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elmwood
03 July 2009 @ 04:28 pm
OMG!  
I arrived in England for my nephew's wedding which is taking place this Saturday. Unfortunately, only one of my two suitcases arrived with me - the one containing only my hat!

Eek to the nth degree. I only had the clothes in which I travelled. My brand new suitcase with all my clothes, my toiletries, framed pictures of T for grandpa, and most inmportantly the beautiful silk dress and jacket I planned to wear tomorrow, has gone missing and still has not been found two days later! To stress me out further the airline did not answer e-mails which I resorted to sending when the telephone number I had been given to check up on the progress of the search was never answered.

I went out and bought underwear, two tops, and a pair of pants yesterday. Luckily, my sister-in-law who is roughly the same size as me had bought two outfits for the wedding, so I am wearing one of those with my beaten up old teva sandals (the only shoes I could find today in my size were gold ballerina pumps - I am not a gold ballerina pump type of girl!).

The airline finally responded today and have confirmed that they haven't been able to find the case as yet, so will reimburse me up to £100 for immediate clothes purchases. We will have to negotiate on the rest if the the case never turns up. Thankfully, I have receipts for the wedding clothes and shoes as well as the suitcase itself!
 
 
elmwood
25 June 2009 @ 06:57 am
It's not that we follow traditional roles here, but in our 25+ years of being together, I have never ever barbecued.

When we first met in England, to barbecue was to do something unusual (maybe something to do with the climate) but DB did. He had done his post-doc in Berkely and picked up the habit there and, in fact, was so enamoured of it that he once brought back a Weber kettle barbecue as hand luggage on a trip back from Arizona.

When we moved to Canada in 1990, barbecuing was much more common, but hey, if it ain't broke, why fix it?

I'm not quite sure what the catalyst was for my sudden desire to barbecue, but suffice it to say, I decided that I wanted to know how to cook like this. Hell, I didn't even know how to turn the barbecue on!

So, last night the Chan family feasted on Spiced Chicken Breasts, with minted cucumber and tomato salad, and rice. DB was very patient and oversaw the whole process, but the recipe was my choice and very different from the way he usually barbecues chicken. T liked it and there was nothing left over, so the whole thing must be judged a success.

The recipe was adapted (I can never leave well alone) from an old cook book by Keith FLoyd and was not hard to do.

Ingredients:
3 chicken breasts (I boned mine)
2 red bell peppers, deseeded and sliced
2 red hot finger peppers, deseeded and sliced (this can be adjusted to taste)
2 fluid oz of olive oil
juice of one lime
sea salt
black pepper (about four turns)
1 large clove of garlic

Boil both types of pepper in salted water until soft. Then place in a blender with the lime juice, garlic, olive oil and seasoning. Liquefy and let cool. Once cool, marinate the chicken breasts in the mixture for as long as you can, then barbecue.

Nom, nom, nom, nom!

So, to encourage me to continue with this and not become a one recipe pony, have you a favourite barbecue recipe you want to share? I will share some of DB's in return. His Oriental chicken is always a favourite.
 
 
Current Mood: creative
 
 
elmwood
16 June 2009 @ 08:57 am
Two of the regular journals I read have ticked me off in the last two days. Not because of their written content, but because they contained embedded items that played whether I wanted them to or not. I have no problem with someone embedding a YouTube clip where I can choose whether to click play or entirely ignore it. I do have a problem with having no choice.

Whether it is a vagary of the way my computer is set up, I am not sure. If it is, then there must be a better way for me to stop the unwanted noise than having to unfriend the LJ user, and I would appreciate knowing how to do so. If it isn't, then it's inconsiderate, sound pollution, an unwanted intrusion and extremely annoying. Why should I have to listen to an ad for a book or a playlist for a novel when I check in on my friends?
 
 
elmwood
16 June 2009 @ 08:45 am
Oh my goodness! I just found out that a film version of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter Mars's books is in the works.

The news instantly transported back to being ten years old and finding a cache of Edgar Rice Burroughs' books in my aunt and uncle's house in London. They lived in what had been my grandparents' house so who knows whose books these were. They were pretty old even when I found them. I doubt that they were my grandfather's, so they could have been the teenage reading of my father and uncles.

Whenever we visited I would read one of those books. I liked Tarzan well enough, but it was the Mars' books that made me forget where and who I was.

