Princess Lacer

Girl Lacer had yet another birthday party to go to today, this one was fancy dress, ‘Princesses and Pirates’, it was also the first party where I just dropped her off and left, which was probably a good thing, if I’d stayed any longer in the party girl’s gorgeous open plan, modern house I’d have literally been dribbling on the carpet.

So we had a quiet afternoon, as things are always quiet when Girl Lacer isn’t around.

When I went to pick her up again I was a little early so I went for a wander, I love nosing down streets I don’t normally go through and eyeing up the houses (I probably look like a burglar), much as I’d love the particular house I saw today, no way could we afford that for our next move, in reality we are probably looking at another flat, just with an extra bedroom and so (even though we will not be moving for quite some years) I had a little scout around the development behind the party girl’s house, a 60s development of blocks of flats, to distract myself from the gorgeous open plan house (I really am quite a house junkie). When we were house hunting in the area originally we actually saw one of these particular flats the same day we saw the flat (the one we live in) and if we hadn’t gone for our flat we’d have probably have gone for the other. Back then though when flat hunting we didn’t actually check out this particular development that much and although I still prefer the estate where we’re living now, there’s no way we could afford 3 bedrooms here but the other development we could (I’m presuming I’m earning money at that point), so to kill some time I had a wander and actually the development ‘we can afford in the future’ is actually really nice, I am really fussy about buildings, my worse nightmare would be living in some characterless Bovis type estate, I like character and preferably a bit of age but I would consider a well designed 60s flat (the ones I’ve been looking at) or a 30s flat (our current one) just as ‘old’ and characterful as a Victorian detached house. So anyway this development of 60s flats is actually a lot nicer than I thought, it really reminded me of the campus I used to live in as a graduate student and there was a nice feeling of community, I could definitely see us living there, so even though this is some years away (we really need Boy Lacer is school before I go back to work), I’m like a dog with a favourite rag in my mouth, when I see a development I want to live in I will not let go and you know most of the time I usually end up living there. There is one negative though, it’s across the border from us so in a different London borough, so if Boy Lacer ends up needing a statement he would have to have a new one when we moved and I’m not sure why but friends I’ve talked to have indicated that going through the statement process again is a ‘bad thing’, well lets hope (on many levels) he doesn’t need a statement.

See what extortionate house prices do to me, makes me blog about something that is actually years away!

The Sunday Salon – The Welsh Girl

I reckoned during last week’s Sunday Salon where I had started The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies that I’d finish it within a matter of days, as it was a nice, easy to read story, but of course life gets in the way of books, so apart from a few snatched moments reading at a cafe and outside a ballet lesson, I didn’t really get a chance to finish it until today.

So now I can give my final impressions, The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies is ‘nice’ (although the subject matter itself is not nice), set in principal in a Welsh village during the Second World, it tells the story of how the village responds to the arrival of prisoners of wars. Told from the viewpoints of Esther, a village girl, Karsten, a German prisoner of war and Rotherham an officer of German origin working for the allies, as with a lot of stories with differing viewpoints it can be a little piecemeal, I wasn’t totally sure what the point of the character of Rotherham was and he doesn’t feature for much of the story, I can only think that as someone who grew up in Germany but was working for the Allies he was meant to act as a bridge between the two sides of the story. The character of Esther, well I’ve heard alot of discussion recently whether male writers can write women and to be honest normally I don’t notice any difference, but Ho Davies’ portrayal of Esther did seem a little odd and at times I had trouble feeling sympathy for her. My favourite character though was Karsten, I thought he was really well done and I found it easy to be in the shoes of a German prisoner of war.

So in my verdict of The Welsh Girl as ‘nice’ where does it stand in my own personal Richard and Judy Bookclub rankings? To be honest I don’t think it was the best book of the lot, so here’s the final (as The Welsh Girl is the last of this year’s Richard and Judy list) list.

1. A Quiet Belief in Angels by R.J. Ellory – every page grips you, scares you and tears at your heart.
2. The Rose of Sebastopol by Katherine McMahon – a very close second, it is deeply and beautifully researched invoking the sites, sounds and smells of the Crimean War.
3. Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones – a lovely little story of bravery and island life, let down in my opinion by it’s final 20 pages.
4. Random Acts of Heroic Love by Danny Scheinmann – the description of the journey across Siberia is epic
5. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini – a very vivid description of life at a terrible period of time in Afghanistan’s history.
6. The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies – a nice readable story
7. Blood River by Tim Butcher – non-fiction so difficult to judge
8. Notes from an exhibition by Patrick Gale – just not my sought of book, far too ‘cosy’.
9. Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris – argh this is hard, I liked this book but Notes from an exhibition was more flawlessly written in my opinion.
10. The Visible World by Mark Slouka – I’m sorry, but for me this book dragged.

So in summary what did I think of this year’s Richard and Judy Bookclub list? Most of the books were really good and it was hard to judge between them, I only really did not like The Visible World and even that had some really beautiful scenes in, it was just the bits in between I had problems with. I can thoroughly recommend A Quiet Belief in Angels, The Rose of Sebastopol and Mister Pip plus A Thousand Splendid Suns and Blood River provide thought provoking insights into troubled parts of the world only seen briefly on news stations. Who do I think will win the British Book Awards Best Read of the Year? I’d like it to be A Quiet Belief in Angels, The Rose of Sebastopol or Mister Pip but I have a feeling it’ll be A Thousand Splendid Suns.

So now, ten weeks, ten books (actually I’ve read a few more than that), no more Richard and Judy to read, so it’s back to the Unread Book Mountain, which is a rather a nice feeling. I’m currently also mid-way through Stephen King’s On Writing, I’d heard so many good things about it over the last few months I had to read it. I still haven’t finished The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters and I’m not sure I will. I think what’s luring me the most is Sergei Lukyanenko’s Night Watch, now that looks good. Plus of course thanks to the Richard and Judy list I’ve got some new books to add to my ‘to be purchased list’ notably R.J. Ellory and Katherine McMahon.