Friday, September 28, 2007
Dino's Vino
September 29th. 2007
One of the reasons for the lack of blogs has been the allotment. Whenever the weather has been pleasant enough and work has finished early enough, I have been at the allotment. I realize that to some extent the challenge of taming it, digging the entire area and removing all the deeply rooted weeds, is as important to me as crop production. In a way the crops even get in the way of proper digging and I shall be glad when they are finished for the season. The exception of course are the soft fruit which luckily are in an area where there is very little deep rooted weed. The raspberries are rather unexpectedly producing a crop now in the early autumn row. As a result of the digging I often leave for home as it begins to get dark, tired and hungry and as often as not, slightly tipsy, from Dino's homemade wine. This wine hasn't got the finest flavour but it packs a punch and is a great catalyst to conversation and I'm sure that it will in due course help me to converse in Italian when I get round to learning it. So, what with one thing and another, I don't feel too energetic when I return home and the blogs can wait until autumn/winter.
Another reason for not producing blogs has been the lack of response from the reading public. I had expected some challenge at least about the lists but perhaps they are perfect and nobody wants to offer a better alternative. With no response at all, I even wonder if anyone at all reads them though I had thought they are really an open letter to family and friends.Perhaps inthe end they will just be a sort of diary mainly about the allotment, food ,what I am reading and a few random thoughts thrown in. I read recently about a parrot that had learned to have a sort of conversation in English with a research worker who considered that the bird used words appropriately and could even count (up to four, I think). Unfortunately the parrot has died, but because of the Monty Python parrot sketch, it would be impossible to take this story seriously. When I watch birds whizzing around in pairs or even in large groups I find it difficult to imagine that they are not communicating in some way. It can't just be chance that makes them fly to the same place, stop at the same time or head for the same distant destination for the evening. I don't think they can just be following the leader.
There has been a conspicuous absence of food in the detective fiction I have consumed in the last few months and the detective fiction itself has been rather disappointing. After The Hot Kid I thought that Up in Holly's Room would maintain the same high standard, but I was sadly let down. The Silence of the Grave by Arnaldur Indridason was an o.k police procedural but that genre is really rather boring unless the cop(s) offer something different from the normal. That's why Andrea Camilleri's are such a good read- lots of food, action away from the crime scene, an interesting and sympathetic type as the central character and a pleasant warm country. The scandinavian and Icelandic thrillers/police procedurals are often rather gloomy and grizzly with lots of tape around the crime sites with corpses extracted from the cold cold earth. I'm giving them up.
I did enjoy Arturo Perez-Reverte's "Queen of the South" even though the heroine remains elusive until the end. I kept waiting to hear more about her and felt it must happen soon but it never did and in the end --well I won't tell you in case you read it it yourselves. It wasn't anything to do with detection but was very much to do with crime as a way of life.
"Don't Cry for me Aberystwyth" featuring the Aberystwyth Private Eye Louie Knight was the least successful of Malcolm Pryce's series.
I am on the point of departure for a week in Nimes so the likelyhood of losing any weight in the next week is nil. What is odd is that the weight is is the same within a few ounces of how it was when the blog was first started over a year ago. I have of course not made any attempt to actually lose any weight for a long time but it strikes me as odd that it hasn't risen.
Regular entries will resume on my return.
One of the reasons for the lack of blogs has been the allotment. Whenever the weather has been pleasant enough and work has finished early enough, I have been at the allotment. I realize that to some extent the challenge of taming it, digging the entire area and removing all the deeply rooted weeds, is as important to me as crop production. In a way the crops even get in the way of proper digging and I shall be glad when they are finished for the season. The exception of course are the soft fruit which luckily are in an area where there is very little deep rooted weed. The raspberries are rather unexpectedly producing a crop now in the early autumn row. As a result of the digging I often leave for home as it begins to get dark, tired and hungry and as often as not, slightly tipsy, from Dino's homemade wine. This wine hasn't got the finest flavour but it packs a punch and is a great catalyst to conversation and I'm sure that it will in due course help me to converse in Italian when I get round to learning it. So, what with one thing and another, I don't feel too energetic when I return home and the blogs can wait until autumn/winter.
Another reason for not producing blogs has been the lack of response from the reading public. I had expected some challenge at least about the lists but perhaps they are perfect and nobody wants to offer a better alternative. With no response at all, I even wonder if anyone at all reads them though I had thought they are really an open letter to family and friends.Perhaps inthe end they will just be a sort of diary mainly about the allotment, food ,what I am reading and a few random thoughts thrown in. I read recently about a parrot that had learned to have a sort of conversation in English with a research worker who considered that the bird used words appropriately and could even count (up to four, I think). Unfortunately the parrot has died, but because of the Monty Python parrot sketch, it would be impossible to take this story seriously. When I watch birds whizzing around in pairs or even in large groups I find it difficult to imagine that they are not communicating in some way. It can't just be chance that makes them fly to the same place, stop at the same time or head for the same distant destination for the evening. I don't think they can just be following the leader.
There has been a conspicuous absence of food in the detective fiction I have consumed in the last few months and the detective fiction itself has been rather disappointing. After The Hot Kid I thought that Up in Holly's Room would maintain the same high standard, but I was sadly let down. The Silence of the Grave by Arnaldur Indridason was an o.k police procedural but that genre is really rather boring unless the cop(s) offer something different from the normal. That's why Andrea Camilleri's are such a good read- lots of food, action away from the crime scene, an interesting and sympathetic type as the central character and a pleasant warm country. The scandinavian and Icelandic thrillers/police procedurals are often rather gloomy and grizzly with lots of tape around the crime sites with corpses extracted from the cold cold earth. I'm giving them up.
I did enjoy Arturo Perez-Reverte's "Queen of the South" even though the heroine remains elusive until the end. I kept waiting to hear more about her and felt it must happen soon but it never did and in the end --well I won't tell you in case you read it it yourselves. It wasn't anything to do with detection but was very much to do with crime as a way of life.
"Don't Cry for me Aberystwyth" featuring the Aberystwyth Private Eye Louie Knight was the least successful of Malcolm Pryce's series.
I am on the point of departure for a week in Nimes so the likelyhood of losing any weight in the next week is nil. What is odd is that the weight is is the same within a few ounces of how it was when the blog was first started over a year ago. I have of course not made any attempt to actually lose any weight for a long time but it strikes me as odd that it hasn't risen.
Regular entries will resume on my return.
