Scotland: the beautiful bookshop

 When I was growing up, I could never quite understand my Dad's fascination with second hand book shops. To me, they were incredibly disorganised, higgledy-piggledy affairs, and I didn't know why you'd want to go into a bookshop where things weren't clearly labelled, and where you didn't know what you were looking for. Second hand book shops were, in my eyes, a delay to getting home, or wherever else we might be headed, because it was as though there was an invisible magnet that drew my Dad into any secondhand bookshop in the near vacinity. 

In my teen years, a second hand book shop opened up quite close to my home, and we would always pass it on the route to and from town. I remember the man who ran it, who had a giant beard - the kind that covered his mouth so it looked like he didn't have lips. I remember a friendliness between my parents & him, and cannot recall if that was because they knew him, or because they were such familiar faces in the bookshop that there was always an exchange of pleasantries whenever we were in there. I remember looking at this man with a new-found respect when I realized that somehow, on his old computer found amidst endless piles of books on his desk, he had some system of organisation to the books that appeared to me, to be completely orderless. To think that in his head, he probably knew 80% of the titles in his care seemed quite marvellous. 

Thankfully, as I have grown & changed, so too has my appreciation for second hand book shops.

On our return journey home from Scotland, we had a couple of hours in Inverness before we needed to head to the airport. Tim & Becky (who also seem to have access to the same invisible bookshop-magnet that my Father has) had spotted a great big second-hand bookshop when they had arrived in Inverness at the start of the holiday, and so that's exactly where we resolved to spend the next couple of hours. It turned out that we were a little too keen, and the shop didn't open until 10am, so we pottered down the road to a little cafe & consumed coffee, cake & smoothies until the bookshop opened.

Leakey's Bookstore is no ordinary bookshop. Thousands of books reside here, in this old, beautiful church and we did our very best to soak up as much as we could. We left our luggage next to the comfy sofas upstairs so we  could freely browse. And browse we did.

We crawled along on our hands and knees, inbetween bookshelves filled with row upon row of beautiful books. We breathed in the old familiar smell of books that have lived for more than the sum of our years, and revelled in the history set before us. Oh what fun we had. 

 {Becky & Tim browsing the extensive collection of books printed by The Folio Society}

Sadly, I was only able to buy one book as I was greatly restricted by luggage space, having only taken hand luggage on the plane. Becky,on the other hand, filled her arms with books until she was sure she could not fit in any more.

 {John & a wood burner + plenty of wood for the cold Scottish Winters}

If you ever find yourself with a few hours to kill in Inverness, this bookshop is a must (you'll find it on Church Street).

simple creations

A few weeks ago I found out that my oldest friend, who I have known since I was three, is having a baby. So I sent her a little parcel of baby-related goodies, and made a mini card. 

{when I sat down to make the card, the phrase ooh baby, baby came to mind from the song Push it by Salt 'n' Pepa, and I couldn't work out then, or now, if it's inappropriate & weird, but hey, I went with it anyway. Maybe if this was a singing card it would make it inappropriate....}

I don't know why I decided to make a smaller-than-normal sized card - maybe because babies are so small - but anyway, I needed an envelope for it. So I re-used an idea that I'd had for our wedding last year, where I made envelopes for the children out of an old children's book that I rescued from the bin at the school where I used to work.

So simple, but I like them. (Sorry if they cause offense to anyone who has a problem with me cutting up books, but I promise I don't make a habit out of this unless they're old & ripped & falling apart...)

Spain.

Hello friends!

John & I have just returned from a wonderful week's holiday in Southern Spain with four friends. Oh the fun we had. We stayed in an apartment at a golf resort, and the focus of our time was to enjoy the sunshine (30 - 37C most of the time), rest, read, eat & enjoy each other's company, which we did extremely well at.

