TravellinPenguin

Simply Sunday- 17 Nov. 2019

Posted on November 17, 2019November 17, 2019 by TravellinPenguin

Wow! Another week has gone by and I’ve got new books! (Yes, this is not another puppy post).

The Fullers Bookshop Reading Group email came out this past week and the first three books of 2020 are here so I have picked them up to get started. The long hot days of an Australian summer with their horrendous fires will be upon us soon enough so I wanted to start my reading while confined to a cool indoors.

Below are the February, March and April books in no particular order.

I have never read this book and have always meant to so I will begin with this one.

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton:

The blurb on the back (for those who haven’t read it) states:

“When the Countess Ellen Olenska returns from Europe, fleeing her brutish husband, her rebellious independence and passionate awareness of life stir the educated sensitivity of Newland Archers, already engaged to be married to the Countess’s cousin May Welland, “that terrifying product of the social system he belonged to and believed in, the young girl who knew nothing and expected everything.”

I think we can see where this one is going.

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The Godmother- A Crime Novel by Hannelore Cayre. This book won the European 9781770415430 Fiction Prize and the Grand Prix de Literature Policière

“Meet Patience Portefeux, 53, an underpaid French-Arabic translator who specialises in police phone taps. Widowed after the sudden death of her husband, Patience is wedged between the costs of raising her daughters and the nursing home fees for her ageing mother. She’s laboured for 25 yrs to keep everyone’s heads above water.

Happening upon an especially revealing set of wiretaps ahead of all other authorities, Patience makes a life-altering decision that sees her intervening in – and infiltrating- the machinations of a massive drug deal. She thus embarks on an entirely new career path: Patience becomes ‘the Godmother’.”

This sounds like a fun summer read.

Last but not least is our third book of the summer.

The Trespassers by Meg Mundell. Finally we have a book that is closer to home. Meg Mundell was born in New Zealand but now lives in Melbourne, Australia.

A shipload of migrant workers flees the pandemic-stricken UK, seeking a fresh start in Australia. For nine-year-old Cleary the journey promises adventure, for former nurse Billie it’s a chance to put a shameful mistake behind her, while struggling schoolteacher Tom hopes for a brighter future. But when a crew member is murdered and people start falling gravely ill, the Steadfast descends into chaos. Trappedon the ship, the trio must join forces to survive the journey and its aftermath. The Trespassers is a beguiling novel that explores the consequences of greed, the experiences of migration and exile, and the way strangers can become the ones we hold dear.

I am looking forward to reading this too. For once I have book club reads I am happily anticipating.

Other News:

For once all dogs are doing fine! We had a scare with our 14 year old Molly and thought “this is it,” but a change in medication and diet has her firing on all of her stubborn years and giving a big “what for” to Ollie. Ollie on the other hand gets his second vaccination next week when he turns 14 weeks and is then able to go outside of our property. He will be enrolled in the Hobart Dog Training club and will start puppy classes on Sunday. I’m hoping that takes a bit of the wind out of his sails. He loves running around giving Molly and the three cats grief but he doesn’t always come out on top.

I have some other events and travel bits and pieces that have piled up I need to get on this page so hopefully you’ll be hearing from me before too much longer. I attended an author event at Fullers Book shop, went to the theatre and our photo club wrapped up the Hobart Photography Exhibition. There has been a great deal happening in the past two or three months and now I am looking forward to the next two or three months of stability, peacefulness and planning bookish goals for 2020. Believe me those goals will not be grand.

I hope all of you are well and moving along and I look forward to more catching up. Let me know what you’ve been doing to keep yourselves entertained.

Instagram Penguin

Fiction, Simply Sunday

Simply Sunday 10 November

Posted on November 10, 2019November 10, 2019 by TravellinPenguin

Snip20191110_4 — Ollie- 12 weeks old. Male.

It’s been a very hectic week but more pleasant than the previous week. Readers will know we lost our lovely Odie last week. We were going to adopt another puppy as our older dog Molly is missing him. We wanted to get one from the Dog’s Home but they seldom have puppies that are small breeds. As we’re getting older we need a dog we can lift if needed. Odie needed to be carried a lot and we struggled with his weight. We saw a lovely litter of Jack Russells that needed a home. I checked it wasn’t a puppy mill turning them out and it wasn’t. A lovely family with six children had a pair of pedigree Jack Russell puppies. The mother is from Queensland and the father is a Tasmanian. A good gene selection.

