It has been a very busy week for us as we’ve been helping Gordon and Laura move into their new home, until now they’ve had to rent, like so many people nowadays but it has been worth waiting for and not only do they have a lovely house, they have a beautiful view of rolling green hills from their front path. I’ll get a photo of it soon, I was too busy humphing stuff to stop and click. The next time they move (not for a long time I hope) they will definitely be employing a removal company, we’re getting too old for it all!
Apparently everyone where Laura teaches was saying to her – are you flitting tomorrow? – and she had never heard the word before as although she has lived in Scotland for years she is from what she calls the grim North, meaning the Manchester area – which is definitely the south to us.
Anyway it’s great to see them settled at last. I have been reading although you wouldn’t think it because I’m way behind in my Goodreads Challenge updating. I hope to get back to normality, or what passes for normal here anyway – soon.
One book which I finished recently is Carrie’s War by Nina Bawden. It’s a Puffin Modern Classic and when I saw it in a charity bookshop in Edinburgh I thought it was about time I got around to taking a squint at it. Some parts of it seemed quite familiar though and I think I’ve probably heard snatches of it on the radio over the years. The BBC has also adapted it for TV in the past and you can watch it on You Tube.
http://youtu.be/yN1lB5fhs0Q
The book is an enjoyable read, you probably already know that it’s about a young brother and sister from London being evacuated to Wales to avoid the Nazi bombs. I can only wonder what I would have done as a mother in that position, somehow I just can’t imagine packing my children onto a train and waving them off to an uncertain future with strangers. But then – there were all those bombs to contend with …
Katrina,
I know I’ve been very quiet lately, but I would love to read Carrie’s War. Will put it on my list! I see that in some ways you’ve been enjoying a lovely, GREEN spring, despite your rain. We are only just beginning to have a little green grass and only a few trees with green leaves. Oh, it’s been a slow start for us.
Judith
Had to order it through Amazon. Evidently there was a BBC production and there’s a video at Crandall Library, but I’d rather read the book first.
Thank you!
Judith
Judith,
You might be even more interested in The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silver_Sword. Maybe you’ve already read it.
Oh, Katrina, you won’t believe it! I loved, loved, loved this book as an 11-12-year-old. In the US, it’s entitled Escape from Warsaw. Until you pointed me to it via Wikipedia, I had no idea I’d read it. I absolutely must read it again. Will have to dig up a copy because I like collecting books I admired and adored as a child. How interesting: The Silver Sword vs. Escape from Warsaw. I don’t know why exactly, but I was so captivated by books that presented young people in the midst of struggle. And this one certainly has that! Thanks to you!
Judith
Judith,
I also collect books which I enjoyed as a child, or ones which I somehow missed out on at the time. I read The Silver Sword when I was about 11 or 12 too, and it has stayed with me – the sign of a good book I suppose. I listened to it on the radio not long ago and I thought that the BBC might have made a podcast of it, but they don’t seem to have.
Judith,
It’s amazing how much the trees have developed over the five weeks since we moved here.
I was hoping that you’ve been having an enjoyable time in the Adirondacks and too busy to do much in the way of internet things!
Well, Katrina, I was in the pits disgusted with our lack of a spring as of May 7, and then all of a sudden we heated up–really heated up with temperatures higher than I like in May–in the high 70s and around 80 degrees for day after day, very dry air, with no rain. So, without the rain, some flowers came up, but still the brown grasses…ugh. But as of tomorrow, we will have had supposedly close to 2.5 to 3 inches of much-needed rain, and things are definitely greening up.
The big problem is that when spring is held up for weeks and weeks here, we have the entire season in about 14 days, and everything leafs out and blossoms in a huge explosion, after which summer follows immediately. When we have an absurdly slow winter-spring transition as occurred this year, I do miss the lovely springs we once had in our neighborhood close to Boston and the Atlantic, when springs would unfold gradually from late March to early June.
Judith
Judith,
That’s the big advantage of living in a much cooler climate I suppose – our flowers last a lot longer.Joan in Philly who used to live in Boston has also mentioned the lack of spring weather. It’s the same here, spring and autumn are much shorter than they were, almost non-existent. It’s very annoying when you have clothes which you hardly get to wear because they are just not suitable for any weather now. So I think that other parts of the US are experiencing weird weather, I suppose it’s global warming. You might like to look at Joan’s new blogpost of her recent trip to Boston, it looks great, very like Glasgow.http://planetjoan.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/busy-in-boston.html