The Swedish Detectives (Books) Arrive on the Scene

From the Martin Beck
Police Mystery Series

Another impact of Global Warming (my tongue is in my cheek here people) is the thawing effect on the Swedish Publishing Houses and the inundation of police procedurals flowing into the ever warming American readership. Case in point, only a few years ago did I first come in contact with Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallander. Here was a detective who struggled with his inner demons, family, and criminals. It was a  new culture for me to explore, this Scandinavian landscape of cities and customs. I was pretty well versed with the British and Italian crime scenes, but like the saying goes this was a 'brave new world.' I will also admit to binge watching the BBC's adaptation of Mankell's work starring Kenneth Branagh as Wallander. A visually stunning production; Sweden is now high on my list of places to visit.

The librarians in my town have been doing their best to help with the importation of these wonderful authors. The Vintage Crime/Black Lizard division of Random House has released Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo's Martin Beck Police Mystery series with newly written introductions by today's leading police mystery writers. This husband and wife team began writing in the mid-1960s around the time that I was born. These are stories of detection before the advent of computers, DNA fingerprinting, and cell phones. Cases took months to solve instead of weeks or even days. Solid footwork and deduction play the key roles in the capturing of criminals. These are not cozy mystery cases either; hard boiled, and often brutal crimes are committed. What I've learned is that crime and criminals haven't changed much in the last fifty years. I'm sure it is safe to say, that crime hasn't changed much since the dawn of mankind.

The "I Can't Put it Down" Books

Ruth Galloway stories and a
trowel one of her tools of the trade.

Some time back I picked up Elly Griffiths' The House at Sea's End at the library and brought it home. I managed a chapter or two but for some reason couldn't get into the story. A couple of weeks ago I found myself at the bookstore and in need of a good mystery. I love to escape into the world of whodunits and summer vacation is a perfect time to indulge in this pastime. There I was perusing the shelves when Griffiths' titles caught my eye. I read the back of the cover and decided to give it a second try.

Back home with the book, I sat out on the deck and started in and promptly got hooked. I couldn't put it down. I stayed up late in the night reading and polished it off the following morning. Enthralled I went to the library to look for other titles, but sadly only found one more which I read thirstily.

I like Ruth Galloway the main character. She's not super sexy but rather a dowdy overweight smart woman - an archaeologist of all things. She aids Detective Nelson and his colleagues in their work. Unfortunately, I haven't read some of the earlier stories in order to get the full back story between Galloway and Nelson but  I know enough to understand that Galloway's daughter Kate was the result. In these two novels that I've read children are a focus. As a parent it is a bit unsettling for we all know that crimes occur to children and that there is real heartbreak when they do. It is our worst nightmare that something should happen to our children. My own children are old enough for me to be past the fears of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) where you quietly sneak in their rooms to make sure they still breathing while praying they don't wake up. I'm past the school day fears and now I'm on to the college fears. The need to let go and let your children go off and explore the world and make their own mistakes. You can warn them of the dangerous pitfalls that loom but they need to discover them for themselves.

Parenthood changes you, and it changes the characters that we read about. Ruth herself has had to learn that. She is torn by the pressures that working mothers face: the job and the children. There is no good answer, and you are forever doubting your decision making. The most you can hope for is that you choose wisely and that everything will work out alright.

Memoirs: Gardening vs. Farming

Produce and chicken purchased
at local Farmer's market

I've spent quite a bit of time reading gardening memoirs this summer which have helped to inspire me in my perennial gardens. I've enjoyed researching the plants that have been written about and compared my plantings to those of the authors, but when it comes to farming that is a whole new ball game. I'm a gardener not a farmer.

My vegetable garden

Kristin Kimball's The Dirty Life is a love story, one with the man who would become her husband and with the land they came to farm. Kimball first met her future husband while on a writing assignment. Here was a girl from New York exposed to the fields of Pennsylvania and a whole new world opened up before her. She decided to go out on a limb and leave the life that she knew to go and reclaim a farm in northern New York. Her future husband, Mark, had a dream of creating a farm where people could buy shares of the harvest, but unlike many other programs this one would provide an entire diet - fruit, vegetables, milk, eggs, beef, pork, chicken, maple syrup, grains, flours, and herbs.  

Squash

This meant that the two of them would need to get the fields plowed and planted. Mark wanted to work the farm without machinery so the couple had to first find a pair of draft horses and the appropriate equipment. Next came the establishment of their herd and a chicken coop. Kristin and Mark divided the labor and Kristin studied up on animal husbandry and learned how to care for and slaughter the animals that they raised. It was a challenge which was rewarded with success.

