Today's song - "Giving You Away" / Lukas Nelson and Promise Of The Real

Music still gettin' me through the never-ending pandemic. This is a perfect father and daughter song at a wedding. Makes me cry. 

Calendar of Crime - January / The Nine Tailors

For my January book. I chose 4. - the New Year's category. The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers begins with Lord Peter Wimsey and his manservant Bunter going off the wintry road into a ditch.They walk until they come to Fenchurch St. Paul.

It was past four o'clock and New Year's Eve; the snow that had fallen all day gave back a glimmering greyness to a sky like lead.

I bought a lovely used copy years ago. I have been meaning to read it in January, prompted to do so by Gladys Taber whose housemate Jill read it every year in that month. From Stillmeadow Sampler:

Jill, of course, reads Dorothy L. Sayers' The Nine Tailors again, although she almost knows it by heart now.

And from Stillmeadow and Sugarbridge, concerning which one book to take to a tropical island:

Jill would take Dorothy L. Sayers' The Nine Tailors and just reread it every few days.

I enjoyed the small parts of the book which focused on a dotty vicar and his long-suffering and much-loved wife. However, I simply cannot say that I liked the book. The main subject is campanology, which is bell-ringing. Sayers is clearly very knowledgeable on the subject, but this reader could not understand it at all! I felt like I was reading an unknown language. And the locale was so dismal and depressing that I couldn't stand being there, even if in the pages of a book! The villagers for the most part seemed as miserable as the locale.

I watched The Nine Tailors many years ago, and my memory of it is that I just didn't get what was going on. I felt sure that if I read the book, all would become clear. But, no. The book is well-thought of, and highly praised, but I  cannot add my voice to the throng.

Quote du jour / Vita Sackville-West

 "The shortest day has passed, and whatever nastiness of weather we may look forward to in January and February, at least we notice that the days are getting longer.  Minute by minute they lengthen out.  It takes some weeks before we become aware of the change.  It is imperceptible even as the growth of a child, as you watch it day by day, until the moment comes when with a start of delighted surprise we realize that we can stay out of doors in a twilight lasting for another quarter of a precious hour."

Vita Sackville-West 

Here she is at Sissinghurst in 1960

This is so true! Every day it is lighter longer. Tom keeps a weather journal, and says we are gaining about two minutes of daylight per day. The night doesn't come boom! now. There is a real twilight time. And as of January 19 at 9:39 pm, one third of winter is past.

Dean Street Press - free Kindle books

 I have mentioned the wonderful Dean Street Press before, but I don't think I told you that they offer a "free Kindle e-book of the week". Isn't that the most marvelous thing!

You may go here to see what is offered each week. I am delighted to have just gotten the 2016 biography of Noel Coward!

Addendum: I read about 120 pages, and while it was pleasant enough, I must say I got a little bored and quit.

As Time Goes By

 I saw on instagram that the first episode of As Time Goes By premiered on January 12, 1992. 30 years!! I can hardly believe it. My children turned 10 and 7 that year. 

I decided I would start watching it all over again beginning tonight. I own the boxed set, and have watched many times. I have a note that the last time was 2017. 

Long time readers will remember Mrs Bale making many appearances, and I am thinking she might again this year. She has her own letter topic on the sidebar, with 80 entries!

Today's poem by Susan Moorhead

Back in 2016, I posted two poems by Susan Moorhead, a woman I "met" via blogging. She no longer writes her blog but it is still up so you may visit here. I have remained in touch with her via instagram. This poem is from her 2021 book.

                                                                      Common Wonders

In a dark time, when I became lost, the feelings

for everyone I had loved and for everything that once

held meaning left. Light of any kind was missing

down at the bottom amid the skeleton fish and nameless

things. I stayed lost until some lift of grace willed me 

back. When I returned, it was the smallest of things

that held my hand. The play of colors in a quilt, flavor

of a neighbor's offering of soup and bread. Green outside

the windows. The first thrashing thunderstorm, lightning

brash in the sky. The quilt wrapped around me. I felt

the rhythm of the hours, clockwork steady, as I stumbled

back from grief where time does not exist. People want

to find a lesson in everything, but what is the takeaway

of sorrow? I could say it was the resilience of my heart,

the will to rise that carried me, but no. It was the small

wonders revealed, moment after moment. Every bird flying,

each slowly whirling cloud, the scatters of light spilling

through tree branches, the hush in the yard as evening fell.

