Will he allow Miriam to help Grace speak again ? Read it and find out !

All the main charcters are well-drawn, believable and very alive to the reader, and I found it impossible not to cheer Miriam on in her efforts to do what she thinks is best for Grace, and ultimately for Gabe too. I am really looking forward to seeing what happens next in this series.

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Checking And Giggling

DH and I were trying to work out how old his web-book is, as the work he is needing to do on it is causing the poor little machine to struggle mightily and he really needs an up-to-date machine.

I had the brainwave of checking my blog because I knew I had written a blogpost about getting my machine some months before The Hubster bought his....and lo and behold, I found the post in all its glory and giggled all the way through reading it as it brought back so many memories from December 2008.

So here, for your delectation, is That Post :-)

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Book Giveaway !!

 We have a winner !!!

I didn't realise so many of my blog-readers are also secret Amish fiction fans; I enjoyed reading the comments here and the emails I received.

Shelley, who commented on the blog post is the winner, so could you please email me: orthodoxmum at gmail dot com
with your name and mailing address so I can get the book in the post to you.







 I am absolutely delighted to be able to host my first ever book giveaway on The Garden Window blog !

Jerry Eicher has kindly donated and sent a *signed* copy of  his book "Missing Your Smile", which is the first in his bestselling Fields of Home series;  you may remember that I read, enjoyed and reviewed book 2 in this series,  Following Your Heart , back in February and his stand-alone book My Dearest Naomi in April.

It has been a delight to finally find out the full story of what happened between Susan Hostetler and her two-timing, smooth-tongued fiance Thomas to prompt her to leave her Amish home and family to live in the city of Asbury Park and attempt to carve out a new life for herself in the Englisha world.  Despite its strangeness and very real dangers, Susan begins to find her feet in this unfamiliar new world.

She finds employment, friendship with young folk of her own age, learns to drive - though not without some hair-raising experiences both for her and her patient coach Robbie, embarks on a possible romance with a  young businessman, studies and gains qualifications. Her avowed aim, to leave her Amish background far in the past, seems to be going well - until she meets a troubled young pregnant woman living in miserable circumstances and involved with a no-good boyfriend.  Teresa is desperate to find a good, loving and deeply Christian home for her unborn baby and asks Susan's help to find a suitable Amish family.

Susan wants to help, but fears the repercussions a visit to her community will have on her new life. She knows how desperately her parents have missed her from their loving and poignant letters to her but can she bear to go back once more and leave the world of Asbury Park behind? Or can she bear to put her family through the pain of having to part from her once again?

So much of this book resonates deeply. Early on in the book, her parents' very real pain and anguish, wanting what is best for their youngest daughter and also wanting to follow what is God's Will reduced me to tears. Susan's struggle to get used to the idea of using electricity and her fear of using the microwave was both touching and utterly believable. Jerry Eicher was born and raised Amish himself, and the book is filled with authenticity about both the Amish and Englisha worlds. Both worlds are depicted realistically, warts and all, and unlike in many Amish-themed books, Susan's choice is not a clearcut one.

If you would like to enter the draw for the book, just leave a comment here or email me at orthodox mum at g mail dot com by 6pm GMT on Sunday 15th July :-)

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Safely Home

 Thank you all for your prayers; I am safely back home after my operation - the fourth since the middle of March.

It was initially extremely painful, but I am reasonable comfortable today as long as I rest regularly and for good periods of time.

I am now officially categorised as difficult to intubate after two successive operations; to read about my latest escapade, wander over to my MiscellaneousMumblings blog entry .

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Just Thinking

Updated to add:
I chatted to the lovely anaesthetist who looked after me yesterday, and he assures me that ether and chloroform both rapidly fell into disuse after the discovery of the drug Halothane in the mid-1950s, and by the time he was training in the late 80s, no-one ever learned how to use them, and by then, even Halothane was being superseded  by newer drugs such as Cyclopropane.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



I've been busy packing my suitcase and preparing my things to get ready to go into hospital this afternoon in preparation for my operation later this evening.