 {from left to right: Tim&Becky, Jenny&Jack, John&Hannah}

  

{oh, blue, blue skies, I do adore you!}

{colourful entryway to a hotel}

 {Murcia}

 {making friends with the locals in Cartagena}

a few highlights...

water droplets sitting on eyelashes as we played in the pool

no thought about time, guided only by our tummies telling us it was time for food

boggle + bananagrams

uno + scrabble

reading, reading, reading 

sun + swimming + sea

eating al fresco every mealtime

coffee + ice cream

laughing until tears rolled

singing songs from the 90's 

(B*witched, UB40, Spice Girls, Britney Spears, D:Ream, M People - I could write a whole post on all of the memories I have linked with these songs, that came flooding back to me as we cruised the roads of Southern Spain, singing along to these old tunes.)

Oh, how I love holidays. Only two weeks until the next one!

hummingbird love

I got home today to find a package from Amazon on my doorstep. I was pretty sure I hadn't bought anything, but didn't completely trust my memory.

So, I got the most wonderful surprise when I opened the parcel to find this beauty inside. My mother in law knows the way to my heart.

I have The Hummingbird Bakery's last recipe book and I love it. Everything I have baked from it is delicious. I cannot wait to delve into the new delights in this book.

And the images & design - simply perfect. Hummingbird formations in arrays of colour scattered through out the book.

See what I mean? And I haven't even begun on the recipes. Oh, this is going to be an exciting addition to my life. I spent a solid 20 minutes thumming through the book with eyes wide open and wondered who I can distribute all of the cakes to that are now going to spring forth from my oven in light of this book.

The chapters are great celebrations of annual events & seasons, and there's even a chapter entitled Rainy Day Treats. I think there is a cake to suite pretty much any occasion you could think of in here. And when I say occasion, I mean from the smallest to the greatest. I see a Spring weekend as the perfect occasion to celebrate the simple things in life - particularly friends & sunshine. 

Here's to baking for celebrations of the little joys in life.

grey skies and stolen books

 

Dear Friends,

Sorry for my quietness at this little space this last week - it has been filled with lectures, studying, teaching and running by a lake taking photos of swans & toy animals. (Sound a little strange? Welcome to the world of teacher training in Bath.)

I am finding that I miss all of the good light during the day for taking photos to post - it is now the case that it is dark when I leave in the morning and dusk when I come home at night, which makes for poor photography.

 

Friday was a particularly grey day when the sky has looked ready to rain for the whole day. Normally I find the grey skies make me sad, but today, they did not. Today, I enjoyed watching the weight of the clouds shift and change until they relented to let the rain fall. I waited all day for the rain, and on my way home it finally came.

My day ended on Friday with a trip to the University Library. One of the wonderful things about Bath Spa Library is that it has a room especially dedicated to teaching resources for people like me who are trying to learn how to be a teacher. I have discovered their children's audio books, which I have started borrowing to listen to on the hour long journey to and from home and uni. Having finished listening to 'The Hostile Hospital', a Lemony Snicket story, I went in search of a new audio book. In the process of browsing the aisles of the resources room, I happened upon a lovely old orange book called 'Nonsense songs and stories'. The title alone was enough to allure me, and with a quick flick through the pages to discover simple pencil drawings reminiscent of old childhood books, I added Nonsense songs and stories' to my growing stack of books to withdraw.

There is a clever self withdrawal system at Bath Spa Library, whereby you can check-in and check-out any books you would like to return or withdraw. As I was merrily scanning my books, I discovered that Nonsense songs and stories was so old that it had been missed out when the university phased out the old-school date-stamping system and brought in electronic barcodes. Anyhoo, this story is going on for far too long. What I am trying to tell you is that I ended up inadvertently stealing this lovely old book - having intended on asking a librarian for help, I had carried on checking out all of my other books and popped them into my book bag. Nonsense songs just so happened to end up with all of the other books in my book bag. While I am sure the library probably won't miss this unassuming orange book, I will do the honourable thing and return it after I have enjoyed its contents.

come, sit awhile & let us read

On Wednesday, in our English class at university, we were thinking about children's literature. The first thing our teacher asked us to do was to think of a memory we hold of being read to as a child. We wrote down our memory of the name of the book, where we were at the time, and who was reading to us.

