The calm after ...

The house is quiet. I do enjoy a bit of peace after social things. M has buzzed off to help out a cousin with some voluntary technical stuff. I have just browsed the Archers’ website and see that everyone is back – being either witty and clever, or sometimes rather murderous – but generally entertaining. It’s as if addicts can’t wait to be back behind the screen after a couple of days of turkey and stuffing – stuffing themselves, that is.

We had a relatively quiet day yesterday, but went to a neighbour get-together on Christmas Eve and spent Christmas Day with my brother-in-law and friends. He - M’s brother – whilst following in the family tradition of being a Male Chauvinist (person) is nevertheless, unlike his older brother, a very good cook and entertained us royally with turkey and all the rest of the frills. We took a very extravagant chocolate cake with us, but had to bring half back as Bro-i-L said he would never eat all of it on his own. So yesterday, we had slices of choc cake; chocolate truffles; chocolate liqueurs and I still raided my secret supply of chocolate buttons. We did go for a short walk and possibly walked off the effects of one champagne truffle each. New leaves will be called for shortly.

I finished off the Reading Circle book, by Anita Shreve, very quickly. I didn’t care for the title – Eden Close – and it would not in itself have prompted me to read it. Was the title meant to be ambiguous? – it sounded like a location, not a person’s name. I was also prejudiced against it immediately because, like Tenderness of Wolves, it was in the present tense with strays into the past. It’s something I rarely do, with the possible exception of a short story, where I’m occasionally more experimental. I’ve heard it said, ‘It’s so immediate.’ Frankly, I don’t feel that way - I find it distracting and I have to work at ignoring it. There is a tradition of writing in the past tense – after all the present becomes the past immediately – and you have perfect tenses and plu-perfect to place the story further back into the past.

Having said that, once I got on to the relationship between the main protagonists, I was hooked; it really did have, for me page turning qualities, and a very satisfying build-up towards a climax. There were parts of it which were very sensitively written with insightful demonstrations of people’s genuine emotions and we mostly stayed in the head of the main character, got to know him and appreciate his personality. A genuine good read in my view. Now I’m reading a non-fiction book, The 43 Group, about people who fought fascism in London in the post-war period. My cousin was one of their number, hence my interest.

But having had a lazy morning, I’m debating whether to go to Guildford and see what the sales have to offer. And return some trousers that were too tight – and that was before Christmas.