My November books

Just one more month until the year is over? What is happening?
Anyhow, here's my list of books for November, just an overview of what I have finished in a month (not necessarily started in the same month) and what I have read to the cats (marked with 😸)
Again, this is not about numbers. Where do we stop if we rate reading by the number of books? Count pages? And next work out a formula which pages are "worth more" than others because some books are "only" children's books or light reading or scientific or profound ... I could keep going. Just enjoy!
I will be adding a short explanation why I chose a book and possibly if it's a re-read candidate, but I'm usually not going to add real reviews or ratings (the cats also refuse to give ratings 😉). Should you want a personal rating for a book you are interested in, though, or a little more information, just let me know.


1. "Vorsatz und Begierde" = "Devices and Desires" by P.D. James, first published in 1989
(Adam Dalgliesh 8)

Dalgliesh retreats to Norfolk to decide what to do with the converted windmill his late aunt has left to him.
He gets drawn into the case of a serial killer in the area after finding the body of Hilary Roberts who worked at the nearby nuclear power plant.

My neighbor was shocked to hear that I never read a book by P.D. James (as far as I can remember) and lent me two of hers. This is the second one.

2. "House of Horror : The Complete Hammer Films Story" edited by Jack Hunter, 2nd edition first published in 1995

The subtitle says it all. This is the story of the British film studio Hammer Film Productions which is (in)famous for their Gothic horror series and for example gave us Christopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing.

I grew up on some of the Hammer Films and found the book after having watched a British three part documentary on horror movies.
In order to tone the cover down a bit for the blog (in this movie Dracula had very red eyes), I converted the center image to black and white.

3. "Died in the Wool" by Ngaio Marsh, first published in 1945
(Roderick Alleyn 13)

 

A New Zealand parliament member is murdered on the remote sheep farm belonging to her husband and her.
Over a year later, Alleyn is called in the matter which may have to do with espionage.

This is still part of my vintage crime project for which I keep getting books by Marsh and Allingham (I just got a bunch of new ones).

4. "Carbonel and Calidor" by Barbara Sleigh, first published in 1978 😸
(Carbonel 3)

Once again, Carbonel, King of the Fallowhithe cats, is asking his human friends Rosemary and John for help when his son Calidor refuses to follow in his footsteps and wants to become a witch's cat instead.
Rosemary and John have to deal with a mysterious magic ring and with the magic of a powerful witch.

This is the third and last book in the Carbonel series whose first one was recommended by book blogger Nicole from Momlit.
I really enjoyed this series.

5. "The Camomile : an invention" by Catherine Carswell, first published in 1922

Ellen from Glasgow studies music in Frankfurt/Main, but when she comes home, she finds that her true passion is in writing.
Her engagement to a young doctor working in India makes her think about what others want and expect from her and what she really wants.

Liz from Adventures in Reading, Running, and Working from Home has introduced me to the "British Library Women Writers" series (I found she had reviewed this book here after I had read it). I had a look which of the novels I could find rather easily, this was one of them.

6. "The Christmas Bookshop" by Jenny Colgan, first published in 2021
(Happy Ever After series 4)

Carmen has been laid off when the department store where she worked had to close down. As job offers in her little town are rare, her mother calls on Sofia, Carmen's older sister, a successful lawyer in Edinburgh who's pregnant with her fourth child. Although the sisters aren't very close, Sofia thinks Carmen may be the right person to help one of her clients with his bookshop ...

This is the fourth book in the Happy Ever After series (with cameos by characters from the first few books). Just the right cozy read for the season.

7. "Miss Bellamy stirbt" = "False Scent" by Ngaio Marsh, first published in 1959
(Roderick Alleyn 21)

West End actress Mary Bellamy is celebrating her 50th birthday, surrounded by family, colleagues and friends.
It will be her last one. Alleyn has to find out who didn't have such friendly feelings for the selfish Mary.

This is still part of my vintage crime project for which I keep getting books by Marsh and Allingham.

8. "Small Things Like These" by Claire Keegan, first published in 2021

An Irish town in December 1985.
It's the busy season for Bill Furlong, a timber and coal merchant. During his rounds, he makes a disturbing discovery at the convent and has to decide how he wants to cope with the silence of the community.

