Wondrous Words

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Margaret

Reading Agatha Christie’s books I often come across words or phrases that I’m either not sure what they mean but can get the gist of the meaning from the context, or have never come across before.

I found an example of each type whilst reading The Murder on the Links, an early Poirot mystery first published in 1923:

Traps as in this sentence: ‘I had made a somewhat hurried departure from the hotel and was busy assuring myself that I had duly collected all my traps, when the train started.‘ (page 5)

Captain Hastings is the narrator and is returning to London on the Calais train, so I thought he couldn’t be taking animal traps with him on the train and it was more likely to be his luggage. According to the Chambers Dictionary that is the meaning of the word: ‘personal luggage or belongings’.

I didn’t know what the Bertillon system was. Poirot referred to it when talking about the lack of fingerprints on the murder weapon and remarked that ‘The veriest amateur of an English Mees knows it – thanks to the publicity the Bertillon system has been given in Paris.’ (page 35)

The Bertillon system is described in Wikipedia in the article on Anthropometry. Simple put it is a system for identifying criminals based on a series of their physical measurements introduced by Alphonse Bertillon in 1883. In 1894 England had adopted the system and had added the partial use of fingerprints. By 1900 England relied on finger prints alone.

(Click on the image to enlarge)

Wondrous Words Wednesday is hosted by Kathy at Bermuda Onion.

Saturday Snapshot: Dewars Lane

Posted on April 7, 2012 by Margaret

Berwick-upon-Tweed is an interesting English town near the border with Scotland, with three bridges crossing the Tweed. There are the Elizabethan Town Walls, Ramparts, Barracks, a ruined castle and quaint passageways like Dewars Lane, which dates back to medieval times. This is what it looks like today.

The white building on the right at the end of the passageway is now a Youth Hostel, Art Gallery and Bistro. It was built in 1769 and was originally a granary. Its fantastic tilted walls are the result of a fire in 1815, after which it was propped up rather than being rebuilt. It was used for storing grain up until 1985 and was then left unoccupied, gradually becoming derelict. It has recently been restored by the Berwick Preservation Trust.

The artist L S Lowry sketched it in 1936 on one of his many visits to the town and it is now part of the town’s Lowry Trail. Below is Lowry’s pencil drawing of the Lane.

And here is my sketch:

See more Saturday Snapshots on Alyce’s blog At Home With Books.

Teaser Tuesdays

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Margaret

The book I’m currently reading is A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel, a huge book of 872 pages. I’m only on page 136, so it’s early days. In fact so far it’s been setting the scene of pre-Revolutionary France as seen through the key characters of Georges-Jacques Danton, Maximilien Robespierre and Camille Desmoulins. I’m liking it and it brings back to my mind history lessons at school when we listed the causes of the French Revolution.

This extract summarises, I think, the mood of the times in 1788:

Nothing changes. Nothing new. The same old dreary crisis atmosphere. The feeling that it can’t get much worse without something giving way. but nothing does. Ruin, collapse, the sinking ship of state: the point of no return, the shifting balance, the crumbling edifice and the sands of time. Only the cliché flourishes. (page 130)

Not long afterwards everything changed!

(Click on the Teaser Tuesdays button for more teasers)

Book Beginnings on Friday

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Margaret

This is the opening sentence of the book I’m going to read next:

The night the war ended, both Mrs Trevor and Mrs Wilson went on duty at the Red Cross post as usual.

from The Village by Marghanita Laski. As this sentence indicates the setting is at the end of World War Two – in fact, the very day it ended. It seems to me as though Mrs Trevor and Mrs Wilson don’t want to give up the routine they had during the war and I’m keen to see what effect the end of the war will have on them.

This opening reminds me a bit of One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes, also set in 1946 and chronicles the changes the Marshall family encountered, a book which I loved.

Book Beginnings on Friday is now hosted by Gilion at Rose City Reader.

Saturday Snapshot – on Sunday

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Margaret

I missed posting a Saturday Snapshot yesterday – so here it is today.

We’ve had some misty mornings recently and this morning after the mist had cleared a bit the cobwebs on the decking railings were sparkling:

For more Saturday Snapshots go to At Home With Books.

Saturday Snapshot

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Margaret

Coldstream

Coldstream is our nearest Scottish town, the other side of the River Tweed. The view as you approach from the English side of the border is dominated by this monument that towers 70 feet above the town. It’s known as ‘Charlie‘ and was erected in 1834 as a tribute to Sir Charles Marjoribanks who was the first Liberal Member of Parliament for Berwickshire after the Reform Act of 1832. He died in 1833 at the age of 39.

'Charlie' - Sir Charles Marjoribanks

Below my photo is rather dark, just showing the silhouette of the statue as it rears up behind the houses in front and below it.

Coldstream - Marjoribanks Monument

For more Saturday Snapshots see Alyce’s blog At Home with Books.

Saturday Snapshot

Posted on March 10, 2012 by Margaret

There is a field at the back of our garden which is on a steep slope (it is much steeper than it looks in my photos). A couple of weeks ago I spotted three roe deer at the top of the field, grazing, and quickly took a few photos using the zoom lens.

