What a week! Finally back on the internet at the other end of the country. Just five more boxes of books (all on theology - how will I ever have time to read them?) to unpack (and a few other odds and ends).

Mr F and Rusk are adjusting well to the new place. The cats are somewhat bemused, but Esme has finally figured out how to jump stairgates so she is generally happier.

Those of you who pray, please remember us over the next couple of weeks as I am ordained deacon and start working here. Please also pray for these parishes!

Some time ago, an item appeared on the local news. The lease on a warehouse full of books had expired and the company had disappeared, leaving it full of books. The landlords were inviting the locals to come and remove any they pleased.

This sounded like something not to be missed. I have never looted before, although this was sanctioned looting so not quite the same thing. It was a depressing sight. I went on the second day. On the first day people had taken most of the shelves, discarding piles and piles of books into mountains on the floor.

Interesting dilemma: Can I tread on books? Even to get to other, better books? I overcame my scruples and did some scrambling to get a couple of gems I spotted.

I was hampered by a couple of things from making the most of this opportunity. First, I had Rusk in his pushchair with me. In order to make this less of a problem, I had brought two bookloving friends with me who had promised to take it in turns with me to mind him while the other two of us scavenged. This meant, however, that there were 3 people plus Rusk & pushchair to fit in the (quite compact) car before we even started to fit books in.

Nonetheless, the loot was worth it. I ended up with I think about 16 books. Some (Penmarric by Susan Howatch) I had been looking for, some I had wondered about and decided not to spend money on (Bravo Two Zero by Andy McNab, The Rotter’s Club by Jonathan Coe) and some completely new to me.

It was a bizarre environment. It was quiet, like a public library. People were concentrating hard. One guy (a book dealer?) had driven his transit van in and was stuffing it full. Others had brought suitcases. There were quite a few mums with pushchairs. Some were carrying the baby, while the pushchair was stuffed with books.

All in all a very weird day. Thinking back (this was now a few months ago), I still don’t feel quite right about the whole thing - not sure why. Nearly all the looted books that I have read have gone back into the system now via local charity shops.

We are moving soon.

The list of things to do is long.

The time in which to do them is short.

This does, of course explain why I am blogging at 11pm instead of getting enough sleep to be ready for tomorrow.

A question: who would have thought I would have 8 types of body lotion, especially when I don’t often remember to use it.

PS Rusk is 1!

I had a congratulatory comment from Mr F this evening (in person, not on blog) on having actually written something. Well, here is another one. Just routine reading round up, but what do you expect the week before the end of term? (Oh help! It appears that I finish college this week. Are they really going to ordain me in a few weeks? It would appear so).

RC25
(Read a couple of months ago, but lost under a pile of other books)
Dead Famous by Ben Elton
Now I love murder mystery, and I used to watch Big Brother (only the first few seasons, while it was cool… you know). This book is a fantastic murder mystery and cleverly captures the superficiality of the celebrity culture. Funny, tragic, unsettling. Ooh it was a good read.

RC26
Friends Like These by Danny Wallace
Danny seems to make a living out of being on slightly ridiculous quests. Here is yet another one. At times a little laboured, but still funny, it tells the tale of one man’s quest to get back in touch with his past before his thirties consume him.

On returning home yesterday I realise that I have forgotten three of the books I have read, not that it should bother anyone reading this too much, but just for completeness… you know…

RC22
The Bloke’s Bible by Dave Hopwood
Reflections on random passages from the Bible from the point of view of a bloke. Now, as you may have gathered, I am not a bloke. Nevertheless, I loved this book. Really refreshing take on church, theology etc. Nice bitesized chapters for last thing at night. I bought this for Mr F originally and he loved it and told me to read it so I would understand him more.

RC23
The Road Trip by Dave Hopwood
More reflections on random passages from the Bible from the point of view of a bloke. As good as the first one. I have used this for sermon illustrations.

RC24
The Rotter’s Club by Jonathan Coe
Not at all what I expected from the cover. This is one of those books where the cover art and title really gripped me and I’ve been wanting to buy it just on that basis since about 2002. Yet another coming of age novel, this time set in the 80s(?). Nice link in with the events of the time (IRA bombings etc.), and quite gentle pace. I was not particularly struck by any of the characters. This was another looted book.

Hmmm if I can read one more book in the next ten days, my average will be up to 5 per month. Is this desirable?