Kimball writes of the heartaches and fears that establishing their new farm brought to her and Mark. She revels in their triumphs and happiness. I'll let you enjoy their story.

As for me, I have slowly but surely begun the process of growing more vegetables for my family, and like most home gardeners, being overrun with zucchini has become my fate. I'm thrilled because I'm actually getting tomatoes this year. Last year we didn't have much of a garden as I fell sick in May from a tick borne illness and didn't really recover until July and as a result we didn't get too much done in the garden. With the desire to expand my vegetable raising horizons, I am doing my research and have discovered a way to grow potatoes in a tower of hay and compost contained within chicken wire, and I plan to try it out next spring. In the meantime I continue to work my compost pile in order to be ready.

With the recent Market Basket problems, I have depended more and more on my local Farmer's Market for my produce and even my meat. A farm here in town sells beef, pork, and chicken and although expensive I've decided to make the switch and will probably not go back to shopping for meat at the store. By the way I recommend reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle  as a way to learn about what it means to be a locavore, and any of Michael Pollan's work which will make you think about where your food comes from.

The Dream of a Second Home

Souvenirs of France: the tablecloth - gift
from my mother's trip to Provence,
 the eau de vie-from our exchange student.

The French House is Don Wallace's memoir about the second home that he and his wife purchased on the island of Belle Ile in the Bay of Biscay off of France's Brittany coast. After one visit to the island they were under its charm and when the opportunity of purchasing a property there came, they jumped at it. Granted the property was a real fixer upper, and they were barely making ends meet in their first home (apartment life in New York City) they decided to throw caution to the wind and make the purchase. It would be several years before they could afford to make the house habitable. I'll let you read about their adventures with builders and financing, not too mention the neighbors and the local building authorities.

Reading the book reminded me of my time spent in France as an exchange student during my high school days. The Nacel program was a four week, summertime opportunity for students to stay with a host family and be immersed in the language and culture of a foreign country. Since I was studying French in school, and my ancestors came from France that's where I choose to visit. I arrived to find my host family on vacation in Les Issambres on the Cote d'Azur. We would spend three weeks there with most of our time at the beach, swimming and windsurfing. Windsurfing was a challenge to me, I knew how to sail a sunfish but standing up on a board and holding onto the sail was a totally different experience. I finally learned to keep my balance, and could tack (mainly a sailing term I imagine), but when the area got busy with other windsurfers, I became frightened of colliding with others.

My host family were staying in the summer home of my "mom's" parents; my "father's" parent's summer place was not far off. I imagine that may be how Claude and Marie-Christine met, there at the beach seeing has his parents resided outside of Paris and her's in Fougerolles. I suppose by now that they have inherited the properties and still travel there for vacations with their children and grandchildren. That was one of the difficulties that Wallace encountered in his life in France - that properties pass down through the family and many are eagerly awaiting their inheritance.

My dream of a second house doesn't take me to France or Tuscany (Frances Mayes memoirs are another favorite of mine). I like to read about other's experiences in foreign lands but I'd like to stay closer to my own backyard so to speak. As a New Englander, I can't image living anywhere else. My dream home is one on the water somewhere - lake, river, or even an estuary. As I get closer in age to retirement, I spend more time thinking about my future second home. I dream of the day when the tuition payments are done so that I can put my income to better use. In the meantime, my husband and I can travel about the region, staying in B&Bs and researching the area where we would like to own our vacation home.

Agatha Christie, Sackville-West and Gardens

Garden and Household
bric-a-brac

 I'm listening to Agatha Christie's Postern of Fate, one of my favorite Tommy and Tuppence mysteries. In this novel, the last that Christie wrote, Tommy and Tuppence are retired and have moved to the suburbs as we call them here in the US, and are remodeling and settling into the house and garden.

The story opens with Tuppence trying to organize her collection of books. I can sympathize with her. I've got loads of books and I'm always trying to figure out the best place and way to organize them. Down in the family room I've placed a large dining room hutch purchased at a second hand store which serves as a bookcase. There I have the fiction books. Upstairs the bookcase in "the office" contains the non-fiction and "work" books - science: biology, chemistry, and ecology. The hallway bookcase contains more fiction books, and the some of the kid's books that didn't fit on their bookcases. In my bedroom I have a small shelf devoted to what I consider inspirational books, and the current bedtime reading is stacked on the bedside table.

