Jun
30
2009
5

June books

31qw3n4vt8l_sl500_aa180_One-Hit Wonder by Lisa Jewell is a really nice read. Ex-popstar Bee Bearhorn is found dead in her flat. Only three people turn up at he funeral, and none of her family make an appearance. However, a few weeks after her death her estranged half-sister turns up to collect her belongings and there starts a bit of investigation into Bee’s death. As time goes on family secrets are revealed and a different side to Bee comes to light. I enjoyed this book. It was light-hearted with nice characters, but not too trite.

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51kjcmswhvl_sl500_aa240_When he was 21 years old Bear Grylls had a bad accident when he was parachuting and crushed three vertabrae. Just two years later he decides to climb Mount Everest. Facing Up is his story of this epic, dangerous and awesome journey.

I have to admit that I am a bit of a fan of Bear Grylls, apart from the fact that I think he is utterly lickable, I also think he seems like a really nice bloke. This certainly comes across in this book and he is both clever and compassionate but also an extremely determined man. One of the things that struck me about this book though is his very quiet faith. He often talks about his relationship with God and I found it terribly endearing, especially when he commented on the awesomeness of the mountains and puts his relationship with God into this context. Knowing that God created him as much as he created the mighty mountains.

A lovely book, very inspiring and a cracking read. There are also a number of stories about wee and poo, most of which were revolting but they made me laugh!!

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41dwy4911zl_bo2204203200_pisitb-sticker-arrow-clicktopright35-76_aa240_sh20_ou02_The Olive Farm by Carol Drinkwater is her memoir of a love affair with a Frenchman, but also her love affair with a rundown olive farm, Apassionata, in Provence. Carol Drinkwater is an actress who has appeared in many TV shows and theatre productions, but I wouldn’t know her if her saw a picture of her. However, I love her style of writing. She is honest about her failings and fears but most of all I loved how reading this book made me feel. Even when it was raining outside I started feeling the warm sun on my face, the taste of olive oil on my lips and the smell of herbs in the air. I loved it.

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51l0jfdndzl_bo2204203200_pisitb-sticker-arrow-clicktopright35-76_aa240_sh20_ou02_Just after I finished the last book I picked up The Olive Harvest by Carol Drinkwater. It is actually the third book in this series, I haven’t managed to acquire the second one which is called The Olive Season.

This book is 12 years on from the first one and Carol and Michel return to their farm Apassionata. They are still tending their olive trees but they also acquire a some beehives. This book was kind of a sad one in some ways. Michel and Carol have got married and they have a car accident which leaves them with minor physical injuries, but for Michel the mental scars remain. He makes the decision to spend some time alone in his flat in Paris, and much of this book is about Carol’s feelings of loss and guilt as it was her driving the car.

I thought this was another great book and can’t wait to find the second one… even though that is a bit back-to-front!!

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517uw2zmkol_sl500_aa240_The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies is a slightly strange book. It feels like two different stories somehow crammed together in one novel. The first story is about a young welsh girl called Esther who happens to live near a prisoner-of-war camp, and a young German soldier who is incarcerated there. The second story is about a a Jewish refugee who is working for the British government and is sent to interview Rudolph Hess.

Somehow this book didn’t really work for me. I didn’t think the stories themselves were that great and the characters didn’t grow on me as much as I hoped they would. Disappointing really.

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417v3dsf4tl_sl500_aa240_Eden by Tim Smit is the story of the inception and creation of The Eden Project in Cornwall.

This book was fascinating. I am absolutely desperate to visit the Eden Project and The Lost Gardens of Heligan (Smit’s project prior to the Eden) and I am hoping that I might get to go next year. This book was a bit heavy in places, going on and on about the problems they had with funding, building permissions etc. but then I realised that those elements of the story are what makes it such an awesome project. It is not only the size of the place, but the size of the inspiration and the vision that Tim Smit had to have to think of something so nuts!!

It’s a great book. We need more people like Tim Smit. People who are visionaries, slightly mental and who want to make a difference on a grand scale.

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51ub-ihcfll_sl500_aa240_Narrow Dog to Carcasonne by Terry Darlington on CD kept me entertained over a few hundred miles driving.

It is the true life story of a journey from England, over the English Channel and through the waterways of France down to Carcasonne. The story was written by pensioner Terry, who along with his wife Monica and their thieving whippet Jim made this epic journey in a traditional narrow boat!! The book is absolutely hilarious in places and one of the moments that had me cackling with laughter was when the author described his dog Jim wearing his life jacket and looking like a Liquorice Allsort.