Ollie came home on Thursday this past week. Molly has taken over keeping an eye on him. As she’s 15 years old in March she is an old hand at raising a couple of puppies and a few kittens. She seems livelier since he has joined our family and has cheered all of us up immensely though he will never be a replacement for Odie. We named him Ollie as it is a combination of the names of our past two dogs, Wally and Odie. He seems to be getting used to it. So he will continue to feature on this blog in future posts here and there.

Snip20191110_1 As we’ve been so incredibly heartbroken over the past couple of weeks I needed to find a book to read that offered comfort. I downloaded the audible book of All Creatures Great and Small read by actor Christopher Timothy from Audible.com. I have been listening to the wonderful stories of the Yorkshire practice before World War II in England. The family of characters, the country folk, everything about the series is lovely. Christopher Timothy played Mr. Herriott in the series that aired on television in the 1980’s. The series was wonderful and I have seen it a couple of times. It is my go to comfort watching/reading.

Mr Penguin and I went to Yorkshire in the 1980’s and were lucky enough to be in the town of Thurso while James Herriott was still practising. Known as James Alfred (Alf) Wight, not Herriott we were told in the local bookshop we visited that he would be in his practice the following day talking to visitors. With a newly purchased book in hand, we trotted over to his practice and waited with a handful of others as he turned up from a day’s work and invited us into his parlour. He chatted with us and autographed our books. It was a lovely day and we enjoyed meeting him very much.

The other book I’ve started as a hard copy is one Simon of Stuck in a Book (see his review here which I agree with) discussed awhile ago about a family who moved to Hay on Wye in Wales and decided to raise their family there. It was when Hay on Wye was in its heyday of bookshops in the early 2000s. The title of the book is Sixpence House: Lost In A Town of Books by Paul Collins. Snip20191110_3

I’m only about a quarter of the way into it but am enjoying it very much.

I also realise several bloggers are doing the Non-Fiction November readings this month. I haven’t joined in this month but it turns out I have only been reading non-fiction lately so I guess I’m participating despite my plans not to actively join in.

I’m looking forward to the new year of 2020 and am making some bookish, photography and dog training plans. I’m hoping it will be a more uplifting year than the past couple of months have been. I know life is cyclical so we can only continue to go up now.

As I have previously lost one book per puppy. (You cannot leave them unattended- books that is); I am hoping Ollie does not continue the tradition. I will let you know how we go.

Who can believe we’re in the middle of November already? Until next time…. Snip20190825_5

Fiction

Our Lovely Boy Odie

Posted on November 2, 2019November 2, 2019 by TravellinPenguin

It is with a heavy heart I must tell readers that we lost Odie this week. He was doing well while we were away and then this past weekend he began to deteriorate. It was as though he waited for us to return before saying goodbye. By Thursday he was in pain, couldn’t stand and had stopped eating. We knew it was time to act. He went peacefully in my arms with a loving staff of veterinarians and vet nurses. He was happy up to the last minute. Everyone was fussing over him and he seemed relaxed.

It is lovely we can show such kindness to animals in their last moments but not so humans yet in this country. The time is coming but it is not here yet.

I have a Japanese maple tree in our front yard. When we lose a loved pet I hang a bell in it as a memorial to that wonderful animal. When the wind blows I can hear the small tinkling sound of the bells. Odie and I used to sit on the porch every night in the dark after he did his business. He would come up the stairs and sit with me for a moment and often we would hear the bells. Now he has his own bell hidden in the green leaves of summer.

IMG_20170705_173632_505 — A very happy dog.

I can sit in my reading chair in the bedroom, with the window open and often hear the bells. It causes me to pause and remember some funny memory from the pets we have loved over the past 30 years. There are now seven bells in the tree.

Before long we will contact the Dog’s Home and offer to foster any puppies they may have that are not old enough to be adopted, with a view to giving one a home. If that doesn’t work out we will wait for a puppy to become available. We have given many animals who needed rehoming new lives and this will continue as long as we live. We are looking forward to new adventures with another goofball. We miss Odie so very much but he had everything a dog could ever want and he would want this for future pets. Our work was finished. His kindness always shone through above all else to other animals. So, don’t feel sad. This is all part of life and all any of us can ever do is be kind to the animals we meet and the people that await introduction.

Odie Wally Beach — Odie and Wally…………….Together Again