Tommy and Tuppence have their faithful henchmen Albert with them and an even more aged gardener, "Old Isaac" helping them. In the passage I'm writing about Tuppence and Isaac are burrowing through a box of tulips that have been ordered and planning how to plant them so as to make the best effect. This made my mind immediately jump to the section of Vita Sackville-West's, In Your Garden, that I have currently on the bedside table for gentle reading to settle me down for a good night's rest. She advised her readers on the best varieties of bulbs to purchase, their color, price, and seller.

Hutch filled with vintage
silver and odds and ends

Now I love tulips and their vast variety of size, color, and shape, unfortunately, so do the white-tail deer that inhabit the woods that surround my yard. I tried planting tulips the first Fall we lived here and in the Spring they dutifully came up and were promptly eaten. I was heartbroken. I did my research and discovered that daffodils were poisonous and deer resistant and I decided to invest in them. It turns out that Brecks has a wide variety of daffodils not just your average yellow ones. They have managed to bloom and double over the years. Still wish I could have tulips to brighten my springtime garden, but I buy some to place in the house, safe from Bambi.

Mothers, Daughters, and Sisters

Lockets: one given to me by my
mother and father for my First Communion,
the other by my daughter for Mother's Day.

I love to browse for books. Who doesn't? At the library I like to look at the returns cart before someone re-shelves the books. What books are other people in my community reading? Did they choose wisely? Would I like what they've read? It's how I came across an older title of Elizabeth Berg's: What We Keep.

Ginny, the narrator of the story, is the same age I am - 47. Lately, I've been wondering how did I get to be this old? I certainly don't feel old, but my daughter is now 20 and my son will be 18 by the end of August, they will both be at college this Fall and my husband and I will celebrate our 24th wedding anniversary in November. I've been doing a lot of living over the years and if I take after my grandmother (she turned 100 in June), I have a lot more living to do.

What We Keep is the story of a family's unraveling and the stitching back up of it. Ginny and her sister Sharla are drawn tightly together when their mother leaves the family. Both girls close out their mother when she returns and wishes to re-establish their relationship. Mom comes back a changed person and neither daughter is able to reconcile to this new personality. Thirty-five years later Sharla asks Ginny to go and meet with their mother. Ginny reviews her childhood and her own motherhood. I'll leave the story and its ending for you to enjoy. I couldn't put down the book.

As for me, I have a deep relationship with my mother. I've always been close to my mom, but our shared experience of caring for my dying father drew us even closer. My sister, unfortunately has been living abroad these last four years and is finally returning home in a month's time. It will be the start of a new phase of life for the three of us without dad.

Relationships are constantly changing and growing. Even my own with my daughter as she enters into adulthood and my role as mother changes. I work hard at letting go so that she can become her own independent being. Even my role as daughter and sister has changed over the years, and I know it will continue to change and that is a good thing. One of the hardest things in life is to accept change. We want to cling to the things we are familiar with. We want things to stay the same. It's not healthy for things to stay the same and that is the life lesson that we all have to learn.

The Manor House Garden

One garden room at Hidcote Manor picture taken on my vacation 

Agatha Christie and many of my other favorite authors have written about the weekend house party at someone's manor house and there is always a scene when someone invites someone else out for a stroll in the garden. Once out in the garden there might be the "important talk", a dalliance, or even a murder. It didn't really make much sense to me to go for a walk in the garden because I was picturing my garden, but once I had been to England to see what a real manor house garden looks like it began to make all the more difference to my reading.

Gardening is serious business over there in England. Many of the gardens that I visited are even larger than my entire plot of land (1.67 acres). They employed designers and architects and engaged and maintained a staff. When Hercule Poirot is interviewing the gardener, this character was a full time employee with perhaps a "boy" or two working for him. Here I am, just me beavering away at my attempt at a cottage garden and a small vegetable plot. I've had to take a week off due to the rain and an aching back and the weeds have gone rampant from my neglect.

In researching about famous English gardeners I came across Vita Sackville-West, poet and novelist who funded her gardening passions with the proceeds from her literary career. She and her husband purchased Sissinghurst Castle and transformed the grounds, he did the architectural planning and she the plantings. I used the ever precious inter-library loan system to get a hold of a copy of her In Your Garden a collection of her articles written for The Observer during 1947-1950. Now I understand the inspiration that Katherine Swift had for her gardening column written 50 years later. I guess it is a testament to British gardeners that weekly gardening columns are still popular especially seeing the demise of the printed newspaper editions at least here in the US. I'm guilty of giving up the paper subscription when I found myself recycling stacks of them unread. There is always so much more good reading material than the morning paper.