I have memories of books being an important part of our childhood. I say 'our childhood' because in some ways, it is impossible to separate my childhood from that of my siblings with whom I grew up with. No-one else shared the experiences we did together because they were unique to our family, and I love that. There were books everywhere in our home. I remember once, my older brother John, decided to count how many books we had. He stopped at 2000 I think. The books lined the picture rail in our hallway and every bookshelf had at least two rows of book per shelf. The memories I have of my Mother asking the question, 'has anyone seen my book?' are countless. She would walk around the house with her book & a cup of tea, rarely sitting down with them as she knew that if she sat down, she would get engrossed in the book and find it hard to get up. Still to this day, I am sure my Mother could quite happily live on a diet of books.

Even though books were a big feature of our lives, when I was asked to think of a memory of being read to, initially, only one memory came immediately to the forefront of my mind.

I remember our Mum reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe to John and I. We were sat either side of her, snuggled up in our parents' bed. I knew the story well, and I knew that at some point, the White Witch was going to appear and I still remember the feeling of fear in anticipation of her arrival. I remember thinking, 

'I don't know when she's going to come, but as soon as she does, I can hide under the covers, and I know that it will all be ok because Aslan will come and save the day.'

There was a deep comfort in knowing that Aslan would always appear in the story, just as I knew the White Witch always would. He was gentle, safe & powerful. I was amazed at my memory of the feelings I had experienced as our Mum read to us, not realising how deeply set in my memory such things could be. 

As I listened to the memories of my coursemates, I was reminded of other stories that featured in my childhood, which hadn't sprung to mind as I was trying to recall being read to; Memories of Hafferty Hamster, Millie Molly Mandy, Harry's Mad (our Year 3 teacher read this to us), Winnie the Pooh, Dogger, and so many other books that felt like true companions, allowing me to befriend them in my childlike way and read them over and over again.

I really do love children's stories & I hope for my collection of them to grow & grow, and to someday have children of my own to read to, that they might learn to love books too.

a lovely surprise

Parcels make my day, they really do. Especially unexpected ones.

It was such a treat to come home at the end of a busy week last week and discover a parcel waiting for me with the PanMacmillan publishing label on it. I knew it was going to be good.

Over the last year, I have been incredibly blessed to see many a parcel come through my door from PanMacmillan.

One of the unknown joys of being in a relationship with John is that, along with his wonderful self, I have acquired a whole new set of friends.

Becky is one of these wonderful friends, and every now and then, a new book arrives at her publishing house which she kindly sends my way. It just so happens that Becky works in the children's book department which means my collection of children's books has grown all the more steadily, thanks to Becky.

So, my unexpected parcel last Friday contained 'The Invention of Clouds' and a lovely note from Becky, saying that she knows I love the sky and all of the beauty it has to hold, and so when she saw this book she thought of me.

How blessed I am to have friends like these. Thankyou, Becky, for your thoughtfulness & books.

Now, I'm off to bed to read about the clouds before slipping into dreamland.

bathed in gold

These were taken mid-flight/walk. (Obviously I was not flying at the time, but 'mid-flight' has more of a ring to it than 'mid-walk'.) On the way home from school. Not to my home, to the children's home. On this particular walk home, we stopped off at the book shop, whose black and white striped canopy is featured in this photo, and I purchased a children's book called 'Sometimes I like to curl up in a ball.' Purchasing children's books has been a bit of a theme this week. My other purchases included:

I am too absolutely small for school. (Charlie&Lola)
Giraffes can't dance
The Night Pirates


Lovely.

red balloon

My plan for today was defeated before I had rolled out of bed. I had intended to take a trip to the supermarket at 8am in the hope that there would not be so many morose, dull-eyed shoppers at that time in the morning. However, having not got home from babysitting until 12.45am, the idea of setting my alarm for 7.30am on a Saturday did not appeal. Although to be honest, I did not need an alarm - I never really need an alarm - my body clock wakes me up at 7am or before pretty reliably regardless of the day of the week.