I just hope that the film verson stays true to the books.
 
 
elmwood
09 June 2009 @ 01:56 pm
HA!  


Your result for Which fantasy writer are you?...

Susan Cooper (b. 1935)

37 High-Brow, -25 Violent, -5 Experimental and -3 Cynical!

Congratulations! You are High-Brow, Peaceful, Traditional and Romantic! These concepts are defined below.


Though born in England, Susan Cooper currently lives in the United States. She is most well-known for her The Dark Is Rising sequence, which has received substantial critical acclaim, the second book (also called The Dark Is Rising) in the series winning a Newbury Honor and the fourth book (The Grey King) being awarded the Newbury Medal, one of the world's most prestigious awards for children's literature. The series is one of the finest examples of contemporary fantasy: the kind of fantasy where magic happens in an actually existing place. The Dark Is Rising is set in Britain, where two common themes of fantasy are combined; that of a magic world parallel to ours, which later became so popular with the Harry Potter books and that of ordinary British school-children playing a role in the struggle between Good and Evil, which had earlier been explored by C S Lewis.


Cooper manages to use the idiom of traditional children books to tell a tale of epic proportions, as evil beings from Celtic legends appear on Earth to do battle with the Old Ones, a secret society of people with magic powers. She is also able to combine this rather romantic vision with important messages, the compassion of one of the children being vital to the cause of Good at one point in the story. In Cooper's world, what you think and do matters on a grand scale, a message children and adults alike should take to their hearts.


You are also a lot like Ursula K Le Guin.


If you want some action, try China Miéville.


If you'd like a challenge, try your exact opposite, Lian Hearn.



Your score



This is how to interpret your score: Your attitudes have been measured on four different scales, called 1) High-Brow vs. Low-Brow, 2) Violent vs. Peaceful, 3) Experimental vs. Traditional and 4) Cynical vs. Romantic. Imagine that when you were born, you were in a state of innocence, a tabula rasa who would have scored zero on each scale. Since then, a number of circumstances (including genetical, cultural and environmental factors) have pushed you towards either end of these scales. If you're at 45 or -45 you would be almost entirely cynical, low-brow or whatever. The closer to zero you are, the less extreme your attitude. However, you should always be more of either (eg more romantic than cynical). Please note that even though High-Brow, Violent, Experimental and Cynical have positive numbers (1 through 45) and their opposites negative numbers (-1 through -45), this doesn't mean that either quality is better. All attitudes have their positive and negative sides, as explained below.



High-Brow vs. Low-Brow



You received 37 points, making you more High-Brow than Low-Brow. Being high-browed in this context refers to being more fascinated with the sort of art that critics and scholars tend to favour, rather than the best-selling kind. At their best, high-brows are cultured, able to appreciate the finer nuances of literature and not content with simplifications. At their worst they are, well, snobs.



Violent vs. Peaceful



You received -25 points, making you more Peaceful than Violent. This scale is a measurement of a) if you are tolerant to violence in fiction and b) whether you see violence as a means that can be used to achieve a good end. If you aren't, and you don't, then you are peaceful as defined here. At their best, peaceful people are the ones who encourage dialogue and understanding as a means of solving conflicts. At their worst, they are standing passively by as they or third parties are hurt by less scrupulous individuals.



Experimental vs. Traditional



You received -5 points, making you more Traditional than Experimental. Your position on this scale indicates if you're more likely to seek out the new and unexpected or if you are more comfortable with the familiar, especially in regards to culture. Note that traditional as defined here does not equal conservative, in the political sense. At their best, traditional people don't change winning concepts, favouring storytelling over empty poses. At their worst, they are somewhat narrow-minded.



Cynical vs. Romantic



You received -3 points, making you more Romantic than Cynical. Your position on this scale indicates if you are more likely to be wary, suspicious and skeptical to people around you and the world at large, or if you are more likely to believe in grand schemes, happy endings and the basic goodness of humankind. It is by far the most vaguely defined scale, which is why you'll find the sentence "you are also a lot like x" above. If you feel that your position on this scale is wrong, then you are probably more like author x. At their best, romantic people are optimistic, willing to work for a good cause and an inspiration to their peers. At their worst, they are easily fooled and too easily lead.