A short story collection by Keegan has been the latest entry on OverDrive and while I'm on the waitlist, I'm checking out her other short stories on there. This is the third one.

9. "Donnerstag Premiere" = "Opening Night" (or "Night at the Vulcan") by Ngaio Marsh, first published in 1951
(Roderick Alleyn 16)

Young actress Martyn Tarne has just arrived from New Zealand and finds a job as a costumer at the Vulcan Theatre in Lonon, but then also becomes the understudy for a small role.
On opening night, surprising things happen ... and in the end there's a body for Roderick Alleyn.

This is still part of my vintage crime project for which I keep getting books by Marsh and Allingham.

10. "The Girl on the 88 Bus" by Freya Sampson, first published in 2022

1962 - Frank meets a young girl on the 88 bus, that encounter changes his life, but unfortunately he loses her number.
60 years later, Libby, a young woman who has come to London after being dumped by her boyfriend, meets Frank on the bus and he tells her how he has been looking for the girl on the 88 bus ever since. Libby is determined to help him in his search which will also change her life.

This was another random find on OverDrive.

11. "Skinner Makes It Fashionable" by Henry Irving Dodge, first published in 1920 😸

The fourth and last book in the Skinner series looked quite modern to me in some regards as it's about Skinner tackling the problem of the high cost of living after the war in his town. Some of it you could take right of the book and wouldn't know it was that old.
Only Skinner's solution was to encourage his "war-rich" friends to go back to a simpler life. In Meadeville, he made it work, but I'm afraid even Skinner would fail with his plans today!

I read the first book after watching one of the silent movie versions of it and added the others to my list for quick reading.

12. "Tod im Pub" = "Death at the Bar" by Ngaio Marsh, first published in 1940
(Roderick Alleyn 9)

Barrister Luke Watchman travels to South Devon to meet his cousin and a friend at a pub where they have already stayed the year before.
It's a very mixed group at the pub, villagers, members of the Coombe Left Movement, an Irish aristocrat.
When Watchman dies after being injured by a dart in a challenge, suspicion is cast on each of them.
Alleyn and Fox are called to help the local police out.

This is still part of my vintage crime project for which I keep getting books by Marsh and Allingham.
You can tell I got another pile of Marsh this month 😉

The big hug - part 2

If you don't know part 1 of the big hug yet, you can find it here.

We left off at the cliffhanger of my dropping my boro lampwork shark on the kitchen floor. The nose and tail broke off, but I could only find part of the tail.
Then something unexpected happened that I can honestly not explain. At least a week later, I found the other piece of the tail, but have no idea where it suddenly came from because I had searched the whole kitchen floor. My best bet is that it had flown even further and the cats found it and knocked it back into the kitchen.
Anyhow, I suddenly had a bit of hope that maybe, just maybe, I would be able to do something with it. Not what I had planned, not what I really wanted which would make me 100% happy, but something that was still good.

Now how to achieve that?
Obviously I had to glue the shark first. My complicated relationship with glue has long been a running joke among my friends. Much longer than my jewelry-making journey. It's a miracle I don't still have things glued to my fingers from years ago (that's actually a thing for me). I'm terrible with glue and my experience told me that the shark would not be perfect.
Surprise! Not. Of course it wasn't perfect.
So I would have to find a way to hide the scars the best I could. Distracting from them with gold as I had done for my friend's broken dolphin wasn't an option for me because the octopus is copper. Leaving the tail off completely and disguising it - unlike that of my shark the dolphin's tail never turned up again - wasn't an option either because I had the tail and love that long fin.

The tough part about hiding the scars would be that the one through the nose is very close to the eye and that there's a quite massive glass loop on the tail (it is a pendant after all). Had the shark been like a cab, all the way flat on the back, I might have been able to glue it completely onto some backing.
Even before starting I knew I wouldn't be all that happy with the nose part. Oh well.

What exactly should I do, though?
It was obvious that bead embroidery was the only way to go. As I said, this shark is much smaller than the other ones and was even more fragile now (haha). Just wrapping the octopus to it wouldn't make for a very sturdy construction.

