Outline

Another book where I am very late to the party; Rachel Cusk's 'Outline' was published a decade ago. I picked it up in Waterstones recently because of one of those employee recommendations that they have around the shelves, thinking I should find out what the fuss was all about. I was not disappointed. It is one of those books that sneaks up on you quietly. Nothing much happens in it, just a woman having conversations with people, but you are left with the feeling of having understood her. It is an intense period of observation, like a fly-on-the-wall documentary. 

Here she is having dinner with a friend, but they are discussing a previous dinner, so you get this sense of history to their relationship:

"And indeed, being so immersed, I did not notice that Paniotis went away from our encounter feeling that his life had been a failure, any more than a mountain notices a climber that loses his footing and falls down one of its ravines. Sometimes it has seemed to me that life is a series of punishments for such moments of unawareness, that one forges one's own destiny by what one doesn't notice or feel compassion for; that what you don't know and don't make the effort to understand will become the very thing that you are forced into knowledge of. While I spoke Paniotis looked more and more aghast. That is a terrible notion that only a Catholic could have come up with, he said. Though I can't say there aren't quite a few people I would like to see punished in so delightfully cruel a fashion. Those are the ones, however, who are certain to remain unenlightened by suffering to the end of their days. They make sure of it, he said, picking up the menu and turning with a lifted finger to the waiter, an immense grey-bearded man clad in a long white apron, who all this time had been entrenched so absolutely motionless in the corner of the almost empty room that I hadn't noticed him." (p.94)

Later in the conversation they are joined by another woman, Angeliki, who becomes the focus of the conversation. I was particularly taken by this passage about women's shoes, the comments about being disbarred from 'womanhood' because of what they represent:

" 'I myself,' she continued extending her silvered foot out from beneath the table, 'developed a weakness for delicate shoes when we returned to Greece. Perhaps it was because I had begun to see the virtues of standing still. And for the character in my novel, shoes like these represent something forbidden. They are the sort of shoes she would never wear. Moreover, when she does see women wearing such shoes, it makes her feel sad. She has believed, until now, that this was because she found such women pitiful, but in fact when she things about it honestly it is because she feels excluded or disbarred from the concept of womanhood the shoes represent. She feels, almost, as if she isn't a woman at all. But is she isn't a woman, what is she?'" (p.113-4)

It had something existential about it. The book it makes me think of is Albert Camus' 'The Outsider', that I read for French A level soooo long ago. In talking it's as if the woman is watching herself, examining her own reactions. It's hard to pin down why I liked the book, but when I finished it I decided I was looking forward to the next part of the trilogy to see where she takes the 'narrative' and the 'character'.

The Summer Exhibition

Some years ago Dunk and I watched a programme, probably on Sky Arts, about the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. The notion that anybody can submit a work of art for this exhibition is enchanting. Some 30,000 people do every year. The 'List of Works' tells me there are 1710 works in the exhibition. Of course many are works by members of the Royal Academy, but they are mixed up on the walls and you can't tell professional from amateur until you consult the listing in the book (the price is usually a clue). I was so pleased that it wasn't at all crowded, plenty of room to stand around looking at the art and not feel like you were in anyone's way. Some rooms were more sparse but many were like this, pictures all the way up, somewhat above a good height to see them well, which must be disappointing for people with their work up the top. A huge range of styles and subject matter and formats. In the end my eyes felt tired ... just from looking so much.

Following are a few of the ones I particularly noticed. No sense of scale here, some were quite small, others huge. I forgot to note down the numbers when I photographed so cant necessarily tell you who they are.

This lovely dandelion. 'The great survivor' Kaye Maahs

Back gardens (no artist name):

'Orlando' by Georgia Green, a friend of Monkey's, one of two that she has in the exhibition.

'Homebase' Jock McFadyen, one of my favourites, but out of my price range.

In the first room, but not sure, possibly (because that's what it looks like) 'Spinney with startled birds' by Anthony Wishaw

'Across the River' Christopher Thompson

Have tea-towel ... make art. 

My favourite, already sold or this would have been the one. 'Strutting' Lisa Badau

And one of multiple cat paintings that I sent to the girls while I was looking around. Monkey said she loved it the best, and so did lots of other people judging by the dots (indicating print purchases)

We got lost on the way, but next time we'll know it's quicker to just take the tube to Green Park. The cake was a bit overpriced but the cafe wasn't crowded either. All round a most enjoyable visit. Next year beckons.

Stay safe. Be kind. See some art.

