Do jugglers furnish entertainment?
My car has barely been driven since March, and that's only been a handful of trips to the supermarket or the office, so I ended 2020 with a road trip round the bay to Port Fairy. Lunch on the red volcanic rocks at Southcombe beach, watching surfers bob up and down in the turquoise swell; a swing around the Tower Hill nature reserve on the way home, lake full after heavy spring rains and dotted with black swans.
The year started yesterday with a storm and just after lunch today the sky blackened to twilight on a summer afternoon and stormed again. Read this imagining heavy rain and a constant low growl of thunder as a backdrop.
I thought I might try to do the Friday Five meme this year (not necessarily on a Friday). This week:
1. What was the best thing about 2020?
Given that we were in a global pandemic, I'd say the best thing was me and my family and community not getting it.
2. What lessons from 2020 will you carry into 2021?
How adaptable people and organisations can be.
Some people are brilliant in a crisis and others would be happy if we all died.
The advice "avoid it like the plague" is useless, because it turns out the plague is very hard to avoid.
3. How did you spend your New Year's Eve?
My mother and I had a roast dinner and watched an episode of Agatha Christie's Criminal Games. Non-stop party action.
4. Legend says what you did at midnight on New Year's Eve/Day is what you'll do all year. So what did you do?
I believe I was playing Merge Magic. So I'm doomed to play that for a year? That... sounds about right.
5. What are you most looking forward to in 2021?
In the wider scheme of things, I hope the vaccines work.
Personally, I always start the year thinking of several small projects to work on. I've got plans for some bread, a short course to do for work, a cross-stitch turtle to make. Oh, and I have a subscription to a monthly cheese box (a Christmas gift). I am very much looking forward to getting four cheeses sent to me every month.
Not aiming too high, obviously.
And finally:
December books read
A big reading month as I tried to get to fifty books for the year. Did it with a day to spare.
* How to Read Water: Clues and Patterns from Puddles to the Sea - Tristan Gooley (2016) ★ ★ ★ ★
This book promises that you will learn to read water to navigate like the ancient Polynesians. I don't think I'll take to the open water in a canoe based solely on what I've learnt here, but it's given me food for thought on beachside walks.
* Four Days' Wonder - AA Milne (1933) ★ ★ ★ ★
Well, this was a rum little book. Eighteen-year-old orphan Jenny Windell makes a surprise return to her family's old home, now leased to strangers, where she finds her estranged aunt dead. Jenny promptly does everything someone who finds a body shouldn't do, including wiping clean the potential murder weapon, leaving her monogrammed handkerchief in the room, and hiding when the current occupants return. Knowing this makes her look guilty, Jenny goes on the run, with the help of her best friend Nancy. Fortunately Jenny and Nancy remember their childhood games of being spies, and are more than capable of coming up with multiple disguises, fake identities and ciphers to go on the run until the crisis is over. The first half of the book is a riot as the girls outwit the police, the press and everyone else they come across, but it loses pace as some wild coincidences bring the adventure to an end with several hanging threads.
* The Secret - Lorna Hill (1964) ★ ★ ★
This turned out to be the final book in the Sadler's Wells series, but was clearly preparing the ground for a new cycle of stories: name-checking old favourite characters while establishing new ones. This begins with a devastating earthquake that leaves two babies orphaned - but which is which? And mild, ballet-adjacent melodrama ensues.
* The Night of Fear - Moray Dalton (1931) ★ ★ ★
A guest is stabbed during a game of hide and seek at a Christmas party; an extraordinary number of investigators weigh in. There's a sensational trial, illicit romance, and a weirdly understated unexpected death. For most of this novel, my rating was veering between three and four stars: three because I was frustrated with the number of characters and the lack of development of most of them, four because it raced along at a cracking pace and I gobbled it up. I settled on three as I found the ending a bit abrupt - but that risks understating how much I enjoyed it.
(I've been reading a lot of Golden Age detective novels this year, and this one, like many of the others, would be amazing filmed.)
* The Belgrave Manor Crime - Moray Dalton (1935) ★ ★ ★ ★
A psychic investigator (!) named Cosmo Thor (!) is concerned when he finds that an acquaintance who wanted to talk to him has gone missing; on her trail, Thor himself is hospitalised after a car accident. This kicks off an unofficial police investigation into an abandoned house, a sinister set of society people and some genuinely nasty crimes. This was an absolute romp; I dropped a star because (a) the innocent governess was way too much of a sap and (b) there was no need at all to blame growing up in Haiti for the chief suspect's interest in the occult.
(I was super-pleased with myself for guessing who the ultimate Big Bad was. Not working it out logically; just knowing, with utter clarity, about halfway through. Perhaps there's more to the work of Cosmo Thor, psychic investigator, than I thought.)
* The Strange Case of Harriet Hall - Moray Dalton (1936) ★ ★ ★ ★
Plucky young orphan Amy Steer is unemployed and soon to be homeless when she finds an advertisement in a newspaper personals column looking for her. She finds she has a well-off but eccentric aunt who invites her to stay in the country, but when she arrives there, her aunt is missing...
I liked Amy a lot (despite her extreme gullibility at the end) and was sorry we didn't get to spend more time with her. I was way less interested in the other characters, who were all fairly terrible people, and thought the final twist ending wasn't well handled. Still, the book rattles along at a fair old pace and has a few genuinely surprising moments; a good holiday read.
* A Short History of the World According to Sheep - Sally Coulthard (2020) ★ ★ ★
A short and informative look at how sheep have shaped human history (mostly British).
* The Dark is Rising - Susan Cooper (1973) ★ ★ ★
Eleven-year-old Will Stanton finds he is one of the Old Ones, a group of people with mystical powers who protect the world from the Dark in an English folklore-inspired tale. I missed reading this as a teen, which I'm sorry about - I would have loved it. Older me found the Good versus Evil story a bit simple, although the writing is beautiful (and several cuts above Narnia and Harry Potter).