Noticing these small graces allowed the terrible rift in me

to mend. One evening, reading to my child, I heard tenderness

in my voice replace the rote dutiful tone that grief had

assigned me. I felt the ache of love return, common, wonderful.

2022 Book Facts

January - 7

by women 6

by men 1

print - 2

Kindle - 5

years - 

1930s - 2

1950s - 1

1960s - 1

1970s - 1

2000-2009 1

2010-2019 - 1

genres - 

fiction - 3

nonfiction - 1

mystery - 3

Tom's 2022 Reads

January - 3

1. Reykjavik Nights - a prequel to the Erlendur series

by Arnaldur Indridason

translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Crabb

mystery 2012

print

finished 1/9/22

2. WBCN and the American Revolution

How a Radio Station Defined Politics, Counterculture, and Rock and Roll

by Bill Lichtenstein

nonfiction 2021

print

finished 1/18/22

3. The Long Haul

by Finn Murphy

nonfiction 2017

print

finished 1/29/22

March - 1

4. The Smoke Hunter

by Jacquelyn Bensob

fiction 2016

print

finished 3/29/22

May -1

5. The Cold Dish - book 1 in the Longmire series

by Craig Johnson

mystery 2005

print

finished 5/4/22

August - 1

6. Have His Carcase - book 8 in the Peter Wimsey series

by Dorothy L. Sayers

mystery 1932

print

finished 8/18/22

September - 1

7. Dixie Lullaby

A Story of Music, Race, and New Beginnings in a New South

by Mark Kemp

nonfiction 2004

print

finished 9/28/22

8. Wolf Hall - book 1 in the Thomas Cromwell trilogy

by Hilary Mantel

fiction 2009

print

library book

finished 12/1/22

Books Read in 2022

 January - 7

1. The Woods in Winter

by Stella Gibbons

fiction 1970

Kindle

finished 1/2/22

2. The Crime at the 'Noah's Ark'

by Molly Thynne

mystery 1931

Christmas

Kindle

finished 1/15/22

3. The House on the Cliff

by D.E. Stevenson

fiction 1966

Kindle

finished 1/21/22

4. The Nine Tailors - book 11 in the Lord Peter Wimsey series 

by Dorothy Leigh Sayers

mystery 1934

print

finished 1/24/22

5. I Still Dream About You

by Fannie Flagg

fiction 2010

Kindle 

library book

finished 1/26/22

6. The Tender Bar

by J.R. Moehringer

nonfiction 2005

print

finished 1/30/22

7. 4.50 From Paddington - book 7 in the Miss Marple series

by Agatha Christie

mystery 1957

Christmas

Kindle

reread 

finished 1/31/22

February - 4*

8, Displacement

by Kiku Hughes

graphic novel 2020

print

finished 2/8/22

9. The Murder on the Enriqueta

by Molly Thynne

mystery 1929

Kindle

finished 2/9/22

10. Dead in the Morning - book 1 in Patrick Grant series

by Margaret Yorke

mystery 1970

Kindle

finished 2/13/22

11. The Draycott Murder Mystery*

by Molly Thynne

mystery 1928

Kindle

read in 2021 after May 19, but didn't write it down, so am

counting it here

March - 5

12. The Cape Cod Mystery - book 1 in the Asey Mayo series

by Phoebe Atwood Taylor

mystery 1931

Kindle

finished 3/3/2022

13. Somebody I used to know

by Wendy Mitchell

nonfiction 2018

print

finished 3/3/22

14. Beginning with a Bash - book 1 in the Leonidas Witherall series 

by Alice Tilton (a pen name for this series of Phoebe Atwood Taylor)

mystery 1937

Kindle

finished 3/15/22

15. What I wish people knew about dementia

by Wendy Mitchell

nonfiction 2022

print

finished 3/19/22

16. Heads You Lose - book 1 in the Inspector Cockrill series

by Christianna Brand

mystery 1941

Kindle

finished 3/24/22

April - 4

17. Provence,1970

M.F.K. Fisher,

Julia Child,

James Beard,

and The Reinvention of American Taste

by Luke Barr

nonfiction 2013

print

reread

finished 4/8/22

18. The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax - book 1 in the Mrs. Pollifax series

by Dorothy Gilman

mystery 1966

Kindle

reread

finished 4/10/22

19. Susan Settles Down

by Molly Clavering (as B. Mollett)

