The pursuit of fabulous books, a transformed roof and clothes that fit

Ah the joys of second hand books. Last night I finished Andrea Levy's Fruit of the Lemon. I liked it. The protagonist initially denies any interest in Jamaica, living as a modern young woman in London, but then has something of a breakdown and her parents send her to Jamaica for a holiday. Good and classic (if by now standard) Levy stuff. Small Island is still her best novel. Next stop, the library. It is holiday time after all. I chose Still Here by Linda Grant (whose entire collection I may also work my way through after loving The Clothes on their Backs. I may have to request that the Wetville library purchase her The Thoughtful Dresser.

Another Geraldine Brooks, this time People of the Book. Then I found one I'd read about and looked for last year, Sweater Quest by Adrienne Martini. I'm currently uninterested in knitting, but maybe this will fire me up.


Here are the photos which I couldn't persuade blogger to uplaod for me last night. Tonight it cooperated so long as I loaded each one individually. My new skirt above and top below. I've been scooting round fatshionista type blogs and net articles lately and challenging some of my own assumptions about normal shape. My first reaction to both garments off me is they look rather odd. 'No, Sandra, they look the shape which fits you.... Which is a perfectly functional shape which only appears odd because it is invisible in mainstream fashion media' So I put the photos up there as my teeny tiny contribution to making visible a wider range of pictures of clothing. Maybe sometime there will even be one of me wearing the clothes. We've just downloaded Fionn's pictures from the camera my parents gave him for Christmas and he has a natural and very good eye for taking photos.

Brighid's photo of the chooks. In case I haven't posted enough pics of our egg force over the years.Child labour. Fionn has been an awesome assistant on the roof project. Today we hired a waterblaster and booked the scaffolding for another week.

Bestest of all fun: the kids and I went to see the movie The Muppets today. If you were born in the 1970s, go see. The kids liked it as well, but don't be deterred if you don't have kids to take with you.

Although my eye wanders from the garden a bit these days, some time and love still goes in, and we were repaid tonight with our first meal of green beans from the garden. Last night I harvested some garlic but it could do with another fortnight to get to a better size. I think it went in lateish as well.