Does anyone know whether hiatus is spelt properly? My spellchecker thinks it is, but I am not sure.

I have had a lovely few days with Daisy. She tried to teach me to knit, but it turned out that I already knew. I couldn’t remember anything until I had the needles in my hand and then my Gran’s lessons came flooding back. So, in among all the other things I fill my time with, I am going to try my hand at knitting socks. 2 rows down, about 300 to go. It all seems very mathematical and straightforward. I also got Daisy to help me pick suitable yarn for my next crochet project so I have that to do as well. This is all very well, but I really should be doing some Greek revision and writing reflections for college.

Anyway, the next visitor is arriving tomorrow to see the kittens (who are getting almost cat-sized) so I ought to think about meals, bedding etc. It really is all go. We’re still eating flapjack from Greenbelt – I may have made too much.

The kittens have now forgiven me for going to Greenbelt.

One of my most regular commenters (Daisy) is staying here and making comments in person rather than on the blog so I am reciprocating by talking to her rather than blogging (mostly).

(Daisy is waving to everyone)

I’ve just read the most amazing book: The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. An alternative title could be: The Jesuits Do Sci-Fi. It was really thought-provoking and sad, while being at the same time a gripping story with wonderful characters.

As you might expect, I am in The Tank at Greenbelt, using my half an hour of free web access. I have a horrible clacky keyboard and a mouse with no scroll wheel, but at least all the letters are in the right place on the keyboard, unlike the last internet cafe I blogged from.

A question: Given that I am spending most of the weekend in a field with tens of thousands of other people, why do I feel that I am somewhere with so much space and peace and quiet? The atmosphere here this year has been lovely, quite low key and generally relaxed. There seems to be plenty of time to get everywhere and do everything that I want. Very nice.

So, looking at the title I put up, why is this year the year of song? I’ve spent at least an hour of each day singing along with enormous crowds of people, whether at the Iona Big Sing or at Beer and Hymns or Taize, or at some other thing that I don’t now recall. I think that is what I’ve missed in previous years. There is something particularly wonderful about belting out the golden oldies with a pint of beer in hand. If you listened very carefully, you could hear the sound of the temperance movement guys gently spinning in their graves.

So this, at this point, is what I have to say about Greenbelt. There may be more to follow when I am not on a clock and have the leisure to look at my notes (I got distracted and thought I was in college and needed to take notes).

It was lovely to see you all at the wibmeet, although I was slightly disappointed that we didn’t have a video link-up to Australia.

Right, I’m off to go and see something or meet someone or other.

What with one thing and another, I realised that I only have a few days of holiday left to amuse myself without reference to other people. What should I do, I thought this morning. I have been cycling for a year now (on and off), but always when I have needed to get somewhere, usually college. I have never really been for a bike ride just for the fun of it. Perfect opportunity then.

I researched a route (not very thoroughly it turns out), took a map of a large circular cycle route and worked out which bits I could do (actually only about a mile of it, but I did two of the link bits). It was largely based on a disused railway line (always good: steam engines don’t like hills and I don’t either) and my Mum reminded me that blackberries often grow alongside railways so I took a box and bag along too.

Starting with a slight detour to see a friend, I set off happily at 10.30. By 1pm I had left Borders (I may have got sidetracked) and was on the way. Getting out of the city involved negotiating pedestrianized areas, a very steep hill (downwards, thank goodness), a park, subways, industrial estates and sundry other obstacles. It transpired that yes, small children, you can cycle faster than me. I am quite happy plodding along slowly.

The cycle path was all it should be, complete with assorted sculpture (why?), information boards, platforms left to go to ruin and even a tunnel. There were many, many blackberries. At one point I stopped at pub and ordered a half of the beer with the most interesting label. I may not have been paying attention because it was cider, but very nice all the same.

My chosen route was a little longer than I was intending (Mr F has just plotted it on Google Earth and it turns out I cycled 29.1km, which in imperial measurements is A Long Way.

