Another rider on the anemometer merry-go-round/ Look at that pigeon go!
A2 is reading City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff Vandermeer; a compendium of novellas concerning the imaginary city of Ambergris, with an appendix at least as long including information about squids, a partially decoded cryptic text, bibliographies, glossaries and tasting notes on the fonts employed. Reading it I was struck by the similarity to the works of Alasdair Gray and sure enough it turns out that Jeff is a massive fan of Alasdair and cites him as a mentor. Books send out hyphae into the literary subsoil and somewhere far away another book pops up like a mushroom.
Category: Garden
First Poppy
Welcome to the first big poppy of spring, fresh out of the bud and attended by bees (NB technically it is the second poppy, but the first was way down beneath the leaves and inaccessible to wildlife or cameras).
A1 is reading The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal, an alternate-history sf novel set in 1952, when a meteorite hits the east coast of the US and wipes out most of the government. The ensuing threat of catastrophic climate change kick-starts the space program, and we follow a female “computer” — as in real life, the maths was done by women, many black — as she attempts to join the program and become an “astronette”. This book won just about every sf award going in 2018, including the usually reliable Sidewise award. But despite the laudable examination of gender and racial issues, the book comes across as … well, rather soppy and girly. It must have been a fallow year for good sf.
Flowers in the Rain
Our front garden is full of tulips, bluebells, magnolia and camellia and they are all getting a battering.
A2 is reading Cause for Alarm* by Eric Ambler; reads like a historical thriller but it was contemporary fiction when it was written in 1938.
Pigeon Pie
Back in 2020 we had an unexpected visitor: a sparrowhawk feasting on its prey in our back garden. The picture in the linked post was a still from a rather poor video, which we’ve now improved somewhat:
We thought the prey was a magpie originally, due to the racket being made by a flock mischief of them which attracted our attention. But now it’s looking more like it was a pigeon.
Thanks to the very powerful software ffmpeg, the video has been stabilised, sharpened and colour balanced.
A1 is reading Halcyon Years by Alastair Reynolds — thanks A2! AR likes incorporating both noir and detective elements in his SF (cf the terrific Century Rain and the Prefect Dreyfus novels), and here we’ve got Yuri Gagarin — well, sort of — as a mean-streets PI on a generation starship. There are touches of humour, and some Dickian nods in this tale: the sorrowfully forgetful robot, and the excessively polite one as it chucks our hero overboard. It all hangs together though, and a return to form.
A2 is rereading Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood.
Rasta in a Bucket Hat
Normally there are only a few fruits on our passion flower but this year the wall is covered with hundreds of them.
A1 is reading The Final Vow by MW Craven. A2 is reading Sycamore Gap* by LJ Ross.
The Only One
There was only one cherry on the little cherry tree but it was a nice big shiny one.
A2 is reading James* by Percival Everett, which was kind of worthy but also kind of ridiculous (Spoiler: Jim turns out to be Huck’s dad ffs) and not a patch on Huckleberry Finn.
Passion Flower
Our first passion flower photo of the year. Admire its extraordinary superstructure, concentric frills and clawed petals. Our Friedhats Sudan Rume coffee is supposed to taste of passion fruits as well as eucalyptus, candied raspberries and mint choc chip ice cream but it actually tastes, exquisitely, of sun-warmed peaches.
A1 is reading Never Flinch by Stephen King. A2 is reading The Red Shaw by William Shore (actually vice versa); seaside shenanigans.
Cherries
Some of this year’s excellent crop of cherries. Although the tree is over 10 years old it’s never fruited very well until now, not helped by the depredations of squirrels and pigeons.
A1 is rereading Body Breaker by MW Craven, which brings to an end his MWC reread. Just waiting now for the next Washington Poe book, due soon. In other news MWC has been commissioned to write some juvenile James Bond tie-ins, which doesn’t bode well for his proper books 😐
A2 is rereading Black Widow by Chris Brookmyre.
The Secret Garden
This peony blooms unseen behind the spreading apple tree. A2 pushed through the greenery to photograph it and got nettled for her pains.
A1 is reading The Dark Wives* by Ann Cleeves, compassionate and absorbing. A2 is reading The Hymn to Dionysus* by Natasha Pulley.
The Garden After…
…the second driest April on our records. The tulips are packing up and the bluebells are pushing through. Compare two weeks ago and all previous May Days. As well as being the second driest, April was our third sunniest and fifth warmest April of all time. May Day started well with 28°C and 10.6kWh but it won’t last if the forecast is correct.
A2 is reading The Dark Wives* by Ann Cleeves.
First Poppy
Welcome to the first big poppy of spring, surrounded by tulips, dandelions and uncut grass.