The Magic of Democracy

 

After the terrifying judgement by the United States Supreme Court last week the election results that arrived overnight bring a welcome feeling of relief. I was struck by the brief acceptance speech by Jeremy Hunt when he reflected on the peaceful transfer of power that has happened here compared to elsewhere in the world where violence can sometimes be a more common method. I feel proud to live in a country where we mark our crosses and accept the decision of the majority, and nobody cries foul. I can only hope that the same will be true in November when the Americans go to vote.

Stay safe. Be kind. Celebrate the wins.

30 Days Wild

 

I signed up for 30 Days Wild, and they emailed me every day, but did pretty much nothing wild the entire of June. I constantly wish I spent more time out of doors but then slump at home after work. Yesterday bought me some wild delight however when I came across this Swallow-tailed moth (Ourapteryx sambucaria) sitting by the postboxes at 17 Mauldeth Road. It was still there today, which was nice because I had forgotten all about it. Moths are a much under-appreciated species as they are often not a beautiful as butterflies but they are just as important as pollinators. 

Stay safe. Be kind. Appreciate the moths.

Ministry of Time

There's been a bit of buzz around 'The Ministry of Time' by Kaliane Bradley (who strangely doesn't have a website), and as soon as I searched I find that the BBC has already commissioned a drama. It will make excellent telly I'm sure. I like books that emerge from clever ideas, but sometimes come to feel that the clever idea becomes its defining feature, characters and style becoming secondary. Not true of this book as the people are all wonderfully drawn and the relationships between them strong and believable.

A secret government project has acquired a time door, through which they have bought several people from the past into the 21st century. It is never clear why these particular people have been chosen, nor what they are supposed to do now there are here. The current world is a disaster, falling into a climate change driven chaos. The focus of the story is Graham Gore, a member of an arctic expedition from 1847 and his unnamed 'bridge' (who tells the story), whose job is to help him acclimatise to the modern world. He is a real person from history (as opposed to an invented character) and the story is interspersed with extracts about the progress of the expedition, which consists of two trapped ships struggling to survive the winter, starving and freezing, and hoping for warmer weather to free them from the ice. 

This first quote from 1847; Gore has shot an Esquimaux, mistaking the shape of the person stooping in the snow for a seal when out hunting for food, and the tribe and his widow, come to the ship:

"'I'm sorry,' he says, in English, because he forgot to ask Crozier how to say it in her language. She looks at him.

He should get to his knees. Offer his throat to the edge of her palm. Or maybe he should offer her his hand, to replace the hands of her husband. Brief wildness beats at his skull. Perhaps, after a manhood with no final home, fixing makeshift families in multiple wardrooms, killing and pinning land to maps, God has cast him on the shore by this woman. Years of his finger on the trigger  to make sense of her expression.

'I'm sorry,' he repeats. She looks at him. After the group leave, taking their gifts, the stare will linger on his body. When he washes up in his cabin that night, he feels it slip under his shirt, growing into his skin." (p.185)

Of course an extended period of close companionship forges their relationship into something more intense; 

"I blinked at him, and then I looked up. It was true. Away from the grubby muslin of London's light pollution, in the fresh March night, the sky was full of stars. I turned back to him. As I adjusted to the dark, I could see he was staring upwards.

'I can't manage it exactly without a sextant,' he said. 'But I want to be able to orientate myself.'

'So that, in the event of London flooding when the ice caps melt, you can sail to safer waters?'

'So that I will know where I was when I met you.'

I has always thought of joy as a shouting, flamboyant thing, that tossed breath into the sky like a ball. Instead it robbed me of my speech and my air. I was pinned in place by joy and I didn't know what to do.

'Come here,' he said softly, and pulled me into his arms.

I pressed my face against his neck. My body sparked and I couldn't move it, except to lean into him. I was filled with happiness, so enormous and terrifying it was as if I'd committed a crime to get it. No one had given me permission to feel this way, and I thought I might not be allowed it. He combed his fingers through my hair and I was frightened with happiness, harrowed by it. There was no way anyone could feel this much without also knowing they were going to lose it." (p.258-9)

People arrive from the future, with a weapon, and the refugees from the past are forced to flee for their lives. And things just got more complicated from there, and I'm still not sure what was going on. Will definitely be watching the series when it materialises.

Stay safe. Be kind. Be wary of that job that seem too good to be true.

