Wednesday, 21 November 2018
I finished my last Marion Cran book, one of her first, A Woman in Canada, a travel book published in 1909. I don’t think I would have loved her so much had I not read her gardening books first. This is the only passage I was inspired to keep:
I then settled in for a two day mystery read:
Skooter helped me proofread the next day’s blog post.
He decided to be a lap cat for an hour…
…but refused to return when I finally had to move.
American author Elizabeth George is honest about having to take advice about British slang. I enjoy the way she writes the thoughts of her recurring character, detective Barbara Havers.
I learned that baked potatoes are called “jacket potatoes”, at least by Barbara Havers.
A passage that particularly pleased me:
I managed, with a number of distractions, mostly of my own making, to get halfway through the novel by bedtime.
Thursday, 22 November 2018
We happily ignored Thanksgiving, having turned down two kind invitations in order to just stay peacefully at home.
The dark weather had inspired the bright white security lights across the street to turn on, a guaranteed migraine trigger for me. I finally thought of a way to be able to walk around the living room without being able to look out the north windows.
Why had I not had this genius thought before?
During an afternoon break in the storm, I took a garden walkabout to pick a bouquet for the Don Nisbett Art Gallery’s “Small Business Saturday” festivities. I would not have time to pick it on Friday morning and hoped to not be up early enough on Saturday.
We had had considerable, welcome, much needed rain.
South of our fence, the meander line ditch is filling up.
I never sit on that bench. I did think I would when I put it there.
I found Allan tossing leaves out of the gutters.
After that, he returned to his greenhouse project while I returned to my book, meeting my goal of finishing it before a dinner of delicious chicken, stove top stuffing and canned cranberry sauce followed by a piece of Allan’s home made pumpkin pie.
At bedtime, I began a new book, My Ex-Life, by one of my favourite authors, Stephen McCauley. I could only stay awake for one chapter, with an ever so amusing line on the first page.
“He knew he was best appreciated in small doses and at great distances, a fact that bothered him less than he suspected it should.” (Me, too.)
I would have to take a break for reading tomorrow because of art appreciation.
I adore Barbara Havers. “Jacket potato” is actually a pretty common way of referring to a baked potato in England, my MIL used that expression all the time and she would have looked down her nose at Barbara had she ever met her.
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Poor Barbara, that’s the story of her life. (And mine, here on this class conscious sand spit, which is one reason I love her so).
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I have benches I don’t use, too. They make great places to set my tools down! So now I know the meaning of “jacket potato”! Thank you. Your cozy dinner for two and reading time sound so relaxing!
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I think you’ve figured out what garden benches are for 😀
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Next time I’m hungry, I’m going to remember “sink her gnashers into one or three”. Forget about following the “way of wisdom”. Let’s stuff ourselves with teacakes if we want to.
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