When Travis joins his new school it’s clear that something is wrong in his life but he keeps his head down and tries to ignore everyone. However, he can’t ignore Velveeta who finds him intriguing and so she tries to find out what makes him tick.
It would be easy to see this as a predictable novel of friends united against an unfair world but something in the writing makes this a simple and touching tale of innocence trying to cope with an adult world of poverty, low expectations and alcoholism. It has a positive message and a positive ending and leaves you feeling a little bit heartbroken but also very happy and hopeful.
This is one of those books that will be read very differently by children and adults. For children it is reassuring and redemptive, adults will be hit by the hopelessness of poverty and the narrowness of life expectation for some children. Nonetheless it really is a nice book!
A supernatural thriller set in the Court of Elizabeth 1st.This unusual book draws on two famous characters from Elizabethan England; the renowned Dr Dee, famous magician, astrologer and academic and Robert Dudley, Elizabeth’s great love.In this book the two men are friends and set off to Wales to find a rare scrying stone. However, they get caught up in local tensions as a murderer is brought to trial who has channelled the spirit of a long dead Welsh rebel.
Extra spice is added by a plot to kill Dudley to prevent him marrying the Queen. Rickman always writes with a great sense of atmosphere and in this book ancient and modern evils collide in a brutal conclusion.
So I managed to finish this book but I was disappointed. Rickman used to write really excellent supernatural thrillers, try Crybbe for a good example, but this was just daft. Far too many coincidences were relied on to drive the plot forward and too many deus ex machinas were wheeled out to save the day. Sorry.
Welcome to a day in the life of a Mevagissey bookseller.Well it starts as always with a box full of books in the car and a drive in from St Austell. Today was hellishly windy but as I dropped down into the village the wind seemed to die down, clearly Heligan was taking the brunt of the winds.I drove down Jetty Street parked up and unloaded. This is always a tricky effort but easier in winter, this morning I am unimpeded by any other traffic and I drive off to park at the lighthouse.I could park in one of the other car parks, but I love walking out by the sea, dodging the seaweed strewn road and the splashing waves.It’s also the cheapest place to park which helps!
Walking back to the shop I’m stopped by a couple in a car who ask me if I’m local. Now there’s a question.I doubt there are many other places in the world where such an innocent sounding question is laden with problems. No, I’m not local, I come from St Austell but even there I’m not local, I used to live up country, worse yet my parents aren’t local either, neither are their parents. However, these guys are on holiday and just want to know if the Wheelhouse serves breakfasts. As if to underline how much of a local I’m not, I don’t know the answer. Frustratingly the wife pipes up “Only we saw people in there eating breakfast…” Grrr, well surely that answers your own question!? On I stroll and pause to watch a cormorant sunning himself on a rock and think about how gorgeous life is sometimes, so long as you choose not to focus on stupid questions.
The day progresses along normal lines, as we have the new EV Thompson in, lots of people are popping in to collect their copy and all of them stop to share a story with me. They are really entertaining but I’m not getting anything done. He was a lovely gentleman and is clearly missed by a lot of people. Here in the village he was well known and loved, not because he was famous but because he was good. Other people wander in for a browse and find some book that they can’t do without. Others baulk at £3 and point out that they can get it for a pound at their local car boot sale. Hmm, off you go then.
Out in the street the wind is picking up but unfortunately for the Mevagissey Lights Committee this is also when they need to hang the new lights.Jetty Street is getting some amazing strands of lights running the entire length; they are going to look stunning. The lights committee are swearing as the lights refuse to switch on but the wind is whipping away any offending words and only the gulls are assaulted by the words and God knows they’ve had worse directed right at them.
By three the heavens open and the road is white with bouncing rain. By four I have my ark built and head home, I stop at Kim’s to buy some fish and have to laugh. She was telling me when it started raining she was chatting to some of the fisherman who promptly bolted at the first drop of rain. Now there’s a group of men that you’d think wouldn’t melt in the rain.Then again, I should imagine that they have to put up with more than their fair share at sea. Getting wet inland is just too much. The road outside the firestation is flooded but there are people out helping to direct the traffic through the shallowest section. And then I’m off home again, driving out of Mevagissey and thinking about what a great day it’s been despite the atrocious weather.