The year started yesterday with a storm and just after lunch today the sky blackened to twilight on a summer afternoon and stormed again. Read this imagining heavy rain and a constant low growl of thunder as a backdrop.
I thought I might try to do the Friday Five meme this year (not necessarily on a Friday). This week:
1. What was the best thing about 2020?
Given that we were in a global pandemic, I'd say the best thing was me and my family and community not getting it.
2. What lessons from 2020 will you carry into 2021?
How adaptable people and organisations can be.
Some people are brilliant in a crisis and others would be happy if we all died.
The advice "avoid it like the plague" is useless, because it turns out the plague is very hard to avoid.
3. How did you spend your New Year's Eve?
My mother and I had a roast dinner and watched an episode of Agatha Christie's Criminal Games. Non-stop party action.
4. Legend says what you did at midnight on New Year's Eve/Day is what you'll do all year. So what did you do?
I believe I was playing Merge Magic. So I'm doomed to play that for a year? That... sounds about right.
5. What are you most looking forward to in 2021?
In the wider scheme of things, I hope the vaccines work.
Personally, I always start the year thinking of several small projects to work on. I've got plans for some bread, a short course to do for work, a cross-stitch turtle to make. Oh, and I have a subscription to a monthly cheese box (a Christmas gift). I am very much looking forward to getting four cheeses sent to me every month.
Not aiming too high, obviously.
And finally:
December books read
A big reading month as I tried to get to fifty books for the year. Did it with a day to spare.
* How to Read Water: Clues and Patterns from Puddles to the Sea - Tristan Gooley (2016) ★ ★ ★ ★
This book promises that you will learn to read water to navigate like the ancient Polynesians. I don't think I'll take to the open water in a canoe based solely on what I've learnt here, but it's given me food for thought on beachside walks.
* Four Days' Wonder - AA Milne (1933) ★ ★ ★ ★
Well, this was a rum little book. Eighteen-year-old orphan Jenny Windell makes a surprise return to her family's old home, now leased to strangers, where she finds her estranged aunt dead. Jenny promptly does everything someone who finds a body shouldn't do, including wiping clean the potential murder weapon, leaving her monogrammed handkerchief in the room, and hiding when the current occupants return. Knowing this makes her look guilty, Jenny goes on the run, with the help of her best friend Nancy. Fortunately Jenny and Nancy remember their childhood games of being spies, and are more than capable of coming up with multiple disguises, fake identities and ciphers to go on the run until the crisis is over. The first half of the book is a riot as the girls outwit the police, the press and everyone else they come across, but it loses pace as some wild coincidences bring the adventure to an end with several hanging threads.
* The Secret - Lorna Hill (1964) ★ ★ ★
This turned out to be the final book in the Sadler's Wells series, but was clearly preparing the ground for a new cycle of stories: name-checking old favourite characters while establishing new ones. This begins with a devastating earthquake that leaves two babies orphaned - but which is which? And mild, ballet-adjacent melodrama ensues.
* The Night of Fear - Moray Dalton (1931) ★ ★ ★
A guest is stabbed during a game of hide and seek at a Christmas party; an extraordinary number of investigators weigh in. There's a sensational trial, illicit romance, and a weirdly understated unexpected death. For most of this novel, my rating was veering between three and four stars: three because I was frustrated with the number of characters and the lack of development of most of them, four because it raced along at a cracking pace and I gobbled it up. I settled on three as I found the ending a bit abrupt - but that risks understating how much I enjoyed it.
(I've been reading a lot of Golden Age detective novels this year, and this one, like many of the others, would be amazing filmed.)
* The Belgrave Manor Crime - Moray Dalton (1935) ★ ★ ★ ★
A psychic investigator (!) named Cosmo Thor (!) is concerned when he finds that an acquaintance who wanted to talk to him has gone missing; on her trail, Thor himself is hospitalised after a car accident. This kicks off an unofficial police investigation into an abandoned house, a sinister set of society people and some genuinely nasty crimes. This was an absolute romp; I dropped a star because (a) the innocent governess was way too much of a sap and (b) there was no need at all to blame growing up in Haiti for the chief suspect's interest in the occult.
(I was super-pleased with myself for guessing who the ultimate Big Bad was. Not working it out logically; just knowing, with utter clarity, about halfway through. Perhaps there's more to the work of Cosmo Thor, psychic investigator, than I thought.)
* The Strange Case of Harriet Hall - Moray Dalton (1936) ★ ★ ★ ★
Plucky young orphan Amy Steer is unemployed and soon to be homeless when she finds an advertisement in a newspaper personals column looking for her. She finds she has a well-off but eccentric aunt who invites her to stay in the country, but when she arrives there, her aunt is missing...
I liked Amy a lot (despite her extreme gullibility at the end) and was sorry we didn't get to spend more time with her. I was way less interested in the other characters, who were all fairly terrible people, and thought the final twist ending wasn't well handled. Still, the book rattles along at a fair old pace and has a few genuinely surprising moments; a good holiday read.
* A Short History of the World According to Sheep - Sally Coulthard (2020) ★ ★ ★
A short and informative look at how sheep have shaped human history (mostly British).
* The Dark is Rising - Susan Cooper (1973) ★ ★ ★
Eleven-year-old Will Stanton finds he is one of the Old Ones, a group of people with mystical powers who protect the world from the Dark in an English folklore-inspired tale. I missed reading this as a teen, which I'm sorry about - I would have loved it. Older me found the Good versus Evil story a bit simple, although the writing is beautiful (and several cuts above Narnia and Harry Potter).