fiction 1936

Kindle

finished 4/18/22

20. Miracles on Maple Hill

by Virginia Sorenson

children's fiction 1956

print

reread

finished 4/22/22

May - 2

21. Break from Nuala - book 10 in the Inspector De Silva series

by Harriet Steel

mystery 2022

Kindle

finished 5/2/22

22. France Is A Feast

The Photographic Journey of Paul And Julia Child

by Alex Prud'Homme and Katie Pratt

nonfiction 2017

print

finished 5/16/22

June - 4

23. A Bird in the Hand - book 1 in the George and Molly Palmer-Jones series

by Ann Cleeves

mystery 1986

Kindle

finished 6/3/22

24. Pastoral

by Nevil Shute

fiction 1944

Kindle

finished 6/7/22

25. Lord James Harrington and the New Year's Eve Mystery - book 11 in the Lord James Harrington

series by Lynn Florkiewicz

mystery 2021

Kindle

finished 6/15/22

26. French Braid

by Anne Tyler

fiction 2022

print

library book

finished 6/16/22

July - 6

27. The Winter Mystery - book 1 in the Lord James Harrington series 

by Lynn Florkiewicz

mystery 2013

Kindle

finished 7/1/22

28. The Joy and Light Bus Company - book 22 in the No 1 Ladies' Detective agency series

by Alexander McCall Smith

mystery 2021

Kindle

library book

finished 7/13/22

29. The Children of Green Knowe - book 1 in the Green Knowe series

by Lucy M. Boston

children's fiction 1954

print

ILL library book

finished 7/16/22

30. The Adventurous Chef: Alexis Soyer

by Ann Arnold

children's picture book 2002

print

finished 7/16/22

31. The Way to Sattin Shore

by Philippa Pearce

children's fiction 1983

print

finished 7/20/22

32. A Sunlit Weapon - book 17 in the Maisie Dobbs series

by Jacqueline Winspear

mystery 2022

Kindle

library book

finished 7/22/22

August - 4

33. Cross of Snow

A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

by Nicholas Basbanes

nonfiction 2020

print

finished 8/5/22

34. The Arrivals

by Meg Mitchell Moore

fiction 2011

Kindle

reread

finished 9/7/22

35. The Penguin Pool Murder - book 1 in the Hildegard Withers series

by Stuart Palmer

mystery 1931

Kindle

reread

finished 8/21/22

36. Murder on the Blackboard - book 3 in the Hildegard Withers series

by Stuart Palmer

mystery 1932

Kindle

reread

finished 8/29/22

September - 4

37. Murder on Wheels - book 2 in the Hildegard Withers series

by Stuart Palmer

mystery 1932

Kindle

reread

finished 9/8/22

38. My Family and Other Animals

by Gerald Durrell

nonfiction 1956

print

finished 9/15/22

39. The Puzzle of the Pepper Tree - book 4 in the Hildegard Withers series

by Stuart Palmer

mystery 1933

Kindle

reread

finished 9/18/22

40. The Milliner's Hat Mystery - book 7 in the Inspector Richardson series

by Basil Thomson

mystery 1937

Kindle

reread

finished 9/26/22

October - 3

41. Recipes for Love and Murder - book 1 in the Tannie Maria series

by Sally Andrew

mystery 2015

print

library book

finished 10/7/22

42. The Puzzle of the Silver Persian - book 5 in the Hildegard Withers series

by Stuart Palmer

mystery 1934

Kindle

reread

finished 10/8/22

43. Murder at Mount Epraim - book 9 in the Whitstable Pearl series

by Julie Wassmer

mystery 2022

Kindle

finished 10/29/22

November - 8

44. Miss Withers Regrets - book 9 in the Hildegarde Withers series

by Stuart Palmer

mystery 1947

Kindle

reread

finished 11/5/22

45. Trains and Lovers

by Alexander McCall Smith

fiction 2012

Kindle

finished 11/10/22

46. Clue of the Silken Ladder - book 5 in the Penny Parker series

by Mildred Wirt

Children's fiction - 1941

Kindle

finished 11/13/22

47. The Secret Pact - book 6 in the Penny Parker series

by Mildred Wirt

Children's fiction - 1941

Kindle

finished 11/16/22

48. The Dead Shall Be Raised - book 3 in the Thomas Littlejohn series

by George Bellairs

mystery 1942

Kindle 

reread

finished 11/18/22

49. The Diary of a Bookseller -  first book in the Diary of a Bookseller series

by Shaun Bythell

nonfiction 2017

print

library book

finished 11/20/22

50. Vittoria Cottage - book 1 in the Drumberley series

by D.E. Stevenson

fiction 1949

Kindle

reread

finished 11/22/22

51. Doctor Turner's Casebook

Based on the BBC Hit Drama Call the Midwife

by Stephen McGann

Nonfiction, mostly - With sections from the television show 2016

print

finished 11/22/22

December - 3

52. A Place to Die - book 1 in the Georg Büchner series

by Dorothy James

mystery 2010

Kindle

reread

finished 12/2/22

53. A World of Cookies For Santa

by M.E. Furman

illustrated by Susan Gal