Painting and Painting

Since we arrived in Moss Side five years ago the inside of the house has been well decorated. I have had my eye on the tatty entrance porch for quite some time and a week off with some sunshine was the perfect moment. The front door and front window have been re-caulked and the step painted brick red.

I used the blue that I bought for the yard to do the porch walls, and I am delighted by how the colour brightens the entrance, and dare I say it, the whole street. Several neighbours stopped by as I was working and commented how lovely it is.

Of course as soon as I painted the surrounding brickwork I realised I would have to do the whole front of the house as it showed up how faded the old paint was. Fortunately it had only been previously painted to the top of the downstairs window and so I could reach it all from the stepladder. 

Saturday I took myself to a Japanese Painting Workshop with Floating Art , spent an enjoyable couple of hours that flew by and was surprisingly satisfied with the results.

Stay safe. Be kind. Try something new.

Here is the Beehive

I have no idea why this book is called this; 'Here is the Beehive' by Sarah Crossan. This is a very intense little book, about a woman, Ana, conducting a somewhat obsessive affair, only to have the object of her affection die. Connor is dead, and she is grieving, and she can't tell anyone. Gradually she reveals stuff about their relationship and their separate lives. The reader watches her struggle with her loss, trying to maintain some pretence of normal life for her family, all the time thinking of her lover. I sympathised deeply with her, even when she makes bad, ridiculous choices. I sympathised with her husband as he watches his wife unfathomably crumble. It is laid out like poems on the page, short lines and broken paragraphs, very effective for getting across the nature of her thought patterns. They had met initially when he becomes a client at her firm, but then as the solicitor responsible for overseeing Connor's will Ana finds herself inadvertently befriending his wife Rebecca. Initially she is trying to sneak a closer look inside his life, but it becomes something other than that. It is a story about love, and secrets, and obsession, and learning how to get over someone who was never yours. 

"I'd seen a photo on your phone so already knew

Rebecca owned a pair of

royal blue

leather gloves.

I hated her for it - 

discovering she had

the nerve for such a statement,

an extravagance.

It was hard to know

whether or not a brown pair, unlined,

could compare,

but I bought them in the January sale

from Selfridges

and hid them in a drawer,

to wear with you

when it was cold.

I never found the courage.

And I never found out whether or not

the way to win you was

to be different to Rebecca,

to be better than her

or simply    

        to be her completely." (p.115-6)

Japan and Elsewhere

So I mentioned ages ago that I was reading 'The Long Earth' by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter. When my brother Bart spotted it he said it was much more Stephen Baxter than it was Terry and I think I would concur, as the Pratchett humour was there but it did not feel anything like the discworld books. Apparently he collaborated a great deal in the latter years of his life as he had trouble holding stories together as his mind declined. It is testament to his amazing creativity that he never stopped writing. In the book a scientists creates a device that allows people to 'step' sideways into parallel earths, each one having taken a slightly different evolutionary path, but all empty of human beings. It follows Joshua who was coincidentally born in another world and can 'step' without the device, and an epic journey across the earths in a stepping airship. I enjoyed this book. It was very clever and I relished the story and the concept, it was hugely imaginative (though in some ways depressing at the thought of human beings fucking up multiple earths) but that was about it. 

'Abroad in Japan' by Chris Broad is about a guy doing JET like Monkey Sensei and basically acts as a kind of introduction to living in Japan with chapters about food and onsen and Mount Fuji and shrines and so on. So was just like chatting to Monkey about how she's getting on and what she's been up to. It's just life, that is kind of the same, but kind of completely different, but it does get across the peculiarities of learning to live in another country. I kind of enjoyed it because I am already interested in Japan and its culture but in truth I'd rather spend the afternoon video chatting with Monkey while she cooks her gyoza for dinner. 

"Breast and Eggs" by Mieko Kawami came from Monkey's bookshelf and follows two sisters and a niece as they wrangle with the nature of being in a female body. It starts as the older sister is visiting the younger with the intention of getting breast implants, pursuing a lost youth somewhat. Then in the second part, a decade later the younger sister is contemplating the process of having a child via sperm donation, something not available to single women in the somewhat socially conservative Japan. She encounters a support group for children of anonymous donors and spends a lot of time debating the ethics of the choice she feels bound to make. It was a lovely book of relationships between the three women, bound together by only having each other. I liked Natsuko because she seemed so vulnerable, sometimes still this child who had to fend for herself as her mother and then grandmother had died and left the two girls as teenagers. It was all very much inside her life, day to day stuff like coping with the heat and worrying about her life, and big existential stuff contemplating sharing her life with another person. 

