Teaser Tuesday - Feb 2

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Better late...

The face is blank and stiff, almost expressionless. One realises with a start how unchanging and conventionalized is the face of the living man and woman of these parts, handsome, but motionless as pure form.

From D H Lawrence's Twilight in Italy, I loved this book when I first found it at school and have returned to it regularly though not for quite a few years. This section is about crucifixes in the alpine meadows.

Mutterings - Feb 1

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Temper :: Steel (as in the manufacturing process)
2. Late! :: Breakfast
3. Status :: Site (as in website status)
4. Breakfast :: Croissant (I don't think I saw this before entering the second word in the list)
5. Hopeless :: Case
6. 365 :: 366
7. Lottery :: National
8. Cancer :: Lump
9. Facebook :: Upload
10. Date :: ISO

Changing Attitude Chester

I've forgotten to log here that the Changing Attitude Group in the Chester diocese have a new web pages location. Some local and UK events are listed. If you know of local events let me know and I'll add them to the news pages!

More alps

Here's the latest render from the current project.

A bit bare but with the colours layers I've set up I don't think there's likely to be a lot growing? I think the snow could do with being a bit chunkier? Looks like talcum power?

Mutterings - Jan 25

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Woke :: Pillow (I usually wake in the night due to sleeping on my arm trapped under the pillow!)
2. Postcard :: Poetic (I used to write these in my weirder days)
3. Blizzard :: Whiteout
4. Pooch :: Collar
5. Constipated :: Discomfort
6. Pastel :: Blue
7. Edge :: Postcards (.. from the .. again!)
8. Mother :: Oedipus
9. Linger :: Longer
10. Header :: Byte

Teaser Tuesday - Jan 20

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

A little late again!

I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.

Anne Bradstreet 'To My Dear and Loving Husband' from Poems to Learn by Heart - Ana Sampson. Here's a piece on the Bradstreet poem. The Sampson anthology is our book group book of the month, it contains a lot that's very familiar but also some rarer items. Here's an interview with Sampson.

Mutterings - Jan 19

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Holiday :: Period
2. Timeframe :: Business
3. Initiative :: Risk
4. Grinding :: Teeth
5. Shouting :: Help!
6. Liver :: Disease
7. Extension :: File
8. Taxes :: Death
9. Obnoxious :: Meddling
10. Ten minutes :: Appointment (I have one tomorrow!)

Mutterings - Jan 11

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Harbor :: Cold (no idea why - I had to lookup the connection!)
2. Mattress :: Spring
3. Experience :: Life
4. Seminar :: Education
5. 2 million :: Dollars
6. Scarf :: College
7. Stacked :: Theatre (something about boxes?)
8. Flowers :: Vase
9. Bowling :: Alley
10. Husband :: House

Teaser Tuesday - Jan 5

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

The leadership of the Western Church went on to build on that memory or claimed memory over a thousand years, to create one of Christianity's most noble and dangerous visions, the Roman papacy. Their building was literal, in the massive shape of the Basilica of St Peter above Peter's supposed grave site, a building which we will repeatedly encounter in Christian history.

I had to choose that teaser rather selectively the author indulges in some rather long sentences! The author is Diarmaid MacCulloch and this is 'A History of Christianity' - a substantial tome I got for Christmas and am currently enjoying even before we get to some of the lesser known and maybe more informative parts of the book. Here's Rowan WIlliams review laying out its strengths and shortcomings, I wouldn't want to meet Rowan in a supervision on the topic! (and an interesting typo in the author's name in the linked URL - blame the Guardian!

Mutterings - Jan 4

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Spending :: Money (or 'Hey big')
2. Question :: Open to
3. Drip :: Allegations
4. Episodes :: Lucid
5. Faking :: It
6. Draining :: Energy (must be the new year or Christmas)
7. Bangs :: Fuse
8. Fifty :: Middle age
9. Magazine :: Explosion (from the gun part)
10. Fabulous :: Absolutely!

Raisin Spice Cookies

I did these for after church coffee this morning, as I commented at the foot of this post my recipe book has for method - ' rub in marg' and that's it! I've attempted to add a few more hints..