Children's fiction 2017

print

finished 12/20/22

54. Stardust in Nuala - book 12 in the Inspector de Silva series

by Harriet Steel

mystery 2022

Kindle

finished 12/21/22

2021 Book Facts - just the stats

Kindle - 52

Print - 10, and most were childrens books

By men - 26

By women - 33

By both - 3

By the years:

1890s - 1

1900-09 - 2

1920s - 2

1940s - 7

1950s - 6

1960s - 1

1980s - 2

1990s - 1

2010-19 - 28

2020s - 12

2021 Book Facts - the rest of the list

 I read 10 fiction books this year.

The first I read was The Swiss Summer which I wrote a bit about here. I am currently reading a second book by Stella Gibbons, and am just as happy with it. Thanks again to the Dean Street Press for publishing these wonderful works by women whom most of us have not heard of. I also read three by Molly Clavering. You may read about her here.

I read three works of Japanese literature that I thought so original, so different from anything I have read before. 

I thought The Bishop's Wife by Robert Nathan to be quite odd, not anywhere near as good as the movie!

I wrote about the Boy... by Charlie Mackesy here. Not impressed.

The other fiction was the prequel James Runcie wrote - the prequel to the Grantchester mysteries, called The Road To Grantchester. It was excellent.

Only 3 non-fiction but all of them were utter gems! The Splendid and The Vile, Citizens of London, and A Child's Christmas in Wales. 

8 children's books. Most were so-so but Cynthia Rylant's The Old Woman Who Named Things and The Railway Children by Edith Nesbitt were wonderful.

1 mystery thriller still scares me to think of it.

1 book of poetry - A Shropshire Lad by A.E. Housman. I was sure I would love it, but I didn't. I loved some lines but was not interested in much of it. 

I'll save the stats for another post.

2021 Book Facts - the mystery edition

In 2021 I read 62 books, of which 39 were mysteries.

Finished the Harriette Ashbook series that I raved about last year.

Read two more E.C.R. Lorac books. Not sure if I have read all the ones available, but will check.

Read the latest in the Lady Hardcastle series by T.E. Kinsey. I see there will be a new one next year.

Read the first two in the Mydworth series by Matthew Costello and Neil Richards, and really enjoyed them! I want to read more this year. I claim to not like "historical" mysteries or fiction but yet I seem to read and like a lot of it! 

Another new series I like is the Heathcliff Lennox series by Karen Baugh Menuhin. And yes, you are right in wondering if she is related to Yehudi Menuhin. Her husband is his son. The author has a great website here.

I do like the Inspector Knollis books by Francis Vivian from the 1940s and 50s. In both this series and the mysteries by the Radfords, E. and M.A., there isn't personal information. The detectives just get on with solving cases and they are brilliant at it. No family life, no feelings - just the facts which can be very soothing! Another old book is by Christopher Bush, The Plumley Inheritance, first book in the Ludovic Travers series. This has been out of print for ages and is published by the wonderful, wonderful Dean Street Press. There are a whole lot more available! 

For some reason I haven't been able to figure out, I never watched the Grantchester series on PBS. When I heard the new season was coming up, I had my own little TV marathon, and watched them all. Years ago, I read the first two books in James Runcie's series. My little reports on them are here. Since it had been (gulp) seven years, I decided to read them again and then continue with the others. There was a treat in that he wrote a prequel published in 2019, so I read it first and then the rest of the books. I was in reading heaven within the pages of these books. If you have only read the books or watched the television version, they are very, very different. Both are extremely enjoyable but not the same.

And to end my year in mysteries, I read the latest entries in Karen MacInnery's Snug Harbor series; Harriet Steel's Inspector de Silva series; and Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs series. I have written about the Whitstable Pearl series by Julie Wassmer. I just love them. Jack Murray's Kit Aston series (another historical mystery) is very appealing. I read the first and have more ahead of me. Last but definitely not least, are three books in the Devonshire series by Michael Campling with a different and interesting pair of amateur sleuths. 