Brilliant book to listen to and the guy who was reading it had the most wonderful voice and did the most fabulous accents. Lovely!!

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41eugt7mcsl_bo2204203200_pisitb-sticker-arrow-clicktopright35-76_aa240_sh20_ou02_That Certain Age by Elizabeth Buchan is a story of two women who are stuck in a rut. Siena is a 21st century woman who is married to a lawyer and she has too many options available to her. Should she move to America to continue her career, should she have a child etc. She seems unable to make a decision that benefits both her and her husband.

Barbara lives in 1959 and is married to Ryder who is an airline pilot. Her life is equally constrained by choice, but unlike Siena who has too much choice, she doesn’t have any. She is in a marriage in which she isn’t exactly unhappy, but she doesn’t feel especially fulfilled.

This book was kind of strange. It didn’t really go anywhere. The characters were nice enough but the storylines were poor and it didn’t really rock my boat. I didn’t love it, but neither did I hate it.

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41hdp90906l_sl500_aa240_To My Daughter in France by Barbara & Stephanie Keating is a fab and fascinating book.

When Richard Kirwan, an Irish academic dies his children find out about another daughter he has in France. They have no idea who she is and have never heard of her before. The book is set in 1970 and in 1942 and flicks seamlessly between these two time periods. What unfolds is a story of the war, the resistance and true love. It involves two families, secrets that cover generations and true bravery.

I really loved this book. Thought the story during the war was very moving and sad and the horror and confusion when the children find out about each other was well-written. I was also interested to see that this book was written by two sisters. One who lives in France and the other who lives in Dublin. I wonder how they split up the writing. Did one write the 1942 story and the other the 1970 story? If so, it is very hard to see that it is a collaboration by two different people.

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41jgwuwu8wl_sl500_aa240_Since I Don’t Have You by Louise Candlish is a book about Rachel and her two best friends Mariel and Jenny. They have three girls between them who are the same age and are copying their mother’s by having a close friendship. The expectation is that they will grow up together and will go through life as friends. However, at the age of six Rachel’s daughter is Emma is killed in a road accident when she is returning from a school trip. Full of grief Rachel takes herself off to her mother’s childhood home of Santorini and there she begins the long process of dealing with her grief.

This is a lovely book dealing with tough subjects and it is beautifully written. It really made me want to visit Santorini and see what it was like, but more than anything this book brought home just how tough it is to lose a child.

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4196brqemsl_sl500_aa240_The Pact by Jodi Picoult is about a teenage couple called Emily and Chris. Their families live near each other and they have known each other their whole lives. One day Emily is found dead, shot, apparently by Chris. However, he is adamant that it is is a double suicide pact that never reached completion.

This is a classic Jodi Picoult novel. Court based legal drama with a few twists and turns. It was ok, but not one of her best books.

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Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized | Tags: ,
Jun
29
2009
5

Loss

img_0034Somehow when I was younger I had an idea of how my life would pan out. I thought it would all turn out OK and pretty much as expected. Today has been one of those days when I realise that life isn’t like that. It bears no resemblance to the picture I had in my head, and in fact it is almost the exact opposite. Instead I have to watch my sister fulfilling that dream.

I have lots of good things in my life but today all I feel is loss. Loss for the dreams I had when I was young and loss for a relationship with a God who I believe actually gives a shit about what happens in my life. Loss.

So instead, I consoled myself with good friends, wine and tennis. That’ll have to do for today.

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized | Tags: , ,
Jun
24
2009
8

Church, community and Bernard

Tonight could be interesting. I have been asked to lead our small group (which is called Bernard!!) and we are following through the book The Purpose Drive Life by RIck Warren. The topic I am leading on is “You Were Formed for God’s Family” and it is basically about the church. Kind of an interesting topic for me to attempt to address.

Now, let me be clear. I really dislike this book. I hate how shallow it is, how trite and twee and how it is a bit like ‘your-life-will-be-fine-if-you-follow-all-these-steps-to-happiness’. However I realised that it did have a few good points to make, and as I am leading the discussion tonight I can steer it a little in the direction I wish it to go.

So, I read through the chapters of the book, then I read a little of Henri Nouwen’s book Compassion and some of Alan Jamieson’s book A Churchless Faith. Finally I decided to do a word search on my blog for “church” and “community”. I knew I had blogged a lot on these subjects but I hadn’t realised quite how much.

