soothing the senses...

what a wonderfully quiet, relaxing weekend i’ve had…

i decided that my next non-working weekend would be spent just being with allie and shadow and enjoying their company, catching up on some reading and savouring the peace, quiet and serenity of home life - of course the domestic stuff like cleaning up wee and washing pissy towels is part of every day, but i'd 'shopped in advance' for the weekend so i didn't have to go out saturday or (what turned out to be a bleak, cold and wet) sunday!!! finally, this weekend was the one i'd been waiting for!!!!

friday evening saw me settling down with a yummy vegie pastie (rye pastry), sweet potato wedges and rocket salad with a balsamic dressing - a couple of glasses of wine – howling wolves from margaret river (another new vegan-friendly find) - along with a few bongs, a cat on the knee and a dog stretched out next to me (letting me know in no uncertain terms if i wasn’t patting her in the right place!)... what more could i want - "being human" was on telly - i’ve taken quite a liking to this show – it’s a tad ‘darker’ this 2nd series which i'm enjoying so i got comfy with me gang and looked forward to a long, lazy weekend...

the only other thing i really needed was the beautiful fragrance of one of the soy wax melts from australian soy candles by lisa jane creations – lisa is a young womon running a small “cottage” industry in rural victoria which allows her to work from home and be with her children – she has all things soy wax and uses essential oils to create beautiful scents - my favourite is black raspberry and i had one left - another sensuous and sensory indulgence for the evening...



i decided to keep the computer turned off on saturday but before i settled down to read i gave allie a bath which was an added bonus with it being quite sunny and mild (no, she doesn't like baths - but i bet she feels so much better now - she's soooo very soft and smells lovely - sensory pleasure for both of us!!!)...

i have a number of books that need to be read – so many reserved!!! so I decided on 31 bond street by ellen horan for this weekend – a mystery based on a true 1857 story centred around the murder of new york ‘society’ dentist harvey burdell and the trial of emma cunningham, the womon charged with the crime. well it didn’t disappoint. It is a well crafted story and I was fascinated to read in the author’s note which characters were actually fictitious – and she very skilfully threaded the slave trade and disenfranchisement of the native people through the story (it's set 4 years before the american civil war)…

having finished 31 bond street on sunday and enjoying it immensely i was encouraged to have a bit of a search online and i came across this interesting blog “butchery on bond street” which I’ll have to read in more detail some other time… it’s written by a volunteer archivist in the green-wood cemetery where there is apparently a 'trove of treasures' related to this crime...

so, with it being monday now and the weekend just about over i better think about doing something - there's more washing to be done, a visit to be made to the mother, a trip to the supermarket for some much needed shopping, cleaning, blah, blah, blah - okay, guess it's back to reality...

later tonight though i’m anticipating starting ‘time’s legacy’, latest offering from barbara erskine, a skilled wordsmith who weaves tales between the past and present – sometimes ‘herstorical’, sometimes ‘historical’, always mesmerising...  maybe I should just settle on ‘theirstorical’ because I certainly can’t use the male-centric terminology of our language – but back to barbara erskine… she’s been a favourite author since i first read ‘lady of hay’ in the 80s and with many novels to her credit will probably remain a favourite for many years...

what a disappointment!

i was so looking forward to reading the fire by Katherine Neville, sequel to the eight (written 20-odd years ago)... i was anticipating getting lost (in an absorbing way) between the medieval and the contemporary worlds - well, i got lost alright, but unfortunately it was in a confused sort of way trying to work out what was going on, who was who and where the hell they fit in with the story (let alone where the hell some of the characters came from to start with!!)...

the mythology of alchemy and the tying of this into the numerology surrounding the game of chess itself is an interesting concept, the historical 'landscaping' was well done, and the weaving of numerous well-known historical figures as integral 'players' spanning the centuries should have made it unputdownable - but the story just never came together - unlike the eight, the suspense was definitely not gripping, nor did it have the eroticism of the eight, and the ending bordered on a mills & boon 'boy meets girl and everyone lives happily ever after' scenario... i persevered to the end in the belief that it just had to get better - i needn't have bothered... i have to say that this is one of those sequels that should never have been written!!

if you've never read the eight, i highly recommend it - it was always a 'stand alone' book so i really don't know what possessed her to write a sequel after all this time - it does help though if you understand the strategic nature of chess...

after being totally disappointed with my reading choice, and having the flat to ourselves (me and the gang) for the weekend, i decided to watch an episode of a 2008 television series i'd never heard of before that sounded interesting from the blurb...


being human... it's about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost who share a house... what a trio... I became hooked after the first episode (i couldn't help myself - i watched 6 hour long episodes over 2 nights) - it's dramatic, funny, sad, dark (and at times an indictment on human society) - we get to know these three characters and feel for their situations - we learn how they became the way they did - their 'trials and tribulations' while still trying to function as 'ordinary' people in their extraordinary circumstances... paranormal in the vein of kat richardson's greywalker series of books (which i love) - dare i say the thinking person's paranormal!!?

i'm addicted - unfortunately series 2 isn't available through our suppliers yet!!!!

and now i'm just going to concentrate on the recommended reading list of the slv's summer read programme... (there are some pretty good prizes up for grabs - to go into the draw you just need to name one of the books you've read from the list, and add your own reading recommendation!!!)

and the first reservation to come in for me was cooee by vivienne kelly... described as "a dark and elegant literary mystery" by scribe publications, i can only hope that it is a better read than my last one!!!!

ooooh - there's still no housing on the horizon for me brother, but he's away for the rest of this week so i'm going to enjoy the peace, quiet and space - and hope me old girl copes with the 39 degrees forecast for tomorrow!!!!