Pirates, Buttons, Cairns and Whos

After the fabulousness that was The Graveyard Book, I've had a few clunkers.

I attempted to read "The Pirate's Daughter", a fictional account of Errol Flynn's escapades in Jamaica in the middle of the 20th century, by Margaret Cezair-Thompson. I should have read the New York Times review first. The characters were flat and uninspiring, and while the story was mostly believable, I gave up a little over half-way through.

Basic plot summary: Flynn indulges himself and the girl who has had a crush on him for years by sleeping with her, and then ignores her once she becomes pregnant. The first part of the book is leading up to this, and then moves on to what happens to the girl (and the baby). By that point I'd stopped caring. Errol Flynn is a distinctly unsympathetic character, and the girl isn't really bright enough to make smart choices. It was a Richard and Judy Summer Read, which should have meant that it was a swashbuckling romance (which is what it said on the cover). My overall impression was 'mundane soap-opera', sadly. Feel free to correct me if you've read it and it improves in the second half!

On the recommendation of some interwebbies, I got another of Neil Gaiman's YA books from the library: Coraline. It's about a girl who gets fed up with her parents and ends up getting going into a parallel world, where she has to destroy the universe's 'Other Mother' and save her real parents. I didn't think it was as well thought-out as the Graveyard Book, and I'm not going to put it in James' "to read" queue (he loves Graveyard, btw), but it wasn't bad. [Update, after writing this I've found the trailer/website for the new Coraline movie (warning - sound) and it looks much better than the book!]

I'm reading Elizabeth Goudge's "Middle Window" and had a funny thing happen. About 10 pages into the book, "Sarah" is introduced as the main character's "black Cairn". Her introduction comes with the description that she had 'eloped with the butcher's boy for 4 days' and had only just been found and brought back. Somehow this caused me to assume that a Cairn was some kind of turn-of-the-century English word for a particular type of maid. There is a brief mention of how she'd spent a lot of time eating sausages and was feeling rather worse-off for it, which is followed by a scene where she snuggles up to the main character's fiance during a long and dull car journey, both of which I thought were a little odd.

And then, somewhere around page 60 (while I was wondering where this mysterious black servant had gone to), Sarah appears again, curled up in a ball on the foot of the main character's bed, dreaming of chasing rabbits and as a result, emitting muffled barks in her sleep. "Ok," I thought, "this is one weird servant...WAIT A MINUTE...(madly flipping pages)...she's a DOG!"

For those of you who don't know, this is a cairn terrier. I think it was the use of the word 'eloped' that got me.

***

To get my David Tennant fix while Dr. Who is on hiatus, I rented the 2005 BBC "Casanova", an exceedingly camp miniseries about the famous Italian. As it was written by Russell T. Davies (who has also written the latest series of Dr. Who), I think I was expecting Dr. Who minus the aliens and with a bit more romance. It was...er...not that. I agree with some reviews on IMDB that the music was quite annoying - it seemed to be accentuating the camp-ness of the movie while not actually adding to it. And DT does NOT look hot with a mullet. REALLY not hot. Peter O'Toole was enjoyable as the Older Casanova, but I had trouble connecting the two Casanovas together. The miniseries was enjoyable, though, although I'm glad of several things:

1. I did not have to watch it with my parents (I love you Mom & Dad, but it would have been weird)

2. I did not have to watch it with commercials

3. I had my knitting (and am well on my way up the "left front" panel as a result of three extra hours of knitting)

4. I only had to pay £2 to rent it from the library (althoug this comes with the rider that BECAUSE it was a library DVD there was an epic scratch at the 4:30 mark that rendered it unwatchable and meant that I had to skip to "Chapter 2" and miss 5 minutes of backstory. As long as it was not Hot David Tennant Backstory, I'll be ok.)

5. I've now actually seen it and can move on to something else.

Oh, and Rupert Penry-Jones who I thought could slip into 'Ken-doll Evil Character' at any point during The 39 Steps, was the PERFECT Ken-doll Evil Character (as Casanova's nemesis). Muahaha.

Dr Who TrailerMaker

James found a gizmo where you can create your own Doctor Who trailers on the BBC Website:

Here's the trailer that James made - check it out!

I LOVE the BBC (almost as much as I love David Tennant). ::swoon::

Rain, rain, go away

Well, I've finished my first baby sweater. A friend in the US told me she was pregnant back in Feb/March, and I immediately got cracking on the sweater. The wool is SO soft - I loved working with it. It's in a box and will be winging its way across the ocean after I mail it on Monday. It's blue, but that's only because I really liked the blue wool and wanted to get started before I knew the gender of the baby. I've since found out that it's a girl..she'll just have to wear it with pink trousers or a bow in her hair or something. Or just happily wear the blue sweater.

I've now had a college buddy tell me that HIS wife is pregnant (and I already know it's a girl), so I have two rows of the front right section started, in light purple. It was a really fun sweater to knit, and everyone says the second time through is easier.

The weather has been horrible here - rain every day for what seems like months. Our basil plant on the windowsill had been getting a little out-of-control, so I made some pesto-cubes this morning. They're in the ice-cube tray in the freezer and will be put into a ziploc bag for future speedy dinners. It was so easy - the most taxing part was washing the blender. I used: a large pile of basil, 2 big handfuls of pine nuts, 4 cloves of garlic, and enough olive oil to make it all stick together. V. scientific recipe. Despite the bourbon bottle in the background of the picture below, there's none in the pesto.

Here's the post-pesto basil plant. Much improved.

Freda and Travis have come back from their holiday in France because of the rain - they were cooped up in the caravan for 3 weeks and couldn't face another 2. We went over to catch up with them this afternoon, and returned with some home-grown rhubarb. Apparently Travis' secret is lots of manure...the rhubarb loves it and grows like crazy. It was super-sweet rhubarb - with all the sugar and the crumble on top it was like candy. YUM. For dinner we had local sausages, local new spuds, and some 'bent and open' asparagus from the farm shop. Give me 'bent and open' over 'flown in and tasteless' any day. AND it was 1/2 price. It was eaten too fast for pictures - sorry!

Somehow I'm now the official webmaster of the newly created (I made it last night) Stowmarket Ringers website. It's in super-beta at the moment, but any comments would be appreciated. Web design is NOT my forte...oh well.

We watched the second of a two-part Dr. Who tonight - it was one of my favourites so far. The plot echoed The Time Traveller's Wife, and I felt like we saw a side of the Doctor that we don't normally see. He's usually so 'above it all', with constant reminders that he's not a human, but this episode fleshed him out a bit. It also left the door wide open for at least 10 more seasons, as far as I can see. Not a problem for me, especially if David Tennant stays on as the Doctor. ::sigh::

Dr Who Cake

The boys brought a tardis cake when they came round tonight - I loved it so much I had to take a picture. And post it.


It's funny, when I was a kid, we never watched Dr. Who. I remember it randomly being on TV and it being WAAY too scary for me, so then when I arrived here I didn't really want to watch it. It actually kicked off when C was here, and I figured it was a v. british thing to do with our Saturday evening. It was the first of a v. compelling 2-parter and that was it. I was sucked in. Now they're on hiatus for the summer (although I missed all the episodes from the autumn, so it's not too bad). I'm going through David Tennant withdrawal.

Random quiz (Wikipedia/IMDB NOT allowed): why ELSE might I find David Tennant compelling? (Other than the fact that he's fab as the Doctor and quite easy on the eyes...)

John's on a business trip tomorrow night, so I'm going to be having artichokes for dinner (he finds them too prickly but I LOVE them). I can't find my mom's recipe for the sauce so I'm going to have to ask her again...oh well.