A Foray into Some Modern Books

Lila by Marilynne Robinson (2014)

I’ve been interested in reading something by this author for some time but as I’m always cautious about more modern novels and am generally disappointed with them, I wasn’t prepared to buy a new copy. Fortunately, I found a copy of at a secondhand book sale and then I discovered that my local library has other books by Marilynne Robinson, which is wonderful as I enjoyed this book very much.
Lila was a neglected child who found her way into the heart of an itinerant worker. Doll was a single woman on the fringes of life who slept at Lila’s house most nights. One evening she came home and found the young child half asleep outside the house in the cold, after being kicked out because her family was sick of her crying. Doll picked her up, wrapped her in her shawl, went into the house where everyone was asleep, took her bundle of possessions and went out into the night.

‘Doll may have been the loneliest woman in the world, and she was the loneliest child, and there they were, the two of them together, keeping each other warm in the rain.’

From then on Doll kept on the move with Lila, always with the fear that Lila would be taken from her. After a time they they joined up with a group of itinerant families and travelled with them. These were good years with enough food, a sense of security, and a year of school for Lila.
But the Great Depression drew near and the good years came to an end. The itinerant work dwindled and Doll and Lila, left to fend for themselves, were separated.
Lila had a life of misery and ended up in a whorehouse at one stage. After escaping from that place she wandered the countryside until one day she found herself in a small town called Gilead and took shelter from the rain inside a church.
Lila is a beautifully told story that goes back and forward in time revealing the details of Lila’s life as the story progresses. This type of writing doesn’t always work well but the author uses it to great advantage. The flashback technique was also good at showing the fracturing of families and society in the impoverished years of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl times in the 1930’s. The storyline has an aura of mystery surrounding it and was a book I found difficult to set aside because it always had me guessing. Lila is someone you come to care about, especially as she comes to a watershed in her life where her choices will either make or destroy her. I kept hoping her fear wouldn’t keep her on the run.
A major theme in the book is trust and when Lila put aside the fear she had been brought up with and decided to walk into that church in Gilead she started on a pathway where she was to learn to trust.
Acceptance, love and an unusual romance were part of this.
Highly recommended and I am definitely going to read more of this author.


A Dangerous Language by Sulari Gentil (2017)

A Dangerous Language is the eighth book in Sulari Gentill’s Rowland Sinclair Mystery series. I’ve read all eight and each book in the series seems to get better than the last. This one took off from the start and was hard to put down so I read it very quickly.
As usual, the author weaves in Australian history, politics, culture, and news items from the 1930’s. Her writing is extremely well-researched and I really appreciate the Australian history I pick up effortlessly when I read her novels.
Rowland Sinclair and his three friends are embroiled yet again in the dangerous world of political intrigue; this time in Canberra, the nation’s newly developed capital, when a Communist agent is murdered on the steps of Parliament House. (‘Old Parliament House’ as it’s now known opened on 9 May 1927)
Rowland has volunteered to fly an international peace advocate from Fremantle to Melbourne where he is scheduled to speak but the right-wing militia responsible for the agent’s assassination are determined to stop him.
The predicaments and dangerous situations that Rowland and his three friends find themselves in this mystery series are definitely far-fetched but the writing is witty, fun and intelligent.
I’d recommend reading the books in order as many of the characters in previous books make a reappearance and they build on each other. The four main characters are also developed more fully as the series progresses and the longstanding interest that Rowland has for his friend, Edna, is a work in progress. I do wonder how long the author will string out this relationship! I think readers need some closure here and Edna & Rowland really have had plenty of time to get over their pasts and get their act together.
These books afford a unique presentation of our more local history and factional politics in a well done fictional setting.