We really are incredibly fortunate to be living in the age we do, even if we may not think it at times!

If it were not for modern medicine, I would not be able to have this surgery; although not necessarily a life-threatening problem, it is an uncomfortable, debilitating, unpleasant problem and it limits my normal functioning. It is treatable, though not always completely successfully, and that is a small risk I am choosing to take.

 Like all surgery, there is also an element of risk in undergoing anaesthesia and a risk of post-operative infection, but if there were to be a sudden major disaster scenario or major economic collapse etc, modern medicine as we know it would most likely grind to a halt and we would see a very rapid reversion to the fairly primitive medical provision of at least a hundred if not two hundred years ago.

Would I want to undergo this surgery without any anesthesia ? No, I would just put up with my current level of discomfort and inconvenience and manage as best I could.

 How many people have the knowledge or the ability to be able to produce even basic anaesthetic drugs such as ether or chloroform? How many doctors have had any experience of ever using these drugs to safely anaesthetize a patient for surgery ? I would imagine that only quite elderly doctors or those who have had experience of working in Third World Countries would have this knowledge or expertise. Many operations would be completely unthinkable without having safe blood transfusions readily available and mortality rates would be high.

It is a sobering thought, isn't it ?

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Book Review : Trip Of The Tongue

"Trip of the Tongue"

by Elizabeth Little

Published by Bloomsbury, 2012

 I have always been fascinated with languages and even as a child, I would read our huge family dictionary for hours. My interest in language broadened into a love of classical Latin, German and French as I grew older, and it was with immense delight that I discovered this book, "Trip of the Tongue".

Subtitled Cross- Country Travels in Search of America’s Languages, Elizabeth Little outlines her own passion for languages, explores the incredible diversity of languages heard in her own home in  New York City and goes on one of the most interesting journeys I have ever read about -  in search of America's more unusual languages. Unsurprisingly,  Native American languages are well represented by Crow in Montana, Navajo in Arizona,  and the much more endangered Lushootseed, Quileute and  Makah in Washington.

The presence of Basque in Nevada  and African Gullah spoken in South Carolina - as in the Br'er Rabbit stories - were unexpected delights, as was Norwegian in North Dakota, though I did have some vague memory of reading about Norwegian settlers in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House series. Haitian Creole in Florida was also a bit of a surprise, and made a fascinating and diverting chapter.

The languages I expected to see, namely  French and Creole in Louisiana, Spanish in New Mexico and English in Los Angeles were treated in a way I found amusing, fascinating and absorbing. She manages to cram in a vast amount of historical and language information throughout the book, occasionally so much so that reading felt like being on a rather exhilarating rollercoaster ride !

It never ceases to amaze me how all languages work, and yet can be so very , very different from each other in construction, idiom, grammar and  sparseness or  profundity of vocabulary, and I found myself pausing for thought and wonder on virtually every page. I have no formal background in linguistics and had to concentrate quite hard on some parts of the book, especially the presentation of the Navajo verb template on page 38 for instance, but it was well worth the mental effort to disentangle the component parts.

Of particular interest throughout the book is the analysis of why languages decline and how native speakers feel about them.  The gradual decline of many of the languages featured caused me sadness, but the fact that it is possible to study them at college/university level  is a step in the preservation of them for posterity and I sincerely hope the youngsters will one day realise what a precious treasure they have, and how desperately sad it would be to allow their languages to die out  completely in favour of the all-pervading English. Modern technology is allowing language programs to be created for a variety of platforms and formats, including phones and the less common languages are beginning to be better represented too, which is a cause for optimism.

The historic ill-treatment of native language speakers in schools was sadly all too familiar a story to me, as the same things happened to native Welsh speakers in my own family when they attended schools where English was made mandatory.

For me, the only jarring note was a fairly frequent use of the "f" word, which seemed completely unncessary in a book of this calibre, but apart from that, I thoroughly enjoyed it and was sad to reach the end !