I'm wandering just like one would along the crazy brick paths of a manor house garden. On January 22, 1950, Sackville-West wrote of her plan to design a garden with a single color scheme. She was envisioning a garden of just white blossoms against a backdrop of green and grey foliage. Of course this garden came to fruition as one for which she is famous.

Memoir - Under Magnolia

My baby picture

Growing up in New England, I had a different experience than that of Frances Mayes as described in her newest memoir Under Magnolia. I'm always a bit fascinated by stories that take place in the South, it seems almost like a foreign country to me, points of reference can be so different. Sometimes I can relate and other times I can't.

Mayes' has a few years on me as well, she was in college when I was born, so my experience of growing up female is much different than hers. I certainly wasn't a tomboy, but my father taught me to fish, mow the lawn, shingle a roof, build a campfire, and that an education was essential and that I most certainly was going off to college to earn my degree. Mom taught me how to keep house, cook (baking wasn't her favorite so when I got adept at it I was the chief dessert maker), sew, knit, do needlepoint, garden, and encouraged me to get that education while I was young. My mother's family couldn't afford to send her to college, but she did earn her degree in her late thirties.

Mayes relates her first experience with visiting a funeral home and I was immediately transported to the funeral parlor (as we called it) in Rhode Island from which all my relatives were buried. There is a smell to funeral homes, some might call it death, but that's not it. There is no smell of decay. It is a smell which I cannot describe. It looks more like death; the woodwork stained dark, the velvet curtains which covered the windows which kept the outside light from making its way in, or the pedestrians from looking in at the bereaved. The embossed wall paper that was popular during the time the place was decorated, made the place depressing. Unfortunately during my childhood so many of my relatives passed away that the funeral parlor was a familiar place. There were few happy occasions for gathering together.

Vacations at the beach were a happy time for Mayes. There is a real sense of freedom at the beach. I too had many happy times at the beach. They were solitary times as my parents worked to maintain the cottages that my father and his friend had bought as investments. After helping out where I could, I was free to go to the beach where I would walk for miles or go for a swim. I scoured the line of pebbles that split the beach from the sandy bottom further out in the water, for shells and sea glass. My territory was marked by a white house with blue shutters at one end and a pink beach house at the other with no others in between. Very few people came down this way, the public beach was well up the road.

One last thing, Mayes, wrote about the suicides that took place in town while she was growing up. She and her family didn't talk much about them, but they did wonder and look at those families differently. I was a member of one of those families that folks look at and talk about. I wonder what they said about us. It's hard to grow up with that pain in your household, for even there we did not talk about those that we loved who chose to leave us behind.

Garden Reading Installment #3

Untamed garden

 "Read-a-little, garden-a-little, read-a-little, garden-a-little, weed, weed, weed...."  reminds me of that song  from The Music Man. Moving on. Yesterday's installment from Katherine Swift's The Morville Year was about those plants that move or seem to spring up out of nowhere. I've got a whole garden that seems to be that way.

Once upon a time I too set out to tame Nature by planting a garden and she just laughed at me and my hubris. But mankind continues to try to tame her with its borders and formal garden lay-outs. Granted I never started out that way. As a novice gardener I chose the things that looked pretty to me and planted them where ever I thought they would look best. Little did I know about the plants I chose or whether or not they would flourish in the spots I had planted them. The tag said full sun, but in reality it needed partial sun, or part-sun really meant full shade. You  get the picture. Things died. I cried. I tried again.

A foxglove which has
self-seeded.

I got wiser. I borrowed books from the library and spent time learning about the growing conditions of plants. I amended my soil. I watched and timed the number of hours certain locations in the yard received sun light. I started over. I shuffled plants around and lo and behold things took. Things thrived. Things spread. Oh how things spread. Phlox took over. Spiderwort wove a web throughout the garden. Even the white campion sprinkled itself about. This summer I am challenged with trying to bring it all under some semblance of control. I will not say order for I know there will never be order. As a science teacher I know that there is no control in Nature, the name of the game is called ENTROPY.