So instead I would glue the shark onto the backing where possible, then sew the loop to it and hide it under beads. I would also glue the octopus's head as well as possible (there are wires from the wrapping in the back which lift it up a bit) just to make it hold safely enough while arranging the tentacles around the shark.

Please excuse this bad picture. It's one of my infamous
night time WIP pics and is usually just intended
 for friends. Actually, I had to retrieve it from an old
Facebook message. I hardly ever take real WIP pictures.

This, my friends, sounds a lot easier than it actually is. I first sewed the tentacles on in a few spots. Copper is pliable and can still very stubbornly refuse to do what you want, especially in thick wire wrapped like this, even more so if you go wild with tentacle loops. I would have loved to preserve more of the flow from the WIP pic, but that would have been very wide for a focal for myself.
Of course I would have to sew down the tentacles some more after deciding on bead placement.

So I did all of that and then I had a lot of space for beads. I didn't want to buy new beads at the time. I had a load of seed and cube beads in different sizes and a variety of blue, clear, green, purple, and who has been following my jewelry making for a while knows I can't resist pearls in water scenes.
I started in what I consider (my) classic bead embroidery meaning going in bead rows lying next to each other. Very organized looking, I thought it would make a nice calm background for the hug.
One corner in, I had to admit to myself that I hated it. Because of the thick wire, those tentacles aren't laying flat. So there are not only beads around them, but also quite a few over and  under them. There are also beads under the shark and over the scars (I'm indeed not all that happy with the nose part, but couldn't manage any better without concealing the eye) and under the octopus's head - and getting in these spaces in nice organized rows? Yeah, it didn't work.
I can't tell you how long it took me to embroider that background, one or two beads at a time.

A slightly better WIP picture, still meant for
friends. It doesn't do the sparkle in the
goldstone or the shark justice.

Next up - my old enemy, finishing jewelry.
Two months and still no chain.
Then, however, I remembered my mermaid (this is one big piece of jewelry, but luckily went to a customer who loves it big).

I still had some copper crimps and the faux leather ribbon whose colors worked well with the background.
When I tried it out, though, I didn't like the look of it after all. Somehow the focal seemed to call for a copper chain to go with the octopus.
Rummaging through my supply drawers, however, I only found chain in the wrong size and I really, really didn't want to make my own chain. So I went online shopping instead, but again the chains were either too small or didn't have the right look.
In the end, I found infinity links, which seem to mimic the loops of the tentacles, and used them with jump rings to make a chain. Luckily, I bought just the right amount!

Is this my vision? Heck no, it couldn't be much further from it. I wanted the octopus and the shark all by themselves, maybe with a few beads to hint at the ocean. Had the breaks be in different spots, I might have managed to do it.

Did I save the shark, though? I think so. Another broken piece that didn't go into the trash, but will be shining on. (The urge to get philosophical about broken beauty is big, but I'll spare you!)

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot - Week 132

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot!
My posts for the link up will go live on Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. EDT or, if you live in the future like I do, on Fridays at 3:30 a.m. CE(S)T.

If you live in the US, can you move again already or are you still full from yesterday's feast? I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving!
And to all of those who don't live in the US, I hope you had a wonderful Thursday!
There's not much to say about mine except that it was the first day of my Christmas vacation which made it a very good day!

Picture via pxhere

How about you? Are you ready for the weekend?

As part of the reboot, we will be featuring a different blog every week.
How about stopping by and saying hello? Let them know we sent you.

This week, our spotlight is on My Inspired Home.

Anam from "My Inspired Home" says "I like to believe that there's always new, exciting opportunities for me around the corner so I keep a look out for them. Through this blog, I wanna share my experiences and the extraordinary lessons I learn from my ordinary life. I want this blog to expand and mature. But it can go crazy and then stay crazy if it wants. It can even go missing and then rediscover itself. I'll share a whole bunch of stuff - my home decor, lifestyle, travel tales, impromptu singing sessions, or even my random observations as a bystander on the street. As a matter of fact, I was originally going to call it "The Everything Blog" until my sister told me that it would be really "lame". I believe her.
Anyway, I'm excited to have you join me. Please don't be afraid to comment and say hi! :)
Welcome to my blog!"