Take Which fantasy writer are you?
at HelloQuizzy

 
 
elmwood
08 June 2009 @ 09:11 am
The weekend was entirely consumed by baseball and by Sunday night, I was almost completely out of it. Idly channel surfing I caught the end of a documentary Dreams with Sharp Teeth about one of my favourite writers, Harlan Ellison. One shot had Ellison explaining all the quotes he has stuck up around his working space to inspire him. I laughed so hard when he announced the most important. It was:

I am an artist and I should be exempt from shit!

This apparently was said by the singer P. J. Proby round about the time he was receiving a lot of grief in England for the propensity his clothing had for splitting on stage.

Would that I could adopt this line as my mantra by which to live!
 
 
Current Mood: amused
 
 
elmwood
02 June 2009 @ 08:57 am
It was bit of a shock this morning to read in the newspaper that one of the all round good guys of Canadian Literature, Paul Quarrington, is battling fairly late stage lung cancer.

I don't know him well, but he was one of my first writing teachers. He was also the man who finally gave me the courage to grab an opportunity that had come my way which I was being timid about - an opportunity which basically led to the publication of my first book. What shone through in the week I spent with him at the Humber College School for Writers was his humour and a huge generosity of spirit, qualities that I know will serve him well now.
 
 
Current Mood: melancholy
 
 
elmwood
31 May 2009 @ 07:44 am
It looked like a blossom, gently undulating in the water on the top step of the pool: pink and coral petals, looking like crushed tissue paper, a thin, twiggy stalk. Then I realised there were two stalks, with what looked like claws on their ends. Amongst the pastels of the petals there was a vivid line of crimson.

It was the bottom half of a dead bird - no head, no upper torso. I opened up the skimmer basket, expecting to see the rest of the bird. All there was, floating alongside the usual seed husks and potato bugs, was one wing. It was a matte black, any sheen long gone. It was extended, the feathers spread as if attempting one last, desperate flight.
 
 
Current Mood: sad
 
 
elmwood
29 May 2009 @ 09:42 am
I'll come clean. I love the Scripps National Spelling Bee. If I had been an American kid, I would have studied my little socks off in order to compete in it.

So, I was thrilled to find it being televised live last night. There were the usual problems that arise in the Chan household that might have hampered my watching of it - driving the teen to umpire a t-ball game (thankfully, rained out), driving dearly beloved to a wine tasting and then picking him up two hours later. No problemo, I thought that's what PVR is for, to record it so I can come and go as I please.

Wrong! When I finally settled down to watch the ending, it suddenly cut off as we reached the final three spellers and the dreaded list of 25 words. I suspected that the teen had sabotaged it, but being indefatigable if not a little obsessive, I recorded it again at a later time zone. I settled down to watch the end this morning, only to find the same thing happen.

ABC, what were you thinking? I hope you were inundated with complaints from angry word freaks.
 
 
Current Mood: annoyed
 
 
elmwood
22 May 2009 @ 09:26 am
I don't normally do it this way, but it's been a busy week with a lot happening.

Baseball dominates this week. On Monday, on a whim, we took off to see the Blue Jays who handily trounced the White Sox. I was ruminating about how different the baseball experience with T is now. We've been taking him to games since he was two and a half. His first ever game was memorable because he burst into tears when Roger Clemens threw out the first pitch. These weren't gentle tears, they were the racking, gulping, choking tears that only a terrible two can produce. When we finally calmed him down, it emerged that he thought he was going to throw it not Roger. T's traumatized father rushed off and bought him a mini wooden bat printed with all the then Jays's signatures - he still has it. For the longest time, as he got older we would take it in turns to walk him around when he got bored - going to the kids' zone to see how fast he could pitch. This time, he watched the game and chatted to us. He played two games this week: his team won both. In the first, he had a stand up double and last night, 4RBI's. The first tournament of the season starts tonight so keep your fingers crossed for the Hamilton Cardinals Bantams Tier II!

On Tuesday, I fulfilled a long held dream and went and saw Leonard Cohen in concert. It was all I thought it would be and more. He is elegant, passionate, and a helluva song writer. His band was amazing. An interesting part of the experience was that my dearly beloved accompanied me who had never listened to Cohen before, and I suspect only had a very sketchy notion of who he was. He ejoyed it a lot, and I had the interesting task of explaining to him why women find Cohen so attractive. He didn't say so but I think he took heart from the fact the Cohen has the physicality of my usual crushes - Paul Simon and Dustin Hoffman being others. DB once said, when I was waxing lyrical about Paul Simon, "Well, at least all the men you fancy are small and dark haired." As a 5' 7" Chinese guy, I think he would have felt threatened if my eyes turned to 6" blonds.