One challenge about reading Swift's book is the difference in the language of plants. She sprinkles the Latin formal names throughout like everyone should know what she is writing about. Then there are the common names for plants, which is the whole reason scientists went to a formal method of naming species in the first place. I find that I have to keep my phone close by so that I can look up on Google images the plants which she is discussing. Often I am familiar with them and other times I am not. As a more seasoned gardener (I will not call myself a master gardener just yet. I need to get through a few more seasons for that.), I know better than to run out and try to acquire the lovely things she writes about. For one thing, I know that the climate of England and New England are not the same and some plants will simply not flourish here in my garden. I have learned my lesson there; plant what will work. That's why she has her lovely garden open to the public so that people like me can go visit and see those plants which we can not grow at home.

Garden Reading Installment #2

Garden walk in progress

 Reading can be like eating potato chips, you can't eat just one, but if you know better you occasionally will put down the bag and come back to it on another day; so too is Katherine Swift's The Morville Year which I've written about previously. It's a book to go to when you need just a quick fix of gardening wisdom. Today it was her column entitled "Not a Bed of Roses" where she describes what happens when she took a week off from the garden. She returned to plants in need of water, attacking plant blights and pests, and weeds. She quickly through herself back into the work and only came in when her husband called out to her at 11:30 pm.

The pile of  bark mulch waiting to be
spread.

I too took some time off from the garden this weekend. It is the curse of the gardener that you can't be in two places at one time. You are either indoors cleaning or outdoors gardening, you can't do both. The house was in need of some attention so I broke down and gave it some. Tonight after dinner I went out to finally plant the marigolds before they die in the garden center pots. The sprinklers got run as we've had a couple of sunny and warm days. I plucked a few weeds but there are plenty more awaiting my wrath. Then there's the bark mulch that still needs spreading, and the garden walkway which I am building is but a pile of bricks. Swift was my inspiration, like a little garden angel sitting on my shoulder and encouraging me to get out there and get to work. Pretty soon it will be summer vacation and I will be able to work out in the garden every day if I want and have time to get some of the indoor projects done as well.

A Honey of a Dream

Tea and Honey for a Sunday morning

The inspiration for this blog post comes from reading Jennifer Barclay's Falling in Honey: How a Tiny Greek Island Stole My Heart.  Barclay's memoir reads like a romance novel and at times I had to remind myself that it wasn't a novel. The foreshadowing turns out not to be a literary device, but I could see the plot twist coming from a mile away. Spoiler Alert: Barclay manages to start "living the dream" by moving to the tiny island of Tilos. Should you like to learn more, visit her blog http://octopus-in-my-ouzo.blogspot.com/.

As for me, I continue to dream of one day having my lake house. The lake house of my youth was my father's dream and although I would have loved to hold onto the place after his death, his dream house is not my dream house. Today that dream house belongs to someone else and I'm hoping all their dreams are coming true.

My current house is pleasantly located on a wooded lot bordering wetlands; not quite a lake but there is water views through the trees. At sometime in the past a stream and perhaps a small pond became home to a pair of beavers who built a dam and transformed the landscape. Beavers are a foundation species who transform the ecosystem. Once the dam is built and the water begins to back up, other species follow: fish, amphibians, birds, small and large mammals, along with a huge variety of plants. We have it all in the back yard: squirrels (red and gray), hawks, owls, songbirds, toads, frogs, salamanders, the occasional fox, fisher cat, mink, deer, bear, and the list goes on.

Beavers can be a nuisance with their building projects causing tree fall and flooding. Several years back I watched as the water rose up through the woods and approached the backyard. I even called in the town health department and conservation committee as I was in fear of the rising waters contaminating my well. Since beavers were nearly wiped out here in North America they became a protected species which have rebounded very well. I couldn't legally do anything about the beavers without getting approval from the correct authoritative bodies. Luckily I didn't have to do anything as the waters finally receded.

Now as it happens, beavers will eventually move on to greener pastures, or should I say bluer streams. We haven't seen any activity in a long time. With no one maintaining the dam and two years of drought the pond behind the house has gotten a good deal smaller and ecological succession is doing its work to transform the ecosystem. All that silt and nutrient rich matter trapped by the dam has now settled and the primary species of grass and wildflower are making their comeback. Very often a beaver pond will eventually become a beaver meadow.

My dream of a lake house still exists even if the views of water through the trees is dwindling. One day I will be sitting out on the porch, with the sound of water lapping on the shore and typing away on the keys telling the world how I'm "living the dream."

