Hot Cross Bun time again

Every Easter I make hot cross buns for morning tea at work & yesterday I made this batch. The buns with the V on them are for a couple of vegan colleagues. They're exactly the same, just without the egg wash. The baker's privilege is to have a small bun just out of the oven so I can report that they're delicious. I say this every year but I don't know why I don't make fruit buns at any other time of the year. They'd be just as yummy without the crosses but I know I won't make another batch until next Easter.

Sunday Poetry - Carola Oman

Still reading the poetry of WWI but this is from another anthology on my shelves, Voices of Silence : the alternative book of First World War poetry by Vivien Noakes. I've literally just picked it up from the shelf &, flicking through it, came across the name of Carola Oman. She was a friend of Georgette Heyer & I remembered reading about her in Jennifer Kloester's biography of Heyer last year. Carola Oman was a Red Cross nurse during both wars. This poem is called Night Duty in the Station. By the way, turkis in the last stanza is an obsolete form of turquoise. I looked it up as I'd never seen the word before.

I
Slowly out of the siding the troop train draws away,
Into the dark it passes, heavily straining.
Shattering on the points the engine stutters.
Fires burn in every truck. Rich shadows play
Over the vivid faces... bunched figures. Some one mutters
'Rainin' again... it's raining.'

Slammings - a few shouts - quicker
Each truck the same moves on.
Weary rain eddies after
Drifts where the deep fires flicker.
Into the dark with laughter
The last truck wags... it is gone.

II
Horns that sound in the night when very few are keeping
Unwilling vigil, and the moonlit air
Is chill, and everything around is sleeping - 
Horns that call on a long low note - ah, where
Were you calling me last?
The ghastly huntsman hunts no more, they say
The Arcadian fields are drugged with blood and clay.
And is Romance not past?

III
The station in this watch seems full of ghosts.
Above revolves an opalescent lift
Of smoke and moonlight in the roof. And hosts
Of pallid refugees and children, shift
About the barriers in a ceaseless drift.

Forms sleeping crowd beneath the rifle-rack,
Upon the bookstall, in the carts. They seem
All to be grey and burdened. Blue and black,
Khaki and red, are blended, as a dream
Into eternal grey, and from the back
They stagger from this darkness into light
And move and shout
And sing a little, and move on and out
Unready, and again, into the night.

IV
The windows in the Post Office are lit with olive gold.
Across the bridge serene and old
White barges beyond count
Lie down the cold canal
Where the lost shadows fall;
And a transparent city shines upon a magic mount.

Now fired with turkis blue and green
Where the first sunshine plays
The dawn tiptoes between
Waiting her signal from the woodland ways...

The Perfect Match - Katie Fforde

Katie Fforde's books are always a treat, as comforting as a cup of tea & a Sunday afternoon in my favourite reading chair. Her new novel, The Perfect Match, delivers all the bucolic Englishness we've come to expect although I didn't find the main romance quite as involving as usual this time around.

Bella Castle is a real estate agent in a small country town. She left her home town three years before after falling in love with a married man. Although their relationship consisted of nothing but flirting over the photocopier & a kiss under the mistletoe, once she realised Dominic was married & that his wife was pregnant, Bella left. Now, she has her life completely on track. She lives with her godmother, Alice, loves her job & is practically engaged to her boss, Nevil.

Bella is the kindest, most considerate & altruistic real estate agent I've ever met in fiction. She goes to endless trouble with picky clients & becomes friends with an elderly lady, Jane Langley, who doesn't want to sell her big, inconvenient house but is worried about the future when she can no longer manage the house & her beautiful garden. Nevil imagines that Bella's visits to Jane are a way of softening her up for the eventual sale of her house but Bella is genuinely concerned for Jane, who becomes a friend. Imagine Bella's dismay when Jane's nephew comes to visit & he turns out to be Dominic Thane, the man she left her previous job & life for. Bella is already having doubts about her relationship with Nevil & her doubts increase when she begins to suspect that he's involved in some dodgy property deals. Her decision to look for evidence of these deals leads her into potential danger.

Bella's godmother, Alice, is in her sixties, happy with her life although she is starting to get itchy feet in her comfortable domesticity after a life of travel. When she meets Michael on the train one day, there's an immediate attraction although she's reluctant to make too much of it as she's several years older than he is. However, Michael isn't deterred & their relationship moves quickly. Michael's two daughters are not so welcoming & Alice has to make some crucial decisions about her future.

Dominic could never understand why Bella left so abruptly & believes the rumours at their workplace that she had covered up for his wife, Celine, who was having an affair. Their marriage broke up soon afterwards. Dominic isn't happy to discover that Bella is his aunt's friend & Bella is dismayed to realise that she is still in love with Dominic. Their friendship slowly develops as misunderstandings are cleared away & Bella asks Dominic's help with her investigations into Nevil's shifty dealings.