T is going to Venezuela next March break for three and a half weeks with World Challenge, so we have started to plan the holiday of a lifetime for ourselves.

I am totally in love with Sarah Waters latest novel, "The Little Stranger." It's a wonderful evocation of life in Britain after WWII

The great hat debate has raged all week but is finally solved. I am going to my nephew Jez's wedding in England at the beginning of July. I found an outfit and shoes with relative ease (sage green raw silk and pewter sandals), and then fell in love with a hat. The only problem was how to get the hat to England! I tried a trial run, packing it - too big, not going to happen. I packed it in a box and took it to the post office, thinking I would mail it to my brother - $93.00 was the cheapest and it might take up to six weeks to get there - were they kidding me? It weighs next to nothing! I talking to our travel agent yesterday while exploring our H.O.L (holiday of a lifetime), I mentioned the hat dilemna. Not a problem, she said, and suggested that I take it in a carrier bag on the plane as most planes have a closet just for such delicate items, where they even pack wedding dresses - phew!
 
 
Current Mood: content
 
 
elmwood
I am a little late with this: Pete Seeger celebrated his 90th birthday on May 8th. I had recorded a documentary about his life and work Pete Seeger: The Power of Song a few weeks ago, but only had time to watch it last night. I have always loved his music, and listen to it quite frequently. Indeed, Seeger singing Leadbelly's Bring Me a Little Water, Silvy was the starting point of my story Singing the Blues, and I had a good grasp of his life, beliefs, and achievements, but I really had never seen him perform and was completely entranced by him. It's hard to describe, but he manages to combine passion and joy when he sings, and it was the joy that shone the most for me - a sense that whatever life had thrown at him, he still found so much to rejoice in.

So, here's to you, Pete!
 
 
Current Mood: thankful
Current Music: The Best of Pete Seeger
 
 
elmwood
13 May 2009 @ 08:46 am
Baseball season started last night with a resounding win of 13-1 over the Guelph Royals.

T played outfield and was solid at the plate, with 1 hit, 1 walk, 1 ground out, and 1 RBI. The best part of the night was when he got caught in a pickle between third base and home plate. He must have run up and down that line at least eight times, weaving away from the catcher and third baseman. Finally, under the guidance of his coach, he made it home, much to the chagrin of the other team and the joy of his own.

All the parents laughed when he went into the dugout and flopped down, flat on his back, full length on the bench where he remained for several minutes.

He's fast, for sure, but what I think allowed him to make it home is the endless, and I do mean endless, games of pickle that T and the the neighbourhood boys have played in the gap between our house and the next house over the years. Keeping grass there has become such a problem that we have given up.
 
 
Current Mood: content
 
 
elmwood
12 May 2009 @ 03:07 pm
I am not quite sure why, but I was awake early this morning and ended up thinking about my high school years, particularly the first one I went to: Orange Hill Grammar School for Girls in Edgeware which is on the outskirts of North London.

In England at that time, and yes, I am that old, there was this huge thing looming in the lives of eleven year olds, the dreaded Eleven Plus. It was an exam which you took in your last year of Junior School and which effectively decided the course of your schooling. If you passed, you went on to a Grammar School, which stressed academic subjects and was based very largely on the Public School model. If you failed you either went to a Technical School, which was heavily vocational, or to a Secondary Modern which had a more general, though supposedly less academic, curriculum. We were living in Germany the year prior to my taking the Eleven Plus and the headmaster of my school there, knowing that I was moving back to England as my father had been posted to the Ministry of Defence (MOD) suggested that I and two other pupils should take our exam early in the familiar surrounding of the Volkspark School. I passed which we found when the results were forwarded to my father at MOD and thus I knew I had the choice of three schools near to where we lived: Henrietta Barnett School for Girls (Hampstead), Hendon Grammar School (Mixed), or the aforementioned Orange Hill. I wasn't consulted as to which I wanted to attend and my father chose Orange Hill, largely I think because it was closest to where we lived, only two stops on the underground, one bus ride, and a mile walk. I think he also wanted me to go to a single sex school being of the strong belief that the fewer distractions the better.

