Catherine Meyrick's Blog, page 31
April 17, 2020
this covid life
dont you stand so close to me
keep your distance
hold your breath
and do not sneeze
told a man off
in the supermarket
stop fondling the onions
he looked bemused
wipe everything over
when you get it home
rinse bananas and cans of tuna
remember: wash your hands
seventeen cans of black beans
ninety-one rolls of toilet paper
three slabs of melbourne eleven bottles of prosecco
well see this through
standing at the bathroom mirror
hair-cut time snip a bit here
a bit there oops! too much
never mind who will...
April 11, 2020
A Few of My Favourite Things
We all have bits and pieces in our homes that make us happy. They may not be particularly valuable or even elegant but because they call to mind special people or happy times they are special to us. Some of them connect us to our familys past, others simply spark joy.
[image error]This is the chest in which the sister of my great-grandmother Margaret Ryan Mcgrath (1851-1925) brought all her belongings to Australia. She migrated from Castlecomer, Kilkenny in the late 1860s. The box was passed down to my...
April 3, 2020
My Reading – March 2020
The Good Turn by Dervla McTiernan
The waiting room was ugly and neglected.
A Slanting of the Sun by Donal Ryan
She cries sometimes, without noise.
Ten Doors Down: the story of an extraordinary adoption reunion by Robert Tickner
I have a date with destiny this Sydney summer day in late January 1993.
The Black Ascot by Charles Todd
Ascot this year was very different from Ascots of the past.
Racing the Devil by Charles Todd
It was a way of daring Fate.
March 27, 2020
Book Review – A Slanting of the Sun by Donal Ryan
A Slanting of the Sun is Donal Ryans first collection of short stories. It is written in the same beautifully crafted poetic and uniquely Irish prose as his novels. All but one of the twenty stories are told in the first person, each with a distinctive voice. The characters cover a range of ages, sex and classkillers, both accidental and deliberate; the marginalized such as a young traveller girl and an African refugee; a priest in Syria; a shopkeeper in financial difficulty; the elderly...
A Slanting of the Sun by Donal Ryan
A Slanting of the Sun is Donal Ryans first collection of short stories. It is written in the same beautifully crafted poetic and uniquely Irish prose as his novels. All but one of the twenty stories are told in the first person, each with a distinctive voice. The characters cover a range of ages, sex and classkillers, both accidental and deliberate; the marginalized such as a young traveller girl and an African refugee; a priest in Syria; a shopkeeper in financial difficulty; the elderly...
March 13, 2020
Witchcraft Trials in Early Modern England
A far more succinct version of this post was published by The Coffee Pot Book Club on 9 March 2020.
The early-modern European witch-hunts were neither orchestrated massacres nor spontaneous pogroms. Alleged witches were not rounded up at night and summarily killed extra-judicially or lynched as the victims of mob justice. They were executed after trial and conviction with full legal process.
Crimen exceptum p.14
Gregory J Durston
Across Europe from the late fifteenth through to the eighteenth...
March 6, 2020
My Reading – February 2020
The Blood Miracles by Lisa McInerney
This, like so many of Ryan Cusack’s fuck-ups, begins with ecstasy.
The First Blast of the Trumpet by Marie Macpherson
‘There’s no rhyme nor reason to it. Your destiny is already laid doon.’
All We Shall Know by Donal Ryan
Martin Toppy is the son of a famous Traveller and the father of my unborn child.
February 21, 2020
Meandering through Cyberspace in February 2020
The internet has dramatically enlarged our access to a wealth of information. Most days I spend some time online looking for items related to those things the interest me most – reading, writing and history. Without fail, every time, I find something new and interesting. So, here, I’d like to share a few of the finds I have had over the last month.
Don’t tell me that working-class people can’t be articulate
Lisa McInerney, author of the brilliant novels The Glorious Heresies and The Blood...
February 14, 2020
In My Garden – Pansies
Sometime you don’t know that you don’t know. I have always loved what I believe to be violas, to my mind miniature pansies. It is not so simple. Whatever they are, they belong the genus Viola of the plant family Violaceae. It seems that in the world of everyday English the names pansy, violet and viola are often used interchangeably. What appears to be accepted is that pansies have four petals pointing upward and only one down, while violets have two petals pointing upward...
February 7, 2020
My Reading – January 2020
There was Still Love by Favel Parrett
There are suitcases everywhere.
A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro
Niki, the name we finally gave my younger daughter, is not an abbreviation; it was a compromise I reached with her father.
Springtime : A Ghost Story by Michelle de Kretser
That spring, Frances walked along the river every morning with her dog, Rod.
The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie
The Espresso machine behind my shoulder hissed like an angry snake.
The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney...
