It's wildly exciting to get home and find a parcel from Spain waiting for you. Carefully unwrapped it revealed a lovely light pink scarf with owls on it. I fell in love immediately. When Momery Twigg (now Spanish Rose) and I were children a lady would occasionally walk past our houses with her hair and poodle dyed to the same pastel colour. I thought the pink particularly stylish for a poodle and suitable for old ladies...
You know that I love owls and this book had jumped out at me at the library. I like Janet Frame as an author, and the title I recognised as from a Shakespeare poem that my Dad spouted occasionally. I admire Janet Frame. Let me quote a bit from the blurb: 'She wrote her first book,
The Lagoon and Other Stories, in 1946 while working as a live-in maid and studying part-time at university. When the collection was published in 1952 and won a prestigious literary prize, Frame's doctors cancelled a lobotomy they had planned for her.' She led a precarious life.
This post was going to lead into my first day at my new Thursday job at the local school but it is eclipsed by this article
http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2016/apr/28/the-day-the-war-came-poem-about-unaccompanied-child-refugees?CMP=share_btn_tw which Bronnie sent and see also Jackie Morris' blog post 'Empty Chairs'. My day at school was fine.
I feel so deflated after reading of the lovely Janet Frame book you received, and the poem Bron sent, in relation to the book I sent you for Christmas. I was lead to believe it was a gripping Australian historical novel that would hold you in its thrall. However, I have just read it and found it to be a boring slog, though the descriptions of the confrontation between the white settlers and the Aborigines made for some powerful reading. And I also thought there was a mention of an owl at night ! I wish the author had abided by the 'less is more' principle. So, humble apologies. FF
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