Death in Holy Orders by P.D James (2001)

Death in Holy Orders by P.D. James is a sinister multiple murder mystery set in an Anglican Theological College on the East Anglican coast.
All through the book there is an underlying tension that keeps the reader in suspense as the murders seem unconnected and random. The author’s strength lies in her exploration of the psychological aspects of her characters and their inherent motives. These explorations open up a Pandora’s box and complicate the investigation process. Part of the enjoyment of James’ writing is the intellectual pursuit she engages the reader in, not to mention her excellent command of the written word.
In Death in Holy Orders, Commander Dalgleish returns to a place he frequented as a child (his father was a rector) and relives some of his boyhood experiences. We don’t often get personal insights into Dalgleish’s life and I always enjoy them when they are included. In this book Dalgleish also finds romance. His first wife had died in childbirth a number of years ago and he distanced himself emotionally.
The murders aren’t described in great detail but she always includes some (often bizarre) element of a s*xual nature. I don’t think these are necessarily gratuitous as James had seen the seamy side of life in her work in the forensic science department of the police force and later in the Criminal Policy Department. She also served as a magistrate in Middlesex and London and worked in the National Health Service and used her varied experience to help her write her books.

There are actually some likeable characters in this book. Sometimes James seems more than a little misanthropic but there was more nuance in the personalities here than in some of her other novels.
One scene was a lovely redemptive act that dealt with the acceptance of guilt in thought:

‘What was there about this place that forced him to confront the greater as well as the lesser lies? He had known she was in danger if death. He had hoped that she would die. He was in the eyes of his God...guilty of murder...How could he continue to minister to others, to preach the forgiveness of sins, when his own great sin was unacknowledged? How could he have stood up before that congregation tonight with this darkness in his soul?

He got out of bed and knelt, burying his head in his hands. It wasn’t necessary to search for the words; they came to him naturally, and with them came the promise of forgiveness and peace. ‘Lord be merciful to me, a sinner.’

Death in Holy Orders is well-written and engrossing crime mystery. It's of the best books I’ve read by this author and apart from the one or two scenes which may not sit well with some readers, I’d recommend it as a very interesting and complex murder mystery.

Character, Disposition & the Formation of Habits

Reading through Charlotte Mason’s second volume, Parents and Children, I was jolted by some ideas that weren’t new to me, but came as a bit of an epiphany this time around.
Even of you are only barely familiar with Charlotte Mason (CM) and her educational ideas, you probably know that habit formation is a cornerstone of her philosophy of education.
The ‘epiphany’ passages I read in Chapter 22 of Parents & Children (A Catechism of Educational Theory) look at how habits originate and how they may be corrected.

Some of the ideas discussed in this chapter are:

• That disposition, intellect, genius, come pretty much by nature.

• That character is an achievement, the one practical achievement possible to us for ourselves and for our children.

Character is the result of conduct.
We have ‘made’ ourselves by the thoughts we have allowed ourselves to think, by the words we have spoken, and by the things we have done.
How we behave (our conduct) has its origin in the way we habitually think. We are accustomed to think in a certain way and so we also act in a certain way.
The links between thought and conduct and the origin of these habits was where I sat up and took notice.

CM poses the question: What is the origin of these habits of thought and act? Her answer is that it is usually inherited disposition.

‘The man who is generous, obstinate, hot-tempered, devout, is so, on the whole, because that strain of character runs in the family.’

Inherited disposition becomes more obvious to us when we marry someone who has been brought up in a family that has a very different strain of character running through it than the one we have been brought up in.
An inherited disposition may not be apparent until circumstances force it to surface e.g. when faced with loss, success, or major change. This was something I experienced in my teen years when my parents’ marriage fell apart.
I became more inclined to be pessimistic in my thought life (this was something my Dad had difficulty with) so much so that a close friend told me at the time that my mind was ‘like a gloomy cave!’

