The Hundred Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared

by Jonas Jonasson is a very funny book: a laugh-out-loud-in-the-crowd sort of very funny book.

I bought it yesterday on a whim in the Oxfam second-hand bookshop on Ealing Green, and as I was sitting poolside "watching" Emi go through his repertoire of strokes at swim club it made me chortle so much that the other parents started to give me funny looks. 'What's up with her?' I heard someone whisper to their neighbour. And what was up with me was a ripping good read!

It's about a little one hundred year-old man who makes a run for it instead of going to his one hundredth birthday party, to which all the local bigwigs have been invited. He makes it to the bus station, where he decides to make off with a large, grey suitcase that a charmless, ill-mannered youth asks him to keep an eye on whilst he goes to the loo. Unbeknown to the little old man the suitcase is full of dirty money, which gets him started on an unlikely journey on which he is pursued by criminals who want their loot back, and an incompetent police force trying to find a missing pensioner. It's just the ticket for a wet February afternoon when good humour is in short supply.

As the adventure unfolds we learn more about the life of the little, old man, who as an explosives expert has played a critical role in some of the momentous events of the twentieth century. He's an unlikely, heart-warming hero, and, on the basis of what I've read, I recommend the book to you without reservation.

Enjoy!

Bonny x

Insomnia

I am an insomniac. It drives my husband mad. He could win a gold medal for Spain if they ever made sleeping a sport at the Olympics. But not me: I'd flunk right out of there.

Last night was a bad one. I just couldn't get to sleep. I tossed. I turned. I managed to wake everyone else up by tripping over on my way downstairs to raid the fridge. Even the dog was fed up with me in the end. He went out for a comfort break somewhere after 3:00 a.m., and decided that he wasn't in any hurry to come back inside.  Of course it was blowing a gale, raining, pitch black with the moon hidden behind heavy clouds, but I had to go chasing after him in my pyjamas which did very little to help my going-to-sleep issue.

Anyway, after I dragged him back inside, I settled down to burn the midnight oil reading The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul. It's not normally the sort of thing I'd pick up, but I'd bought it because I'd enjoyed The Kite Runner, and this was described 'as if Maeve Binchy had written the Kite Runner'. As it turns out it's a lot more Maeve Binchy than Kite Runner.

It's a well-paced tale about Sunny from Arkansas who runs a coffee shop in Kabul. She's a feisty, likeable character, who meets up with a cast of other extraordinary women in the course of running her business. There's Yasmina, whom Sunny rescues, a young Afghan girl, who is destitute, pregnant and abandoned to her fate on the streets of the city after her husband dies. Then there's Halajan, a 67 year-old Afghan lady who remembers happier days when things were more relaxed, and who yearns to follow her heart and be with the man she would have married half a lifetime ago if she'd been given the choice as a young girl. Candace, a wealthy American divorcee, and Isabel, a British journalist, complete the group.

I must say that I found it hard to believe in either Candace or Isabel. Somehow the characterisation didn't quite work, and Candace especially didn't ring true as a real character. But, that aside in the small hours of the morning, when my grey cells were addled through lack of sleep,  I enjoyed the pace of the narrative, and the beautiful way in which the writer dealt with the setting. I felt that I was in the hands of a storyteller, who knew the country well. 

And it turns out that she does indeed know her stuff. Deborah Rodriquez arrived in Afghanistan in 2002, as a volunteer aid-worker. With her background in hairdressing she was enlisted to help setting up a beauty school for women amidst all the rubble and destruction. You can read about her here:

 Deborah Rodriquez

One of the things that surprised me about her account of life in Kabul was how people there were said to dislike dogs. I am very much of the 'man's best friend' school of thought on this point, but the Afghans are said to regard our canine friends with something bordering on disgust. Sandy, the lead character, is given the present of a retired drug dog to guard her car whilst she is out and about in the city. Tellingly Rodrigquez betrays her own sympathies on the issue by making Poppy, the drug dog, the only character in the book who is an infallible judge of people.

Anyway it's a good, light read if you're suffering the can't-go-to-sleep blues in the middle of the night.

All the best,

Bonny x

Saint Valentine's Day ...

Happy Saint Valentine's Day!