Ah, yes. Lent has now been over for quite some time, it being Ascension day tomorrow. This whole not-blogging thing turns out to be quite addictive. I have been doing various things that may be blogged at a later date, but here are some brief highlights.

Rusk will be 1 in a couple of weeks. Where did that year go? He is now an experienced crawler (read ‘fast’) and spends most of the day practising standing up. Mr F is getting into being a house-husband and he and Rusk are having a whale of a time while I am stuck in my little study trying to write stuff for my dissertation.

There will be posts to come on knitting, vestments (maybe even with pictures), moving and many more things. I think the important thing is to concentrate on the books though.

RC 13-16
So you want to be a wizard
Deep Wizardry
High Wizardry
A Wizard Abroad
All of these by Diane Duane. Books from my childhood I unearthed over Easter. Pretty classic children’s fantasy.

RC17
The Biographer’s Moustache by Kingsley Amis
A free book from my booklooting (post to follow) expedition. Wouldn’t have read it otherwise, but it was quite entertaining. Kingsley Amis is one of those authors I had always meant to read and never got round to. This is a book all about character development and class. I love his use of language and the pictures he paints of upper class England.

RC18
Friendly Fire by Patrick Gale
Coming of age novel set in an English public school (loosely based on Winchester). Told through the eyes of one of the few female students, it relates the story of a group of kids growing up together, discovering and exploring sexuality, occasionally going out into the real world, but mostly set within the school.
I loved it. It has a feeling of Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris about it, but is much less creepy.

RC19
Debutantes by Charlotte Bingham
Utter rot. This was another free book. The implausible tale of three debutantes who just happen to become friends during their season. A subplot of humiliation and revenge. The most annoying and shallow character I have read in a long time. Just don’t bother.

RC20
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
Absolutely loved this book. Told through the eyes of three women several decades apart. Compelling opening - a small girl seemingly abandoned on a ship going to Australia. The stories of the three women are very cleverly revealed. A very sad story.

RC21
Magician’s Apprentice by Trudi Canavan
Trudi’s 7th book, the first in the prequel trilogy to the original Magician’s trilogy. Fairly predictable, but I love this world so loved reading it. Despite what it says on the cover, it really isn’t a good introduction to the series. You need to read the original trilogy first.

I’m sure I’ve left some out. I will go home and scrutinize the pile of books next to my bed and see which should also be on the list.

I’ve now completely dropped off the list of recent posts so it must be time for a brief round up.

I’m meant to be knuckling down to work on my 25000 word dissertation, but things are slow going at the moment. We are starting to get ready for the move to St North’s. Rusk is nearly 10 months and almost crawling, although I’ve been saying that since before Christmas. The vestments are pretty much all made, just waiting to be paid for and so waiting for my diocese to send me the money. One of the cats worried us last weekend by disappearing for 3 days. She was back by 5.30am on Monday morning though. That is about it on the news front.

I have been indulging in a fair amount of reading recently:

RC 8 - Robin Shelton - Allotted Time. The subtitle says it all really: Twelve months, two blokes, one shed, no idea. Great diary of two blokes trying to grow vegetables. Very funny.

RC 9 - Victoria Hislop - The Island. Very interesting novel centring round one family’s links to a leper colony. Thoroughly recommend this.

RC 10 - Quanta A. Ahmed MD - Invisible Women. This I think was a free e-book in the library thing early reviewers scheme. If not, I don’t quite remember where I downloaded it from. Autobiographical account of one woman practising medicine in Saudi Arabia. The cultural and religious detail is fascinating and her journey into deeper understanding of her Muslim heritage is moving.

RC 11 - William Styron - Sophie’s Choice. Now I am fairly sure this book counts as proper literature. I didn’t particularly enjoy the book, but I can see that it is very cleverly written. I think the reason I didn’t enjoy it is that I wasn’t really interested in the narrator’s story, just in the flashbacks to Sophie’s story. Anyway, I got to the end of it, mainly thanks to a very long train journey where the only alternative was reading journal articles for my dissertation.

RC 12 - Eoin Colfer - The Supernaturalist. A cut above the Artemis Fowl books, which I love. Reading this makes me think that Colfer might actually do a pretty good job on the next Hitchhiker book. While not quite as quirky as Douglas Adams, he has a good balance of dark and light and a pervading sense of doom which might work well. The characters are drawn sketchily, but still seemed real. Very good sci-fi.