In between reading and working and stuff my lovely Ady had her third birthday. I searched for an hour on the interweb for a freebie pattern to make her a dress and then gave up and went to the library and found this fab book, Wild Things by Kirsty Hartley. It is full of lovely simple designs and contained patterns to trace (and adapt, I did some dungarees and turned them onto a dress instead). I bought the monster fabric down in Leons last year some time. She had a 'pretty dress' ready for the party so she didn't put it on for a photo but whatever. I am pleased as punch with it.

Stay safe. Be kind. More catch-up posts coming ....

Keep passing the open windows

'The Hotel New Hampshire' by John Irving came from a brief visit to the charity shop when I popped in to return a couple of puzzles. I have to say that he is redeemed in my eyes now because I loved the family in this book almost as much as Owen Meany. The Berry children are born in quick succession and they become a close knit group of siblings, their shared history becoming important for their future. The Berry parents meet at a hotel in Maine where they have summer jobs, and the tale of their meeting is part of the family mythology. The story is told by John, the middle child, so mostly they are referred to as Mother and Father and it is the relationships between the children that is central, particularly that between John and Franny. The story follows the family as their father tries to run a hotel, first in New Hampshire, then in Vienna, and finally back in Maine. And I felt on reflection that Lilly had something of Owen about her, in her smallness, which endeared her to me. The supporting cast includes Freud the diminutive animal trainer, Earl the bear, Coach Bob, Sorrow the family dog (who hangs around longer than he should have done), Rhonda Ray, Susie the other bear, the radicals and the Viennese prostitutes. I don't want to recite the story, because it was by turns entertaining, surreal, and heart-breaking, the trials and traumas they endure, so here are a few quotes to create the atmosphere.

From the beginning, the family gathered the hear the 'story':

"'Frank, tell us what sex is,' Franny would say, but Father would rescue us all by saying, in his dreamy voice, 'I can tell you: it wouldn't have happened today. You may think you have more freedom, but you also have more laws. That bear could not have happened today. He would not have been allowed.' And in that moment we would be silenced, all our bickering suddenly over. When Father talked, even Frank and Franny could be sitting together close enough to touch each other and they wouldn't fight; I could even be sitting close enough to Franny to feel her hair against my face or her leg against mine, and if Father was talking I wouldn't thing about Franny at all. Lilly would sit deathly still (as only Lilly could) on Frank's lap. Egg was usually too young to listen, much less understand, but he was a quiet baby. Even Franny could hold him on her lap and he'd be still; whenever I held him on my lap, he fell asleep." (p.15-16)

Here Father decides their future:

"Remember: it was night, and the night inspired my father. He had first seen Freud and his bear at night; he had fished with State'o'Maine at night; nighttime was the only time the man in the white dinner jacket made an appearance; it was after dark when the German and his brass band arrived at the Arbuthnot to spill a little blood; it must have been dark when my father and mother first slept together; and Freud's Europe was in total darkness now. There in Elliot Park, with the patrol car's spotlight on him, my father looked at the four-storey brick school that indeed resembled a county jail - the rust-iron fire escapes crawled over it, like scaffolding on a building trying to become something else. No doubt he took my mother's hand. In the darkness, where the imagination is never impeded, my father felt the name of his future hotel, and our future coming to him.

'Wutcha gonna call it?' asked the old cop.

'The Hotel New Hampshire,' my father said." (p.90-91)

This one is because of 'Weltschmerz', and thinking of how much I enjoyed some good German words during my A to Z (and only Frank ever learns to speak German very well):

"Lilly's Weltschmerz, as Frank would come to call it. 'The rest of us have anguish,' Frank would say. 'The rest of us have grief, the rest of us merely suffer. But Lilly,' Frank would say, 'Lilly has true Weltschmerz. It shouldn't be translated as "world-weariness,"' Frank would lecture us, 'that's much too mild for what Lilly's got. Lilly's Weltschmerz is like "world-hurt,"' Frank would say. 'Literally "world" - that's the Welt part - and "hurt," because that's what the Schmerz part really is: pain, real ache. Lilly's got a case of world-hurt,' Frank concluded, proudly." (p.303-304)

I loved them and loved their love for each other, it renewed my faith in siblings, and despite some of the more outlandish events the whole saga felt real. I needed that book.

Small joys

I have finally been back out on my little delivery route this week; I have been going stir crazy in the office for several months. The garden at 8a Mauldeth road has been completely colonised by buttercups and was a delightful meadow of yellow in the sunshine on Wednesday.