Reading back through some of my posts I started to realise just how fundamental both church and community are to my life, and they are not necessarily part of the same thing. My craving for authentic community seems to overpower the need for church, and yet church can be part of this authenticity. I guess that my journey form a charismatic evangelical church through to not going anywhere, and finally finding my way back into formal church has been exceptionally important. My desire to be in fellowship with God’s family is vast, and yet the understanding that this needs to be meaningful and honest now takes precedence over turning up for the sake of it.

These days I feel as though I have been able to separate myself emotionally from parts of my previous journey. I am able to talk more objectively about what happened and recognise my own failings in the story. Now, I hope to be able to be more honest, authentic and generous with my feelings, with other people as well as with myself. I hope that tonight we have a productive session. One in which I can share parts of my story without it overwhelming the whole evening. I hope I am able to bring a different slant to the ideas of church and community and what that could mean for all of us.

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized | Tags: , , ,
Jun
20
2009
1

Sex… or lack of it

In today’s Guardian weekend magazine there is an article entitled My Year Without Sex by Hephzibah Anderson. It is an extract from a book she wrote about her decision to go a year without sex (oooo a whole year!!). I was fascinated with this article and especially her complete and utter preoccuptaion with the whole subject. For her, going without sex meant she had to dress more chastely and somehow be less of person that she was before.

There was one quote that made me giggle though. She said

“When I signed up to this year, I couldn’t resist thinking of all the things I’d have the time and energy for without sex and its breathless pursuit to occupy my spare hours. I’d write a novel, I’d learn Italian, I’d take up Pilates.

I mean… just how much time did she spend having sex? She must have been at it day and night in order to replace all that time with other things.

It’s an interesting article, and I think in many ways it exposes the culture we now live in. So much is sex-related. The media seem to suggest that if you aren’t having it, in as many different ways as possible with different people of different sexualities then you aren’t normal. The reality is that there are millions of people out there who choose to abstain from sex, either until marriage, or until they meet the right person. It doesn’t make the author of this article more special and different, but it is a reflection of society’s obsession with sex that makes it newsworthy.

Choosing to have lots of sex or choosing to have none are equally valid choices, but I do wish that the latter was given more importance (or at least as much) than the former. Without the issue of sex being a defining issue in relationships people have to learn to relate on more intimate levels. Animals have sex, but do they truly relate? It is almost too easy to jump into bed with someone without knowing who they are, their passions, desires, fears and hopes and character. For some sex might be a simple physical act, but I believe it is a whole heap more important than that.

By the way, some people reading this might think I am a prude but those who know me will know this is far from the truth. Later in the article the author says,

“During the course of this year, I have become attuned to other needs: the longing for true intimacy, the desire for a connection capable of enduring across distance and time. I have also let myself go. I’ve left my legs unwaxed and I haven’t bothered to shave my armpits, and beneath it all, my relationship to my body has subtly changed – it feels more my own. In a strange way, it also feels, well, sexier. Possibly for the first time ever, I’ve no use for the validation of a stranger’s appraising gaze.”

Interesting how abstention from the very thing she thought gave her connection and intimacy actually increased her desire for a genuine version of these things.

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized | Tags:
Jun
18
2009
4

Aw

About this time last year I really wanted to be in a relationship, but there was always this nagging feeling that I wouldn’t have the time to fit a man into my life!! Well since then, life has got even busier and yet somehow, the man has come along and we have fitted together rather nicely. He is rather busy, so am I and yet our weekends together are really important. Living at opposite ends of the country has it’s severe downsides though. The amount of time we both spend travelling is frustrating, tiring and expensive, and yet driving several hours just to see him for a couple of days is well worth the effort. The nicest thing though is that we are happy just sitting together, him on the laptop, me sewing, or us both reading. That ‘comfortabless’ is a sensational feeling and something that I wondered if I would ever find.

Anyway, I am kind of rambling and being a bit soppy now. Maybe it is because The Mister is away this week and therefore I am not going to see him for another whole week. I miss him more than I could imagine, and even though I don’t usually see him in the week knowing he is in a different country makes it feel different somehow!!!

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized | Tags:
Jun
14
2009
2

Home again

Well, I had a lovely and much needed with The Mister up in Yorkshire. We diud very little although we did go to Harrogate on Saturday. We just wandered around adn then sat in a pub and had lunch and read the papers. It was lovely.

The hard thing though was coming home tonight and looking at my Facebook updates. All I read were updates about people’s pregnancies, photos of friends and family who are pregnant, pictures of babies’ rooms, morning sickness updates etc etc. You get the picture. I know it is great for them all but seeing all those things has just made me feel a little bit sad again. I know I have plenty of good things in my life, and in many ways life is better than it ever has been, but sometimes it feels like just a little bit is missing.

