23 days

Some days I wish Fionn had less interest in maths.

Today I bought a book for my Dad. Which means I have bought presents for the big bad day for both of my parents. They are the ones whom I feel honour bound to observe traditional Christmas practices for. They have a lovely house full of everything I can imagine they could want and I rang Dad earlier today and didn't pick up any hankering for garden plants so a book it had to be. Mountain Men.

So we were in town and I found Mountain Men and decided my quest for something good whatever good means was over. But the other bookshop in town would have it also and back home I had a 30% discount voucher for them. Being an evil petrol guzzling disorganised faded, overgrown chick who is rapidly turning into a broiler, I drove all the way home and collected the discount voucher and bought the book at another shop. I wondered if that was bad too as how could you make any profit with a 30% discount plus shop overheads to pay?

Also, just to show that marketing works, I bought a child's book with another 30% voucher. I found the story of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and bought it for Fionn. For in a number of days that I am not prepared to repeat. I cannot remember anything about the actual story except that the idea of a flying, sailing car grabbed my imagination as a child and I still think of it as we trundle slowly across Arthurs Pass once or twice per year. I still think of it when Fionn speculates how far we would have to drive to get to London.

For us adults, all two of us who have to pay taxes in this household, I have a wee stash of book money in the UK and this week we get to choose a book each and order it from Amazon for our very own Christmas treat. Thank you Tania for your offer of help to make this happen. I read this morning that Margaret Atwood has a new book out on the history of debt. Being a sunny side up kind of girl, this took my fancy.

More on books. The Margaret Mahy book I've been reading is actually a book about her and her writing by Tessa Duder. Margaret Mahy: A Writer's Life. I'm enjoying it and realising how very erudite and clever and wise she is in her communications with adults as well as children.

When I've finished that then I have a recent Rose Tremain book to read from the library. It is set in modern England and I'm looking forward to it. My friend Elizabeth and I went to hear Rose Tremain talk just before we left London. At the end I told her I was moving to the West Coast where she had set her book The Colour. She paled in her enthusiasm rather obviously. Visiting is quaint; leaving London for such hicksville significantly less so. I guess she couldn't handle the rain. What a wuss.

I can handle the rain. Pinot Noir is my favourite method at the moment. My children will not get overflowing bags of tat from their mother for Christmas because she has spent much of the family's money on red wine and fish and chips. Isn't it a shame how social welfare is underfunded and overworked? Mothers who make insufficient sacrifice in order to teach the merits of capitalism and endless consumerism to their offspring really ought to be dealt with more severely.


hahahahahaha. We've got a tory government and they're threatening to shut public services down in order for some idiot to go through each budget line by line. So far they've got to our local hospital board and to our beleagured local forestry and the options look bad. measly shutting things down not-at-all-positive kind of bad.

Back to books. Our book group has reorganised our bookishness and stopped belonging to the Book Discussion scheme and stopped meeting at the pub and now we share each other's books and host meetings at our houses. Once each per year. An enormous amount of discussion has been devoted to the expectation of nibbles and to the protocol of drink. So how bourgeoise (sp?) can I be(come)?

No I didn't get out into the garden today. Yes I am grumpy.