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household - The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat's Wire has what she calls a jumping spider brain. She has many interests and will blog about whatever catches her attention - crafts, books, old movies, collectibles or random things.

Rena from Fine Whatever Blog writes about style, midlife, and the "fine whatever" moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she's been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.


Here are some of my picks from last week's link up.

Barbara reminds us that we should never forget the small pleasures by sharing those in her week.

Do you struggle to separate art you love - books, movies, music, paintings, etc. - from its creator who has done something terrible? Do we draw a line somewhere, if so where? You are not the only one. Olivia talks about reading "Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma".

Kellyann urges us to wear the good stuff while we can and have fun with it!

Still need gift ideas for children? See what Erin's son Wyatt loved!

Decoration, gift tag, tree ornament - just look at Linda's cute idea for candy canes!


Let's link up!

You can add links to specific blog posts of yours, but not just to your blog itself. The posts can be new or older and cover any topic you can think of - books, movies, fashion, crafting, thrifting, travel, art ... but only family friendly, please!
Have a look around, visit some of the other blogs and leave a few comments. You might discover something new and exciting!
Thank you for linking up with us!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Silent movies - The Flapper

Flappers - the independent and adventurous young women of the 1920s.
Let me invite you to "The Flapper" from 1920, a silent film which is said to have made the term really popular.

As usual, here's the plot first (spoiler alert!).

Sixteen year old Genevieve "Ginger" King, daughter of wealthy and strict Senator King, is living in Orange Springs and she's bored because that is the kind of town where "girls who hobnobbed at the soda fountain were talked about", especially if they go there at the invitation of a young man - Billy in this case - without taking along a chaperone!

Thanks to the "scandal", Ginger finds herself in a boarding school near New York very quickly. As luck has it, though, the military academy that Billy just joined is in the neighborhood and although the headmistress is very strict, the girls get to go outside. Ginger doesn't just meet Billy there, though, the girls are also fascinated by the stranger riding by every day and whom they find incredibly romantic.

Billy is trying his best to impress Ginger by boasting about his skills and invites her to a sleigh ride which is rather brave for a boy whose only experience has been with a rocking horse so far.

Unfortunately, the sleigh topples over and the horse runs off with it, Billy chasing after it and leaving Ginger lying in the snow. She gets picked up by the romantic stranger, Richard Channing, who gives her a ride back in his sleigh and whose question about her age she answers with "about 20", so he invites her to a dance at the Country Club.
Ginger is about to decline when she notices her schoolmates watching them. She can't resist, agrees and sneaks out that night.
Her schoolmate Hortense, however, informs the headmistress who doesn't lose a minute to bring Ginger back and reprimand Channing for inviting her in the first place. He complains to his friends by saying something mean about young girls which hits Ginger hard.
Hortense has different plans, she uses the headmistress's absence to get to the safe which is full of jewels (a bit weird for a school, don't you think?) to meet her accomplice Thomas later.

Hortense and Thomas escape to a New York hotel and send Ginger an anonymous telegram from there to make her come there once the school vacation begins. They want to use her to transport the jewels for them by threatening her, but they don't expect Ginger to open the suitcases and use the jewels for a plan of her own. She wants to pretend to have become a vamp in order to pay it back to Channing. Once she has shocked everyone at home with her new look, she sends the suitcases to the New York Police.

Then her father comes home and doesn't believe when she tells him that it was all just a joke, and it sure isn't helpful that the New York Police turns up as well and wants to know where her "pals" are hiding!
Luckily, that's when Hortense and Thomas arrive to get their loot back. They try to escape again, but get arrested.

Last but not least Channing comes to Ginger's rescue again explaining everything and even convincing the senator to let her go to the soda fountain with Billy.
Happy ending achieved!

There's a lot going on in these 85 minutes and some of the jumps between locations were a bit confusing, but really this is just about a young girl who wants to be an adult, who wants freedom, independence - and of course some fun! Can you remember what you were like at the age of sixteen? Maybe just as impetuous as Ginger and maybe as lucky regarding the consequences?
After all, W. P. Carleton, who played the "romantic stranger", was 22 years older than Olive Thomas (Ginger), not that something like that seems to be that unusual for older movies. I really didn't like Channing at the beginning, but he redeemed himself by helping Ginger out later.