Reading in installments

Ranunculus

While in England on my April vacation, I had the opportunity to pop into some book shops for a browse. There was a charming one on the high street in Broadway where I purchased Katherine Swift's The Moreville Year  a collection of columns that she'd written for The Times. Swift takes her readers on a year long journey through her garden in Shropshire, describing all the work and enjoyment that goes with its creation and maintenance.

Anemone

One of the key things I wanted to do while in England, besides drink tea and eat scones, was to visit the gardens. My sister took me to visit several of the local National Trust Houses and Gardens in the Midlands area where she lives. One especially lovely property was Charlecote Park where they have their very own Garden Center. It was there that I spied a couple of the plant varieties that Swift featured in her writing. The ranunculus are not that popular in my area as we have much harsher winters here in New England for their liking. The anemones however can be found around here and I have since purchased some for my garden.

The best part of Swift's book is the fact that it is a collection of articles allowing for one to sit and read a bit at a time; a couple before bed or over a morning cup of coffee. Best yet is reading while sitting out on the patio over looking the kitchen garden with a glass of chilled wine after a long day of work (the paying job or the garden chores). I do so love to work in my garden, but I also love to read about other people's gardens and there are plenty of books in my collection and I'm so happy to add Katherine Swift's to the shelf.

Is your read the same as my read?

Recently my students asked to spend some time learning about neuroscience so we spent a couple of days looking at brain structure, how the sense of sight works, reaction time, and habits and learning. One of the videos that I showed them is from Vsauce, in it we are challenged by the thought question: do you see red the same way that I do? 

Now this whole concept of qualia struck me when I read the introduction to Wendy Lesser's book Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books. First of all, she is absolutely correct when she says that reading can be an addiction. I can't imagine a day going by without reading. In fact I learned the hard way what it would be like not to be able to read when you want to. Last spring when hospitalized with a tick-borne illness I felt too miserable and tired to read. I couldn't find the energy to focus, and that frustrated me. I wanted to read. I was desperate to read as there was absolutely nothing worth watching on television. Thankfully I had my iPhone with my cache of audio-books to listen to. I knew I was better when I could sit and focus again upon the written word. 

Second, she pointed out that for every reader of a book there is a unique experience. Each of us brings a unique perspective to the books that we read. Here's where that concept of qualia comes in. How can you and I share fully our experience of reading the same book? There will always be something missing in our ability to explain how we feel, or what we got out of the book. Same book but totally different. It's thought experiments such as this that blows my mind. So I have to ask you, is your red the same as mine? Is your read the same as mine? Think about it. 

More stories about marriage

Every once in a while it is enjoyable to sit down with a book that is rather old-fashioned and simple. I discovered the reprinting of D.E.Stevenson's Miss Buncle's Book last year at the book store. This title was originally published in 1934 and its sequel, Miss Buncle Married followed in 1936. Life was a lot different then for Miss Buncle and her creator Dorothy Emily Peploe (nee Stevenson). Like many women of her time she didn't have the opportunity for a university education as her father worried about educated women in the family. She started writing at a young age and in secret. Lucky for us that she found a publisher to take on her work and share it with the world.

Miss Buncle finding herself rather short of cash looks for a way to earn some and turns to writing a book. She, like many authors, writes what she knows and her novel about a small village full of interesting characters is born. The only problem is that she hasn't successfully hidden the true nature of her neighbors and when the book is published under the pseudonym of John Smith, everyone is up in arms. She lives in terror of the day when she should be found out. When that day does come, she is spirited away by her publisher, Mr.Abbott.

When next we encounter Miss Buncle, she is now Mrs. Abbott and she's on the hunt for a new home for the two of them. She chooses a run down home in the little village of Wandlebury, but she alone can see what it and the garden can become. Lo and behold she pulls off a miracle and husband and wife happily become part of the community. Of course plenty of shenanigans occur but I will not spoil it for you.

Near the very end I found this quote: "It's turned out all right after all, she said contentedly. "Things usually do, somehow. You worry and fuss and try to make things go the way you think they should, and then you find that the other way was best. I'm going to try not to worry about things anymore." (p. 323) What a great piece of advice! So much of my life I have spent an inordinate amount of energy and time on worrying about things when all along they seem to come out all right. I need to give up the worry and just enjoy the moment. The wasted energy prevents me from having enough for living life to the fullest. Mrs. Abbott who thought she wasn't very clever is the most clever of us all.