The Perfect Match is a lovely book to read on a Sunday afternoon although I don't think it's as good as her earlier novels. Bella is a sweet girl but I couldn't understand why she was still with the odious Nevil. He might have built up her confidence when she first arrived but she really only seems to be still with him because she loves her job & knows he'd sack her if she broke up with him. Every word he says & every assumption he makes just shows that they're poles apart in values, morals & everything that matters. It surely didn't take her three years & the arrival of Dominic to work this out. Bella & Dominic's romance never really gets off the ground, they have so many obstacles to get over. I did love Alice & Michael's story & this reminds what I love about Katie Fforde's earlier novels. They were about older women still living interesting lives, having relationships & fitting all that in with busy lives. I believed in Alice where I didn't really believe in Bella.

On Your Marks - Gladys Mitchell

On Your Marks is a girls career novel set in a physical training college like the one in Miss Pym Disposes. Being Gladys Mitchell, the author can't resist a few mysteries - who drained the swimming pool? Who sawed through the hockey goal posts? - but it's really just a Jolly Good Read as Kay Whalley says in her Introduction to the Greyladies edition.

Lesley Scott is about to begin three years training at Falcons Physical Training College where she hopes to qualify as a PE teacher. Lesley is tall, attractive, kind, good at games, academic work & a born organiser. She is obviously going to succeed but not be so disgustingly perfect that the reader can't empathize with her. On her first day she meets Frankie Allinson, short, tubby, a demon tennis player who was destined for Wimbledon but her family couldn't afford it & someone who finds trouble wherever it may be. The two girls soon become best friends & the three years of their training combine several crises (usually involving Frankie) with lots of hard work & so much sport that I was exhausted just reading about it. The story also follows Lesley & Frankie to their first post in a school.

Gladys Mitchell taught games in various schools throughout her career & knows the school background well. I've never been much of a fan of school stories but I did love The Naughtiest Girl in the School by Enid Blyton & there are similarities here, even though the "girls" at Falcons are really young women, training for a career. The school is divided into Houses, all with nicknames - Leander (Leo's, where Lesley & Frankie live), Atalanta's (Auntie's), Pheidippides (Fido's) &  the fourth house is known as Prin's because that's where the Principal, Miss Betts, lives. Inter-House games & competitions are vital to instil the appropriate spirit & keep the students up to scratch.

The atmosphere of the 1950s is everywhere, although in some ways it could be pre-war. Lights out at 11pm & no young men from the local Technical College allowed to the dances. Divided skirts & only one visitor allowed to sit on the bed. I admit I was slightly shocked when one of the mistresses offers Lesley a cigarette but I was amazed when one of the students, a Miss Plumstead "came top of the College and took herself off to a job in India, where she was paid a fabulous salary by the local rajah for teaching English games in his State school and coaching his younger wives in tennis and badminton." That's what I mean by a pre-war atmosphere! I was also fascinated by the reference to a train as a Puffing Billy. Here in Melbourne, Puffing Billy means only one thing, a steam train that runs through the Dandenong Ranges & is a big tourist attraction. I had no idea that the name was used for steam trains in general. As one of the mistresses at Falcons might have said, "Even the lightest literature can be educational, girls."

There's not a bit of romance until the last couple of pages although I did catch a hint of this early in the book. The mysteries I mentioned above are tackled by the girls led by Lesley as their formidable general, showing tactical & leadership skills worthy of Napoleon or Wellington. My favourite scene was the fire in the Sanitorium (on the third floor, no less) where several injured girls (broken bones & sprains abound in the college) are encouraged to jump on to blankets & the reluctant ones are rescued by Frankie climbing up a pyramid of mistresses & girls & literally shoving one girl with a broken collarbone out of the window. Gymnastics are another mainstay of the curriculum.

I enjoyed On Your Marks very much. It was a light read but full  of engaging characters & the ultimate satisfaction of just reading about all that exertion from the comfort of my reading chair. If you have the Greyladies edition, don't skip Kay Whalley's Introduction (although don't read it until afterwards). She makes all the points I've made here & anticipated my every thought about the book, the plot & the characters & expresses it all with great humour & affection.

Sunday Poetry - Olivia FitzRoy

When I came across this poem, I thought the author's name was familiar.  Olivia FitzRoy was an author of children's books (among many other titles) & some of her books have been reprinted by Fidra. She enlisted in the WRNS during WWII & her pilot boyfriend was killed in Singapore in 1945. After the war, she spent time travelling with a circus, collecting material for a book & rented a croft in Scotland for a few years. She married & had two daughters but died, aged only 48, in 1969.

This poem, When He Is Flying, must reflect not only FitzRoy's own experience but the experiences of so many people waiting for news of a loved one. She must have only been in her early 20s when she wrote this poem but the refrain "when I was young" & the weary tone of the speaker expresses the constant fear & dread that Death was just waiting for His moment & His coming was inevitable - if not for you & yours, then for someone else.

