Category: Weekly Events

Saturday Snapshot

Published on by Margaret18 Comments

This is the Bell Tower at the northern side of Berwick-upon-Tweed, the most northerly town in England. It was built about 1577, replacing a 14th century tower on the medieval walls of the town. There used to be a warning bell in the tower that sentries would sound at the sight of danger to the townspeople. At one time there used to be a beacon on top, which could be lit if the country was invaded.

These days it’s an odd sight on a grassy mound at the end of a residential road.

But in earlier days it was in a prime position overlooking the sea, the fields and the town. Nearby is Lord’s Mount, a fort built in  around 1540 during Henry VIII’s reign. It was orginally on two floors but all that remains are parts of the ground floor and you can see fireplaces, a flagged kitchen floor, a well and a privy.

There used to be guns mounted on the parapet and I climbed what was left of the steps to see the view. I didn’t venture on to the top; it was very windy and I don’t have a head for heights!

Photos taken September 2011.

For more Saturday Snapshots see Alyce’s blog At Home With Books.

Booking Through Thursday: An Interview with Me

Published on by Margaret13 Comments

btt button

Booking Through Thursday asks:

1. What’s your favorite time of day to read? I don’t have a favourite time – any time is best. I read mostly early mornings and late at night.

2. Do you read during breakfast? (Assuming you eat breakfast.) Yes.

3. What’s your favorite breakfast food? (Noting that breakfast foods can be eaten any time of day.) I love porridge for a hot breakfast and muesli when I fancy a cold breakfast.

4. How many hours a day would you say you read? 2 – 3 hours.

5. Do you read more or less now than you did, say, 10 years ago? About the same.

6. Do you consider yourself a speed reader? No

7. If you could have any superpower, what would it be? To read multiple books at the same time.

8. Do you carry a book with you everywhere you go? Not everywhere, but most places – it’s easier now with my Kindle.

9. What KIND of book? If it’s a ‘real’ book it has to be small enough to fit in  my bag or pocket and can be any genre – usually whatever I’m reading.

10. How old were you when you got your first library card? Four or five, I think, or I may have been able to borrow books on my mother’s card, I don’t know. I only remember borrowing books from the library before I went to school aged five.

11. What’s the oldest book you have in your collection? (Oldest physical copy? Longest in the collection? Oldest copyright?) I don’t know the oldest physical book in my collection. It would be one of the books my parents or grandparents owned. I have several of these that I know my parents were given (as school and Sunday School prizes) in the 1920s, but there are a few like these that probably belonged to my grandparents:

Jane Eyre by Currer Bell (Charlotte Bronte) published by Richard Edward King, 88 Curtain Road, E.C. no date probably 1880s- 90s and The Channings by Mrs Henry Wood, published by Richard Bentley and Son, Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen, 1890.

12. Do you read in bed? Yes – see question 1.

13. Do you write in your books?I was brought up never to write in books, but I sometimes do now – in pencil. I have some of my children’s books that I’ve coloured in the line drawings with coloured pencils and some novels I read for school with passages underlined in biro (I’m shocked by my younger self!)

14. If you had one piece of advice to a new reader, what would it be? Read whatever you like and read, read, read. Never believe anyone who tells you that you should be doing something else rather than reading.

Saturday Snapshot

Published on by Margaret20 Comments

I’ve been spending time doing some family history these last few days and looking at old photos. I came across this one of my father as a baby, with his brother Jack and sister Mary. He was born in 1914. How children’s clothes have changed! And none of them look too happy – click on photo to enlarge and see their expressions.

And here is a more cheerful one of Dad with his brother-in-law – I think this was taken at Mum and Dad’s wedding in 1938.

Finally, here’s a photo of Mum and Dad, which I really like. It was taken in Llandudno, probably on their honeymoon.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Alyce at At Home With Books.

Wondrous Words – Flapjack

Published on by Margaret14 Comments

Reading Agatha Christie’s books I sometimes come across words that I recognise, but know they cannot possibly mean what I understand them to mean. I found an example recently in Death in the Clouds.

A murder has taken place on a plane and Poirot has asked for a detailed list of the passengers’ belongings. In amongst those belongings three of the passengers have flapjacks in their bags. I thought that was quite strange, because to me a flapjack is a type of biscuit made of rolled oats, syrup and maybe pieces of fruit. They’re delicious. I wondered why these people would have flapjacks in their bags, along with cigarette holders, cigarette cases, keys, pencils and loose change, etc.

I was intrigued enough to look up the word. Wikipedia tells me that the word was not used to describe a food made of oats until 1935. Death in the Clouds was published in 1935, so it is just possible that Agatha Christie meant the flapjack that I know, but not very likely when I noticed that these three people were all women and also had lipstick and rouge in their bags and none of the men had flapjacks.

The answer is quite simple when I checked in my Chambers Dictionary:

A flapjack is a flat face-powder compact.

And this website adds that it was a term used in the 1930s and 1940s – voilà, the correct definition!

Nothing to do with the murder, though.

See more Wondrous Words at BermudaOnion’s Weblog.

Teaser Tuesday

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

Currently I’m reading Agatha Christie’s The Clocks, which incidentally, is on ITV on Boxing Day -one of the Agatha Christie’s Poirot series. Reading the preview it doesn’t sound as though they have stuck too closely to the plot, but never mind.

This description of a bookshop near the British Museum appealed to me:

Inside, it was clear that the books owned the shop rather than the other way about. Everywhere they had run wild and taken possession of their habitat, breeding and multiplying and clearly lacking any strong hand to keep them down. The distance between bookshelves was so narrow that you could only get along with great difficulty. There were piles of books perched on every shelf or table.

On a stool in a corner, hemmed in by books, was in a old man in a pork-pie hat with a large flat face like a stuffed fish. He had the air of one who has given up an unequal struggle. He had attempted to master the books, but the books had obviously succeeded in mastering him. He was a kind of King Canute of the book world, retreating before the advancing tide of books. (page 170)

I don’t suppose this will be included in the drama, but I hope it will.

I’m about halfway through the book and Poirot has yet to appear!

For more Teaser Tuesdays go to Should Be Reading.