Wednesday, January 23, 2008

13 days since my last post!

I'm not sure how that happened. I'm not sure where the days have gone. I could have sworn I blogged last week sometime.


Anyway, enough about memory failure.


I've been knitting - look here's a finished Lapland Mitten





Well, it would be a photo of a mitten if I could get the picture to upload. We've been having terrible connection problems with our broadband recently. We've had days with no broadband at all, then days when a page takes about 10 minutes to load. Yesterday we had no email all day. Today apparently it won't load photos to Blogger. (Hurrah, it's working. Better finish this post and get it published before the connection goes down again.)



The second mitten is barely started as I have have suffering from second mitten syndrome, also it has been temporarily shelved to knit a woolly hat for Pete who is going on a team-building course this weekend. It's in Devon and it involves being outside - a warm woolly hat was definitely called for.



I finished Ruso and the Demented Doctor by R S Downie which is a historical crime novel set in Roman Britain and features a doctor (not the demented one of the title) in the service of the legions and his British housekeeper/lover. I was a bit concerned before I started it that it would be a pale imitation of Lindsey Davis, who I like very much, but I needn't have worried. Ruso was a quite different kettle of fish from Falco and the British setting was great. It's not published until March but I do recommend it. My only quibble (and it's a small one) was that there was no map to tell me where the different locations were in Britain, or even a note to tell me that Coria (where most of the action takes place) is now known as Corbridge. However it was a proof that I was reading so maybe this will be included in the actual book. I shall now have to go back and try the first volume in the series, Ruso and the Disappearing Dancing Girls.



Now I'm reading A Vengeful Longing by R N Morris, due to be published by Faber in February. It's set in 19th century St Petersburg and features investigating magistrate Porfiry Petrovich (from Crime and Punishment) and his new assistant. This is the second book in the series, but I've not read the first. Anyway I'm about halfway through and enjoying it immensely so far. It's a pretty convincing portrayal of the city (as far as I know anyway - it convinces me!) and I'm really getting to like Porfiry Petrovich, who I guess I've met before as I have read C&P but it was a long time ago and I don't remember much about it or him. More about this one as the plot unfolds, but so far so good.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is a seriously gorgeous mitten!
Liked your review of that book with Crystal in the title on Euro Crime last week. (You see, you forget if you have blogged or not, I forget the names of things after a few days or hours). I am not sure if I will read it as the supernatural is not my thing, but I did like your review.
Maxine (known now to Google as petrona!)

Joanna said...

Lovely mitten Pat!