Reading, Reading, Reading

and that's included a lot of Nordic and Scandinavian noir and crime novels recently. I always read widely and I'm not at all sure of why these particular books have caught my fancy and I'm reading so many more at the moment but I am. It's way beyond how I'm always on the look out for the next Jo Nesbo, for instance, and have devoured all of Henk Mankell's Kurt Wallender novels as well as watching the Swedish TV version (with the help of the SBS sub titles) as well as the English language adaptation of the novels starring Kenneth Brannagh.

None of which explains my recent urge to read Nordic noir almost exclusively. I say almost because I managed to slot in Six Four, a Japanese police investigation along with lots of police politics by Hideo Yokoyama, The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova (a mystery set in Rumania) and Wild Seed, The Parable of the Sower and Kindred by Octavia E. Butler along the way. Can't entirely abandon my fantasy and science fiction interests. I guess my reading choices might be in part because I've enjoyed some recent television series on SBS, the Australian channel that has a lot of programs in languages other than English. I especially liked Trapped and Midnight Sun both of which involved police investigations in isolated parts of the world - Trapped is set in rural Iceland and Midnight Sun in a Swedish mining town above the Arctic Circle in midsummer and coping with the climatic extremes forms an important part of the background of both.

Why isn't important, though, is it, because I thought you might like to see what I've been reading. So here's the list of Scandinavian books I've finished in the past month - I still have a few to read on my Kindle. Some I've enjoyed more than others but I can't say that I've been disappointed in any of them.

So, in no particular order, here is what I've been reading:

The Dying Detective by Leif G W Persson

Hellfire by Karin Fossum

Frozen Out by Quentin Bates - yes, he's English but the setting is Scandinavian.

Where Roses Never Die by Gunnar Staalesen

The Crow Girl by Erik Axl Sund

The Hummingbird by Karl Hiekkapelto

The Bird Tribunal by Agnes Ravatn

Faceless Killers: Kurt Wallander by Henk Mankell. This one's a reread.

The Things You Find In Your Garden

There I was yesterday dismantling the overgrown rockery around a pond we've decided to pull out near the shed in the backyard - it's too far from the house to be much more than a mosquito haven and keeping them under control takes a lot of work for little reward - when I found this.

It's mine and the last time I saw it was about twenty years ago when we put the pond we're now taking out in place. I had no idea at the time what had happened to it but somehow it had ended up under a couple of big and very heavy rocks.

That it's turned up is actually fortuitous because when I was in hospital the last time they somehow lost my current bracelet and I haven't got around to ordering a replacement. I have a fancier one but it is easy to scratch so I don't like to wear it all the time and only put it on when I go out.

Weird, hey. Not as weird, though, as the multiple bells of a brass wind chime which turned up over a period of months not long after we moved in and the other strange bits and pieces over the years that have come from who knows where.

While we have no idea what's brought all these oddments to us I have a theory and it's quite obvious really. We're sitting on a portal into another dimension and things come and go through it. It explains the on-going mystery of the missing sock out of what I'd swear were part of a pair when I put them in the wash as well, doesn't it. What other explanation could there be?

Small Joys

Confused tomatoes in the veggie garden.

We're harvesting a decent handful every couple of days from this self sown plant - ridiculous in the middle of winter.








A couple of other things that gave me joy.

A small person clutching a daffodil picked to add to the bouquet she's making and gazing at it fascinated - I think it was the first one she'd seen close up.

Same small person discovering that you can eat borage flowers and they're delicious. She went home with a bunch she was nibbling on as they drove off.

A flock of pink and grey galahs on my neighbour's roof. They live in the park behind our place and se her roof as a vantage point. They're such clowns. I tried to get a photo but they were too far away.

Lunch!

There are some snow peas, sugar snap peas and French beans hidden underneath the spring onions and pak choi as well. Stir-fry coming up.

Bananas!

I discovered we have bananas coming. See?

This is one of several ladyfinger banana flowers. There are a couple of bunches already formed, too, but they're still green and didn't show up against the leaves.

Kitty Update

In July 2008 Virgo arrived here one evening with a tiny kitten. Would I keep him for just one night because reasons - well, actually because he was about to be sterilised although he was quite young for the procedure to make it easier for him to be rehomed by the vet practice where she worked. He'd already failed a couple of rehome attempts because, as we later worked out, he was simply terrified of men. I agreed knowing that this meant he was here to stay.

It hasn't all been smooth sailing with him. Although he bonded with me very quickly it took nearly a year of patience before he would allow Pisces to touch him and, while they now get on well, he remains a very nervous cat. Any unfamiliar sound or someone at the door and he disappears under the bed for hours.