Ingredients

1. 8 oz self raising flour
2. 1 tsp cinnamon
3. 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
4. 8 oz fine semoline
5. 8 oz marg
6. 8 oz caster sugar
7. 2 eggs
8. milk (!)
9. 3 oz raisins

Method

Mix dry ingredients, add (beaten) eggs and rub in marg, add milk if it's too dry - I hardly needed any when I made it yesterday.
Place in small balls (c. 1 raisin per ball) widely spaced on a baking tray and cook in 170deg C oven for c 15 minutes, let cool slightly before on a cooling rack otherwise the biscuits will sag! (Makes around 60)

Mutterings - 28 Dec

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Binge :: Drinker
2. Static :: Variable (a computer language connection!)
3. Pivotal :: Moment
4. Single :: Mum
5. Awakens :: (Christmas?) Morning
6. Cute? :: Pet
7. Theme song :: Raucous
8. Resolution :: New Year
9. Kitten :: Tea (I hadn't seen the next word on writing this, I was thinking of this site
10. Coffee :: Bean

Teaser Tuesday - Dec 22

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

Lenin gave up his post at the doorway, placed himself between his father's knees and picked his nose.
'What about a poem from you, young man?' Chacko said to him.

Another teaser from Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things - I last teased it here this book has lurked well down my reading pile for rather too long and alas I've rather lost the narrative thread or it's just too confusing? Last time I seemed to be rather enjoying it..now I'm just confused. When I've finished I will take myself to wikipedia and see if any light dawns!

Mountain scene

Just to redress this warm weather here's a snowy terragen scene, snow and some nice (IMHO) erosion.



Mountain looks a bit too much like a frog though?

And another shot from elsewhere in the landscape:

Mutterings - Dec 21

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Fair :: Weather (friends?)
2. Skull :: Crossbones
3. Expertise :: Delicate
4. Lines :: Parallel
5. Breasts :: Turkey (need to get some...)
6. Cabinet :: Pudding (I shan't comment about the one ruling the UK)
7. Robe :: Purple (a hymn..)
8. Bob :: Doubles (bell ringing!)
9. Knees :: Week
10. Shelves :: Filing

Teaser Tuesday - Dec 15

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had begun together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below; as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine-merchants cellar.

Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, I thought the 3rd sentence continued the teaser nicely. Well enough known for the passage I've quoted to be identified easily? Seasonal reading for our book group, it's been many years since I read this, a vivid description of social conditions in the 1800s but sometimes over-flowery!

Mutterings - Dec 14

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Upstairs :: Downstairs (a UK TV series - not sure I've ever seen it!)
2. Blouse :: Lace
3. Curls :: Forehead (there was a little girl...)
4. Face :: Clock
5. Ultimate :: Challenge
6. Hole :: in One
7. Theater :: Seating (I'm on the committee of a local cinema club and the state of the seating is a frequent discussion topic!)
8. Polished :: French
9. Freak :: of Nature
10. Griddle :: Crumpet

Teaser Tuesday - Dec 8

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

We didn't speak for some time.
'There's a couple of details here might interest you,' I said and pointed to the falling man.

From J L Carr's A Month in the Country- a novella short but very thought provoking. Telling of a WWI survivor who goes to a country village to restore a medieval wall painting. A slow tale of 80 pages wonderful details - the organ buying trip and other quotes like this:

If I’d stayed there, would I always have been happy? No, I suppose not. People move away, grow older, die, and the bright belief that there will be another marvellous thing around each corner fades. It is now or never; we must snatch at happiness as it flies.

There's a review here with lots of insights. I've read it at a rate of about 2 pages an evening slow but enjoying and savouring the details! The author grew up in Castleford which was of some interest to this household!

Mutterings - Dec 8

This week's free word associations from Unconscious mutterings are:

1. Mistake :: Simple
2. Lights :: Out!
3. Holiday :: Summer
4. Hi :: There
5. Giving :: Receiving (more blessed to...)
6. Bottle :: Bank
7. Understand :: Analyse
8. Red :: Alert (missed a trick there it should have been wine!)
9. Bracing :: Skegness - the power of ancient advertising!
10. Stop! :: Thief!

Teaser Tuesday - Dec 1

Teaser Tuesday
The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) 'teaser' sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title and author of the book that you’re getting your 'teaser' from .. that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you've given!

A saddler in Eyup assumed the leadership of the throng. He preached that the Jews and the Christians were People of the Book and, though in error, they were not evil.

Another teaser from Elif Shafak's 'The Architect's Apprentice, I'm still enjoying this but am finding it a bit episodic. And then there's the moments when I think that instead of being in the medieval Middle East this book is really based in Yorkshire - based on the place name in the above extract! Sorry I'll get my coat.