They soon were aware I was around and began to move away.

They jumped over the fence and were soon out of sight. You can just see their white rumps – one getting ready to jump and two on the other side.

See more Saturday Snapshots on Alyce’s blog At Home With Books.

Saturday Snapshot: Cragside Again

Posted on March 3, 2012 by Margaret

Following on from last Saturday’s snapshots of Cragside here are a few more photos.

There were many other visitors when we were there and it was difficult sometimes to get a good photo and I had to be quick before someone moved in front of my camera. So, some of my photos are a bit out of focus and rather dark. (It’s amazing that you can take photos in National Trust properties – in the past it was strictly forbidden. I asked one of the room stewards why they allowed them now and he explained that because you can take photos on mobile phones it was impossible to stop people. It’s good to take your own photos, but actually there are much better ones than mine in the guidebook.)

The first room we saw was the kitchen. As you can see the area is fenced off. It’s not very big but there are also sculleries and larder and cellar storage beneath the kitchen, with a ‘dumb waiter’ to carry food and equipment up and down. The Butler, Housekeeper and Cook each had their own areas.

In the next photo you can see the spits with joints of meat in front of the range.

There is a dishwasher. Rather primitive compared to the modern models this dishwasher has wire compartments for crockery, a motor turned it whilst hot soapy water was squirted into it from a boiler. This had been invented in 1886 by a wealthy American, Josephine Cochrane whose servants had chipped her fine china.

None of the rooms at Cragside are very large, apart from the Drawing Room, and I could imagine being comfortable in most of them, such as the Dining Room. It has a lovely inglenook fireplace with stained glass windows designed by William Morris.

The windows either side represent the Four Seasons. the photo below shows two of the windows – Spring and Summer.

I still have more photos, but these are enough for one post. (Click the photos to see a larger view.)

Cragside is open to visitors from today. I would really like to go there again this year, there is so much I didn’t take in and I only had a brief look at the grounds.

See more Saturday Snapshots on Alyce’s blog At Home With Books.

Saturday Snapshot

Posted on February 25, 2012 by Margaret

My photos this week are a few of Cragside in Northumberland, now owned by the National Trust. It was built in 1863, with further extensions over the next 15 or so years, by William Armstrong, who later became Lord Armstrong. Armstrong was a remarkable man – a scientist, an innovator and a successful industrialist.

We visited it last year. Here is the view of the house approaching from the public car park:

and the view from the gardens:

It has to be one of my favourite National Trust properties and it’s a very popular house with everyone else too – the place was packed when we were there last April. There is so much to see inside the house, too much for one post. The house was very modern for its times, with all the latest and advanced technical devices of the day.

One of my favourite rooms is the Library, with its stained glass windows, comfy chairs, leather sofas and the latest lighting available. This was the first room in the world to be lit by hydro-electricity.

The light suspended from the ceiling has four bulbs within the ornate and fringed light shade. I tried very hard to get a photo without any of the other visitors, but gave up when there was just one person looking out of the window – anyway he gives scale to the room.

There are four more bulbs around the room, place in globes, sitting on vases:

The books are in oak bookcases around the room:

Note the library steps at the left-hand side of the photo.

Click on the photos to enlarge them.

At a later date I might post more photos – of the kitchen with its dishwasher, the lovely dining room with its William Morris stained glass windows and of the amazing Gallery, with its collection of paintings and sculptures. As for the Drawing Room, this was not to my taste at all with its huge marble chimney piece.

See more Saturday Snapshots on Alyce’s blog At Home With Books.

Book Beginnings on Friday

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Margaret

I’ve just finished reading Standing Water by Terri Armstrong, which I greatly enjoyed and will write more about it in another post. But for now here are the opening lines:

On the way to the funeral Hester started to cry. Neal, driving the ute, glanced at her. He reached over and squeezed her hand, too tightly. The tears wouldn’t stop. She pulled in jagged breaths and held a tissue to her face. Without warning, Neal swerved the ute into a gravel siding, throwing her against the door. He kept the engine idling.

‘For Christ’s sake, Hester. We’ll be there in five minutes.’

‘I know. Sorry.’ She had to pull herself together. She turned her head to look at the roadside scrub, focused on the pale, thin limbs of a top-heavy mallee tree.

‘Wasn’t even your bloody mother,’ Neal muttered.

These lines caught my imagination – I assumed that Neal and Hester were an apparently unemotional son and a very upset daughter-in-law. They drew me into the story and also very definitely set the scene for me, in Western Australia – what I wondered is a ‘mallee tree’. (I thought maybe a eucalyptus, and was pleased to discover that it is.)

Standing Water is Terri Armstrong’s first novel and is the winner of the 2010 Yeovil Literary Prize (pre-publication). It is to be published by Pewter Rose Press on 28 February. (My copy was sent to me by the publishers.)

Book Beginnings is hosted by Katy at A Few More Pages every Friday.