A2 is rereading Pandemonium by Christopher Brookmyre.
Magnolia World
A fly exploring the central castle. Here is an overview of the magnolia population:
A1 is reading A Wake of Crows* by Kate Evans. A2 is rereading A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away by Christopher Brookmyre.
Spring
Warmest day this year, 18.9°C, and the little plum tree is covered with delicate blossoms with translucent petals and trembling stamens waiting in anticipation for pollinators.
It’s World Book Day so A2 is reading Perspectives by Laurent Binet; an epistolatery art history mystery.
Robin Not Hiding
A1 finally managed to sneak up on the redbreast unawares. There are all sorts of birds about at the moment, trying to hook up for the mating season.
A2 is rereading The Testaments by Margaret Atwood.
Tree Fellas, Again
Another one bites the dust; though Storm Eowyn tomorrow might have demolished it for free.
A1 is rereading Country of the Blind by Christopher Brookmyre. A2 is rereading The G File by Hakan Nesser.
Wood Nymph
I looked out the window and what did I see?
A hole in a tree and a face looking out at me!
A1 is reading Midnight and Blue by Ian Rankin. A2 is reading The Traitor by Jorn Lier Horst. For a change, Wisting’s daughter doesn’t get kidnapped. His granddaughter gets kidnapped instead.
Saucy Tomato
The toms in our garden are ripening at last, and this one is blushing with shame.
A1 is reading Enlightenment by Sarah Perry. A2 is rereading Archangel by Robert Harris.
Comet Update
More from SOHO, with yet another CME (the speckles are high-energy particles hitting the camera):
Passion Fruit
Our passion flower growing in a tiny pot has covered the whole wall with its leaves and flowers and now its lovely but tasteless orange fruits.
A1 is rereading The Bedlam Stacks and A2 is rereading The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, both by Natasha Pulley.
Friendly Robin
Yesterday and this afternoon A1 and A2 tried to clear some of the rampant brambles, raspberry canes and weeds clogging up our back garden. With an audience: this little chap kept his beady eye on the progress on both days, doubtless hoping for some grub to be unearthed. A1 also tidied the pond a bit, so now we can actually see it. And we still have fish! At least six were spotted.
A1 is rereading Restless by William Boyd. A2 is reading Enlightenment by Sarah Perry (thx A1) in which we all learn a bit about astronomy.
Best Friends?
It rained a lot last night, but the damned pigeons have been sitting in the rain gauge again and blocked it with their crap.
A1 is rereading Ghostwritten by the splendid David Mitchell, a welcome change after the recent run of humdrum books. Rereading DM is always worthwhile, with shared characters and previously undetected links between novels becoming apparent.
A2 is reading Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan which is also humdrum.
Olive Blossom
A rain drop dangles from the tiny flowers, containing an image of a trellis and a piece of a tomato plant. We had roast pork and a reprise of the lovely strawberry cream rice pudding for our family dinner and scored a disappointing 8.5 on the GSQ.
A1 is reading City of Sinners by AA Dhand, who still has it in for Bradford. A2 is reading Hunted by Abir Mukherjee.
Flowers in the Rain
The first passion flowers of summer.
We had fishcakes and peach cakes for our family dinner and did this week’s and last week’s quizzes, scoring 10.5 on one and 8.5 on the other.
A1 is reading The Devil in the Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson. A2 is reading The Cautious Traveller’s Guide to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks; back in Victorian times, the Trans-Siberian Railway travels through a burgeoning, evolving, threatening landscape in the style of Jeff Vandermeer.
Flower of the Day: Tree Peony
We have had this lovely plant for a few years and each year it has had a maximum of one flower which is soon destroyed by wind/snails/squirrels. This year it has three. Onward and upward!
A1 is reading Eight Detectives* by Alex Pavesi, a kind of thought experiment in crime fiction: a collection of short stories by a fictional author embodying the various plots available to a crime writer, and enclosed in another mystery … and all is not as it seems. Very meta. Readable, but not wholly successful.
May Day
The garden after the second coldest, third wettest and fourth least sunny April on our records, though yesterday was our warmest (20.1 °C) and sunniest (11.218kWh) day this year before the mist and clouds rolled in again. And the bluebells have overtaken the tulips once again, the magnolias are over, the foxgloves are gone but the apples are blossoming like crazy.
A1 is reading The Spy by Ajay Chowdhury. A2 is rereading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, which took ten days to read because it is so full of crunchy goodness.
Flower Power + Brain Power
A bunch of garden flowers on the table for our family meal of spag bol followed by blood orange possets at which we scored FOURTEEN on the GSQ. Still need another 11 to take our average above 10.
A1 is rereading White Hot Silence* by Henry Porter.