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Ideas For Summer Reading

I have read twenty three of  these.
How about you ?

Via Teach.com and USC Rossier Online

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Book Review - A Knitter's Home Companion

A Knitter's Home Companion

by Michelle Edwards

Published in 2011 by Stewart, Tabori & Chang


The book is split into four main categories: Motherhood, Home, Community and Legacy,  and is  filled chockablock with anecdotes, musings, recipes and  most importantly of all, knitting project patterns for the reader to undertake.

I share the author's wistfulness at not being able to pass on her fascination for and love of knitting to her family as I have had the same problem with my own daughters; they like what I knit for them but they either don't really want to learn it themselves, or find it extremely difficult to do so when they are left-handed.


Filled with lovely illustrations, much of the book made me giggle in delight at finding a fellow knitting fanatic who cannot pass a wool/yarn shop without admiring, handling, coveting and eventually buying wool to add to an ever increasing mini-mountain at home.

Some of the projects included are mittens, slippers, afghans, lacy scarves and egg cosies; it has inspired me to seriously consider attempting to knit socks, which have always previously filled me with terror, as the pattern she gives can be turned into mittens if you find yourself doubting your commitment, enthusiasm or technical ability to complete socks!

A delightfully homely book in every sense of the word; centred around family, home, love, life and laughter and the many, many joys of knitting.

Michelle has a website here, which is very well worth checking out.

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News Of Note

I am pleased to report that Mrs DoomHamster, though still quite bruised, is up, about and on the mend, sporting a very fetching bright purple cast after her visit to Fracture Clinic last Friday. Everything  appears to be healing well, thank God :-) 

I have completed yet another two courses of antibiotics for a wound infection, and am due to see the Consultant soon to plan the next and hopefully last big operation.Everyone else is well and we are slowly starting to sort out Mum's personal effects now, which is stressful in its own way, even if the lawyers are sorting out all the tax/legal business.

Latin classes continue to be an absolute joy and endless fun; I do enjoy being the baby at 48 years old !

I have a mini-mountain of book reviews to post, so please bear with me............. I also have two book giveaways to announce very soon, thanks to two exceptionally kind authors who have provided me with the books :-)

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DoomHamster In The Wars

My eldest daughter, Mrs DoomHamster, suffered a mishap on Friday night. She had gone out with her grandparents and was having a highly enjoyable evening  until she slipped and fell. As is normal behaviour, she put out her hand to break her fall, and instead unhappily fractured her right wrist in two places. As she is right-handed and a secretary by profession, being unable to write or type is Not Good......

Mercifully it was a very quiet night in A&E so she was seen very quickly and has her arm in plaster. She will be going to Fracture Clinic at the hospital on Friday to have her split cast checked and presumably replaced with a more permanent one, so she is pondering what colour to choose and how best people may autograph it !

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Scarves And Suchlike

It was a delight and a blessing to be able to go to Church for the Pentecost Liturgy.

 I had packed the cool-box with the food I had prepared, prayed for a safe journey and The Hubster was loading up the car. I was about to leave the house and lock the front door when I had the truly overwhelming urge to go back and pick up my new, brightly-coloured long scarf which is really wide, and wear it knotted round my neck. I listened to that inner prompting, having felt increasingly drawn to covering my hair for private prayer at home.

When I got to Church door, I could see that  two of the four ladies already there were also wearing headcoverings, so it was a five second task to listen to the call of my heart, lift up one fold of my scarf and cover my own head too as I walked in through the door.   This is a parish which does not normally expect or have women covering their heads in Church, but I have been thinking about doing it for a long time and didn't want to draw attention to myself by being the first one, or to make anyone else feel uncomfortable by my actions....

It made such a difference to wear a covering during the service, though I cannot put into words exactly why,  and I do not think I would willingly attend the Liturgy again with my hair uncovered. I am still pondering and processing exactly how I felt, but deeply attentive and respectful spring most readily to mind........