Hands up who likes standing in queues, being barged by trolleys never finding anywhere to park and always trying to find where the sugar has been moved to. I don’t see many hands up.So maybe we could do with another supermarket?We are the largest population centre in Cornwall so there are a fair few of us all using the two major supermarkets at any one time. When summer comes round and Cornwall swells up then trying to go shopping is an even worse nightmare, so I certainly think we could do with another supermarket and I have to say I’m pretty glad that it’s Sainsburys; I just find its location a bit odd.Surely we have enough old industrial land to be able to house a shopping village the size of the one they’re proposing rather than tearing up those lovely fields on the drive out of St Austell?I’m also not certain why anyone thinks the west of St Austell, where very few people live, is a good idea.To compound the issue, they are going to build a Waitrose to the east of Truro, again on lovely rolling fields where no one lives.I’m really not sure how all the people traveling from Threemilestone across Truro or from Par along the bypass to get to these new supermarketswill help alleviate traffic congestion.In fact you’d be hard pressed to think of two worse bottle necks in Cornwall.
Clearly the planners are relying on the residents of the hugely under populated Roseland peninsular to plug the gap. Certainly many of the Roseland residents will appreciate having the choice of Waitrose and Sainsburys to go to but I think it’s a bit much to expect them to support two massive hypermarkets.One can only buy so many pine nuts.
However, without being silly, St Austell does need more shopping opportunities if the council is to be able to raise revenue and they aren’t going to be able to do that off the back of the White River Centre.Certainly things are beginning to get better but given its strange layout it was never going to be able to attract a department store and a good shopping centre needs a department store.Although I’m not impressed with the location, I think somewhere around Penwithick or Eden would make more sense, even Par docks would be a good use of space, I do think we need the shopping village.
Like many of us, I shop in Truro, online, Mevagissey and only very occasionally in St Austell but things are improving in the town.We just need a few more good places to eat, free parking and independent traders to make the place a second viable alternative to an out of centre shopping zone which is almost certainly going to happen no matter who protests.My first step to improve the town centre?Relocate the library into one of the shops. Stop thinking of segregated shopping zones and start thinking about bringing things together. Oh and a tourist information centre in the town centre for heaven’s sake. I wish people would stop telling me why it can’t be done and start thinking about why it should be done. Right best stop before I start ranting but you know I’m right. Don’t you?
As soon as Bonfire night is over I find that as a business we automatically turn to Christmas.The shop is beginning to fill up with little goodies and as I have a Christmas Fair over at Newquay this year I have even more goodies than normal.I’m particularly pleased with the stationery lines that we have.I know that in the age of the internet and mobile phones, which instant messaging, texts and e-mails than hand written word seems to be coming a bit of a rare bird but who doesn’t love to receive a real letter through the post?A blog is never going to be the same as a journal, Facebook may be a clever all dancing and singing bit of kit but it can’t replace the privacy of a diary.With this in mind I’ve chosen some lovely notecards, stationery sets, journals and notepads, they are beautiful to look at as well as to hold and to write on and I hope that they prove very popular.I’ll be selling them at the Macmillan fair but I’m keeping some back for the shop so that everyone can get to have a browse. In addition to these I’ve gone mad and have stocked in some new books for Christmas. These are really special books that will make memorable presents so I hope that I haven’t taken too much of a gamble. You’ll have to come and have a look and tell me what you think.
Of course it’s not just the shop that’s getting ready for Christmas, the village is too. Last night the Lights Committee were out in force measuring bits of street and surveying walls ready for new brackets and the like. Over the year they have worked so hard fundraising for the lights and it’s always gratifying to see such large crowds come out and see the village light up. For the first time ever Jetty Street will also have lights, long garlands running the length of the street which I think will look stunning. We’re also going to have two Christmas trees sticking out of the wall so we will be really festive. On a sadder note this will be our first year without EV Thompson coming in for a signing session. We have his books in stock now and they are selling as well as ever but nonetheless it’s still a damn shame.