But this we can cope with. His health problems are much more difficult to deal with. Until three years ago he seemed a perfectly healthy if twitchy cat but then he developed what the vet thought were behavioural problems. Put less politely he had started having 'accidents' all around the house. Though I was by no means convinced it was deliberate I followed the vet's suggestions - changed his cat litter more frequently, gave him an extra litter tray and so on. Things didn't improve so there was further testing and it turned out that although he had shown no obvious symptoms of constipation he had developed megacolon. That means his colon had become stretched and enlarged due to a build up of faeces.

The prognosis was not good - cats with megacolon often don't survive for long - but here we are three years on and while it's not always been easy - he has to have a laxative daily and he has had another two severe attacks - he's generally well and is much loved. He must be loved because during these attacks he often doesn't make it to the litter tray and I have to tell you living in a house where all soft surfaces like beds and sofas have to be draped in plastic drop sheets for some weeks at a time is not much fun. But when you take an animal into your life taking care of it to the best of your ability is part of the deal, isn't it.

The reason I've been thinking about this is because at the moment Angus is not well. He has an upset tummy and has been vomiting both of which are bad signs. If he doesn't improve soon - it doesn't seem like his usual problem and may just be a passing bug so waiting and watching closely seems a good idea - I'll take him to the vet. Keeping everything crossed this will pass.

Pretties From My Garden

The state of the world still has me wanting to sit here with my fingers in my ears going 'La la la la' so here are some pretties from my garden - and yes, I know the photo quality isn't great but the pesky flowers were too busy dancing in the wind to pose obligingly.

One that made me laugh because it looks like this pair of out of season daffodils have turned their backs on us. Not that I would blame them if they had. These are in the flower bed directly outside the backdoor.

On the other hand this pot of equally out of season jonquils - unlike the paperwhite jonquils the yellow ones don't usually bloom here until well into August - are apparently much more inclusive as they are all looking around in different directions. The perfume when I was taking the photo was glorious, too.








The bulbs are probably going to regret their premature flowering - brought on by the very mild beginning we had to winter - because in the past week temperatures have dropped dramatically.  Overnight it has been around 4°C and days have been below 18°C. Okay all you folk from colder climes can stop laughing now but by our standards this is very cold and we're not geared up for these temperatures. We build our houses to cope with summer heat not winter cold. This week we even had snow on the Stirling Ranges in the state's south, an event infrequent enough for people to drive several hundred kilometres to experience it.

And that is all there is for today, I'm afraid. Please excuse me while I go and eat the handful of luscious strawberries I found hiding among the hanging baskets on the veranda which make up my strawberry 'bed'.

Hmm, That Explains Things

I spent much of yesterday updating our - mine and Pisces' - medical records because when Pisces had a specialist's appointment earlier in the week we realised it would be a lot simpler to just have the essential stuff like health problems, specialists and medications in one place so we could print it out and so save a lot of the doctor's and our time. I keep mine fairly well up to date but until now I've left it to himself to handle his own records. He's done this well enough but it was all hand written and his hand writing is getting more and more illegible so typing it out - and putting in the dates things happened - seemed a sensible way to go.

I'm not a slow typist but he hadn't put down most of the dates from 2016's health upheavals which meant I had to trawl through last year's diary which led in turn to sorting through all the many pieces of paper he insists on storing there and disposing of them. The amount of paper this involved ... well, it's a pity it's not our recycling collection this week, that's all I can say. The whole process took me pretty much all morning.

But I'm wandering off topic. The most important thing that came out of all this is that I need to be kinder to myself. For the past fifteen months I've been beating myself up because I've not been achieving very much around here - and there's a lot that we need to do. It's been making me miserable. Turns out that when you look at where our time has been taken up it's not so much that we haven't done enough but it's amazing that we've managed to do what we have. Lesson learned. We still have to push on - and it would be nice to have achieved more - but we have no reason to feel guilty.

So for now it's fingers and everything else crossed that we've turned a corner as far as health is concerned - and that from now on we can start to make some progress with other important things instead of just barely surviving.

Kittens and Puppies.

I am ignoring the rest of the world at the moment so kittens and puppies seem a much better option.

Kittens being rescued by fishermen.

Kitten playing in a tissue box

Dreaming puppy

And finally some sleeping Labrador pups

Doggie Fun

In my pursuit of the entertaining to offset the world's misery I bring you these links.

This video of Juju, an English bulldog, having fun rolling down a bank turned up in my Facebook Newsfeed. Aw, how cute, I thought, I'll go to YouTube and see it larger size. So I did. Even more cute.

Then I noticed that all kinds of bulldogs seem to have a lot of fun - and they love to roll. Some have a better sense of direction than others it seems but after all it's the game that counts as with this handsome fellow. They don't have to be young, either. Here's an old lady rolling herself along the beach and into the water.

And just in case you think I'm obsessed with rolling bulldogs they're not the only ones who like to roll, of course. See, this maremma is having a glorious time in the snow.