I loved the school, and while I was thinking about it last night, I was marvelling at the quality of the teachers I had there, ones whom I still remember both clearly and fondly. Many were unmarried women in their mid to late forties. The timing was right, and we knew for certain, that some had lost their loved ones in World War II. They were passionate about their subjects and ahead of their times, perhaps, in that they encouraged us to believe that we could do or be anything we chose.

My English teacher, Miss Hartwell, had the most influence on me, inculcating a love for literature that has never left me. It was obligatory that we studied a Shakespeare play each term from the age of eleven onwards and she dragged us through them, refusing to allow us to be bored or to say that it was too hard. A former actress at the Oxford Playhouse, she made us act them out, transforming our classroom into the stage at the Globe. Occasionally she failed, or rather we failed her. Sonnets and class 3H did not go together well. I can still see her, almost hopping with rage, tearing at her hair which had escaped from its tidy, French pleat, as she screamed, "You have no fire of poetry in your damp little souls!" We had been struggling with John Milton's sonnet, "On the Late Massacre in Piedmont." Her fire so impressed me that, even forty years later, I can still recite that poem from memory.

I think that she was one of the reasons I wanted to teach English myself, and although my style of teaching was very different, I would hope that I left some of my students with an equal love of literature.

Was there a teacher who influenced you?
 
 
Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: Elliot Brood
 
 
elmwood
07 May 2009 @ 04:34 pm
I am still pondering names, their meaning and what power they hold over us, and lately it's been nicknames that have interested me.

As a long time devotee of all things Norse, I have always loved names like Erik Bluetooth or Ivar the Boneless, where the nickname is a descriptive to differentiate one Erik or Ivar from all the others. Many of our surnames in the Western world have come from those early nicknames, some being descriptions of particular characteristics such as Whitehead or Brown, others being place names such as London or Bradford, or more commonly job descriptors like Miller or Baker. My family name is Durrant and for the longest time we believed that it was of Norman origin and came from Durant which meant enduring or strong. Sadly, when a friend did some research into our family tree, he found that the name had been miscopied in a church ledger - orginally we were Dunnents not Durrants and Dunnent or Dunnett means dun headed or brown haired.

Nicknames are odd things. normally being bestowed by others and sticking or not depending on the situation and individual. To try and give yourself a nickname would just be courting social disaster.

As a kid, I had a family nickname which was Fish. Originally, it was Little Fish but was shortened to Fish and I answered to it until I was about ten when it naturally died away. It came about because I was a fractious baby and the only thing that would guarantee to quiet me down was if my father, never noted for his musicality, crooned the Portuguese lullaby, "Don't Cry Little Fish, Don't Cry," that Spencer Tracy sings to Freddie Bartholomew in Captains Courageous. At school, I never had a nickname that stuck. One girl caused great uproar by keeping a diary about our class when we were about eleven or so, and giving everyone nicknames. They were sometimes cruel - one poor girl with lank hair and an obsession with the footballer Dennis Law, earned the sobriquet of Greasy Dennis. Mine was Myth Readalot, which I couldn't really dispute (apart from the fact that I never have had a lisp) as I was an obsessive about books in general and mythology in particular. I thought it quite clever. I think my amusement prevented it from sticking, whereas some people who showed that it bothered them got called by the nickname for some time.

T has had various nicknames over the years and we still use them, but try not to say anything embarrassing in front of his friends. I still call him Bunner, which he doesn't mind, as long as I don't explain that it originates from BunnyBear. Amongst his team mates he has been Chan the Man, and Channy, and once Charlie which he didn't object to because he had no idea why he was being called that. His dad calls him "Friend" as in, "What time will our friend be home from school today?" His dad's nickname amongst his drinking friends was ChannyB, and so T gets called ChannyBB. He obviously quite likes this as he uses it for his e-mail address.

I think that nicknames have become less formulaic over the years, more inventive and drawn from different sources. Listening to my dad talk about his long career in the military, certain surnames or characteristics guaranteed certain nicknames:
Miller - Dusty or Glen
Whiteman - Paul after the band leader
Clark/e: Nobby (apparently a clerk pronounced clark in England was considered a bit of a nob, i.e a cut above working class)
White - Chalky
Murphy - Spud
King - Nosmo
Bell - Dinger
Parker -Nosey
Durrant - Jimmy or Schozzle (after Jimmy Durante)
a tall person - Lofty or Tiny
a short person - Lofty or Tiny
a fat person - Jumbo

My dad's nicknames varied over the years. As a kid he was called Bubbles as he had very curly hair and it reminded his mother of the famous painting by Millais showing a curly haired boy and which had the title Bubbles. When he joined the RAF he became Curly from London. He used the name Jimmy, but would probably have been called that anyway because his last name was Durrant. When he became a station warrant officer, he was known as "Jimmy, the One, Jimmy the Bastard," which I just have to incorporate into a story one day.