Inevitably, once the business starts to think of Christmas then wearing my other hat I also start to think of Christmas for the home and family.Next weekend we will bake the cake, an event that always seems to cause more grief than it should but this year I’m going to do it by myself and if the children want to join in they are more than welcome.I really want to make shortbread and ginger bread decorations for the tree but I imagine that that would just be too much of a temptation for Agatha and to be fair I think Harry would also find it difficult to resist tearing down the Christmas tree for a quick snack, so maybe I’ll have to forego those for a few years.
So lots to plan for and hopefully everything will go off with a bang, except for the lights. We don’t want any banging where the lights are concerned.
At the moment I’m supposed to be concentrating on writing this column but life seems to have jumped into a handcart and is on its way to hell.The chief issue is the printer that seems convinced that the A4 paper that is in the tray is not actually A4. Its way of drawing our attention to the problem is by printing the same packing slip every time with an accompanying note saying that this isn’t A4, so clearly there’s a fault but it has nothing to do with the size of the paper. Now we can’t print any of our customer’s orders and the backlog is building. Typically I am at home and Steve is in the warehouse trying to fix it and trying to flag down the nearest saint so that he may steal their patience because I’m afraid I’ve worn all of his out.It’s hard to know who finds the following sentence more frustrating, “have you wiggled the blue toggle?”I’m exasperated because wiggling the blue toggle would be the first blatantly obvious thing to do. Steve is exasperated because he doesn’t know what a blue toggle is, where to find it or how to wiggle it.In a minute I’ll have to drive back to the warehouse, which I don’t want to do because I’ve just left there and returned home to find the puppy has been sick everywhere, won’t eat her food and is looking pretty fed up with life.I have just cleaned up the wee, poo and sick and I too, am looking pretty fed up with life.
I was going to chat about cookery programmes as they are a nice way for me to switch off and think of new ways of serving some of my favourites. Clarissa Dickson-Wright made me laugh the other night, on the boning of rabbits, she suggested that you could ask your local butcher to do but “really, don’t be so wet!”and on the whole squeamishness about eating bunnies? “Don’t be so ridiculous” It was like having one’s Nanny come and put you straight. Nigel Slater is another favourite for putting together some great tastes but does he have to be so earnest in his delivery? He sounds like he’s addressing NATO and Lex Luther has the bomb! It’s only anchovies Nigel, breathe deeply. His current series is all about making leftovers last to another meal. Yesterday he cooked a family pie and showed us how to make a lunch out of it the following day.Now clearly Nigel isn’t cooking for a family because the clue is in the title “family pie”. When I cook a family pie it feeds the family, there are no leftovers.Ho hum, the other clue that Nigel isn’t cooking for a family is his ridiculously clean fridge, devoid of any form of junk or basic staples.Just the odd parcel of meat lovingly wrapped in brown paper.Well, he doesn’t live in my world but sometimes I wished I lived in his.
On well back to my life, sorry I’ve not been on form today but it’s all been a bit of a mess. Hope you’re all getting along fine and enjoying a quick break from your daily chores, whatever they may be.
Chilly nights and the new Bond film have set me thinking of Scotland again but even without these prompts, Scotland is very much on my mind at the moment due to the upcoming referendum.Will Scotland choose to leave the United Kingdom? An issue that is going to cause a lot of talk and speculation but hopefully no change. The issue that I am finding really fascinating about the whole debate though is that the vote is being opened up to 16 and 17 year olds.This decision I think will have far greater ramifications. Thin end of the wedge, horse has bolted, genii is out of the bottle; however you phrase it, once you say that Scottish 16 years can vote on a national topic then why can’t all 16 year olds vote in national elections? Or any elections?
I was chatting to a father the other day who felt it was a really bad idea as children will just vote the way their parents tell them. Interesting to hear that argument being used again, I think it was last dusted off during the time of the suffragettes, and before that, letting servants vote and so on. Personally, I think if you tell the majority of teenagers to do one thing you can be sure they’ll do the exact opposite.Besides once they are in the polling booth no one knows how any one has voted.