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Book Review - Legacy A Genetic History Of The Jewish People

 Legacy
A Genetic History Of The Jewish People
by Harry Ostrer
Oxford University Press, 2012

This a remarkable book, both for the subject and the amount of controversy the publication of the original subject matter generated.
The author is a medical geneticist who spent a great deal of time researching  the medical susceptabilities and strengths of Jewish people as they spread across the globe, and the publication of his work into the Jewish Hapmap Genome generated controversy and concern even though it was primarily an attempt to explain and document in genetic terms the spread of Jewish people across the globe long after the original Diaspora. This book was written in to dispel some of the concerns raised, to outline the genetics of the Jewish people and to discuss whether Jews  "constituted a race, a people, or a genetic isolate." 

The book is divided into  six chapters, covering the topics of Looking Jewish, Founders, Genealogies, Tribes, Traits and Identity.

In  Chapter One, for example, he discusses what consitutes a stereotypical Jewish facial appearance and how accurate the perceptions are in reality, with special reference to  the work of Jewish scientists such as Maurice Fishberg, a keen physiognomist who himself had emigrated from Russia to America. The work of one or more Jewish scientists and thinkers is showcased in each chapter, and I was woefully unfamiliar with any of them before reading this book.

 I was particularly interested in the epidemiology of diseases which showed distinct variations between Jews and Christians across the world, raising questions as to how much the variations can be described as purely genetic or lifestyle or an admixture of both factors. The increased incidence of Tay-Sachs disease amongst Askkenazi Jews is generally well-known, but Dr Ostrer draws in many medical conditions such as Thalassaemia, Gaucher disease and Phenylketonuria to name but a very few, which the general reader may not initially think have any specific point of reference to Jews but which occur in greater numbers in Jews of particular geographic communities. The genetics of mental illness, discussed in detail in "Traits" made for truly heartbreaking reading, so "Caveat Lector".

 How genetics works - both in theory and in practice - and the scientific bases for a variety of medical conditions are very clearly and succinctly explained for the lay reader, and this book is highly accessible to the general reader as well as being detailed enough to hold the interest of readers who may have a more extensive background knowledge of genetics and medicine. That in itself is a considerable achievement !

This book is by no means simply about science and medicine, however; history, literature, linguistics, intermarriage, adherence to religious customs, historic living and working conditions and the role of  social cohesion are all discussed in depth with special reference to the Jewish people.

Interestingly, the US census return forms regard Jewish purely as a descriptor of religious adherence, not a racial identificator. It will be worth watching to see if this will change in due course, as the genetic research work of Dr Ostrer and others is adding increasing weight to the scientifc basis for Jews to be regarded as a biological race and not just a group who happen to profess the same religious faith.

 I found the book to be an absorbing and enjoyable read and it has certainly inspired me to continue to read about this topic.

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Pondering Modesty

May is one of our family's birthday months. Now, we have DD1, Mrs DoomHamster, and DD3, who have celebrated their 26th and 14th birthdays respectively in the last week :-)

I took DD3 shopping to The Big City on Saturday, so she could choose some new clothes as part of her birthday gift. The Big City has a population of 330,000 and is very cosmopolitan indeed compared to our sleepy small seaside town, so it is always a big adventure when we visit maybe twice a year. Yes, I know, I need to get out more....but after Saturday, I have very little desire to.

Thinking of the rigours of repeatedly changing in order to try on clothes, DD3 was sensibly attired for the extremely hot weather, in blue jeans and a tshirt. She looked relaxed, modest, comfortable and very pretty indeed, and we had lots of fun travelling by bus and then by train.