Stories of marriage

Jenny Offill's Dept. Of Speculation was an interesting read. That statement seems a tad, what? Lacking in sincerity? I'm trying to be nice here which is one of my faults - the don't hurt others dictum.  No offense Ms. Offill, but the story depressed me. I've read so many books lately about marriages that break up for one reason or another. No one seems to be writing stories of happy marriages or marriages that have stood the test of time. I suppose because they would be boring. Where's the angst? Where's the literary challenge? People don't want to read about how life is boring and the day to day details of life are just that, details. Everyone wants excitement. Life isn't that way. Maybe that's why so many turn to alcohol or drugs to dull the pain, or affairs.

Marriage can be hard. Marriage can be fulfilling. Mine for example is readying itself for the next phase - the empty nest. Our youngest goes off to college in the fall. I'm looking forward to life being just the two of us again. It has been a long time since we were free to do as we pleased without thinking about the kids and their needs and schedules. However, in the last week it has begun to hit me that another phase of our lives is closing - parenthood. The parenthood of school age children. We are now the parents of college age children and before we know it of young adults. The old cliche of when a door is closed another one opens is upon us. 

Part of life is acknowledging and accepting change. Perhaps that's why so many others struggle within their marriage, they don't realize that marriage isn't static it too changes and grows and the partners must change along with it. Marriage is a living thing because it is a human construct and we are living beings. All living things evolve and so does marriage over the course of its life time. Evolution is all about the organism that is best able to adapt to the environment is the one who survives. Those who are best able to adapt to the ever changing environment of marriage are those that survive. I think Darwin would be shocked to read this but at heart I think he would agree, didn't he work hard to adapt his work to fit within his marriage? He knew that his life's work when published would hurt the one he loved most, but he did it anyways. And Emma Darwin who loved her husband may have argued with him but accepted in the end because she loved him. 

A self help book of a different kind

Photo source

How often have I (or you dear reader) picked up a self help book at the library or the book store looking for advice or a cure for what ails? Too any, enough for me to resolve not to pick them up anymore. Why? Because the answers are not going to be found in a book but rather in my own experiences of life and the many trials and errors that daily life brings my way. Grant I've found a few good tidbits of advice over the years but nothing so profound as to change it radically. So you might be asking yourself where is this all heading? The answer is to How to Hepburn: Lessons on Living from Kate the Great written by Karen Karbo.

This is a very different type of "how to" book than others, it's more of a biography with insights into a philosophy for living gleaned from a very well lived life. In fact Karbo even points out mistakes that Hepburn made during her life time and suggests ways to avoid them, most notably to wear sunscreen. Hepburn showed her age early in life as her fair skin often burned from the time she spent outdoors with no protection.

I think the most important lesson learned from this book is to be myself. Hepburn did not fall prey to the Hollywood expectations for actresses of her day. She was her own character, she worked hard, she spoke her mind, she dressed as she pleased, she thought her own thoughts, and she valiantly strode through life in spite of its challenges. I like that because all too often I have allowed myself to "go along to get along." Fell in with what "society" thinks is appropriate. Did what I thought would please people who are important to me. No wonder I don't feel like I know myself at times because I'm spending too much time trying to be someone else. Luckily I'm learning to stop this behavior. Now in middle age I no longer want to live that way. I've begun to discover what it is that I truly love to do and I'm pursuing that. Life has become so much more pleasurable as a result. One thing I have experienced is the struggle that women face between the choice of motherhood and career something that Hepburn chose to avoid. She chose career. For me I chose motherhood for a time and once my children reached middle school I entered into a career. I've learned for me that I can have both just not at the same time. Was it a struggle? Yes! There have been many times over the last few years that I felt that I let my children down when the focus of getting a new career path off the ground got in the way. I also had to learn that the job needs to come second. Not an easy lesson for me. Most importantly, I think it is up to each woman to figure out her own pathway, I can only share with you my experience and Karbo shared what she thought Hepburn's life can teach us. In the end we each make our own lives the unique experience and we must make it genuine - you can't copy someone else's.

Ever feel like you're tied up in knots

Charlecote Park: Warwick CV35 9ER, UK

The library had a spring book display with the whimsical name of: The Cover Was Green, and from it I chose Geoff Nicholson's A Knot Garden.(By the way this link does not show the cover of the paperback edition that I got at the library.) This is a mystery story centering on the death of Richard Wisden a garden designer and minor TV celebrity. The biggest challenge in reading this story was that ever changing first person narration. A collection of characters who each tell their stories all interconnect to form the "knot" of the plot. Imagine a time when you have tried to pull apart a tangled necklace chain or wayward ball of yarn and just when you think you have got the right part to pull and unravel the whole mess you discover that you seem further from the solution than when you started. No spoilers here except to say that by the end all is revealed.

