Weekly Events – Page 9

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros

Published on July 9, 2013November 3, 2021 by Margaret9 Comments

Every Tuesday Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, sharing the first paragraph or (a few) of a book she’s reading or thinking about reading soon.

Today I’m in the mood for reading short fiction and picked this book off my to-be-read shelves. It’s Tamburlaine Must Die by Louise Welsh, set in 1593 it tells the story of playwright, Christopher Marlowe’s last days, weaving together fact and fiction. It’s only 140 pages.

It begins:

I have four candles and one evening in which to write this account. Tomorrow I will lodge these papers with my last true friend. If I survive the day, they will light our pipes. But should I not return, he has instructions to secrete this chronicle where it will lie undiscovered for a long span, in the hope that when these pages are found, the age will be different and my words may be judged by honest eyes.

When I read the first four words I immediately thought of the Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett sketch from years ago in the Two Ronnies – The Four Candles. I don’t suppose that is the response Louise Welsh would have expected, but there it is, that’s what came to my mind. But this is not a comedy as this summary from Amazon reveals:

London, 1593. A city on edge. Under threat from plague and war, strangers are unwelcome, suspicion is wholesale, severed heads grin from the spikes on Tower Bridge. Playwright, poet and spy, Christopher Marlowe walks the city’s mean streets with just three days to find the murderous Tamburlaine, a killer escaped from the pages of his most violent play. Tamburlaine Must Die is the searing adventure of a man who dares to defy both God and the state and whose murder remains a taunting mystery to the present day.

What do you think? Would you keep reading?

Saturday Snapshots

Published on July 6, 2013 by Margaret7 Comments

Today’s Saturday Snapshots are from our visit last week to Polkommet Country Park, West Lothian in Scotland. The Park has some lovely woodland walks alongside the River Almond:

Our granddaughter couldn’t resist getting her feet wet:

For more Saturday Snapshots see Melinda’s blog West Metro Mommy Reads.

Searching for The Secret River: a Book Beginnings Post

Published on July 5, 2013 by Margaret8 Comments

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Friday in which you share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.

I’m currently reading Searching for The Secret River by Kate Grenville. It begins:

In the puritan Australia of my childhood, you could only get a drink on a Sunday if you were a ‘bona fide traveller’. That meant you had to have travelled fifty miles or more. Around Sydney a ring of townships at exactly the fifty-mile mark filled with cheerful people every Sunday. One of them was a little place called Wiseman’s Ferry.

I loved Kate Grenville’s book The Secret River, so when I discovered that she had written a book about how she came to write it I just had to get a copy. Her interest began with her great-great-great grandfather, Solomon Wiseman,the original ferryman at Wiseman’s Ferry. Her mother had told her stories about him, but she wanted to know more about, what he was like and what he might have done when he first encountered Aboriginal people … she needed to know.

I haven’t finished the book yet, but it is fascinating – seeing how she went about her research into family history and how she imagined his life from facts gleaned from the records and the places he had lived.

Wondrous Words

Published on July 3, 2013 by Margaret8 Comments

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme run by Kathy at Bermuda Onion’s Weblog where you can share new words that you’ve encountered or spotlight words you love.

These are some words from Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens:

Usquebaugh – ‘what does my noble captain drink – is it brandy, rum, usquebaugh?’

This is obviously a drink of some sort, but I didn’t know what. Usquebaugh is Gaelic meaning “Water of Life”, phonetically it became “usky” and then “whisky” in English.

Flip – ‘every man … put down his sixpence for a can of flip, which grateful beverage was brewed with all dispatch, and set down in the midst of them on the brick floor; both that it might simmer and stew before the fire, and that its fragrant steam, rising up among them, and mixing with the wreaths of vapour from their pipes, might shroud them in a delicious atmosphere of their own and shut out all the world.’

Another intoxicating drink, I thought. Flip is eggnog, a drink of eggs and hot beer or spirits. I was interested to see it came in a can! Canning food was invented by a French chef in 1795 to preserve military food for Napoleon’s army. Barnaby Rudge, although written in 1839-41 when sealed cans similar to those we use now would have been in use, is set in 1775 and 1780 so Dickens was probably using the word to mean a container for holding liquid – or it’s an anachronism?

Poussetting – ‘Joe Willet rode leisurely along in his desponding mood, picturing the locksmith’s daughter going down long country dances, and poussetting dreadfully with bold strangers – which was almost too much to bear ...’

Poussette is simply a figure in country dancing when the couples hold hands and move up or down the set changing places with the next couple. And by the way Joe describes it he was thinking the locksmith’s daughter was being too familiar with strangers.

Saturday Snapshots: Wych Elm

Published on June 29, 2013February 18, 2019 by Margaret9 Comments

We have a wych elm in the back garden. This year it’s been absolutely full of seeds, many more than usual:

Wych elm P1080810

The seeds have been blowing all over the garden, covering the lawn and borders. They grow in clusters: Wych elm P1080813 One got caught in a cobweb:

Wych elm seed P1010780 Here it is in close-up:

Wych elm seed P1080809 Wych Elms are hardy trees and have greater resistance to Dutch elm disease than other elms. The name ‘wych’ comes from an Anglo-Saxon word meaning pliable and refers to the tree’s twigs. Its wood has many uses, including underground water pipes (in the past), boat building and the seats of chairs – it’s also the traditional wood used for coffins.

I love trees – and they are good for you:

A garden without trees is as hard to envisage as an art gallery with pictures. Trees soften the landscape. They provide shade in the summer and protection during the winter. A screen of trees around the house can provide enough wind-shelter to reduce by a tenth the energy consumption in the home. Their canopy of leaves acts as a highly effective pollution filter, absorbing many of the major atmospheric pollution gases, including carbon monoxide, nitrogen and sulphur dioxide. Research also reveals that we are happier and more relaxed when we are in leafy surroundings … (The Therapeutic Garden by Donald Norfolk page 105)

For more Saturday Snapshots see Melinda’s blog West Metro Mommy Reads.

Click on the photos to enlarge.

Saturday Snapshots: Loch Ness

Published on June 22, 2013 by Margaret13 Comments

My Saturday Snapshots are some more photos from our last holiday in Scotland. We had been to Inverness and decided to drive back to Coylumbridge along the road following the western shore of Loch Ness. We stopped and went down these steps from the road.It was a calm peaceful scene – no sign of anything on the loch – not a monster in sight.There are a few interpretation boards by the side of the road above Loch Ness. They are not in very good condition now, a bit dirty, but you can still read them. The one below states that St Columba is said to have seen the monster in the 6th century, that ospreys fish in the loch and that seals sometimes visit chasing salmon and trout. What I didn’t know is that a Wellington bomber had crashed in the loch during a snowstorm in 1940.

The next board states that the loch is 38km long and up to 238m deep, rivers feeding into the loch generate hydro-electricity that was first used industrially in 1895 for smelting aluminium. This board includes information about the Caledonian Canal, which links Inverness in the north to Fort William about 60 miles to the south. The canal, constructed by Thomas Telford and completed in 1822, is really a system of four canals linking to the lochs, one of which is Loch Ness.I think it’s time for some new interpretation boards to replace these old and grubby ones!