I'm Waiting

And not very patiently either.  I'm tired of summer, it's boring, I'm so over it.  I want autumn leaves that give a Godly crunch (or so McAllister says) when you walk through them.  The picture on the left is what I want, the picture on the right is what I get, a swimming pool that's being overrun with wild morning glories.  You may think that sounds good, but after 5 months of 85º-95º temperatures and humidity that frequently makes it feel like it's over a 100º I assure you, autumn sounds great and winter sounds even better.

99 Days, 10 Hours, 30 minutes or it Was

That's how long till Christmas, so I spent part of the morning Christmas shopping.  Not in stores, but online where I do most of my shopping.  Things that will bring a smile to my family's faces are generally not found in mall stores.  So it's a "hunting" I will go.
I shop on Ebay and Etsy and some really esoterical little shops and I wish I had longer than 99 days to do it.

Monday Morning Roundup

Not a lot going on at the Little House in the Swamp, they keep promising us cold fronts ( parts of Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska and Colorado got snow from this cold front), but all we get is more humidity. The front's  been here since Friday and it finally rained a little bit today, now it's steaming, not much cold though.  I read other blogs and people are talking about the leaves changing color, the air having a nip to it, lighting a fire at night.  I'm so envious.  No leaves have changed color here, the air is soggy, not nipping and we're running the air conditioner, not the heater.
When the seasons change my allergies go wild: itchy eyes, sinus headache, aching joints, no energy.
All I did all weekend was watch sports, football, baseball, golf, crochet a little bit on a potholder that should have taken less than an hour to do and instead has taken more than a month and it's still not done, and read.
I flew through The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowlings) and liked it as much as Cuckoo Calling and maybe more.  Looking forward to the next one in the series.
Also read Death in the Garden by Elizabeth Ironside.  Helena inherits her Great Aunt's house and  fortune, but also finds out that her Aunt had been found innocent of her husband's murder more than 60 years ago.  She decides that she can't take the inheritance unless she can find out that the Aunt wasn't just found not guilt, but that she was innocent.  Really good book.
Also really liked The Expats by Chris Pavone  She's CIA, but has never told her husband, he thinks she works in a DC think tank. Now they're moving to Luxembourg for a his job.  He's an independent contractor who helps banks protect themselves from hackers or maybe he's a hacker who has stolen millions of euros.

Now I'm working my way through:  Every Secret Thing by Laura Lippman, 2 eleven year olds go to jail for 7 years for kidnapping and killing a baby.  Now they're out of jail and another baby is missing.  It's ok, the girls are just a bit too creepy for me.  As Kirkus review might say this is  a book you should probably borrow, not buy.
Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell, I've just started this, but it has an interesting premise.  The housekeeper kills the whole family because she can't read, not by poisoning them, she shoots them.
And finally The Namesake by Jumpha Lahiri and I like this one very much.  His parents moved to America from India so his father can attend grad school.  They remain very Indian, in thought and deed, while he and his sister who are born in America become very American, at first, but then they start turning back.  I love reading books about the immigrant experience and this one is excellent.
While looking for pictures of the books I found out that Every Secret Thing was made into a movie in 2014 starring Diane Lane, Elizabeth Banks and Dakota Fanning,  The Namesake was made into a movie in 2006 starring Kal Penn and Irrfan Khan and The Expats will be made into a movie that will open in 2015, not casting for it yet.   May put The Namesake on on my Netflix list.
 There are rumors that the Galbraith books are going to be made into movies too.

This started out as a Monday morning post, but has ended up a Monday evening one, life does have a way of interfering.

Does This Bother You Too?

Borrowed from the Leicester Mercury

Archeologists from a local university  digging at the site of the  "lost" Chapel of St.Morrell, an ancient site of pilgrimage in Hallaton, Leicester have uncovered the skeletons of 2 people, a man and a women, who were holding hands.  Nine other skeletons at the site have been carbon dated to the 14th century and it's believed that this couple would date from the same period.  The couple's skeletons  have been removed to the university laboratory for further study.  Why?
At least the condition of their digging license won't allow pictures of the skeletons, thank God for small favors.
I consider this sacrilegious.  Leave these people alone or at least have the decency to rebury them where you found them.
I love archeology and I realize we need to learn about the past, but for some reason this really bothered me.  Is someone going to be digging up our families in a couple hundred years and hauling them off to a laboratory to be studied?  I hope not.

A Day to Remember

Forty-nine years ago a young boy and a very young girl pledged their vows and their lives to each other.  It's gone so quickly, years of moving around while Mac was in the Army, raising our daughter, finally finishing college (all of us), teaching, retiring to Georgia and here we are.  I don't feel old enough to have been married that long, it seems, not like yesterday perhaps, but just a couple of years ago.
I'm a lucky lady, I'm married to my best friend and love him more now than when I married him all those years ago.
I want at least 26 more years, 75 is a nice round number and I always promised him that when I was in my walker that I'd still be chasing him around.

