Laurel’s Comments (group member since Aug 06, 2013)

Laurel’s comments from the I Read Therefore I Am group.

Aww Happy Birthday Bella!

Enjoy the Hobbit! It's fab ;)

Hilary wrote: "An other interesting day. Two children were as many as I wanted to have, how on earth did she cope with birthing another 30!!!!!! They surely must have been multiple births and they can't possibly..."

I didn't even think that was physically possible! Why on earth would you want to put yourself through that I don't know.

Awww that's so British! Fighting a war can't interfere with Tea, that would be silly lol!I suppose in a horrible situation like WW1 you learn to be thankful for small comforts.

Might have been no meat maybe? Like they used to do for Friday's. Catholic's still do fasting for some holy days like Good Friday but they cut out meat and have smaller portions so I'm thinking Sam's probably doing that.

I've got The Winter Queen from the library ready to start, it looks good.

It was non-fiction, I got it cheap on the kindle. Good as an introduction but it was quite short so I felt it wanted a bit more detail on some stuff. The first chapter was all about the development of Catharism and where the ideas had come from and that was fascinating.

I had a look at the catalogue but the only ones they seem to have look quite old. I am still deciding...

16. Cassandra Clare - City of Bones
17. Bernardo Atxaga - Obabakoak
18. Steven Erikson - Gardens of the Moon
19. Sean Martin - The Cathars

Yeah I loved Middlemarch, it's a brilliant book, enjoyed Silas too. Haven't read Adam Bede though..... maybe that one next.

I've just started Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock as well which is another brilliant book.

Yep, I'm singing along as well - not sure on my pronunciation but it can't be any worse than I imagine the Beatles' as being!

I've heard good things about O'Farrell so am looking forward to it. I got the Robin Robertson book as that's a poet I've never heard of but I liked the writeup. And that led me to The Forward Book of Poetry 2014 which I went to look at but accidently pressed the 1click button by mistake (dangerous this instant downloading business) but it looked good so have kept it ;)

Will be interested to know what the Clive James one is like, I'm torn about buying his version of Dante or just getting the Oxford or Penguin classics version which will be mich cheaper.

Ha ha it doesn't sound great - I think I might give that one a miss!

Reading a bit more of Daniel Deronda - I am going to have to get a biography of Eliot, she is an amazing writer. I was so absorbed in it earlier I was nearly late for work oops!

Stop it Lee! Now I've gone and bought the Maggie Farell book, the one about Stalin and 2 poetry collections lol!

I get the two Scott thread's muddled all the time - was halfway through the entry before I realised something wasn't quite right lol!

Lee wrote: "Hope you two are feeling a bit more cheerful today (half way through :0) ) did you get up to anything exciting while you were off?"

Just chilling and catching up with folks that I haven't seen cos of all the Christmas mentalness! I'm off tomorrow (yay!) cos obviously I'll be working the weekend as usual so it wasn't too much to get through.
Glad you had a nice time Angela :)
Tracey - thanks for the link, the Easter Island statues are cool!

Thursday, December 15.—66° 23' S. 177° 59' W. Sit. N. 2', E. 5 1/2'.—In the morning the conditions were unaltered. Went for a ski run before breakfast. It makes a wonderful difference to get the blood circulating by a little exercise.

After breakfast we served out ski to the men of the landing party. They are all very keen to learn, and Gran has been out morning and afternoon giving instruction.

Meares got some of his dogs out and a sledge—two lots of seven—those that looked in worst condition (and several are getting very fat) were tried. They were very short of wind—it is difficult to understand how they can get so fat, as they only get two and a half biscuits a day at the most. The ponies are looking very well on the whole, especially those in the outside stalls.

Rennick got a sounding to-day 1844 fathoms; reversible thermometers were placed close to bottom and 500 fathoms up. We shall get a very good series of temperatures from the bottom up during the wait. Nelson will try to get some more current observations to-night or to-morrow.

It is very trying to find oneself continually drifting north, but one is thankful not to be going east.

To-night it has fallen calm and the floes have decidedly opened; there is a lot of water about the ship, but it does not look to extend far. Meanwhile the brash and thinner floes are melting; everything of that sort must help—but it's trying to the patience to be delayed like this.

We have seen enough to know that with a north-westerly or westerly wind the floes tend to pack and that they open when it is calm. The question is, will they open more with an easterly or south-easterly wind—that is the hope.

Signs of open water round and about are certainly increasing rather than diminishing.

Also I think that last entry might have been the other Scott unless the weather is really bad up in Scotland! ;) I've cut and pasted it to the other thread for you

Lee wrote: "@ Laurel - Oh dear - I've just realised that I wasn't being very bright yesterday . I thought you meant that Scott was swearing like a trooper in the original, censored version of the diary. Of co..."

LOL - yeah I meant me not Sir Walter!