reading – Page 6 – don't confuse the narrator

of kiwis and poetry

(Click here for a picture of male and female kiwi flowers)

We are gradually trying to replace our old grape vine with a kiwi vine. Our reasoning is mainly that the old vine is not very healthy and produces huge quantities of wasp-attracting fruit that gets mildew and moulders on a grand scale each year.

Since there’s some sixty square metres of trellis, it’s probably not surprising there’s more fruit than we can deal with. Kiwis seem as if they might be rather more controllable.

The photo shows a sucker on one of the kiwis we planted a couple of years ago. The vivid vermilion of these new shoots, and the furriness of the stalks and young leaves, never ceases to amaze me.
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april 23rd

Lance Tooks drawing from Sketches from Spain

And the date offers a number of reasons to celebrate:

It’s World Book and Copyright Day, it’s traditionally celebrated as Shakespeare’s birthday and the day of his death, and it’s also the day Miguel de Cervantes died.

It’s St George’s Day, too, (San Jordi) and Castile Day – not to be confused with Bastille Day, of course – or, perhaps more accurately, El Día de Castile y León.

It seems to me quite apt to celebrate castles in Spain and the world of books on the same day, and it’s also appropriate that the picture accompanying this post is taken from Lance Tooks’ upcoming book Sketches from Spain, due out in May. (Thank you, Lance, for permission to use it!)
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a case for e-readers

By which I don’t mean a case as in an argument, but a case as in a binding or container.

For reasons of no relevance here, I have just followed a trail of links that led me to an advert with this illustration:

his ‘n’ yours

I think I’ve been insulted. I went down to buy the paper in the local shop this morning and bought The Observer and the Woman’s Weekly Fiction Special, as shown in the photo.

Yes, it’s true, I read women’s magazine fiction. It’s light – actual weight-wise, not simply ‘light reading’, it comes in a disposable format, and it’s particularly suitable for travel reading. (I also like to know what’s being published these days, in case I feel inspired to turn my hand to fiction.)