When I was young I thought that if Death came
He would come suddenly, and with a swift hand kill,
Taking all feeling;
Want, laughter and fear;
leaving a cold and soulless shell on earth
While the small winged soul
Flew on
At peace.
I used to think those things when I was young,
But now I know.
I know
Death stands beside me, never very far,
An unseen shadow, just beyond my view
And if I hear an engine throb and fade
Or see a neat formation pass
Or a lone fighter soar, hover and dart,
He takes another step more near
And lays his cold unhurried hand upon my heart.

The Beautiful Mystery - Louise Penny

I mentioned a couple of months ago when I was reviewing Josephine Tey's Miss Pym Disposes, that I love a mystery set in a closed community. Several people have also recommended Louise Penny's series of police procedurals set in Canada. So, instead of starting at the beginning of the series (which is what I'd normally do) I thought I'd read The Beautiful Mystery, which is set in a Gilbertine monastery in a remote wilderness.

Sûreté officers Chief Inspector Armand Gamache & Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir are called to the monastery, Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups (St Gilbert among the wolves), when the body of the Prior & Choirmaster, Frère Mathieu, is found in the Abbot's private garden. Frère Mathieu had been killed by a blow from a heavy object & he was curled up, clutching a piece of parchment with Gregorian chant written on it. The abbot, Dom Philippe, & all the monks seem shocked by the murder & almost as horrified by the intrusion of the police into their sanctuary.

The monastery had been hidden, unknown for centuries, until a recording of the monks singing their Gregorian chants, found its way into the outside world & caused a sensation. Since then, the monks had almost been under siege by tourists & the media. It soon becomes obvious that the recording has brought benefits & disadvantages. The money from the recording has paid for geothermal heating & solar power but the intrusion of the outside world & the temptation to leave their enclosed order & go out into the world, giving concerts & interviews, has split the community.

The monks have been divided into Abbot's men, who don't want to leave their seclusion & the Prior's men, who want to take the opportunity to secure the community's finances & spread the word of God through their music. Gamache & Beauvoir must disentangle the possible motives of these men who follow a vow of silence which makes them extraordinarily observant of each other & of the police. As they get to know the monks - Frère Raymond, who looks after the practicalities of the geothermal plant, Frère Charles, the doctor, Frère Simon, the abbot's secretary & Frère Luc, the youngest & newest member of the congregation, who is the porter - they also begin to absorb the atmosphere of the monastery & the division of the day into periods of prayer & plainchant signalled by bells.

The arrival of Gamache's superior officer, Superintendent Francoeur, leads to increased tension as Sûreté departmental politics & old enmities are unleashed. Francoeur & Gamache are bitter enemies & Francoeur is determined to undermine Gamache's position, both by arriving to oversee the investigation & by playing on Beauvoir's insecurities. Some months before, Gamache had led a group of his agents into a situation in which several of them were killed & he & Beauvoir were severely injured. Beauvoir became addicted to painkillers & has only recently recovered. Beauvoir has also fallen in love with Gamache's daughter, Annie, & they're waiting for the right moment to tell Gamache & his wife.

The Beautiful Mystery is an absorbing mystery. I loved the setting. The monastery in the wilderness is beautifully described. I could see the corridors, the chapel, the gardens & the tiny cells where the monks slept. I also loved all the musical background that informed the plot. The beautiful mystery of the title is the name that was given to the sublime sounds of the Gregorian chants. The monks of  Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups have taken the art of the chant to sublime heights & I was as enchanted as Gamache by the experience of hearing them, even if it was only in my mind. Gamache is a very sympathetic investigator who obviously cares about his whole team & the integrity of the Sûreté as a whole.

Louise Penny does a great job of filling in new readers who haven't read the earlier books in the series. I felt I knew exactly what was going on with Gamache & Francoeur, their past relationship & the backstory to the hatred between them as well as the father-son relationship between Gamache & Beauvoir. My only quibble with the book is the length. 500pp is just too long for a police procedural.  I can't think of any mystery novel that needs to be more than 300pp. I stopped reading Elizabeth George because every novel was longer than the last & the investigative element became swamped in the minutiae of the lives of the protagonists. I enjoy following the characters from one novel to the next but sometimes the mystery is lost. However, The Beautiful Mystery is an excellent example of the closed community crime novel & there is much to enjoy in this story of monks, music & murder.

Snoozing on a Saturday afternoon

I wish I could say it was autumn here in Melbourne but it's not feeling crisply autumnal just yet. The nights are drawing in, we've had some cool mornings, it's dark when I leave for work but we're also still having some warm, humid days. Saturday started out cool & cloudy but by early afternoon, the sun was out & Lucky was taking the chance to relax on her futon,

& roll around in the sunny patterns from the trellis on the back porch.

I always have to be careful walking down the back steps because Phoebe's favourite spot is about halfway down. There's a shot from above,

& one from the bottom of the steps.

After all, why choose somewhere safe to sleep (such as her fluffy purple velvet bed) when she can snooze on a step where one roll backwards would send her falling to the concrete beneath?

Probably the same reason she likes to sleep on the back of my chair (unlike Lucky, who takes the sensible option) & climb on the rooftops. She's a daredevil.