Within 10 seconds of leaving the train station, our ears were blasted by a woman wearing very little, pushing a stroller, screaming across the concourse to an acquaintance that  "They just said they could see my ar*e in this!" in positively outraged tones. DD3 and I just looked at each other, and agreed that it was in fact a true statement and not an insult as it would be difficult to imagine her wearing any less clothing. This woman was in fact one of the most clothed people we saw that day:

•  The girl wearing a tiny, totally transparent cream mico-mini skirt was notable for the fact she had elected to wear a black thong under it.
• The woman in McDonald's wearing  shorts which exposed at least 90% of the cheeks of both buttocks, and which put us off our food so much that we individually and simultaneously elected to put our shopping bags on the table to block out the view.
• The girls with backless, sleeveless and almost frontless tops.
• The woman wearing a maxi-dress with capped sleeves but a wide cleavage split that went almost to her waist, and if she had coughed, would have had a fashion accident of an embarrassing kind.
• The woman trying on  a leather lace-up corset in one shop, who came out of the changing cubicle to wait for her partner, who duly vocally admired her and their joint decision that that was what she was wearing to go out that night. Frankly, I would have been embarrassed to wear it as lingerie in my home for the sole benefit of my husband, let alone wear it out as her only item of clothing above her waist, as it was laced so tightly that acres of  sweaty flesh were bulging out everywhere.........

I want to add that we weren't staring at these people, mocking these people or judging these people in any way, but being the hillbilly hicks from the sticks, we were totally taken aback at what city folk seem to think is perfectly acceptable summer attire in 2012. I have seen prostitutes in London's less salubrious districts wearing more modest clothing than these apparently respectable people.

I came home feeling that I needed bleach for both my eyes and my brain, and after a carefully worded chat with my daughter, was rather relieved that she felt the same. I was beginning to feel very old indeed. No wonder so many cultures comment on the apparent western decadence; I felt a bit like that myself..........

PS For those of you who may share our enjoyment in such things, the trains we travelled on were named "The National Trust" and "Demelza" :-)

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Recently Read

Or perhaps I should say, Recently Re-read !

Locked Rooms

 I think this may perhaps be my very favourite of Laurie King's wonderful Sherlock Holmes / Mary Russell series.  Since her childhood, Mary has carried the burden of believing that she was the direct cause of the terrible accident which caused the deaths of her parents and her brilliant younger brother. But was she really to blame ? Or was there a deeper, darker element to the accident, which becomes a more possible explanation as she investigates the strange happenings to those who knew her parents.....

The Language Of Bees

This was a gripping read, the first of a two-part novel. Dark, disturbing and unsettling, it deals with a fanatically deluded  charlatan who causes tragedy to strikes very close to home indeed for Sherlock and Mary. Not for the faint-hearted, but brilliantly crafted.

It's All Greek To Me!

This is a gentle, respectful and loving look at Greek culture and life as one man and his family attempt to come to terms with buying and renovating an old property in a small village.

Prayers For The Dead

Mrs Kellerman has produced another thought-provoking  book; this one explores how a religious family can be  profoundly and fatally divided.

I do love the classic Ellis Peters'  "Inspector Felse" detective novels. Rainbow's End  was a particularly good one in the series, which revealed hidden depths on re-reading.

As did Death And The Joyful Woman ! These books are as much about Dominic Felse as about his father George, and Dominic is a delightfully drawn teenager.

The Hermit of Eyton Forest  also deals with betrayal, division and loss.

It is interesting how sometimes one unconsciously chooses a succession of books which deal with a particular theme or set of circumstances. I am currently reading Laurie King's magnificent The God of The Hive, and am finding it to be just as difficult to put down as it was the very first time I read it !

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23 Adult Truths

Borrowed from my very dear friend , Mary !

****** 23 ADULT TRUTHS ******



1 Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.


2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.


3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.


4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.


5. How the heck are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?


6. Was learning cursive really necessary?


7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on # 5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.


8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.


9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind-of tired.


10. Bad decisions make good stories.


11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.


12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.


13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.


14. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.


15. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.


16. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Light than Kay.


17. I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.


18. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.


19. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said?


20. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!


21. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.


22. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time.


23. The first testicular guard, the "Cup," was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is also important.

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