I really liked Olive Thomas's acting, both as the young school girl (despite being 25 at the time) and as the vamp (she looked amazing in that stunning black outfit, by the way). She was cute, she was feisty, she was funny and very much the center of the film.
I also liked Billy as the young boy trying hard to impress his first love and his fellows at the military academy even if he wasn't that successful. Maybe you have met boys like him as well? (Theodore Westman Jr. died at 24, but I couldn't find any more info about him.)
 

Even the intertitles are cute!

It's sad that Olive Thomas's promising career was cut short and this was one of her last films.
Olive was married to Mary Pickford's brother Jack. Young as they were - both in their mid-20s - they led a rather wild life and in case of Olive also a very short one.
Although her death at 25 was officially ruled to be an accident, it caused a scandal in Hollywood, and there are still theories about what really happened. Olive and Jack, trying to save their marriage, had gone to Paris for a second honeymoon. Thanks to his infidelity, Jack suffered from syphilis (he died at 37, by the way) and was treated with mercury bichloride. Why Olive ingested this medication which was meant to be applied topically, isn't clear, but it was a tragic and ugly death.
Let me add that I didn't pick the film for this story, I only found out about this afterwards.

From what I read, most of Olive's films are lost, but I'm definitely going to see which ones I can find.
"The Flapper" was a cute comedy and it goes on my re-watch list.


Sources:

1. Jossalyn Holbert: The Illustrious Life and Mysterious Death of Olive Thomas. On: In Their Own League, March 15, 2020
2. Gordon Thomas: Beautiful Dead Girl: On Early Hollywood Casualty Olive Thomas (Oct. 20, 1894 - Sept. 10, 1920) and "The Olive Thomas Collection" on DVD. On: Bright Lights Film Journal, September 10, 2015
3. James L. Neibaur: The Olive Thomas Collection (Milestone Film and Video). On: Senses of Cinema, May 2006

A new Lego project

Here's just a short post today as there isn't much to see of the new Lego project yet. I just wanted to get started and I haven't even invited den Dekan to join me yet.
While having a look through the different bags to get a first idea what's where, I tried out my new under-desk cycle which I got now that I'm reading more again.
It would definitely not work for me while crafting, I would probably shoot tiny beads all over the place which I'm not too bad at (why did I first write "bead" and then "bed"?) even without cycling, but it will be fine for reading, I think. Maybe I'll pick up speed when getting to a particularly exciting scene in a book. "Oh no, it's the killer behind you! Run!!" 😂
It won't be working well for bricking either, but it gave me an idea how to sit.

Anyhow, this is my new project.
There's a lot of green for sure, what do you think it can be?

I am not affiliated with Lego in any way, except playing with it every, now and then.

Midsomer, um, Göppingen Murders, episode 1

Trigger warning - disturbing graphic content. Kind of ... 😼

"I have seen a lot over the years, Inspector, but a heinous crime like this one ..." The old lady had to hold back the tears and sniffled a bit. "I hadn't expected anything like this and the shock when I saw ..."
"Why don't you take a seat and try to calm down a little? Maybe a cup of tea?"
"That would be nice, there's a box with bags next to the fridge where the kettle is." Still shaking, the old lady sat down on one of the chairs standing around the dinner table. The inspector, used to taking in all details, noticed the claw marks on it.
Once the old lady had calmed down a bit, she told the whole story. She had had a very nice nap after being downtown for a while and got up to go to the bathroom. There it was, a bright orange parcel on the floor, scattered around it pieces of plastic and orange cardboard.
"It had been standing next to the door across the hallway", she said. "I hadn't got around to put it away yet. I didn't expect an attack like that." Her lower lip wobbled a bit.
"That wasn't what shocked you, though, was it?"
"No. I just put it back and picked up the plastic and cardboard. But then ... the water bowl .... in the water bowl ..." Her hand went to her mouth. "I heard it and I didn't do anything. I thought it was just him knocking his grocery store box around. He likes to play in it. I wouldn't have thought he was capable of this." She pointed into the hallway where forensics was at work.
"I understand that you didn't know the victim."
"No, he had only just arrived in town and I hadn't met him yet. How could he do it, Inspector, how could he??"
The Inspector wished he had an answer for her ...