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized | Tags: ,
Jun
13
2009
2

The Uniform Project

0d59de78-0147-4a38-b5fb-b9db1017839a_may_01_v1_dI recently was pointed in the direction of a very cool blog called The Uniform Project. The author of the blog decided to run an experiment and it is also a fundraiser. She got one of her friends to design her a dress (well 7 identical dresses, one for every day of the week) and she will wear the same dress every day but style it up to look different each time. The dress is really clever, reversible with buttons down one side and a fab kick pleat down the other. Long enough to wear as a dress, short enough to wear as a tunic and enough flexibility to wear it many different ways. Her aim is to use thrifted, sustainable and stuff from ebay to accessorise and ‘make’ her outfit.

I love some of the outfits but think some of them are just plain weird and look like she has got dressed at a jumble sale. It’s a fab site and I am fascinated to see how she is going to make 365 different outfits out of the same frock.

Ps) Picture nicked from her website… here.

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized | Tags: ,
Jun
11
2009
6

Arrrrrghhhhhhh!!!!!!!

I have had a really difficult week. It seems that it has just been a load of little things piling up on me all at once and I am not coping terribly, terribly well.

Work has been really difficult. I know I have moaned in the past about the amount of paperwork that I am having to do, but it is now getting to ludicrous proportions. I had supervision with my boss on Monday and pretty much he went on and on about all the things I hadn’t done. Not to mention that I have a caseload of 35, half of which are child protection or pregnant, about another third of them are on drug treatment orders and I seem to spend most of my time at meetings. Not to mention that I have to produce prescriptions for all of them every week, keep my notes up to date and ensure that they get seen once a fortnight. Oh no. He only mentioned all the pissy statistics that I haven’t been doing. So, that was Monday morning and it set my week up badly.

I think I might be hormonal but I am not sure and when I get angry and frustrated I just cry. I have cried every day this week at work and last night I had a really vivid nightmare about my Mum dying and when I woke up I was literally sobbing. It was awful because in the half-wake-half-sleep-like-state I couldn’t work out what was real and what was the nightmare. So, today I has been horrid. I have cried numerous times and I am just feeling a bit wrung out.

Fortunately I am off to see The Mister tomorrow. I need hugs and I need lots of them.

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized | Tags: ,
Jun
10
2009
1

Angels & Demons

angelsTonight my friend James and I went to see the film Angels and Demons which is loosely based on the novel by Dan Brown.

I must be one of the few people who enjoyed the book The Da Vinci Code and i also enjoyed the fim although I found it slightly pedestrian. However, I vastly preferred the book of Angels and Demons. I thought it was exciting and a better story, but I was a bit wary of what the film might be like. However, I really enjoyed it. It was exciting and fast-paced with some fabulous mock-ups of the Vatican City and Rome. The story was better and it cracked on at a much faster pace that the DVC. I know that there has been lots of criticism from the Catholic church that this film is anti-religion, but I actually found it to be quite the opposite. The fundamental message at the end of it is that science and religion are two sides of the same side of the coin in the search for truth.

My only real criticism of the film is that it has been given a 12A film rating which means that it is “Suitable for 12 years and over. No-one younger than 12 may see a ‘12A’ film in a cinema unless accompanied by an adult.” So, technically a child of under 12 years old can see this film as long as they are accompanied by an adult. This film was pretty graphic in places. On two separate ocassions you saw a man being burnt to death. You also saw someone being drowned and numerous shootings and throats being slit. Even I jumped on several ocassions and I would be really concerned that children 12 or under would be quite traumatised by this film.

Anyway, much to my surprise I really enjoyed this film.

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized | Tags: ,
Jun
07
2009
1

Weekends

Well once again the weekend has flown by far to fast. The Mister came down on Friday evening and for the first time in ages we had no major plans, we didn’t really see anyone and we just spent the time relaxing. We went to the farmer’s market, watched tv, ate nice food, went swimming, went to church, watched the Grand Prix (well I kind of fell asleep at the time), I did some patchwork whilst he did some work and we just chilled. It was bliss.

Weekends are wonderful these days but they go by so fast. My whole week is taken up with work, trying to see all my clients and getting through all my paperwork, but my weekends are like a different world. I am so happy to have finally met someone that I dream of spending time with, even if we have no plans. Sunday evening after he has gone is a sad time and I feel like I am wishing my life away. I guess this is how things are for the moment, but it is hard to manage. Life is just to busy to enjoy… except for those precious moments that I get time to slow down and relax… and usually these are the times with The Mister.

Life is good.

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized |

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