So, my questions are"

What nicknames have you had and how did they come about?
 
 
Current Mood: curious
 
 
elmwood
01 May 2009 @ 11:21 am
It used to be that the start of the baseball marked the start of our summer. Now that T plays pretty much all year round, we need a new marker. The arrival of the pool guys has been selected.

As I write, there is a great deal of activity in the back yard as Clint and his crew carefully put the pool back in business.

Each year, there has been a different worry. Last year, the cover leaked and all sorts of gross gunge got into the water underneath it. Thankfully, it was all flora rather than fauna. My nightmare is that we will open the pool up one year to find a little rodent skeleton at the pool's bottom. This year, the water has nothing in it, but the unexpectedly hot weather in the last week has caused algae to bloom along the sides. Our solar panels on the roof also took some wind damage this year but they were fixed a week ago.

So, by Sunday we could swim if we wanted to do so. I am traditionally hardy, growing up swimming in the North Sea as a child makes one so, and will swim when the water is very cold indeed. T, however, is a daredevil and I will have a hard job restraining him when he gets back from three days in Ottawa (Grade Eight Grad trip) tonight from launching himself in.
 
 
elmwood
29 April 2009 @ 12:45 pm
I finished revising The Disappearance!

My agent had read it and felt that the ending was too bleak - without hope were his actual words. I'm glad he didn't say hopeless! I disagreed as I thought that hope was implied, but when I read it he was right: it wasn't clear. He is a very smart man.

So, I tidied things up generally and reworked the ending and I'm happy with it. The actual outcome is still left up to the reader, they have to extrapolate exactly what happens to Mike, the narrator, but it's now made clear that even though things will be bad, he can handle it and has achieved something very important to him.

I had also been worried whether I had managed to keep Mike's snarky, word loving tone throughout. At the beginning of his narration, he points out the more esoteric words he uses, commenting on the fact that he thinks them, but when he actually speaks to anyone he is "monosyllable man." I felt that he would stop drawing attention to them as he got into his story, but what concerned me was that I had stopped throwing them in. I hadn't - phew!

So, I am going to sit on this for a few days and then send it off to my agent again.
 
 
Current Mood: ecstatic
Current Music: Leadbelly
 
 
elmwood
25 April 2009 @ 10:05 am
It's small details that catch me. The seemingly insignificant can set me off on quest for more.

I know that this happens to me with books and writers. See this post. It can also happen with TV programmes, but I hadn't realised that my viewing of visual art brought it into play so much. I had a suspicion because my dearly beloved is amused that my interest in Renaissance Art had been brought about by reading RObert Browning's Dramatic Monologues.

[info]grisemalkin and I spent a happy afternoon at the newly revamped Art Gallery of Ontario on Wednesday and chanced upon an exhibition brought over from England about Holman-Hunt. Yes, the paintings interested me, but since then I have been on an absolute tear wanting to find out more about Holman-Hunt's marriages to two sisters, the latter one being considered illegal in England at that time and causing a huge family rift. I also want to find out more about his son, Cyril (still working on that). I have answered the question as to whether the novelist Ford Madox Ford was related to Holman-Hunt's friend, the artist Ford Madox Brown (he was his grandson).

Am I alone in this, or do other people get caught up in the stories behind?
 
 
elmwood
20 April 2009 @ 11:44 am
I didn't vanish, nor have I had my head down working for the last week or so. We had guests staying with us from England over Easter.

We had a wonderful time, visiting places (a word of advice, never, ever, go to the Farmers' Market at St. Jacobs on Easter Saturday!), eating good food, shopping (when one of the guests is a fashion designer, this is obligatory), and just hanging out.

It seems to have done us all good. I have spent a happy, two days revising the latest wip, and should finish tomorrow. On Wednesday, I head to Toronto with [info]grisemalkin to go to a dinner in honour of the great editor and mentor, Peter Carver, organised by CANSCAIP. We are going to go early and visit the newly reincarnated Art Gallery of Ontario, then, before the dinner, I have a meeting with one of my editors.