Actually, it's not the first murder here. We are almost as bad as Midsomer County.
Over 13 years ago, there was an episode of CSI: Göppingen, and of course no one who witnessed it will ever be able to forget the Christmas Massacre of 2018 (the "dead" woolie parrot next to me in bed was a bit creepy). There is more that was never documented, but will remain unforgotten.

But honestly, I had just had a great nap with my snuggle buddy and then this?
It was surprising enough to see he had dragged the - not too light, I might add - box with the cat food into the bathroom (the toilet is by itself in a pretty small room which must have made things more difficult for him).
And yes, I had heard him, but there's said box in the hallway which he absolutely loves to jump around in and slide into (it's open at one side) or take toys in there with him. I did think it was a bit loud this time, but it's der Dekan and he can be both as silent as a snake or as loud as an elephant herd, and you would think he'd commit murder without a big ruckus.
Then he comes to the bed, curls up in my arm for a nap, exuding innocence and cuteness, and lets me stumble upon his victim later? Shameful.

When I saw the parcel, I was flabbergasted for a second. It has not been the first time that der Dekan tried to get something out through one of the grip holes that these boxes have. He managed to kill a kibble bag before (without making it to the kibbles, though, a big disappointment). He's also pretty good in knocking stuff all over the place and making it turn up in other rooms.

He worked hard on the food box, and believe me, this is some sturdy cardboard. The grip holes hadn't even been open, but obviously the small perforation gap around them had been enough to draw him to the scent in the box (probably that of the dried deer strips which he would gladly kill me for, if I hold one over his head, he comes up like a shark out of water).

Towards the holidays, my cat food supplier adds toys as a gift to the parcels. I didn't even know that they had already started until my sister told me.
Maybe it was the disappointment about not getting the good stuff out of the parcel which made den Dekan send Mr. Raccoon (?) to sleep with the fishies (leading a fish gang he's an expert in these matters)?

I regret nothing!!

I'll be completely honest with you. When I walked by the water bowl, I had to laugh out loud. This is such a Dekan move.
Oh, and if you wonder, by the way, why Gundel didn't tell the story this time, she slept through all of this on her pillow. Being boss of the household is very tiring.
And der Dekan, well, it would have been a very short post because all I got from him was "No comment"! 😎


P.S. The parcel is behind a locked door now. The day after I'm writing this, we are going to open it together. If you don't hear from me anymore, the brat trampled me to get to the good stuff.

P.P.S. He didn't trample me, but when we opened the parcel, I found that he had shredded the plastic window in the bag of the deer slices that I got for the poodles upstairs 😂

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot - Week 131

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot!
My posts for the link up will go live on Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. EDT or, if you live in the future like I do, on Fridays at 3:30 a.m. CE(S)T.

Three more days of work next week and then it's my Christmas vacation! I know it's not even December yet, but I didn't have much time off this year (and we have more vacation days than some countries) so I could have this long timeout that I'm really looking forward to. It will go by quickly enough, I'm afraid.
For now I have a long list of things I want to do, though. Well, some of them are things I don't really want to do, but should, for example checking what's lurking in the depths of my wardrobe. You know, that dark corner where clothes go to die.
The others, though, should be enjoyable. Working on my fan wall portrait, for example, which I mentioned the other day. Working on a Dawn doll would be nice. I found something that I have made for one of them ages ago, but I never got around to make the actual outfit. Just those two should take some time including the necessary breaks. I miss the beads!
Of course, I have also planned a lot of cozy time, cuddling up under a blanket, with the cats on top. Reading, playing, watching movies, oh, and sleeping in (hope dies last although I know my feline overlords usually take turns in waking me up early).
Just three more workdays ...

Are you ready for the weekend now?

As part of the reboot, we will be featuring a different blog every week.
How about stopping by and saying hello? Let them know we sent you.

This week, our spotlight is on Midlife and Beyond.

