First Day Back at School

Posted by: ann on: 2 September 2009

• In: boaz & moriah | books | israel | thoughts
• 9 Comments

… which means the traffic to work will be horrendous – getting to work in 10-15 minutes the past six weeks has been a joy – now it’ll be back to the 30-45 minutes stop start stop start… yawn yawn yawn 

Jonathan just sent me the pics and, of course, proud booba had to share.   The exciting news is that they’re all coming to London in a few weeks for the whole of Sukkot.   Originally I was going out there with my mother after the chagim (the jewish holidays) but when they suggested coming here I was over the moon.    I shall be there again in January anyway for the birth of number three.   Sorry, I blog so infrequently that I don’t think I got round to mentioning that exciting piece of news.   In February there’ll be another special trip, like the one I took earlier this year, and PG I’ll do it again.   We’ll likely visit different sites, but no doubt we’ll meet with the same angels and certainly the same victims of terror and their families to see how they’re getting on.

I feel a bit strange doing this rambling post, as it’s been so long.   I’m stuck at home carless, since it’s gone in for a service and altho’ they offered me a courtesy car I couldn’t be bothered and thought I’d make the most of a day at home to make my honey cakes and kugels.   As usual my home will be turned into Hotel Raven over all the festivals, but I wouldn’t have it any other way; I love it when they all come to stay.

Book Club is still going strong.  I wasn’t enthralled with George Eliot’s pontificating in Daniel Deronda.   If I had managed to get that far I’m sure the Jewish element of the book would have fascinated me as it was quite something for a sympathetic viewpoint to have been written in Victorian times – however after 300 pages and nothing happening, I confess to giving up.   I don’t need the book for the knowledge it imparted, since that is marked in the archives of history and I know it well.   Last night’s offering was Anita & Me by Meera Syal.  This received mixed reviews mostly by those who criticised the writing style, which I had to agree was over-anecdotal and the description in parts was over-laboured.  However I could forgive that because the book was semi-autobiographical and offered a good insight into the life of a young, bright, mouthy Asian girl brought up by well-educated and aspiring parents, the only coloured family in a small 60’s Midland’s mining village.  Many regard the book as filled with humour, but it’s a bittersweet story and I think the humour used is a defence mechanism against a backdrop of desperately wanting to grow up and be like, and be liked by, her peers (“What do yow wanna be when you grow up chuck?”   “Blonde!”) and her introduction to racism, both when she learnt about her parent’s struggles with partition and the dawning of racism in her village during the Enoch Powell years of “Paki-bashing”.   The ending sadly was a big disappointment.  It was like a fairytale, which I will not give away, miles away from the substance and depth of the book, and there is a depth to it.   I know it’s a bugbear of mine, but why oh why, when I’ve enjoyed a book so much, do they always end so poorly?    Next month’s read should be a hoot – Bill Bryson’s Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, so watch this space!    I won’t go into everything I’ve read recently – enough’s enough!

Next week I start a new writing course and I am absolutely terrified!   Although I love poetry, and I do need all the help I can get, the first part of the lesson is fiction – I used to think I had a book in me – in fact I think everyone probably does – but I lack discipline and motivation and am easily tempted away when someone says do you wanna do lunch or go shopping and my penchant for certain cop shows is a major distraction.      A hobby is a hobby; my blog is as brave and as far as I’m prepared to go at sharing.

Did anyone see the latest adaptation of Wuthering Heights over the weekend?   Sorry, did any Brits?    It makes me want to revisit the novel, because I don’t remember hating Heathcliff as much as I did this time and how could Cathy not want the charming and handsome Edgar… and and and what about that scene in the coffin… ach!   I didn’t know that the ‘wuthering’ of the title is a Yorkshire word for turbulent weather.   This version was not true to the story but for all that it was a pleasant diversion for a bank holiday weekend.  

Right back to the Kenwood –   I’ve just taken one cake out the oven and it’s burnt – I was on the phone and I could smell it, but still waited for the oven to beep – duh! 

 

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