A Year of Books

My reading year runs from August 15 to August 15, has to do with when I bought my first book diary to keep track of the books I'd read.
 This year I read 144 books as opposed to 153 the year before.  Part of that maybe the length of some of the books I read,   I'm reading a Brandon Sanderson series and whenever I get a new book in a series I always reread the previous book in the series, so before reading Words of Radiance (1088 pages) I reread The Way of Kings (1009 pages) and this was true for the Diana Galbaldon series, I reread An Echo in the Bone (850 pages) before I read Written in My Own Heart's Blood (842 pages). The break down of genres is:

127 fiction
17   science fiction/fantasy
18   mysteries
17   non-fiction
12   rereads

I was surprised by how few science fiction/fantasy books I'd read that's generally one of my favorite genres.

I thought I'd break my favorites down by genre this year.

Favorite fiction books:

1.  Ella Minnow Pea  by Mark Dunn   A short, very funny book about language.

2.  The Perks of Being a Wallflower   by  Stephan Chbosky  A YA book that read so true, I was very impressed by it and have recommended it all over the place.

3.  Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress   by Dai Sijie    A semi-autobiographical (but still fiction) book about 2 young men exiled to the Chinese countryside during the Cultural Revolution.

4.  House of Mirth   by Edith Wharton  Love her books and this one is particularly good

5.  Museum of Innocence  by Orhan Pamuk   Where does love end and obsession begin?  Set in Istanbul, this story will haunt me for a long time.

6.  Doc   by Mary Doria Russell    A fictionalized account of Doc Holliday's life.

7.  Birds Without Wings    by Louis de Berniers  Another book set in Turkey, it takes place before the start of WWI and the aftermath.  Wonderful book.

8.  Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry  by Rachel Joyce  Harold receives a card from a woman he worked with years ago who is no dying.  He decides to leave home and walk to see her.

9.  Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore  by Robin Sloan  Books, a puzzle and Google

Non-Fiction

1.  A Year of Magical Thinking  by Joan Didion   The year after her husband died, it should have been depressing, but it wasn't.

2.  Reading Lolita in Teheran  by Azer Nafasi   She was a professor in Teheran at the time of the revolution and it was grim.

3.  The Guns of August  by Barbara Tuchman     The first month of WWI

4.  One Summer America 1927    by Bill Bryson   Charles Lindberg, Babe Ruth, Calvin Coolidge, Jack Dempsey ----what a summer

Science Fiction/Fantasy

1.  Blackout-All Clear  by Connie Willis  Two time travel books about researchers traveling back to England during the Second World War and getting stuck there, 2 really good books.

2.  Life After Life  by Kate Atkinson  She keeps getting reborn until she gets it right.  Have liked all of Ms Atkinson's books, but for me this was the best one yet.


If I had to name the best book I'd read all year I would say The Guns of August.  I knew very little about WWI and the depth of research in this book blew me away.  It should be required reading by anyone who thinks they know how to fight a war.

London Skyline

Before I stop writing about London I have to talk about the new architecture that's blighting its skyline.
To me London has always been one of the most beautiful cities in the world, now it's beginning to look like some futuristic nightmare.  Below I show some of the worst, not my pictures, I refused to waste my time on them, but rather taken from the web (Oliver Wainwright for The Guardian) where others agree with me about their hideousness.

The Shard, if you like it for only £40 you can go up to the observation deck

The Strata, one blogger said it reminded him Mordor of complete with 3 eyes of Sauron on top

The Cheese Grater, need I say more?

The Walkie Talkie

This is the view of St.Pauls from across the Thames (the side we stayed on), the view is ruined!

The Odalisk

I guess if you have to have a giant Ferris Wheel this isn't a bad one, but I won't even go on small ones and at £29.50 or $48.00 that wasn't going to happen anyway.

Vintage Finds

Whenever we go to England we always do a bit of antique/vintage shopping.  Because we go around the time of our anniversary I always buy something for Mac and he buys for me.  We always buy what the other one wants, but is too cheap to buy for themselves.  This year when I asked him what he'd like he said he'd always wanted a vintage microscope.  So while browsing at The Silent Woman,  a great antique shop in Chipping Norton, I found a lovely part brass one about 11 inches tall  and showed it to him to get his approval.  He asked how much it cost and I wouldn't tell him, it was a gift after all.
It has no manufacturer's name on it or any other way to identify it.  Our best guess is somewhere between 1910 and 1920.