So instead I got out of bed 25 minutes before I needed to go out for breakfast - I had breakfast with 6 lovely ladies which was a wonderful affair. I then headed into Broadmead to try and get a cheap haircut. Boy do I dislike shopping malls. There's just too much stuff and too many people all bustling about. As I fought my way through the masses I wondered whether we will see a physical depletion in the number of shoppers when they finally realise that they cannot keep borrowing and spending money they just don't have. The economy cannot deal with this.

Anyhow, the cheapest hairdressers I could find was a no appointments place and my wait was going to be an hour, so I resolved to go and buy a magazine. I went into Waterstones and after a quick scan around the shop which failed to help me locate the magazines, I resolved to buy a book. There are only a couple of magazines that I would want to read - either about photography or running - and actually, I really don't particularly like buying any magazine as you read them a couple of times, and then they're discarded. I'd much rather pay a bit more money and get a book that will take me a lot longer to read and that I am happy to have on my bookshelves for a lifetime. So that's exactly what I did. I purchased Toxic Childhood. This is the product of three years research (and thirty years experience) of looking into the influence of contemporary culture on children's development. I am sure I will share little nuggets of information with you as I read it. (But don't hold your breath - I am reading another four books at the moment, and this one isn't top priority.)

Having had my hair cut by a lovely South African lady, I went outside to be greeted by the sound of incredible drumming. There was quite a crowd gathered round the performer so I went to take a look. The drummer was a little girl who looked about 7 or 8 years old. What a legend. Here parents then accompanied her - they were genuinely good. I was thoroughly impressed at this girl who sounds like she's been drumming since she was in the womb.


And this was one of the onlookers - I was rather taken by the photo opportunity this subject lent themselves to and wished once more for a super duper wonderous camera that allows me to do far more than my phone lets me.

Good post ctd...

This morning Jo and I were commenting that we hadn't received any post today, and that neither of us have had any exciting post for quite a while. Yesterday when the post came and I saw a handwritten envelope with handwriting I didn't recognise on it addressed to me so got all excited, only to find it was just a receipt for my FP fees. How disappointing. About five minutes after this conversation, there was a rat-a-tat-tat at the door and it was the postman with a parcel each for Jo and I and a postcard for me- oh how exciting!! This was the postcard:


A while ago I came across this website and what they're doing sounded like fun so I thought I'd join in. I simply had to send an e-mail requesting a postcard and I received one with a challenge that I have to do - everyone gets a different challenge. Once completed, I have to e-mail them a photo. How much fun is that?! Here's the challenge:

My parcel contained the book seen below, which I am very excited about reading - thankyou very very much, Mum and Dad, I really appreciate it.

There's a whole lot more that I want to blog about - it's funny how blogging goes through seasons of lots and little to write about. Maybe I'll post again before bed if I have enough time!

George Muller

I mentioned a while ago that I am reading a book about the life and works of George Muller, a man of incredible faith who saw God's provision in breath taking ways. I just want to share with you a little extract of what I read this morning that brought tears to my eyes at God's faithfulness. (I hope this is not illegal!)

At the end of November 1857, a serious leak was noticed coming from the boiler in one of the children's homes Muller had built. They knew it would take several weeks for a new boiler to be installed, and Muller was particularly concerned that none of the children should suffer the cold of winter. The quickest solution was to get the boiler repaired which required the brickwork around the boiler to be dismantled. The day after the boiler broke, a cold North wind set in...

'Muller knelt to pray:

'Lord, You know that I cannot put the repairs off. Dear Father, I ask for two things. Would you please change the North wind to a South wind; and will you give the workmen a "mind to work" as you did when Nehemiah rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem in fifty-two days because "the people had a mind to work"?'