When I read the above passages from ‘Parents & Children’ recently, it shone a light on the course my thoughts had been taking at the time. I had allowed some old patterns of thought to cloud my thinking and hijack my emotions. I was feeling that old pessimism again.
I’m always surprised at how slyly the wrong habits of thinking gain their power.
I’d been reading ‘Tapestry of Life: Devotions for the Unique Woman’ by Nancy Corbett Cole, a book my husband gave me in 1994 and which I’ve read quite a few times since. She talked about taking every thought captive and reminded me that, ‘Salvation is both instant and constant. We are instantly saved at the moment we believe, and continually saved as we let go of the old life, and live in the new.’

Oswald Chambers said that ‘Salvation is easy because it cost God so much, but the manifestation of it in my life is difficult.’ 

The habits of the old life need to be replaced by new habits. Thomas a Kempis said, 'One habit overcomes another one.' So we develop the opposite good habit to replace the one we want to get rid of.
Bad habits make us slaves but once we establish new habits they make mental tracks for us that support and enable us to go in the direction we really desire to follow.

Unhealthy habits and negative thinking also close our eyes to the love of God and create the perfect environment for disappointment & despair. Our minds become gloomy caves and we lose hope. We may think our circumstances will never change, second guess the decisions we’ve made in the past, or believe a whole lot of things conjured up by a faulty perspective.

Corrie ten Boom, a survivor of the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp in WWII, a woman who knew all about fear, pessimism and despair, gave this advice:

‘If we do not see as much as we need or want to see, then we must tell it to the Lord. He will heal our eyes so that we see that the love of God is far greater than anything else.’

Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey (1946)

Miss Pym’s mission in life had been to teach schoolgirls to speak French, which she had done for four years until her remaining parent died and left her two hundred and fifty pounds a year. Lucy supplemented her living by giving French lessons from time to time and spent her spare hours reading books on psychology. After reading thirty-seven volumes on the subject, she wrote a rebuttal  of what she considered was idiotic nonsense.
By chance her writing came to the attention of a publisher at a time when the intellectual world had tired of Freud and his ilk and, recognising the appeal that Lucy’s fresh approach to the area of psychology would have, he had her writing published.
Lucy Pym became an overnight bestseller and found herself in demand as a speaker. Life was comfortable, cultured, and pleasant.
A few months after her new found fame as an author, she received a letter from an old school friend, Henrietta, asking her to come and address her students at the Physical College where she was headmistress.
Initially her stay was only an overnight one but the young women enjoyed her company and urged her to stay longer and she did.

'Young in years a few of her acquaintances might be, but they were already bowed down with the weight of the world’s wrongs and their own importance. It was nice to meet a morning-of-the-world youngness for a change.'

'Why should she go back to London yet? What was there to take her back? Nothing and nobody. For the first time that fine, independent, cushioned, celebrated life of hers looked just a little bleak. A little narrow and inhuman. Could it be? Was there, perhaps, a lack of warmth in that existence she had been so content with?'

The crime doesn’t occur until the latter part of Miss Pym Disposes so most of the narrative is taken up with the relationships between the students and the various staff members at the College, their  personalities, and Lucy's interaction with them personally.
I really liked this character assessment of a staff member who couldn’t get beyond her own background and past disappointments. She was unable to clearly see things because of this. Her view was distorted or blurred - she had mental astigmatism.

‘...how can one reduce a mental astigmatism like that? She is quite honest about it, you see. She is one of the most honest persons I have ever met. She really ‘sees’ the thing like that...everything that is admirable and deserving, and thinks we are prejudiced and oppositious. How can one alter a thing like that?’

‘Up to a point she was shrewd and clear-minded, and beyond that she suffered from...’astigmatism’; and for mental astigmatism nothing could be done.’

There was a good bit of suspense throughout the book that has the reader waiting for some nasty crime to occur but it happens in a low key way so much of the 'action' is based on getting to know the various characters, and I enjoyed this aspect. Inspector Alan Grant isn’t a character in this story so it was up to Miss Pym to play amateur detective using her psychological insights to find a motive and a suspect.
Her investigations concluded, the crime atoned for, she is ready to return home when an surprise revelation reveals the true culprit.
As she gets in the taxi to return to London she makes a decision:

'...in London she would stay. In London was her own, safe, nice, calm, collected existence, and in future she would be content with it. She would even give up lecturing on psychology.
What did she know about psychology anyhow?
As a psychologist she was a first-rate teacher of French.'