Knot garden as viewed
from the dining room.

I had the opportunity to visit in Warwickshire county at the end of April and visited the National Trust property of Charlecote Park. There in the rear of the property on the edge of the river Avon was a beautiful knot garden as pictured here glimpsed out of the dining room window. The grounds were lovely and everything was blooming. A far cry from the slow start to spring back home in New England.

Primroses in a container garden
lining the entryway. 

Thatched cottage outbuilding.

I'm feeling a little sheepish today

I've read memoirs written by women who have raised cows, chickens, children, vegetables, fruits, and lots of flowers so why not add sheep to the mix. Catherine Friend's sheepish: Two women, Fifty sheep & Enough Wool to Save the Planet was a can't put down read for me. Friend mixes lots of information about this animal, its history, its role in the environment, its role in businesses and products, and its role in her life. She hadn't meant to be a farmer but for the love of her partner she consented to running a farm and vineyard in Minnesota.

The challenges that these women face are various: weather, finding help during the busy shearing or lambing seasons, the chores, their health, and their relationship. For me I was fascinated with the idea that she was reevaluating her life as we all do during middle age. What was her passion? Part of it was her writing. She admitted that farming wasn't what she expected and not her passion but her partner's. She fantasized of selling up the farm, buying an RV and taking to the road. I had that fantasy once, then we rented an RV for a week's summer vacation and that cured me.

Friend wrote about fiber fanatics and how uncomfortable they made her. Yet as the book unfolds, she is slowly drawn into the world of fleece, yarn, dyeing, spinning, weaving, and even knitting. She reconnects with the sheep and the farm through a new appreciation for the way in which her sheep's wool can bring her into a colorful world. I can appreciate that myself as I am drawn to fabric for quilting, yarn for knitting (both of these things I've done in the past but not so much lately) and my all time favorite hobby - cross stitch. I love to see the patterns of color develop on what was once a blank canvas, almost like a photograph slowly developing.

I hate to admit I'm reaching middle age, but it is true. Even menopause is looming on the horizon. I'm grateful to Friend and her honest sharing of her struggles with "the change," with a long term relationship, and with trying to figure out what you want to do next with your life. As she wrote there may not be an answer in the latest self-help book or memoir but sometimes you can be inspired to keep going knowing that others are in the same place that you are.

The Ghost Map

It may seem strange to include Steven Johnson's The Ghost Map as one of my titles in this blog, but it has made me seriously think about how we live upon our planet. Johnson retells the story of how Dr. John Snow and Rev. Henry Whitehead teamed up to unraveled the mystery of the 1854 cholera outbreak in London. The struggles that science had to prove itself in that day and age when the intelligentsia and even the scientists couldn't expand their thinking to encompass the possibility of disease causing agents which were invisible to the naked eye are well documented. Today because of our technology we are aware of bacteria, with the electron microscope we see into the structure of viruses, and with ever improvements we are now visualizing atoms. Changing the way people see their world was the biggest challenge that Snow and Whitehead had to face.

Having grown up in the suburbs I can only imagine life in one. After marrying my husband, we settled into a community thirty miles or so outside of Boston in what some would call "the woods." We love it, and I can imagine living anywhere else especially not the city. I went to college in Worcester and as New England's second largest city, I didn't feel it to be all that big, not like Boston. With my son heading off to college, and most likely one in Boston, I will have to change my country mouse ways.

Johnson's book, especially the last chapter made me rethink cities. Over the past two weeks, my ecology class has been studying human population and its growth. We've discussed the pressures that an ever growing population has on its immediate environment and the planet as a whole. Johnson makes an excellent argument for urban living. The footprint of the high numbers of urban dwellers is in fact smaller than us suburbanites. With more and more of us moving to urban areas will this in fact be a way to be better to our planet? I hadn't thought so, but it comes with the caveat that we will have to provide an infrastructure to protect the public health such as London did all those years ago by finally building a sewer system that removed animal and human waste and protected the purity of the public drinking water supply.

In the end this book has changed my life as it has caused me to rethink how I live and how I teach. I'm not just ready to sell my house and move to the city, but I will respect that cities have an important role to play in helping to "green" our planet.