Now I have to go and get sorted for Greenbelt. Hmmm… Greenbelt and blackberries… I’m sure that rings a bell.

I made a cake today, containing a large quantity of dried fruit. The recipe specified amounts for raisins, sultanas and currants. Now while I knew that currants are made from dried (black?)currants, I was not sure about the difference between raisins and sultanas. I looked into it and thought I would share.

In brief: raisins are dried grapes. Sultanas are a type of raisin, seedless and golden in colour.

For more see Wikipedia on raisins and sultanas.

If more practical testing is necessary to comprehend the difference, make sure you are at the Greenbelt wibmeet and we shall have to hope there is some cake left for me to bring.

The kittens are having a really hyper-scamper day today for some reason. I am worn out from extricating them from small places into which they should not be going. They also staged an impressive silent commando raid on our bedroom and dashed off with a Marks and Spencers receipt. Normally this would not be a problem, but I had just wrapped up about a dozen of those little plastic things that hold price tags onto clothes inside the receipt. I’m sure the exercise of scouring the hall looking for little pieces of plastic was good for me.

The toy of choice for today appears to be the catflap. They have been running at full speed in and out for most of the morning, culminating in managing to get through both at the same time. Of course, they now get to sit on the sofa and have a nap for as long as they please while I am not supposed to sleep during the day.

Perhaps the butter for my fruit cake will have softened by now.

About a month ago, I was getting ready to go on holiday and deciding what books to take. Since I was travelling with my sister (an English teacher and therefore keen on books and reading and suchlike activities), we agreed to take books to swap.

We were away for a week. I read so many books that my eyes started to hurt, a wonderful feeling, but not one to be repeated too often.

First up was Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris. Now I haven’t really enjoyed Joanne Harris books before. Chocolat was ok, but too short to get in to properly. G&P was a wonderful book, quite how wonderful only becomes apparent towards the end and I won’t spoil it by revealing why. It is a split narrative, dealing with two separate time periods at a minor public school. There is an element of thriller, but the characters are what stood out for me. With the benefit of hindsight, I should have realised what was going on long before the end. A book to be read carefully and savoured. Incidentally, I bought this for a pound at my local Amnesty bookshop.

At this point in the holiday we were still on the plane and not yet landed in Croatia. While we settled into the apartment and got used to the heat, I decided to tackle a non-fiction book. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson was, (if I remember correctly which I am now not so sure that I do), a birthday present that I saved for holiday. Some of Bryson (Notes from a Small Island, Notes from a Big Country) I find laugh out loud funny, some I find merely amusing. His autobiography of childhood was, for me, merely amusing. Perhaps it is because I have few reference points to 1950’s small town America, it just didn’t seem that good. Make no mistake: it was a good read and I am glad to have put aside the time, but I won’t be reading it again.

Now we come to the real treat of the holiday: Priestess of the White, by Trudi Canavan. Have you Australian wibloggers heard of her? She is an Australian fantasy writer whose first trilogy, (The Magician’s Guild, The Novice, The High Lord), I read earlier this year and really enjoyed. P of the W is the first book in a different trilogy, set in a different, though similar world. Told from the point of view of various characters from different races, this is the start of a war between the Gods and their mortal representatives. I’m looking forward to the next in the series, but Mr F gets first go at it. What sort of fantasy is it? More Robin Hobb than Tolkien, better than Raymond Feist (particularly his later stuff). Trudi is not as mean (yet) to her main characters as Robin Hobb, so I found it much easier to read.

I had one novel of my own left to read, but at least three more days of holiday. What was I to do? Our intention was to spend a lot of time doing nothing and then resting. Croatian tv was pretty awful, although they were showing a Miss Marple every morning (one of the new ones with Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple). I started on my sister’s pile of books. I think this was the day that she spent fifteen hours asleep so I read quite a lot and the next two books sort of blurred into one.

