A regular visitor
Photos taken by my husband.
Category: Weekly Events
Sunday Salon – Today’s Books
This morning I’ve been reading The Border Line by Eric Robson, of interest because we live near the border – the one between England and Scotland. This is the account of Robson’s walk following the border line from the Solway Firth to Berwick-upon-Tweed. It’s also interesting because Robson includes anecdotes, snippets of history and personal memories as well. For all the disputes over the border and the reivers’ raids there is a similarity between English and Scottish Borderers:
For more than four centuries the Borderlands were seen as the scrag end of their respective countries, the frayed edges of monarchy. English borderers and Scottish borderers at least had that much in common. The Border was a remote battleground where national ambitions could be fought over. Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmorland were excluded from the Domesday Book. They were regarded as a military buffer zone. They became a bearpit. (page 51)
The Reivers were romanticised by Sir Walter Scott, who gave them ‘the spit-and -polish treatment’ and a ‘romantic bearing and heroic stature.’ Robson also sheds light on the derivation of words, such as ‘reiver’: a ‘reef” in Old English meant a line, a Shire Reeve was a man who protected boundaries, thus the reiver raided across the Border Line. ‘Blackmail’ has two possible derivations – greenmail was agricultural rent and blackmail was money taken at night, or protection money. Alternatively it could be that it came from the fact that the reivers blacked their armour to ride as shadows in the moonlight (page 49). I prefer the alternative derivation.
Then I moved north of the Border Line into Scotland with my reading and finished Ian Rankin’s book The Falls, a book I first read a couple of years ago. I wrote about it at the time and I haven’t much to add to that post. The Falls combines so much of what I like to read – a puzzling mystery, convincing characters, well described locations, historical connections and a strong plot full of tension and pace. Rebus has morphed in my mind into a combination of the actors who’ve played him – John Hannah and Ken Stott – and his creator Ian Rankin. But there is no doubt that the books are far superior to the TV productions. The next Rebus book I’ll be reading is Resurrection Men.
Weekend Cooking – Bread
Bread is one of my favourite foods. I’ve been baking my own bread for about 4 years now, using a breadmaker. I’ve tried making it by hand but all that kneading just defeats me and it is so much easier with a machine. It is very simple – you just put all the ingredients in the bread tin, choose the appropriate setting, press start and leave it to knead, prove and bake. My breadmaker has a little dispenser so you can add nuts, or dried fruit. Or there is a dough setting – doing all the hard work for you – and then you can shape the dough into rolls, baguettes, plaits, croissants or whatever takes your fancy and bake them in the oven.
I vary what I make, sometimes using a packet mix, which does give a very good result. My favourites are Cheese and Onion, Ciabatta and Mixed Grain. Other times I use fast acting dried yeast and the Very Strong White or Wholemeal flour, sometimes making half white and half brown bread. I recently bought a Country Grain flour – with malted wheat flakes, rye flour and malted wheat and barley flour and mixed that with the very strong white flour to make this loaf:
For this I used 1 teaspoon of yeast, 250 grams of the Country Grain flour, 225 grams of strong white flour, I½ teaspoons of sugar, 1¼ teaspoons of salt, 25 grams of butter and 340 ml of water and set the breadmaker on the wholemeal setting. It took 5 hours to make and bake. There is a rapid setting as well but I find that the bread doesn’t rise as much and it takes more yeast.
Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs
Booking Through Thursday – Now or Then
Do you prefer reading current books? Or older ones? Or outright old ones? (As in, yes, there’s a difference between a book from 10 years ago and, say, Charles Dickens or Plato.)
About half the books I’ve read this year are current books – published within the last ten years. The other half date from the 1930s to the 1990s, the oldest being Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? by Agatha Christie. I also like older books by authors such as Jane Austen, the Brontes, George Eliot, Tolstoy, Thackeray and Dickens. I can’t say that I have a preference either way as I like to vary my reading. Sometimes I want to read older books and sometimes modern ones.
As for ‘outright old’ books I have read a few, books like the Cloud of Unknowing, Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, and Dante’s Divine Comedy, which I haven’t finished yet! Coming forward a bit in time I also like Shakespeare, but prefer to see the plays, rather than read them. Thinking about this post has reminded me that I’ve been meaning to read Don Quixote for ages. My copy was published in the 1920s and I think I’d like a more modern translation, which would be an appropriate combination of old and new. Has anyone any suggestions about which one to choose?
Teaser Tuesdays
Should Be Reading – Miz B – hosts this weekly event. Pick a couple of sentences from the book you’re currently reading (without spoilers, of course) to entice you to read the book.
I’m still reading Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky. This week’s teaser sentences are from page 169 (which is exactly where I am in the book). It’s over two sentences but I wanted to quote the whole passage:
I desperately want the insanity we’re living through to end. I desperately want what has begun to finish. In a word, I desperately want this tragedy to be over and for us to try to survive it, that’s all. What’s important is to live: Primum vivere. One day at a time. To survive, to wait, to hope.
BooksPlease 