And this morning our own private little forest behind Dunk's house was lit up by the sun. The window is north facing so it feels dark inside and the leaves were just glowing outside.

Stay safe. Be kind. Make the most of May.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day May 2024

A few days of sunshine have done wonders for the garden, I even sat out. All sorts of lovely things are showing off their colours and giving me delight. Besides the campion and forget-me-knots that have taken over several pots here are the other things that are enjoying the spring. Those purple ones above, I can't remember what they are called, but they self-seed quite readily and I am not sure where from because I don't recall buying it.

Below is the ivy-leaved toadflax, another wild thing that pops up all over but that is my favourite, it gets into all the nooks and crannies around the streets too.

Sweet William, that survived the winter and had suddenly come into flower when I went outside to take some photos (it is raining again today):

This is the dogwood, that is now a huge shrub, easily ten feet tall, the biggest thing in the garden. There was one single patch of flowers last year, but it is covered this year with buds on the verge of opening:

The dog rose, which is lovely but the flowers are so flimsy and they last only a few days before the wind or rain knocks all the petal off:

The brunnera that is hiding under the ivy puts out these lovely pale blue flowers, a tine delight by the back door:

And the ajuga has also survived the winter (and last year being swamped by the triffids so I don't know if they did much), it's another lovely one that hides in the shade just quietly doing it's own thing.

Say safe. Be kind. Visit some other gardens too, over at the Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, hosted by Carol.

Big Snow

I have to just drop a note about 'The Big Snow' by David Park because I am getting sucked in to a John Irving novel that I picked up at the charity shop. I only wrote briefly about his two other books that I read but I enjoyed all of them immensely; interestingly Travelling in a Strange Land is also set in an environment swathed in snow. This book seemed to start with some shorter linked stories about separate people set in the same place: a young man with a first crush on an older woman, two teachers who find solace in each other's company and an older woman searching for a wedding dress, and then segue into a longer one about a murdered young woman, and the young police officer who sets himself at odds with his superiors to try and find out who killed her. Like his other books it is very much about the atmosphere, slightly, almost claustrophobic. 

Here Miss Lewis and Mr Peel are making the best of a power cut in the snowstorm. I love the bit that says "happy to display his expertise", it pretty much sums up Mr Peel's character in this story:

"A piece of toast? Yes, he'd like a piece of toast. There was something a shade undignified about it but he hadn't eaten since his breakfast and, after all, special circumstances ... She lit two of the candles before going to the kitchen and returning with a toasting fork and four rounds of bread and a packet of butter, then set the butter on the hearth to soften. 'Allow me,' he said, taking the fork from her hand and spearing the bread. He hunched forward on the chair, glad of an excuse to pull closer to the fire and happy to display his expertise. This was campfire stuff, real campfire stuff. When he had toasted he passed it on to her on the end of the fork and she transferred it to one of the plates and covered it in butter. He had never known a bit of toast could taste so wonderful. This must have been what it was like in the Blitz - people pulling together, people sharing things. Now it was the elements, rather than the Nazis, they were fighting against but the principle was the same. She hadn't pulled the curtains but all he could see outside was a settling greyness and an occasional spit of flake against the glass. Looking at it only served to increase his feeling of snugness and he lingered over the final piece of toast." (p.128-9)

Stay safe. Be kind. Enjoy the sunshine, let yourself forget about the cold.

Stuff in the Garden

The sun has been shining, but that has not deterred the slugs and snails. Slug hunts will be reinstated forthwith. (Isn't 'forthwith' a good word.) Other interesting things going on outside. Lots of aphids on one particular patch of campion, but also ladybirds, who like to eat aphids, so it's all good. I had ants farming the aphids one time, and then I had to rescue one of the Acers from an aphid attack last year.

My plum tree is doing what it did last year, and I have my fingers crossed for a few fruits. I missed the blossom, I think it was washed away by rain pretty quick, but now we have lots of 'potential plums'. Last year they did this ... then they just dried out and dropped off. It is supposed to self-pollinate so we will wait and see.

I potted up the crabapple and the two acer trees and they all seem pretty happy. I think it's safe to have the avocado tree outside now, it really loves the sunshine and the rain. Unfortunately the crabapple has another bout of powdery mildew, so I have chopped off 90% of the leaves.

Other perennials have been shifted around and given the sunny spot in the corner.

Stay safe. Be kind. Get out in your garden.