Alison from "Midlife and Beyond" says "I began to write my blog, "Midlife and Beyond" in 2018. The timing was right for me. I had worked from sixteen years old - mostly within Human Resources, then, more recently, for our local university, which I enjoyed.
I wanted to devote time to something I had always wanted to do. And, my blog allows me to indulge in writing, photography, fashion and beauty. The IT side and marketing, are still a "work in progress" to me and can be baffling. This covers the ever changing world of social media, plug in's, web hosts and SEO. It would simply be too expensive to outsource all of this.
My blog is a wonderful way to reflect on life changes i.e., work commitments, getting older, children leaving the nest.... (then, returning, ha-ha), and relationships - the list goes on. My writing style is authentic and down-to-earth, probably my North East of England roots."

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household - The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat's Wire has what she calls a jumping spider brain. She has many interests and will blog about whatever catches her attention - crafts, books, old movies, collectibles or random things.

Rena from Fine Whatever Blog writes about style, midlife, and the "fine whatever" moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she's been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.


Here are some of my picks from last week's link up.

Gail tells us a tale of two wedding dresses.

I love black velvet! See how Kathrine uses her latest find.

Do you like bread pudding? Melynda shares her Everyday Bread Pudding recipe with us!

Have you ever heard of a gourzucumpkin? Neither had I, but Sandi has a story to tell.

A trip always meant three things for us - Zoological Garden, Botanical Garden, museums! I love a good post about a museum and Moois has one for us. Bonus point - cat painting!



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Silent movies - Troubles of a Grass Widower

Yet another short today, I'm sorry to say. Pre-hibernation, among other things, has rather messed up my time management in some areas including the blog.
Looking for a fun short, however, has introduced me to Max Linder for the first time, in this case in "Troubles of a Grass Widower" from 1908.
Max Linder was a French film pioneer and an international superstar inspiring other comedians, for example Charlie Chaplin who called him his professor.
He was known for his "Max" figure in tails and top hat.

Here's the plot of this little domestic comedy.

Max and his wife are sitting at the dinner table, Max refusing to stop hiding behind his newspaper. When his wife tells him angrily that she'll go back to her mother, Max is so overjoyed that he's doing a little dance.

Enjoy it while you can, Max.

Then he realizes he has to deal with the household by himself now, from washing dishes ...

So much easier with the hose than with the
brush, but of course he drops everything trying
to take it back to the kitchen.

... to grocery shopping and cooking ...

It's hard enough to keep control of the groceries without a lad trying to steal them.
And too much pepper in a dish can make you sneeze and lose your pan
(which is lucky in this case because shoe cleaning fluid doesn't make a good gravy).

... cleaning the house and making the bed ...

Max is trying his best, but without much success.

... but the worst of all is finding that darn tie!

It must be in one of those many closets!

Wife and mother find Max in deep despair - think he's going to be nicer to her from now on (especially after she has cleared up the chaos he left for her)?

Help!

Of course, this is a comedy about gender roles and the helpless man trying to tackle a household is not new to us, we know it as a plot in sitcoms and movies, but you have to keep in mind that this is from 1908 ... 117 years old (I'll never get over the age of those films)!
And Max Linder's performance of a husband going from overconfident to desperate is really charming.

Actually, thinking of it now some of it reminds me of Mr. Bean who is full of ingenious plans and good intentions, but usually messes up in the end, only that Max looks a lot less goofy.

This short definitely whetted my appetite for more of Max Linder who has more to offer than just a tad of slapstick from what I read.

By the way, in German we would call a person who is temporarily separated from their spouse (due to a trip for example) a "Strohwitwe/r" = "straw widow/er".


Sources:

1. Fritzi Kramer: Troubles of a Grass Widower (1908) - A silent movie review. On: Movies Silently, October 14, 2018
2. Marius Nobach: Chaplins Professor - Max Linder. Eine Würdigung von Max Linder, dem ersten Komiker-Star der Kinogeschichte, zum 100. Todestag am 1. November 2025. On: Filmdienst, November 17, 2025 (in German)

From my children's book cabinet - Hans Christian Andersens Märchen

"Since I was a child, I loved Andersen's fairy tale about the little mermaid. Of course I always had to swallow my tears when I came to the end. Many of his tales are so bittersweet and I myself am really drawn to happy endings, if not in life, then at least in stories.
I make an exception for Andersen, though."