On the Tuesday evening before the workmen were due to arrive, the north wind blew still; but on the Wednesday, the south wind blew, exactly as he had prayed. The weather was so mild that no fire was needed. The workmen arrived on cue, removed the brickwork, found the leak in the boiler and began to repair it.
At about half past eight on the Wednesday evening when Muller was going home, he was stopped at the lodge at the entrance to the Ashley Down homes.
'The head of the firm', the porter told him, 'which manufactured the boiler has arrived to see how the work is going and if he can do anything to speed things up.'
Muller returned at once to No.1 and went down to the basement to meet the boss and see how the work was going.
'The men will work late this evening' said the boss, ' and come very early again tomorrow.'
'We would rather, sir, work through the night!' said the foreman.
Muller remembered the second part of his prayer. God had certainly given the men a 'mind to work'!
In the morning the men completed the repairs, stopped the leak...and within about thirty hours had rebuilt the brickwork. Finally they re-lit the fire in the boiler.
And all the time the South wind blew.'

(To give you a bit more of a perspective, by this point, Muller had received £113,000 in donations that he had prayed in, over the course of 22 years. This was in the nineteenth century, so £113,000 was a far more spectacular amount of money then than it is now. In his lifetime, he never once made people aware of the needs of the children of the homes, or the financial needs he faced in order to build the children's homes, he simply prayed and saw his prayers answered.)

bloggingandbooks

Ok, so to give myself a wee push in the direction I want to go in terms of blogging, I signed up to Nablopomo which is basically encouraging bloggers of the world to write a blog a day for the month of November, and in the process, meet lots of other bloggers with similar interests, which I find quite exciting, but also slightly scary at the prospect of just how much more of my time this has the potential to eat up, so I must be disciplined!

This evening we had bookclub, which I always love. This week we were discussing our thoughts on My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. I love the way she writes and how it totally draws me in to feeling the emotions of not only the characters, but how I might feel if I were in a similar situation. To write a book that can cause you to sob is quite amazing, in my mind. I really like books that are emotionally involving, I suppose partly because of the way it takes the attention away from my own life for a little while, not that my life is in anyway bad right now, but there is something wonderfully cathartic about thinking about someone else's life for a little while. (Regardless of the fact that it's fictional.)

I'd love to go into more detail about the thoughts this book provoked in me and why, but I think that may well take a little while as I would need to explain the premise of the book first, to make the picture a bit clearer for you, and right now what I actually need to do is sleep. Maybe that's something I'll write about tomorrow.

fresh, fresh, fresh

So last Thursday was my birthday and it was a truly lovely day. I'd hoped to post the photos with this post but my friend still has them as they were taken on her digital camera.

One of my lovely presents was this wonderful candle. I had come across it in a beautiful shop called Sage which sells lovely lovely things. The smell of fresh linen is one of my most favourite smells in the world so to be able to capture it in a candle that can burn for 35 hours is simply exquisite. I could not afford to treat myself to the luxury of this candle, but I'd mentioned it in conversation at work, and one of my colleagues listened. So lovely.

I also got a wonderul array of recipe books. Even though I have only lived with my housemates for a few months, the fact that they bought me a Tessa Kiros recipe book, and 'The art of Chocolate' book shows just how well they know me. I'm so excited about cooking up some treats!!

Today has been my day off and I had the most leisurely morning that I've had in a long long time - I woke up at about 9am (which is virtually unheard of for me) then read in bed for an hour and a half. I love reading, I really do. Especially when it is a book that totally captivates your attention. I'm reading 'My Sister's Keeper' by Jodi Picoult and whilst she doesn't seem to hugely vary her writing style between books, I still love it. She's very good at capturing emotion to the degree that you feel like you're catching an element of what the characters - if they were people - would be feeling. But there's something more than that. Something which I can't quite communicate in the way I want to.

the rosebery residence

As I had suspected, I have had a blogging break inflicted on me, due to moving house, and t'internet taking slightly longer than was hoped to get set up. But we finally got there, and are online again, which is wonderful.

