Washing days and honeymoon nights

I have been catching up with office work and washing - the two items which always accumulate in great piles and double in size if I look away for five minutes. In this particular case, since we are going away again, the process will be repeated very soon. We managed to find time for a walk to our local pub, yesterday, The Fox, where we had a substantial roast dinner. It took longer to walk home, and when we arrived, we were both so full, we immediately fell asleep. I hope the outfit I bought for the forthcoming wedding will still fit me.

In between the office work, I finished A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon. As I said, it was very readable, and the sort of book that you decide to read just one more chapter before going to bed, washing up, etc. and then carry on and read more. Nevertheless, I felt there was a bit of a plateau somewhere after the middle, where basically things were going on, but they were more of the same. I felt that the climax could have been reached sooner. It will certainly stay in my mind, though. Which is more than I could say for On Chesil Beach by Ian McKewan, which I read about three weeks ago. To my shame, when the Reading Circle came to my house on Thursday last, I could barely remember anything about it. I suppose you could sum it up in a sentence - a honeymoon couple whose first night together turns out to be anything but marital bliss. The question is, should the sentence have been expanded into a novella. I suppose that’s the difference between a ‘literary’ novel and a ‘good read’. In the case of the former, (in this particular case, at least) the author has decided to put a situation under the microscope and examine it forensically. Despite the fact that I had forgotten much of it, it was summed up by someone at the group, saying there was ‘too much information.’ Yes, to be honest, I don’t want to read about someone’s honeymoon night in detail. That probably would apply equally if things had gone right instead of badly wrong.

In the meantime, sales of Tainted Tree are ticking over nicely and now, A Bottle of Plonk is on sale in the USA and anywhere else that uses Amazon.com, with its new cover and new title, Have Wine Will Travel. It’s also available from the American publisher, Virtual Tales, at the same price - 9.95 US dollars. Of course, you can still get the original version from us at Goldenford Publishers Ltd.