Josephine Tey spent three years at a Physical Training College in Birmingham, England, herself, and one of the incidents from her life as a teacher is used in this novel. This was the only one of her crime novels that I hadn’t read so now I’m done (sniff!) I enjoyed this one; it is quite humorous in places but I did miss Inspector Grant.


Linking to Back to the Classics 2020: Classic With a Name in the Title

Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens: A Study of Selfishness

‘My main object in this story was, to exhibit in a variety of aspects the commonest of all the vices; to show how Selfishness propagates itself; and to what a grim giant it may grow, from small beginnings.’ 

This book isn’t one I’d planned to read & it’s not a Dickens’ title that had come to my attention at any time, but I saw it at a book sale and bought it because I hadn’t read anything by Dickens for a while.
It sat unread on my book shelves for some time until one night when I was considering which book I should start reading next but couldn’t make up my mind. I’d just finished The Lord of the Rings, which I’d put off for years (and found to my surprise that it was hard to put down) so when my eyes came upon Martin Chuzzlewit, I thought, ‘I’ll just read the first chapter and if I can’t get into it, I’ll choose something else.’
Well, I kept going and that was that. From memory, it usually takes me a few chapters to engage with Dickens so I was surprised at how quickly it happened with one of his books that doesn’t seem anywhere near as popular as many of his others.

Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-4) first came out in monthly installments but unlike Dickens’ previous books, The Old Curiosity Shop, and even Barnaby Rudge, sales were low for various reasons: he had abstained from novel-writing for a time and this caused him to lose ground with the public; when he did return to publishing he released the chapters monthly as opposed to weekly, which was his previous practice; his reputation declined after the public’s disappointment with Barnaby Rudge.
After the poor reception of the first instalments of Martin Chuzzlewit, Dickens decided to change some aspects of the story and set parts of it in America where he had recently spent some time. (He wrote a record of that journey in American Notes.)

Dickens himself considered Martin Chuzzlewit his best work and when it was published in book-form it proved to be one of his greatest successes.
Not only is Martin Chuzzlewit a study in selfishness, it also concerns itself with how suffering shapes character. Oswald Chambers said that ‘Sorrow burns up a great deal of shallowness, but it does not always make a man better’ and Dickens’ demonstrates the effects the same circumstances may work for better or worse in different people. Chambers also observed that if you yield in childhood to selfishness, you will find it the most enchaining tyranny on earth. Some of the characters in Martin Chuzzlewit never broke free of those chains.

Dickens’ satire on the Chuzzlewit family portrays ‘the poison of selfishness as transmitted within a family,’ and the ‘false notions of family grandeur and the parasites which they breed.’

As usual, there is a large cast of characters in the story but I thought there were many more likeable persons here compared to some of his other books and more redemptive aspects in the characters’ lives.
I really enjoyed the developing friendships between some of the young men. The loyalty and unselfish regard they had toward one another stood out in comparison to the opportunistic relationships in the greater Chuzzlewit family.

Some Notable Characters:

Martin Chuzzlewit: the young protagonist of the story; he had fallen out with his Grandfather, of the same name, who had brought him up, and now struck him out of his will. Martin junior was frank and generous by nature but his upbringing had allowed him to grow selfish. Circumstances opened his eyes to see others he had taken for granted and used.

‘How was it that this man who had had so few advantages, was so much better than he who had had so many?’

'Martin - for once in his life, at all events - sacrificed his own will and pleasure to the wishes of another, and consented with a fair grace. So travelling had done him that much good, already.'

Mr Pecksniff: an absolute hypocrite and selfish to the core. 

