Off on a jolly to CyberMummy'11
I’m of into uncharted territory at the weekend, braving the wilds of unknown bits of London to go to a blogging conference with hundreds of women I haven’t ever met 😯 I’m only going to know 4 people there, I think and right now that doesn’t feel an awful lot! I’m looking forward to it though; although I’m fairly unknown in the bloggy world and unlikely to ever be a highly regarded ‘mummy blogger’, I do quite enjoy the small forays into that world I’ve made and I’ve made several new friends because of it. So that’s all good and it is great to be making new friends.
I don’t write much about our businesses on here any more; PoP used to be as much about the Merrily shops as it did about the girls. I’ve taken more of a back seat in it since Max took over though and especially since died Freddie was born and died, so sometimes it feels a bit wrong to write about it. I’m still very passionate about the businesses I created though, I just don’t want people to feel bombarded with anything that feels too much like blatant begging for sales. One thing is for sure, in order to run a 21st century business, social media needs to be understood, so as much as making friends and doing things with PoP, I’m off to CyberMummy to pick up tips on how to be a better business owner. I’m guessing it will be a bit like the toy shows I’m used to, so hopefully I won’t be too overawed.
If you’re going too, I’m afraid I don’t look like a duck, nor do I trail around with ducklings in my wake. I do look a bit like this though and I always wear an acorn necklace so please come and say hello to me.
My name’s Merry, I won’t be looking glamorous and I may possibly run away after a while from babies in arms, but otherwise, I really am quite nice!
I’m staying both nights in the Travelodge and as I’m being sponsored by our very own toy company I strongly suggest that if you happen to be there on either evening, you come and ask if you can feel in my pockets 🙂 You never know what you might find. (It won’t be sticky!)
365:9
Book Review #25 Secrets of the Heart by Elizabeth Buchan
If you look at my “favourite ever books” page, you’ll see three of Elizabeth Buchan’s books on there. They are all fabulous historical novels of which Consider the Lily is probably my favourite ever book and Max and I went especially to Riberac in France once because of my love for Light of the Moon. After those books, she turned more to romantic fiction and, featuring women older by some way that I was, I moved away from her for a while. But recently I thought I would revisit her and picked one at random out of the 6 or 7 on my Kindle I hadn’t read.
Obviously, because of the entirely random nature of this pick, the one I chose had a character called Freddie who popped up mid-story, was desperately wanted by two of the characters and gave one the slip. It also had a pregnancy in it.
But.. you know. Hey *waves at universe*.
Secrets of the Heart is an enjoyable read. In some ways it is similar to Consider the Lily; it centres of a dilapidated house, has several women of differing natures who want one man, while some other love interests tangle about in the edges of the story. It’s an illustration of the complexities of the lives of people who are not happily married at 30 and how they tend to be ensnared by life that makes choices less than simple. The themes are decay, weariness, hope and change and they are painted across houses, people and relationships. The houses as characters in their own right worked well, the incidental characters, the desperation of the mistress who is also the wronged woman and the parallels that are also differences between the characters were interesting – sad, but interesting.
It’s not a criticism of the book at all, but I’ve noticed lately that books about people trying to? find love and security in their30’s, with burned fingers and baggage, tend to have a certain passivity and weariness to the characters. I’m not sure why? Are they written by people who have been through that and know that is the overwhelming emotion or is it just too difficult for a happily-married to grasp the feelings? I enjoyed it though there was no astonishing twist to the tale but it left me wondering a little about the potential to become pathetic, or apathetic, when life doesn’t work out in a 2.4 children sort of way. I wonder why it is that so many novels of that sort leave me with that taste in my mouth?
Book Review #24: Lady of the English by Elizabeth Chadwick
I stumbled across Elizabeth Chadwick in a chance ‘I like the look of that cover” Waterstones moment and she has become absolutely my favourite historical author. I’ve read my way through all of her back catalogue and for the last year or more, all her new books (she is thankfully prolific!) have arrived on release date, either to my door or my Kindle. So far, every single one of her books has been fabulous, an enjoyable as well as an educational read and novels that have stretched my imagination and furthered my understanding of the history of England. From the Battle of Hastings onwards, she has a skill for bringing not only a cast of characters to life but also a landscape and a way of life. Aside from a few early ones, all her books feature real historical characters and events, tapestried together into an ever growing world of medieval England. Often books overlap, with characters from one popping up in another (as they would!) and often events are seen from one angle in one book and from a slightly different one in another.
There is a huge benefit to bringing characters to life in the way Elizabeth Chadwick does; even when characters have to be woven using subjective or intuitive ideas in order to create believable scenes and make a story, these historical characters become people and it is when you have an idea of a person, that it is possible to learn about them, remember them from one English Heritage trip to another and think about why they acted as they did. It was because of these books that I knew the history and the pressures on nearly all of these people, on our trip last week.
As an educator, someone trying to teach my children a real grasp of history, it is wonderful to be able to talk about these names as people to them and tell them the stories of their lives. Even allowing for the necessity for occasional creative licence with a personality, knowing the stories of 800 year old men and women makes for great days out. And as children of the Horrible Histories generation, being able to tell the story of the woman imprisoned so long she (maybe!) ate chunks from her dead son, is always going to please them!
Lady of the English is something of a triumph. It tells the story of Empress Matilda, who fought Stephen back and forth across England for a contested crown. It’s a confusing part of history at the best of times and a novel that teased out the complexities and laid bare the twists and turns of a bloody and grim civil war that is almost forgotten in today’s classrooms, seems very worthwhile. In that respect, it is excellent, easy to understand and a good insight into some forgotten history from the days well before succession in the monarchy was clear cut.
Far more than that though, the story of Matilda has been told incredibly skilfully, especially as she has already popped up in many of Chadwick’s other novels in her most common guise; that of a cold, hard and difficult woman who few found it easy to care for. Matilda has, inevitably, had the treatment that most strong women in history get – any strength is portrayed as unwomanly and dislikeable and she is generally seen as someone of few likeable traits who pulled England through war; Stephen, weak and malleable as he perhaps was, manages to avoid the tarnish of ineffectual monarch. Lady of the English utterly pulls this apart; while retaining all of Matilda’s well documented personality traits, a story and a concept has been created to explain why she was as she was and to make them admirable as well as daunting. The result is an entirely believable and interesting ‘other side’ to the story of the Empress and the world of women and men, treachery, loyalty and love that made up the intrigues of court life.
As ever, bravo!