I am thoroughly enjoying my new home, which is most definitely a far cry from student living, and so feels more homely than my last house (which I must add, I did love). It really is beautiful, and I have had great fun in the tasks which most people would deem to be mundane - cleaning the floor, wiping down the working surfaces so there's not a crumb in sight, filling the house with the smell of clean washing (one of my favourite smells in the whole world), sorting the dead flowers from the alive ones then hanging roses upside-down to dry...I could go on.

Although I have been working since graduating, I have had a nice amount of time free, where I have indulged myself in the pleasures of reading, which I struggled to make time for while I was studying.

I've been reading Bill Bryson's 'Notes from a small island', and have been slightly unnerved at the accuracy of some of his observations of english behaviour, some of which, women are more predisposed to than men. For instance, he comments on how women behave when paying for something in a shop. I was stunned the other day when I found myself mirroring his description of this; Having stood for a while in a queue to pay for something, we women often act surprised when it comes to paying, then faff around for an age, trying to find the relevant card, while the far superior male approach is to have the money and card out of their wallet well in advance of paying. While standing in a queue the other day, I became aware that I was falling into this stereotype - it would seem that when standing in a queue, I am somehow taken into a trance-like state where I forget that I am even waiting to pay for something, hence the element of surprise when it comes to paying. Needless to say, when I managed to alert myself to the fact that I was fitting Bryson's description to a tee, I was quite proud of myself.

Then, to my dismay, I found myself on the verge of eliciting a second trait Bryson had identified: that of asking questions when you already know the answer. Bryson gives the example of being at a train station and seeing a queue of people all waiting to ask the guard if this is the platform for the 8.59 to Victoria. Having given the appropriate answer to the first questionning person, the next five people proceed to ask the poor guard the same question - it's almost as if the British public are deaf until standing a metre in front of the person-in-the-know, and have to be told face to face themselves before they believe what they have already heard. I was about to follow this path; having examined in careful detail all of the offers on shampoo and conditioner and established that nearly everything was buy one get one half price (identified by the bold red labels plastered all over the shelving stating this), I was still going to ask the checkout assisstant whether the items I was about to purchase were on buy one get one half price. It took a whole lot of muscle to control to restrain myself from uttering those words. Yet I still managed to elicit another of Bryson's identified traits in the process of paying for my items. There had only been two people in the queue in front of me, but the shop assisstant felt it necessary to offer me an apology for making me wait, so what did I do? I said sorry too. Why? because that's what we Brits love to do (either that or complain). I said sorry for waiting. Ah...I love being English!!

love

i am in love. But not with a man, with a book. Perhaps the most wonderful recipe book I've ever laid my eyes on. I discovered the delights of this culinary, artistic genuis just before Christmas and have invested in a copy. Who is this wonderful person? I hear you ponda. Tessa Kiros. A very cool lady with very beautiful children and very wonderful recipes. I bought her book called 'Apples for Jam', which has lots of recipes in it that characterised her childhood, that are fun to make for kids and are just very cool.

So, it's been a while since my last post, I know. I had a lovely time back in the Bay with the cool crew. We had some wild times on sing star - if you want to see some photos of me getting my groove on, check out katy's blog. Love it. It was great to see my siblings again, although with sarah quickly stepping into my shoes of chief-socialite of the family, and with john jetting off to Barcelona, we didn't have enough time together. Here is a photo of two of my siblings on our walk along Neptune's arm on Herne Bay seafront. Legends.

This week back in Bristol has been great. I've had the pleasure and priviledge of cooking for friends most nights of this week, and each time I have ended up cooking for about twice as many people as I had anticipated, which I love! I always want there to be enough food for one more mouth. I even had a twelve week old baby round! although he didn't eat at the table, he just sat and watched us eat, and got unhappy when he didn't get enough attention! Eating with friends is a wonderful thing. I think I have used that word a little too many times in this entry - sorry!

I have been writing this whilst listening to one of my medic flatmates 'percuss' a guys' lower torso. I am proud to say that I have already learnt to distinguish between the sounds - so I can hear the sound change between resonant and dull; when you percuss over a solid mass, like the liver, the sound is dull. Cool stuff.