The Week:  This week has been a bit of a write off but I did get some reading done. Just not enough to write about it.  I  stepped on a bug. I think it must have been a white tail spider because within 48 hours I was at the doctor’s with necrosis spreading rapidly across my big toe and onto my foot.  I was told if the strong acting antibiotics didn’t work I would end up in the hospital. I have heard about these Australian flesh eating insects but not really encountered them closely or appreciated what they are capable of.  I now have a new respect for their power.

I am happy to say the care of my GP and the wonderful antibiotics we have access to have done their magic and it is improving rapidly.  I couldn’t help but think though “what if we lived before the time of antibiotics”.  It really doesn’t bear thinking about and I wonder what the anti-vaccine people would think of this. We are fortunate we live in a time we don’t need to cope with the ailments and diseases of the past.

News: Feeling good today that everything is working out. Then I read Book Journey’s blog post and learned of the death of Sue Grafton. She writes of an encounter with this lovely lady and tells about it here.

Sue Grafton is the author of the alphabet murder mysteries. “A is for Alibi, B is for Burglary,” etc. I have read several of these and used to buy them for my mother for Christmas and birthday presents. She always enjoyed them. My mother got up to the letter R or T, I forget. Sue Grafton died 28 December 2017 after a long battle with cancer. I wish to high heaven a cure for that awfulness would be found. She finished the book “Y is for Yesterday” but sadly died before she could publish her book for “Z”.

Deal Me In Challenge: This week I dealt the cards and got the 6 of clubs for this weekend. That means I will be reading a short story by Sha Ding called The Magnet. Absolutely nothing comes up on Google for this author or short story. Since it is from the book Stories From the Thirties and this author is presumably Chinese it is probably in the land of obscurity now. If anyone out there knows anything about this author I would be interested to know more.

Other stuff: I have been doing a bit of photography reading and playing with Lightroom and Photoshop but not a great deal. Our challenges were due for our photo club this past weekend. The theme was “Cloudscape”. Lots of “cloudy” photos on our facebook page, all of them quite beautiful.

Crawling into this Book:

On a final note, I have just begun the Australian book Extinctions by Josephine Wilson. It was the 2017 winner of Australia’s premiere Miles Franklin award. The Sydney Morning Herald describes it as:

“Extinctions is the scrupulously structured story of Frederick Lothian, an engineer

specialising in concrete – “the J.D. Salinger of concrete”  – who has moved into a “retirement village” after the death of his American wife. He has a fractious relationship with Caroline, their adopted, Indigenous daughter now living in London where she is curating an exhibition to be called “the drama of extinction”,  and a virtually non-existent one with his son Callum, who is in care after suffering a cataclysmic brain injury in a car crash. Then Jan, the old woman who lives next door, comes into his life and the tectonic plates of their lives start to shift.”

So far I am enjoying it though I have had to turn back a couple pages here and there because there are quite a few characters and the story jumps from now to then frequently. I like the protagonist so far. The author, Josephine Wilson, stated she had to consult the thesaurus when she won the Miles Franklin award because she couldn’t find the words.

Well I guess that sums up the Week that Was… What has been your main focus this week?