"Andersen's fairy tales - it was a gift from my godmother. It doesn't contain all of his fairy tales, but the ones I love most (maybe because they were the first for me?). I see the illustrations before my inner eye when thinking of these tales. I wonder why my favorites are all the sad ones ..."

"... maybe magic flowers that can heal, or dancing and talking flowers like the ones in Andersen's fairy tale "Little Ida's Flowers" which I love very much, but now I could have told Ida how to make her flower friends last a little longer ..."

"Have you ever wondered what mermaids are doing all day? ... Andersen's tale is one of my favorites."

"A mermaid - and I just can't help thinking mermaid when thinking of ocean, probably because Andersen's fairy tale has been a (sad) favorite of mine since childhood - could well wear long earrings in her flowing hair."

These are all quotes from my blog. Wow. I guess I love Andersen's fairy tales?
This is the book I got from my godmother about 55 years ago. As you can tell, it was not a book that was kept on the shelf, but one that was read - a LOT. I also have an English edition which contains more tales, but when I need some Andersen, this is the one I grab from my shelf.

Hard to see, especially in that
light, but it's blue. You should see
the spine and the cut edges.

I loved the tales and I loved the beautiful illustrations by the Polish artist Janusz Grabiański. I don't see Arielle when I think of the little mermaid, I see this picture of her as a wonderfully ethereal daughter of the air at the end.

This post was inspired by another book, by the way. During storytime at a bookshop, the main character reads "The Little Match Girl" to the children. If you don't know the tale, after having beautiful visions the little match girl freezes to death in the end and her soul goes to Heaven where her grandmother is and she is found in the morning with a happy smile on her face.

The children totally lose it as do their mothers, but one girl stays behind saying it was very sad, but she liked it, so her mother buys the book for her.
That made me wonder how I reacted to it when I was a child. I mean I have always been a pro at crying, and I'm sure I didn't just do it over the little mermaid.

Now there are of course loads of interpretations for and about fairy tales. They were warnings for children, they are supposed to teach children about emotions, about the world, about relationships, about right and wrong and consequences, they stimulate children's fantasy and their identifying with others, and much more.
That's not what I want to talk about, though.
I want to know why are all the sad ones my favorites? Okay, I also love some of those with a happy ending. Thumbelina, for example. The Snow Queen. The Ugly Duckling. But what about ...

... The Steadfast Tin Soldier?

"The next day, when a servant took up the ashes she found him in the shape of a little tin heart. But of the pretty dancer nothing was left except her spangle, and it was burned as black as a coal."

... The Fir Tree?

"Then a lad came and chopped the tree into small pieces, till a large bundle lay in a heap on the ground. The pieces were placed in a fire under the copper, and they quickly blazed up brightly, while the tree sighed so deeply that each sigh was like a pistol-shot."

... The Angel?

"Every time a good child dies, an angel of God comes down to Earth. He takes the child in his arms, spreads out his great white wings, and flies with it all over the places the child loved on Earth."

... The Red Shoes?

"The bright warm sunshine streamed through the window in the pew where Karen sat, and her heart became so filled with it, so filled with peace and joy that it broke. Her soul flew on the sunbeams to Heaven, and no one was there who asked after the red shoes."

... and of course "Little Ida's Flowers"?

"Ida first kissed the flowers, and then she closed the box and laid it in the earth. Adolph and Jonas shot their crossbows over the grave, for they had no guns or cannons".

And now we could also talk about Andersen and why he wrote so many sad stories. We could talk about his childhood, about his social awkwardness, his difficult personality, his queerness and unrequited love, but this post is not about that, either.

So, why do children also need sad and scary stories? The world IS sad and scary and happy and surprising. Fiction reflects that and allows children to learn how to cope with that in a safer space.
Fairy tales are very good at being sad and scary. I read a lot of fairy tales as a child - I loved the big shelf at the library with the collection of international fairy tales whose volumes had such pretty spines and beautifully patterned covers - and those weren't the "cleaned up" versions that we often see today. Compared to some of those, the ones I read were ... ugh, I'm fighting it, but I can't resist ... very grim(m). Ouch. I'm sorry.
It's true, though.
And some of them also traumatized me more than Andersen's stories.

So if you excuse me now ... I think I'm going to grab my fairy tale book and get a bit sad.