Monday 16 April 2012

Back to miserable weather!!

3 weeks of warm sunny weather in Spain and we have returned to cold wet gloomy days. Today I can even see snow on the hills. And I managed to come back with a nasty little cold and sore throat, luckily on it's way now but i felt quite poorly last week. Having only just recovered from the New Year bug it seemed a bit unfair to pick something else up.
We thoroughly enjoyed our mini adventure, 3100 kms in 3 weeks, and we got as far as Grenada, which had been our aim. Before I write up some of the places we visited here is a list of the books I managed to read[on my kindle]:
Anita Shreve: A change in altitude and Resistance
Diane Chamberlain: The bay at midnight
Rose Tremain: Trespass
Sadie Jones: Small wars
Sohie Hannah: The truth tellers lies
Jodi Picoult: Second Glance
and a real book David Mitchell: The thousand autumns of Jacob de Zoet. You can't beat the feel of a real book, it has a lovely cover too.

I particularly enjoyed the last two, very different books but I do like to feel as if I'm learning something new when I read. Second Glance mixes ghosts with Abenaki Indians and the Vermont Eugenics progamme of the 1930's, rather difficult to follow at times with the interwoven stories and characters, but worth the effort. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is set in Japan at the turn of the 18th century and is centred on the Dutch East Indies Company trading base on a tiny man made island in the bay of Nagasaki. Beautifully written and a wealth of fascinating facts about Japan at that time plus a good story.

Must go away more often with no internet, television or other distractions from reading good books.
Next post will be about Spain, lots of photos, and Tapas, such a civilised way of eating.

2 comments:

Jenny Beattie said...

Your trip sounds wonderful but I'm sorry to hear you've been poorly. I think we could all benefit from holidays without internet/tv etc.

I look forward to reading some tales of your travels.

Anonymous said...

Can't wait to hear more of your Espana tour. Don't know why only
saw 2 pics on this blog...maybe
email me your pics..would love to
see them. Get well soon!!luvJ+K xx