Time for twenty twenty-two

 For Christmas 2019 Olivier gave me a ‘few lines a day’ 5 year diary.  The first entry I made on 1^st January was that 2020 had a good feel to it.  I was very wrong.  This year, 2022, has a good feel to it too.  I hope that I’m right this time.  Olivier’s birthday is on the 22 February, so I’m hoping that this year will be extra special for him.

In October I became officially retired in France and the UK.  I’ve been agreeably surprised by my pensions.  I worked in the UK for 12 years before coming to France.  We celebrated with a long weekend in Bordeaux.

It’s very strange learning how to use my time not governed by a work schedule.  I’ve had to learn not to feel guilty if I pick up a book in the middle of the morning and just read! I seem to be so busy doing this and that, inside and outside of the house.  I’ve also developed a taste for jigsaw puzzles. At the moment I’m doing the official jigsaw puzzle of the Queen on her 25^th anniversary.  Rob brought it with him when we came to France 37 years ago.  It had never been opened.  The queen is standing in front of a red curtain background which is really difficult – makes a change from sky and sea I suppose.

The Summer of 1970

... and other stories.  Is now available in paperback, published on Amazon!  It took me a couple of days to work out how to make a cover and line up the text neatly within the margins.  Look for my full name; Angela Knutsen , on Amazon to find the book and other titles available for Kindle for the time being.

My new book has arrived!

I'm very pleased to announce the arrival of my third book, 'Beausejour'. It’s available for Kindle on Amazon. I’m not putting a link directly for my book here as it won’t work in all countries. The best is to go to Amazon and search for my name in the Kindle Store.

If you're interested you can visit my page at Author Central.

Special offer!

I’m running a special promotion for my book ‘Angie Brynner & Company’ on Amazon Kindle UK and Amazon Kindle US.

The UK promotion starts 12th April at 8 am GMT until 19th April at 12 am GMT; the price is reduced from £2.37 to 99p.

 In the US, the book will be 99 cents from 12th April 8 am PST until 19th April 12 am PST, original price is $2.99.

If you don’t have a Kindle reader you can download a free app for your smartphone, tablet or computer, in order to read The link is just below the book cover on the page.

Because Amazon doesn’t seem to cope well with links from country to country .The best way to find the book is to go to Amazon, look under Kindle and look for my name: Angela Knutsen.

Thoroughly Modern Millie

I finally had a Kindle for Christmas and I love it already. Just before Christmas the BBC TV series Little Dorrit was televised on French TV. I really enjoyed it, so Little Dorrit is the first book I’m reading on the Kindle. Rob can’t take out the bookmark and change the page I’m reading anymore as he doesn’t know how it works. I still have real books to read; almost at the end of “The Fall of giants”

Last week I got myself a clever phone and after a shaky start I’m gaining confidence with it. I haven’t taken any proper photos with it yet (just the floor by accident). I now have to put all of my appointments onto the calendar – there are quite a few already for the first 6 months of the year. I’ve also got ChatON so I can talk to Christian in England instantly – anyplace, anytime.

I’m now on Facebook, having sworn that I would never do such a thing. Rob asked me to do something for our postcard business and I sort of got hooked. I’ve found some long lost friends, which is really nice. I’m sure that I can synchronise this blog to Facebook too….

 “So beat the drums 'cause here comes thoroughly... 

Hot off the press! 

One step in the Jazz Age! 

Whoopee, baby! 

We're so thoroughly Modern...” 

With thanks to Elmer Bernstein, who I am sure would not have liked to hear me singing…

More cookery?

Incredibly I dreamt about cooking last night. I was in a long narrow kitchen, there were plenty of cupboards ovens and electric and gas burners but no work surfaces. It made life very difficult – nowhere to put down hot saucepans and dishes, let alone prepare the food. I’ve not long started reading 'Last Night in Twisted River' by John Irving – hence the busy kitchen. I already knew that the loggers ate well, but the descriptions of the huge quantities of food that they eat and the conditions of preparation obviously went to my head. It’s a great read, but not if you’re on a diet.

Ping-ish

It’s been an odd week, sometimes cold sometimes mild, lots of rain then sunshine. The east of France is covered in snow. Rob has been on holiday for a few days then he went back to work for one day for stock taking.

I’ve just been plodding on by in neutral mode. I finished watching The Pillars of the Earth and really enjoyed it. J-M bought me a book of short stories he found somewhere, so I started to read that. Has anyone ever managed to get their head around ‘Ping’ by Samuel Beckett? He wrote it in French first and I must admit that version makes a little more sense. I read that the point was to illustrate that language only makes sense in a cultural context. Discuss….

Truman Capote revisited

The quote today on my Google was from Truman Capote, it made me laugh out loud.  I'm sorry, but a slightly off sense of humour runs in my family:

"Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it"

Here are my other strange posts about him

All about knees

I’ve just started reading ‘ A Farewell to Arms’ by Ernest Hemmingway. I ‘m really enjoying the book, just as I enjoyed 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'. The problem was the description of the knee injury, especially as I had my first injection of gel this morning (I also thought of you Don).

It went better than I thought it would. Firstly I didn’t have the three quarters of an hour wait that I had with the first appointment (though I wouldn’t have minded because I had the above mentioned book with me). The Doctor was very reassuring and said that it wouldn’t hurt much. He was right, it was more uncomfortable than anything and he was quite quick. I didn’t look at what he was doing, I just concentrated on my breathing. Those breathing exercises come in useful for all sorts of things! He just told me not to go on a long walk, or dancing today. Stairs were okay as long as I didn’t go up and down too often.

Tomorrow I can do what I like. As I write, my knee does feel a little strange and it feels ‘ loose’ as I walk. In ten days I’ll have the second injection.

Well read - not

My retired lady who comes for an English lesson arrived last week with a newspaper cutting from a local paper which was about English people. More English people believe Sherlock Holmes existed that think that Sir Winston Churchill was a real person. They also think that King Richard the Lion Heart was a fictional character. I know there was a TV series when I was a child, but….

I added to the discussion with the news that I had heard. Woolworths was withdrawing its range of bedroom furniture for little girls after complaints from parents. They had called the furniture range “Lolita”. Apparently no one involved in the choice of name had heard of the book – or the films.

Ahem

Don’t forget that if you are visiting and you are from the UK, you can now order Zoe’s book. She’s very famous you know. Just scroll down to my Amazon Ad.

It tickled my fancy

I received my magazine from England this morning. My horoscope for this week says that I'm in for some 'Rumpy Pumpy'.

The Perfect Hostess
I’ve been reading ‘The Perfect Hostess’ by Rose Henniker Heaton, written in 1931. It’s very tongue in cheek and so funny. She says things like “It isn’t the menu that matters it’s the men you sit with” There are lots of little poems and it seems you just couldn’t have enough matches in those days. There are menu suggestions for visits from wealthy relatives, American visitors (it’s important to Be British), breakfast in bed for the bright young person and so on.

Waiting room only
As I’ve been using the buses this week I’ve taken a ‘waiting room book’ with me: “The
Grass Harp, A Tree of Night and other stories” by Truman Capote. I really enjoyed his stories.
A bit weird though. The copy I’m reading was published in 1951. Did you know that, for a
while in the middle of the last century the formula used for making paper was wrong so a lot
of paperback books published then are crumbling away? As I was reading, the book was
leaving little flakes of browning paper everywhere.