A to Z reflections post

early cuneiform writing

Language is one of the most amazing things human beings have created. It is something we created over and over again across the world. It feels a good thing that people strive to understand one another. I just tried to find out how many there are, only to find that there are 839 in Papua New Guinea alone. Some countries say stuff so much better than us, no wonder we love to pinch each other's vocabulary. In looking for more information about borrowed words I came across several interesting books: 'Lost in Translation' by Ella Frances Saunders, a lovely compendium of words in other languages that express things we do not have a word for and 'The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows' by John Koenig, which takes another tack entirely and invents words that he feels are missing from our language. It was a bit spur of the moment but I had a lot of fun with this year's A to Z Challenge.

I hopped over and visited lots of new people and enjoyed several new blogs this year, Sarah at The Old Shelter writing about the Lost Generation, Pamela at The Lady of the House Speaking writing about afternoon tea, Wendy at Wendy's Waffle writing about Waltham Forest in London and Get Lost in Literature because we always love some new book suggestions. I hope I can keep up the new momentum and post more regularly in the coming months. Thanks to everyone involved for hosting the challenge ... and see you all next year.

Stay safe. Be kind. Blog from A to Z.

Don't forget to vote

 

Stay safe. Be kind. Vote Green.

An abundance of tomorrows

In the spirit of the purpose of A to Zedding I will try and keep my blogging mojo up and not leave this book review for another week (and the library is sending threatening emails) (though they've stopped charging late fines). 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow' by Gabrielle Zevin was what I think of as an easy read. I had felt like I was reading too much hard stuff and not enjoying it enough. While I did enjoy it the stuff about gaming, and significantly creating computer games, went right over my head. Not that it spoiled the book to skim read some parts, and the group of characters at the centre of the book were very engaging and believable. I like a book that follows the characters over time, watching their lives and relationships evolve. Sam and Sadie meet in hospital as children, Sam recovering from an accident and Sadie visiting her sister who has cancer. They drift apart and then reconnect at university where Sadie is studying computer game design. Sam's roommate Marx has taken Sam under his wing, and caring for Sam becomes the glue that bonds them together. They create together what becomes a cult computer game, form their own company, move to California, fulfilling the adage 'do what you love and you will never work a day in your life'. Of course stuff has to happen that undermines all the perfect life. It was a weakness in the book that stuff happens, rather than being character driven, and there were element of plotting that were somewhat predictable but on reflection it fitted with the obsessive nature of computer game fandom. John Green gushes about the book on the cover and it was his books that it reminded me of most, very much about the lives of young people and the concerns that they have.

Only have one quote noted down, from the very beginning, and it was just a nice thing, letting you inside Sadie's thinking, telling you about Sadie but also somewhat typical of Gabrielle's style:

"Around lunchtime, Sadie felt hungry and, thus, somewhat less sorry for Alice and sorrier for herself. It was irritating the way Alice acted like an asshole and Sadie was the one who was punished. As Sadie was repeatedly told, Alice was sick, but she was not dying. Alice's variety of leukaemia had a particularly high remission rate. She had been responding well to treatment, and she's probably even be able to start high school, on schedule, in the fall. Alice would only have to be in the hospital for two nights this time, and it was only out of, according to her mother, an 'abundance of caution.' Sadie liked the phrase 'an abundance of caution.' It reminded her of a murder of crow, a flock of seagulls, a pack of wolves. She imagined that 'caution' was a creature of some kind - maybe, a cross between a Saint Bernard and an elephant. A large, intelligent, friendly animal that could be counted on to defend the Green sisters from threats, existential and otherwise." (p.14)

Stay safe. Be kind. Enjoy your tomorrows.

Z is for Zero

Z is for Zero, from Arabic 'sifr', originally meaning empty, but coming to be used for zero, and its use is quite significant to the development of mathematics. Lots of interesting stuff out there about the history of the concept of nothing, on Wiki and the book 'Zero: the biography of a dangerous idea'. 

Linking back to the A to Z Challenge.

Found this image on wikimediacommons, it shows the first known graphic representation of zero. On a broken doorjamb, from Trapeang Prei, Sambor, Kratie. Now on display at the National Museum of Cambodia

  

Y is for Yurt

Y is for Yurt, from Turkic, meaning 'dwelling place'. While yurts are not widely used in Britain we used to own one and they are a delight to dwell in compared to a conventional tent. It was only small, ten feet I think, but had a proper wooden door that I painted. They do need a trailer to transport and several people to put up. 

Linking back to the A to Z Challenge.