Back!

1. back from Fuerteventura
2. which was lovely (if you like sun sand sea peace&quiet, which I do)
3. swam in the sea every day
4. (only) read four books (Lavinia, The Light Ages, Boating for Beginners, Measuring the World: Le Guin, MacLeod, Winterson, Kehlmann)
5. many many unread emails
6. about to convey ladymoonray to her kitties, fiance and bed.
7. thanks for birthday wishes!
8. had splendid birthday: five different beaches, a Museum of Salt and an excellent dinner on the waterfront.
9. sleepy due to late return and early ozymandias_cat, who has finished shunning me and now loves me lots. With tickly whiskers.
10. normal service will resume shortly. Maybe.

Fuerteventura, Sunday: Moonrise

Moonrise
Originally uploaded by tamaranth

I'm not going to post vast swathes of photographs. I've Flickr'd five from last Sunday -- we drove to the west coast to see the sun set and the harvest moon rise. The landscape is beautiful and strange and the light fantastic.

Notes in the Margin - A far off country of which we know little

Congratulations to Ms Mantel and all that but, while I’m sure it’s beautifully written, I simply have no inclination to read a 600-page book set in Tudor England. ... Novelists should be engaging with the issues of the day – like Balzac, Dickens and George Eliot did – not indulging in high-class escapism.
Notes in the Margin - A far off country of which we know little

Twit.

Luckily an anonymous comment says this more elegantly: History doesn't have to equal escapism; the best historical fiction, like the best science fiction, addresses the issues of the day. The entanglement of religion and politics (fanatical religion in particular) seems to me a strong common theme between our times and those of the Tudor era.

I think, re: Wolf Hall, I'd also be inclined to argue that an essential element of the modern novel is the exploration of character -- and Mantel's Thomas Cromwell is utterly compelling.