Certainly many teens will not bother to vote but when we have a national voters turn out, of under 60% I don’t think the adult population has anything to boast about.A 16 year old can live independently, work full time, have children, get married. They are legally responsible for themselves and can make their own medical decisions and be responsible in a court of law.They can even join the army with their parents’ consent. And yet they can’t vote. Surely every aspect of their lives is affected by the decisions made by government but they have no say. For example, on the minimum wage tariff, anyone under 18 earns £3.68 an hour; someone over 21 earns £6.19 for the exact same job.Hardly fair.Maybe something they might like to vote on?
Of course the government passes laws that affect the rights of children; they don’t get a vote because they are children and because they are still in the care of adults.Whilst the vast majority of 16 – 17 year olds are still at home with their family, they are now legally on a different footing and if they can be held responsible in law and pay taxes towards the government through their earnings then they have the right to vote.
Personally I think that they’ll shake things up a bit. They’re all wide eyed and enthusiastic, they get worked up about stuff, they fight and argue all the time, they are passionate and they care. If politicians think that they won’t understand the issues then the politicians had better earn their wages and explain the situation properly.If the currentvoters are concerned that a youth vote may unsettle the apple cart then maybe they had better get off their apathetic behinds and vote.What I’m looking forward to is a pincer movement from the retired voters and the teenage voters and maybe we’ll get a new political party that’s in in for the people rather than themselves?Giddy stuff this Scottish air!
Along with prevaricating less I have also felt that life might be more exciting if I said yes rather than no,before I go further I’d like to state that my answer won’t be yes to everything but just a bit more than I do now. Anyway, that’s how I came to be driving over to Boconnoc Church in order to perform in a Scratch Messiah.In case you don’t know what that means, and one week ago I was in your number, it means a last minute thrown together rehearsal and performance of Handel’s Messiah.When my friends asked me, it sounded like a laugh, I used to be in a competition standard choir when I was younger and I thought I should be OK.At that point I was ignoring a few important facts, I have never sung the Messiah and it was a very long time ago since I was in a choir.I was driving over to meet the girls on a gorgeous Saturday; issues of pee, poo, mud, rugby and boys were left behind and I raced through the autumn countryside humming away to the bits of the Messiah that I knew. Best just clarify that the boys were not responsible for the pee and poo issues.Neither was Steve.Agatha is still providing us with daily challenges but that’s a whole other column. Now where, was I? Ah yes, rolling through the Cornish countryside, trilling out my halleluiahs.Over the week I had managed to listen to the Messiah twice and I discovered that it was a lot longer than I realised, a lot more complicated and a hell of a lot higher than I could manage. Certainly I used to be a soprano but as I’ve got older I have found that my voice, along with other things has started to head south.When I was singing top C it made the boys search for injured cats.My confidence was also beginning to head south.
I wasn’t sure what to pack, so in went a skirt, heels, make up, scarf, hat, walking boots (churches aren’t known for their heating) I also added some soup, rocky road, and apples and given the amount of pheasant on the lanes around Boconnoc I would soon also be packing a Game Pie.
Amid much nervous laughter the three of us arrived at the church to discover that we were late and we had to shuffle in and share scorebooks with other choristers. The plus sides were many; everyone else seemed to know roughly what they were doing, the Choir master was a forgiving man and the church had very efficient heating. The negatives however, were also many. The forgiving Choir master also assumed everyone got everything he said, after just one telling, the people around me may have known what they were doing but Jo, Rebecca and I were woefully adrift and the very efficient heating was beginning to make me sweat in my many layers. I was beginning to wonder why the hell I hadn’t packed a bottle of water.
All too soon, and I really do mean too soon, the rehearsals were over and we were told to come back in an hour’s time for the evening performance. The look of horror on Rebecca’s face mirrored mine, surely that wasn’t it?We didn’t even know the words, let alone the tune, or the dynamics! Even so, that was all the preparation that we were going to get.
As the moment approached a sense of dread and foreboding settled upon us but we had forgotten just how good everyone around us was and of course given that it was a scratch performance how forgiving the audience were.It was a glorious evening and as I sang out to the skies, my voice soaring higher and higher I was thrilled that I had said yes.