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon. Funny book about a disfunctional family.
So many ways to begin by Jon Mcgregor. Serious book about a disfunctional family.

That is a bit mean of me actually. They were both really well written, well observed and compelling. However, when I read novels, I read to escape, preferably into a fantasy world or into a nice happy real-life situation. They just weren’t the sort of book I wanted at the time.

In order to stop me reading all night, I had been restricting myself to non-fiction in the evenings. As I have mentioned before, last year at Greenbelt I bought God’s Politics and it has sat by my desk or by my bed ever since. I managed to read about half of it while we were away and I really should finish it since it is very good indeed and has some sensible, essential even, things to say about faith and politics. The gist of the book, or at least an introduction to it, can be found if you download Jim Wallis’s talk from Greenbelt last year.

Getting a bit desperate for reading matter at this point. The available options included Hamlet (my sister is teaching it next year and had brought it to work on while I was doing some Greek revision) and Middlemarch, but I really don’t like reading Shakespeare and George Elliot felt a bit too worthy for holiday reading. I opted instead for The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald since it was one of the ones on the BBC Big Read list from a few years ago that I am still to read. (Middlemarch is on there too, but sshhh). At least it was short. Seminal it may be, ground-breaking even, but it did not appeal at all. The characters were mostly monstrous and I just couldn’t bring myself to care what happened to them.

Finally, the last day of the holiday and I had saved some supreme chick-lit for the final morning by the pool and the flight: A Sense of Belonging by Erica James. I like Erica James’s books, although there is not usually a huge amount of depth to them. This one was set in a new, exclusive housing development in Cheshire (not far from where I grew up, so it has the feel of home) and deals with the new residents getting to know one another, falling in and out of love, dealing with tragedy and so on. Not particularly true to life (how many people these days even bother getting to know their neighbours?), but cosy and undemanding.

On the train on the way back from my sister’s house I read a Maeve Binchy: Whitethorn Woods. I shouldn’t have bothered, it was one of those ones where she introduces a new character each chapter who all turn out to have something in common: lack of depth being one of those things.

There you have it, holiday by reading matter. Since I have returned, I have finished off Forest Mage by Robin Hobb, reread a Susan Howatch and probably done a few more things.

This is what I was looking out at while reading by the pool. In the distance you can see Dubrovnik.

Incidentally, I notice that I completely forgot about my first anniversary of blogging here, but today is a year and a month since I started. Somehow it seems much longer. It has been lovely.

Congratulations on getting to the end of one of my longest posts ever. Go and have a cup of tea.

I have just got 5 stars in my first Amazon marketplace feedback. I’m so proud, words fail me. Sadly, I only made about 80p on the book so my idea to increase my book buying power by selling some unwanted ones has a long way to go yet.

Jack, what was your entry into the holiday competition? I don’t think your comment made it, unless it was the country not known suggestion, in which case you did win.

I have spent most of the last two evenings gazing at one of my greatest heroes – Stephen Fry weekend on BBC4. How on earth was he persuaded to do so many interviews? It was wonderful.

So Greenbelt sent me a little white flat-pack box along with my wristbands this year. Apparently I am meant to use the box to depict my version of heaven in ordinary.

I don’t know what my vision of heaven in ordinary is. I was hoping to find out… by going to Greenbelt.

I am confused, perplexed and flummoxed.
Any ideas?

I have just had a thought – if I get no further ideas, I shall just paint it green, thus denoting liturgical Ordinary Time.

Do I decorate the inside or the outside of the box?

I am writing this blog post using the new text entry system which Rhys recommended to me. Thank you Rhys!
Instead of typing, I am using the mouse to zoom into letters which appear on the right of the screen. The letters then get copied onto a text box and I can edit them later. The really clever part is that it predicts what I want to write next to enable me to write quite fast.
The idea is that I will able to blog using only one hand when the kittens are sitting on me and I can’t reach the keyboard very well.
Here is a link to the project’s website.
Right, I must go and attend to dinner.