As for me, I've always wanted a vintage globe and we found one at antique shop in Lechlade.  It's about 8 inches tall and the only identifying mark on it is a small British Made seal.  But I've dated it by looking at some of the countries on it.  Germany is one country (so prior to 1946), there is no Pakistan or Israel ( after 1947), Iran is Persia (till 1935), Thailand is Siam (till 1939), Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia are French Indo-China (till 1954), most of western Africa is named French West Africa (till 1960), Zimbabwe is still Rhodesia (till 1980) , eastern Africa is Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (till 1956), there's still a Belgian Congo and Beijing is Peiping.  And the last one is the important one because Peiping officially became Peking in 1928,  so my globe is probably prior to 1928 and I just love it.
We have the two of them sitting on an old school desk that use to belong to Mac's Mother.  When they tore down the elementary school she had attended she went and bought the desk.  Now it sits in our living room

An Old Lady Rant

Let me start this rant by saying I don't dislike children, my Mother assured me that I was one once, and we had one of our own.  But that being said I never ran over anyone with her baby stroller, I never dragged said stroller  into overcrowded museums, tube cars, Harrod's, theatres, etc.
The sidewalks of London were difficult enough to manuever through without being run over by baby cars being propelled by "parents" who were more interested in their cell phone conversations than their children.
We were overwhelmed by them and crying babies everywhere.  Mac swore that there was a quota for crying children and every floor and every corner had to have at least one.
There are places small children (under the age of 5 and babies) don't need to be.  There is little air conditioning in London, the museums and other tourist sights were hot,stuffy and very crowded.   I was uncomfortable, the children were miserable.  For the most part they had no idea why they were there (a mother holding her about 4 year old son up so he could see the WWI letter and explaining the war to him) , didn't want to be there and made this point very vocally.
When our daughter was very young we often travelled with  a babysitter because we knew that many of the things we were going to do and see were of little interest to her.  When we didn't have a baby sitter we ate in shifts each taking a turn in the room with her, spending some days doing activities that were meant for her.
When she got older, understood what she was seeing we took her more places, but I never ran over anyone with her stroller, never took it into crowded places and never kept her out late at night.
I'm just an old lady, but if I could I'd ban baby strollers from crowded areas and just like you have to be a certain height to ride some rides and a certain age to see some movies, I'd put restrictions on certain sites, particularly at very crowded times.

Unloading and setting up one of these things appears to take more planning than D Day did!

Mudlarking in London

Blackfriar's Bridge

A guest post by Mac.
The Thames being a tidal river can drop as much as 20 feet at low tide, exposing a lot of foreshore to ramble on. There's something about the mud of the Thames ( lack of oxygen) that keeps objects from decaying, this means you can search through  two thousand years of odd and ends just by walking the foreshore. In the 18th and 19th century Mudlarking was a recognized profession, much of it from shipping losses overboard.

3 Day's Finds

Railroad Plates

 Today it is more of a lark than anything else, one I could not resist. I was lucky in that we had three good days without rain. I did most of my mudlarking between Blackfriars Bridge and the railway bridge next to it. I fact  found pieces of dinner plates from the Great Northern Railroad. A word on mud, I found out quickly that what I was looking for was not near the mud, which usually was nearer the water, most of my finds were in sheltered areas away from the water, under the bridge and against the embankment wall. These places had little mud and shoals of objects, mostly pieces of flint and chalk. Amongst the flint and pebbles were shards of pottery, porcelain, clay pipes,  rusted metal objects, and even some coins.

Blue and White Pottery

 I found so many broken stems of clay pipes that I stopped picking them up by the second day. The clay pipes were sold with tobacco already in

Pipe Bowls and Stems

them, and I've read that they had long stems that could be broken as the pipe was passed around and when finished tossed in the Thames. The pottery and porcelain can be dated, as so the pipes, the metal objects probably beyond dating due to rust,  and as for the four coins I found, all in one spot, well they are easily datable because they are clearly marked, earliest to latest.... 2005, 2006 2007, and 2013!!!  And they were already showing signs of corrosion, so much for today's coinage!

Odds and Ends

Coinage

Churchill's War Rooms

One of the highlights of our trip was getting to visit Winston Churchill's War Rooms.  It was a rainy Monday morning as we made our way there, stopping to get a quick snap of Big Ben and get in line.  We were there right at opening time and had bought our tickets online so we got in quickly. They gave us a self-guided tour to listen to, but we preferred to just read, though hearing the voices of some of the people who worked with him and for him was quite interesting.  At the beginning there was a big room with lots of info on Churchill, his early life, his painting, his public speaking, his humor,  how others felt about working with him and displays all through the war years.  Scores of documents, letters and pictures to sift through.  It was very dark in there and I didn't take any pictures.  But I took loads of pictures of the reconstructed war room. The rooms were incredible, so life like.  It was fascinating, I'm glad we got there early because by the time we were through and we spent quite a few hours there, it was teaming with people and it would have been much harder to read all the information.

Big Ben, he had his faces cleaned while we were there

Churchill's bedroom

His dining room

Kitchen

Lady Churchill's bedroom

Map Room

Park Across the street from the war rooms

Radio Room