I should NOT be blogging, rather I should be writing a sermon. However, things are increasingly busy (who would have thought I would find a social life?) so I thought I would stick a quick post up to get some things out of my head.

So, I have been reading quite a bit. In brief:

RC3 - The Folklore of Discworld. Christmas present. Fantastic. Like the APF (annotated Pratchett file) but written by someone with access to PTerry. Looking at all the folklore which has inexplicably crossed dimensions from our world to the Discworld.

RC4 - The Shack. Yes, I finally succumbed to it. Although not the most literary thing I have ever read, it was a pleasure. The story chugged along nicely (was going to say happily, but actually little could be further from the truth) and I really enjoyed the Christology embedded in the narrative. Nice to have a different perspective on things. Doctrine is really much easier to grasp through story. There were times when it was rather trite and the characters might not always have the full three dimensions, but it is worth reading.

RC5 - Nation (Terry Pratchett) Another Christmas present. I think this is one of his best books yet, certainly his best young adult book. I have told my sister (an English teacher) to read it because I think she will be teaching it before too many years are gone. Note: this is NOT a Discworld book. This is set in a world very, very similar to our own.

RC6 - Valley of Strength (Shulamit Lapid) This was a free book I got in the LibraryThing Early Reviewers giveaway. It is a new translation (first in English I think) of an Israeli classic. It is about a young Russian Jewess who arrives in Israel sometime at the end of the nineteenth century (I think, may be the early twentieth - I don’t have my copy to hand to check). The book describes her struggle to survive and raise a family in a harsh environment. It was a good book, but I don’t think I would ever have read it if it hadn’t been free. At times it was repetitive and I could really have done with a glossary and a character list. As a love story it was good, but there were times when I wanted to shout at the characters: just TALK to each other and things would be so much simpler.

RC7 - The Way of Shadows (Brent Weeks). Impulse buy this week. I was in Waterstones looking for a new fantasy trilogy and this one inspired me. It was really rather good, but horribly dark, being about assassination. Fairly classic hero journey, but good characters, compelling universe and nice use of magic. I did lose Thursday though since I couldn’t put it down once I started.

OK I must focus. I’m into the big stint of writing my dissertation so I probably won’t be around here much until after Easter, unless procrastination strikes.

On two occasions in the past week, I have attempted to be extremely practical and fallen at the final hurdle.

The kitties had finally destroyed the old catflap so I bought a replacement then discovered it needed new holes drilling in the door. We bought a drill* and I set to work. The varnish on the back door is very dark so I couldn’t get a pen to make a mark on it. There was no masking tape in the house so I couldn’t use that. In the end I measured  from the other side and figured out roughly where the holes went. Holes successfully (well almost - there are two holes on one side - oops) drilled, cat flap inside part wedged into pre-existing hole, cat flap outside part lined up outside and screws ready to screw in. 20 minutes later, I still can’t figure out why the screw won’t catch on one side and I have to call Mr F. Turns out screws are too short. Why couldn’t I realise that? Then I would have actually managed some solo DIY.

Today I tried to change the windscreen wiper on the car. Again, after several minutes struggling with it I had to admit defeat. Turns out I was pulling when I should have been pushing, or something. Ah well.

On a practical level, I am doing better than the other female occupants of the house. The cats have not taken to their new cat flap at all. Seph will come in, but not go out. She has spent most of the day standing by it in the hope it will magically change back to the old one. I guess they will get fed up eventually and just decide to use it.

In other news, Rusk has FINALLY cut the tooth that has been causing him bother for 3 weeks.

* mmmmm a power tool of my very own

Ooh loving the new dashboard. Thanks to the Wibsite people for the upgrade. Not that any of you can see any difference of course.

This morning there was no snow outside our house, the 2 inches that had fallen in the night having disappeared. Without really thinking, I put my new shoes on (black ankle boots with a 2 inch chunky heel) and drove to college. Turning into the college drive, I realised that the snow had not melted here and there was a good covering on most surfaces.

A word of advice: don’t try to carry a laptop, a baby and assorted other paraphernalia across snowy ground while wearing new shoes. While we all survived the experience, it was not pleasant, particularly going down the slope towards my study.

On with the day. I need to bring together my current thoughts on my dissertation and share it with the MA group at 12.