My Year in Books - 2021

I saw this here, and I thought what a fun thing to do. And it was!

My Year in Books 2021.

How do you feel?  The Old Woman Who Named Things

Describe where you currently live:  On -  A High Wire in Nuala

If you could go anywhere, where would you go?  A Child's Christmas in Wales

Your favorite form of transportation:  The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse - the last named

Your best friend is: Dear Hugo

You and your friends are: The Railway Children

What's the weather like?  The Splendid and the Vile

You fear: the Valley of Lies

What is the best advice you have to give?  "Murder Isn't Cricket"

Thought for the day:  Sidney Chambers and the Persistence of Love

How would I like to die?  Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death (23rd Psalm)

My soul's present condition:  (and again) A High Wire in Nuala

Merry Christmas!

 I want to thank my most loyal and kind readers. I love it that you are always there even when I rarely do a blog post. I am so hoping for, as The Kinks say, better things in the coming year. So here is our 2021 Christmas card for you. It may not have come through the mail but it is just as heartfelt.

Setting up the crèche

Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas 1984

1984. Look at all those young faces! There is a list of the performers here.

Amy Grant: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

A little Amy Grant for your Christmastime listening pleasure.

A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas

 

Each year I bring out this dear little book with all the other Christmas books. I don't think I have ever read it in its entirety until now. Most people seem to catagorize it as "prose poetry". Whatever it is called, I loved it so much, and I find myself admiring the film version even more because it is very true to Thomas' words. I've written about the movie here, if you would like to read it.

I had forgotten that I gave it to my mother.

It clutches at my heart and makes me cry - the way she wrote "my Nan". She died three years later.

Two years earlier, Tom had given her this album on the first Christmas after my father died.

I heard her play "And Death Shall Have No Dominion" a lot, and I think it was a comfort to her. There's a line "Though Lovers Be Lost, Love Shall Not". Deep fellow that Mr. Thomas.

And that depth comes through in "A Child's Christmas in Wales". His words convey so much feeling. He writes of "the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep". Do we all hear those voices?  Of our long-dead parents or grandparents? And we never can remember because we fall into sleep right afterward? 

The heartfelt parts are balanced by the humorous remembrances like Miss Protheroe asking firemen who have been fighting a fire in the house, "Would you like anything to read?"

Thomas offers litanies of "useful presents" - "engulfing mufflers of the old coach days, and mittens made for giant sloths" and "useless presents" - "bags of moist and many-colored jelly babies" and "a tram-conductor's cap and machine that punched tickets". "And a packet of cigarettes: you put one in your mouth and you stood at the corner of the street and you waited for hours, in vain, for an old lady to scold you for smoking a cigarette, and then with a smirk you ate it."

After an adventure outdoors with friends, they "returned home through the poor streets where only a few children fumbled with bare red fingers in the wheel-rutted snow and cat-called after us..."

If you type his name into the blog's search, you will find more by Dylan Thomas, including the words that end both this book and the movie;

"Looking through my bedroom window, out into

the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow,

I could see the lights in the windows

of all the other houses on our hill and hear

the music rising from them up the long, steadily

falling night. I turned the gas down, I got 

into bed. I said some words to the close and

holy darkness, and then I slept."

Blow, blow thou winter wind (When Icicles Hang) - John Rutter, Cambridge...

The album cover shown is not where I know this song from. I have it on Candlelight: Seasonal Reflections and Celebrations. Such a beautiful song for the season. There are some notes in the "heigh-ho" verse that make me think of the Call The Midwife theme. The title comes from a Shakespeare poem in Love's Labor's Lost.

When Icicles Hang: 1V. Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind by John Rutter 

Blow, blow thou winter wind,

Blow, blow thou winter wind, 

Thou art not so unkind, 

As man's ingratitude, 

As man's ingratitude, 

Thy tooth is not so keen, 

Because thou art not seen, 

Although thy breath be rude, 

Although thy breath be rude, 

Heigh-ho! Sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly; 

Most friendship is feinging, most loving mere folly:

Then heigh-ho, the holly! This life is most jolly. 

Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky, 

Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky, 

That does not bite so nigh 

As benefits forgot, 

As benefits forgot, 

Thou the waters warp, 

Thou sting is not so sharp 

As friend remembered not 

As friend remembered not

Heigh-ho! Sing heigh-ho! unto the green holly; 

Most friendship is feinging, most loving mere folly: 

Then heigh-ho, the holly! This life is most jolly.

 

Red Sox Nation is sad today