My Mum used to tell me when I was a child that St. Valentine's was the day on which the little song birds in our garden chose their partners. We always had a bird-table, and we always took good care to leave them well-provided for in cold weather. As a result, we had hundreds of feathered friends: robins, blue tits, chaffinches, great tits, wagtails, black birds. You name them, and they'd be there in our garden. We'd watch them carefully through the window, and sure enough there were usually signs of nest-building not long after the magic day. And then, before very much longer, we'd spot a noisy brood of swallow chicks in the garage, and my father would start to get bent of shape about all the bird poo that was landing on his car.

When I was grown-up and single I used to enjoy the Valentine's Day suspense: would anyone think to send me roses? And it always felt like a not insignificant personal triumph when they did!

My husband is a lovely, eccentric man who comes from Barcelona. In his neck of the woods they don't do the whole hearts and flowers thing for the Feast of Saint Valentine.  February, 14th is just another day over there. Instead, they celebrate their amor on the Feast of Saint George, who is also their patron saint in Cataluña. And, what with rescuing damsels from fire-breathing dragons and

everything, maybe old Saint Geordie is a better, more swashbuckling patron saint for lovers anyway.

On his feast day (23rd April) it is traditional for a Catalan lover to bestow a single rose and a book on the object of his affections.

How lovely is that?

Giving someone the present of a book that they will enjoy is surely one of the most intimate gifts that any lover can give. It takes a real understanding of what makes the other person tick to choose correctly.

When someone gives me a book I'm always intrigued by the reverse psychology of why they've chosen that particular one for me. What does it say about how they view me? Eek! Maybe better not go there, on second thoughts... .

If you were to give your other half a book this Saint Valentine's Day, which one would you give?

The 'Don'ts for Wives' handbook from 1913 would probably not be a great choice for the chaps - unless they had their sights set on sleeping in the guest bedroom for the foreseeable future. CJ, one of my cousins, gave me this copy after I got married. I think she was being ironic.

Or how about this lovely book? R.D. Blackmore's 'Lorna Doone' 1913 Dulverton edition, beautifully bound with engraved end boards and coloured illustrations.

 'Lorna Doone' is such a classic, and I love, love, love  my copy. I bought it in a place called the Bookbarn, down in Somerset. They say that it's the the largest second hand book shop in the country, and I believe them. I've spent days of my life in there browsing happily. Anyway this dedication appears on the first page of my copy:

I think it's just grand how Misses Grimwood and Burgess were busy with the Brighton and Hove Rifle Club way back in the autumn of 1913. Good for them! But I also wonder what happened to them in the following years. Did they get involved in the war effort? Did they lose sweethearts/ husbands/ fathers/ sons on the front? Did they have any not insignificant personal triumphs on 14th February, 1914?

 Anyway, whatever you're doing, have a good one!

Bonny x

just hooking, reading and doing my thing ...

Shush … don’t tell anyone, but I secretly like to crochet (and knit and sew).

It’s one of my guilty pleasures. Guilty? I don’t know, but it just never seemed to be intellectual/ artistic/ interesting enough to talk about. What kind of sad hausfrau would I appear to be if I arrived with my yarn bag under one arm? So my lovely double knitting, super soft cashmerino and multi-coloured four ply all stayed hidden at home.

And then, little by little, people seem to have rediscovered the pleasure of quietly creating something unique in a palette of colour that pleases their eye. Stitch by stitch it’s become respectable, therapeutic, trendy even, to crochet and knit again. Groups have grown up of like-minded people who want to get together for a knit and a natter.

Perfect! How lovely! Now I can take my needles out of the closet and practise my passion in public.

I’ve often wondered whether someone like Tracy Chevalier shared my secret enthusiasm? Have you read, ‘The Last Runaway’, her latest book? It’s about an English Quaker girl, who emigrates to America and gets involved in rescuing escaped slaves as part of the Underground Railway movement. One of the many charming things about the tale is the way Tracy describes the lead character’s love of quilting. Either she has done her homework very thoroughly, and then used a lot of empathy/ imagining to get it spot on, or she’s done some sewing in between times.

I especially loved the way bits of fabric, from a loved one’s cast-off dress/ tablecloth/whatever, would be stashed away, and later incorporated into a quilt, and a memory would get stitched into a practical, intimate, everyday object that would become a very physical connection with the past. That’s got to be the ultimate up-cycle!

Anyway if you haven’t’ read it, and especially if you enjoyed ‘The Lady and the Unicorn’, in which she did a great job of recreating the workshop of the fifteenth century tapestry weavers in Paris, go get yourself a copy. It’s a delightful read.

Enjoy!

Bonny x