Germany

A ridiculously busy summer has seen the blog neglected, but I should say that the five days we spent in Rugen, an Island in NE Germany was fantastic. Staying in a remote cottage with a seawater lake at the bottom of the garden, wonderful beaches, sauasages,wild boar, bread and dripping, schnapps, bonfires, crosswords and sunshine. It felt like I’d been away for weeks.  Will write at length, perhaps about the dripping, soon.

A Dance to the Music of Time

A new addiction: Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time. It is funny, clever and charming, and peopled with the most wonderful characters. It has some claim to be the longest novel in English, and is significantly longer than A Suitable Boy, but I think Clarissa must surely be longer. It’s also strictly speaking not a novel, but a novel sequence (I’m about to start volume four). Whatever it is, it’s brilliant. I finished Volume 3 while sampling German sausages and German beer in Bad Homburg where I was staying for a (very interesting) conference. Bad Homburg is a very pleasant town near Frankfurt, whose parks are particularly nice. Anyway, without anything to read, I bought William Boyd’s Restless on Ed’s recommendation. It is, as he suggested, a great read and I’m thoroughly enjoying it (if perhaps a little too eager to race through it so I can start Volume 4 of Dance).

[Oh, a couple of weeks ago I left my bag at a Friend's house, in it was The Golden Notebook; it seems I am never to finish this book!]