I think it’s fair to say that down here in Cornwall people don’t seem to be that bothered by celebrity. Film and TV stars wander around and locals look at them briefly wondering where they recognise them or give a nod and a hi and go on their way.The other day a group of us were on a dog walk and passed Dawn French, we all nodded and smiled, as you do when you pass someone on a footpath, and continued on. No great shakes, no gushing, no autographs, we just get on with it and we let people get on with their lives as well.I’ve often heard singers and the like who live in Cornwall giving interviews on the radio saying that living in Cornwall is great because everyone treats them just like anyone else. A while back my brother met Andrew Ridgley at a dinner party; did they talk about Wham, the fame, the fortune? Nope, they discussed their golfing handicaps and pudding.
So all these recent stories concerning Jimmy Saville has made me think about the way people behave towards famous people.Whilst he hasn’t been convicted of anything it does appear that over the decades there have been numerous complaints against him that were ignored, hushed up or just not believed. Can you imagine how scary and humiliating the world must have seen to these young girls? To have such terrible things happen to them but then to not be believed either? It really does beggar belief.Was he so well respected that no one would believe it or was there a culture of cover up going on or was the money he raised in fund raising really worth turning a blind eye for? I find the whole affair hard to understand.I always thought he was an unpleasant character and when he died I heard comments from some along the lines of “let’s see what will comes out of the woodwork” but I couldn’t believe anything would. Just because someone seems creepy doesn’t mean that they are, and surely, surely no one could get away with so much when they were so frequently in the public eye?
In the same week Lance Armstrong has been found guilty of illegal drug use. He denies the claims but won’t contest them and now a whole host of people have come forward to say his cheating was constant over the years.Again, the only way for him to get away with it was with massive support from his team members. It seems so harsh that a man who survived cancer and went on to win massively will now only be remembered as a drugs cheat.
I just think the UK media needs to take a look at how Cornwall does things and follow suit. Treat people at face value, don’t allow them to get away with stuff just because they are famous and say well done only when something is well done.
I am now the proud owner of a new coat. Much to the confusion of Steve, who thinks that I have more than enough coats already? But that’s daft, I don’t have a heavy weather coat and this is what I need.For the past few winters I have borrowed his, to his constant annoyance so I thought that this year I would finally get my own.As he pointed out I already have a rain mac but it’s really just a light weight pretty shower coat. The sort for popping in and out of shops; not the sort for pushing through gorse bushes and withstanding sea spray, mud, gales and horizontal rain. I also have a lovely bright green wool coat but again, there’s no way I’m taking that out on a dog walk and my jacket is not a coat no matter how much Steve tries to tell me it’s the same thing.
It’s like those men who say women have too many shoes. (I won’t use Steve as an example again; poor thing will start to feel victimised, if his views coincide with these fictional male characters, well that’s not my fault.) You know the type; he’ll say why do you need more than one pair of shoes? Well really, what a thing to say? Who wears slippers on a dog walk, or wellies to work?Flip flops don’t work in winter, walking boots are no good on the squash court, Stilettos are no good on the rugby pitch and rugby boots are rarely acceptable at the dinner table. So honestly, who only has one pair of shoes?
Anyway, my coat.It is not a thing of beauty but it is pretty practical. Imagine a waxed sheet of tarpaulin with a zip up the middle; now stop imagining because that’s basically it. It is warm, wind proof and water proof, I wade through gorse bushes laughing and spit in the eye of the elements. It has all the functional attributes of a sheet of tarpaulin but it is also fair to say that it also has all the aesethic appeal of a sheet of tarpaulin, albeit one with a zip up the middle, oh and lots of pockets.I bought it on eBay with a strict budget in mind, somewhere between stingy and parsimonious. As I was flicking through the pages my eyes kept resting upon beautiful ladies’ Barbours lined with Liberty fabric and fitted belts. You can imagine that the minute Liberty and Barbour occur in the same description that the price tag will exceed parsimonious and as for the fur lined, down filled gilet that I fell in love with – oh dear! Instead I saw a long waxed men’s jacket which looked just the ticket and also looked brand new.It was within my means and so I am now the proud owner of something that can withstand hurricanes.Of course as it is new it also has the flexibility of a drainpipe but that will come. It took about a year to make my last wax comfortable but I didn’t have a dog helping out last time.
Now I just need a new handbag.Oh dear, I’ve got to go, I can hear Steve choking in the background.