I haven't been reading a great deal while our visitors were with us, but I am continuing my post apocalyptic thread and finished John Brinkley's "The Last Ship yesterday.
 
 
Current Mood: productive
 
 
elmwood
07 April 2009 @ 06:05 pm
Today, I found out that I didn't recognise a photograph of my own kid.

A friend was on the phone last night and she asked me whether it was indeed T who was appearing in some print adverts for his school. "No," I said,"not a chance."

Then I remembered that I had seen an advert in our local paper which comes out on Friday and had been struck by the fact that there was a younger kid at the school who looked a lot like T, but I was absolutely certain it wasn't him.

At the dinner table tonight, we were talking about the school, as he and I are heading back there in a few minutes for a meeting about a proposed expedition to Venezuela next year, and I laughed and said that someone had thought that he was in some ads. for the school. Straight faced he said, "But I am!"

In my defence, the photograph they used was taken in November 2007, and he is no longer so baby faced, but fancy not recognising your own kid!
 
 
Current Mood: dorky
 
 
elmwood
03 April 2009 @ 08:00 am
March was a reading month with a grand total of 27 books read. That number would suggest that I did nothing but sit on the sofa eyes glued to the pages, but that's not true. Thanks to [info]eldritchhobbit I started to work my way through the books I hadn't read on a list of post apocalyptic/dystopian YA fiction that she kindly posted.This has been an interesting exercise for me. I have always had a liking for this sort of book. I come by it honestly. My father was a bomb disposal man and I grew up during the Cold War period, so nuclear annihilation was something that, if you'll pardon the pun, was on my radar early. I always remember being quite young and my father telling my older brothers that in case of a nuclear attact, it would be better to be as near as possible to ground zero as survival would be hellish. I think that I have clarified what makes a successful book for me in this genre. I prefer the end of the world to be a relatively recent thing (1,000 years in the future is probably too much for me, particularly if I have to spend a lot of time teasing out what actually happened to bring the apocalypse about). I have no preference for how the world ends, but it has to be thought through and the premise has to have a logical consistency. The books I've enjoyed most so far are Marcus Sedgewick's Floodland and Janni Lee Simner's [info]janni Bones of Faerie.

An asterisk indicates a book I really enjoyed, two asterisks . . . well you can work that out. I also decided that it was time for me to see what the appeal of vampires was for teen readers. Having absolutely failed to get anywhere with Meyer's Twighlight series, I tried P.C and Kristin Cast's House of Night Series, as you can see I got hooked.

The Local News: A Novel * by Miriam Gershow

Bones of Faerie** by Janni Lee Simner [info]janni

Mudville** by Kurtis Scaletta [info]skutir

The Girl Who Threw Butterflies* by Mick Cochrane

One for Sorrow* by Mary C. Sheppard

Untamed (House of Night, Book 4 by P. C. Cast

Chosen (House of Night, Book 3) by P. C. Cast

Betrayed (House of Night, Book 2) by P. C. Cast

Marked (House of Night, Book 1) by P. C. Cast

Shelter Me by Alex McAulay (Is there such a thing as a negative asterisk?)

When You Are Engulfed in Flames* by David Sedaris

The Loud Silence of Francine Green by Karen Cushman

Memory Boy by Will Weaver

The King's Shield (Inda, Book 3)* by Sherwood Smith

Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Code Orange (Readers Circle) by Caroline B. Cooney

Thinner Than Thou by Kit Reed

Gone by Michael Grant

Floodland** by Marcus Sedgwick

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

The Summoning (Darkest Powers, Book 1) by Kelley Armstrong

The Last Centurion by John Ringo

Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear

Hammered by ELizabeth Bear

Death Wore White** by Jim Kelly

One for My Baby Nick Hornby

Cleavage edited by Deb Loughead and Jocelyn Shipley

Shelter Me is, I think, the worst book I have read for some time. It looked so promising - WWII setting, boarding school - that I bought in on a foray to my local big box book store. The author, an American, may have drawn upon the memories of his British parents, but as far as I could see did absolutely no research other than that. There were so many things that were just plain wrong, and when you combine this with an overwrought, melodramatic plot and a tin ear for dialogue (his characters just didn't sound English!) the result was an unholy mess. Can you tell I really didn't like this book?

So totals:

March:27
Year so far:63