'He was a most exemplary man: fuller of virtuous precepts than a copy-book. Some people likened him to a direction post, which is always telling the way to a place, and never goes there.

(His) detractors thought he bore a fanciful resemblance to his horse, not in his outward person but in his moral character - full of promise, but of no performance.
He was a kind of animal who infused into the breasts of strangers a lively sense of hope, and possessed all those who knew him better with a grim despair.’

His comment on seeing a beggar on the street: ‘If everyone were warm and well-fed, we should lose the satisfaction of admiring the fortitude with which certain conditions of men bear cold and hunger.'

Tom Pinch - unpretentious and noble-souled; his Grandmother had skimped and saved to allow him to enter Pecksniff’s service as a student of architecture after he had dazzled her with prospects of Tom’s happiness and advancement. ('Pecksniff’s genius lay in ensnaring parents and guardians, and pocketing premiums.') And poor Tom was completely take in by the man.

One of the characters who undergoes a transformation of character (but I won’t spoil the story by mentioning names):

‘I never thought at all; I had no thought, no heart, no care to find one; at that time. It has grown out of my trouble. I wouldn’t recall my trouble, such as it is and has been - and it is light in comparison with trials which hundreds of good people suffer every day, I know - I wouldn’t recall it tomorrow, if I could. It has been my friend, for without it no one could have changed me; nothing could have changed me.’

I agree with Dickens that Martin Chuzzlewit is one of his best stories and I highly recommend it.
Moozle, who is 15yrs of age and has never taken to Dickens (I think The Old Curiosity Shop turned her off!) was hunting for something to read and agreed to try MC after I said how I enjoyed it. I’m very happy to say that she actually liked it!!

Linking to the Back to the Classics Challenge 2020: 19th Century Classic 

The Lord of the Rings by J.R. Tolkien (1949)

I've just remedied the possibility that I was perhaps one of the few people on the planet who had never read (or even watched) the The Lord of the Rings (LOTR). I did read The Hobbit aloud to my daughter a few years ago and enjoyed that and it was my plan to read the LOTR some years ago after we bought a lovely boxed Folio edition but although I don't mind reading fantasy, I'm not a big enough fan of the genre to let it edge out other books I'd like to read.
The main reason I did actually start reading this about two months ago was because I knew I’d have more leisure to read an epic story with the coronavirus restrictions and also because my daughter-in-law was re-reading the trilogy and suggested we watch the movies at a later date. I always like to read a book before seeing the film version so that was the prod I needed.
I’m not even going to attempt a review of such a well-known book but I would like to share some general thoughts.

The LOTR comprises three books: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King. They follow on from each other and were intended by the author to be one volume but for various reasons his publisher didn’t allow this.
Tolkien began writing LOTR soon after he’d finished writing The Hobbit and before its publication in 1937, but between his many other duties and pursuits as well as the outbreak of WWII, it wasn’t completed until 1949.

Tolkien created a whole new world with its own intricate history, peopled with diverse creatures: hobbits, elves, dwarves, wizards, orcs, trolls and men. While it was a sequel to The Hobbit, it became much more than that; it is darker, more challenging to read, and while some characters from The Hobbit re-appear and there are some similarities, LOTR is much more developed plot-wise. It is full of wisdom, mystery, humour, and many unlikely heroes.
Tolkien specifically said in the foreword to LOTR that he didn’t intend any inner meaning to the story and that he disliked allegory in all its manifestations. He preferred readers to use their own freedom of applicability (I'd interpret that as their 'moral imagination') rather than allowing the author's purpose to dominate.

Bilbo, the main character from The Hobbit, returned to his home in the Shire with a Ring in his possession. For many years he had kept this Ring safe and only his nephew, Frodo, and the wizard, Gandalf the Grey, knew about it and its power to make its wearer disappear.
One day Gandalf paid Bilbo a visit and was concerned to observe that the Ring seemed to have a strange power over his hobbit friend. Bilbo had been restless and planned to leave the Shire so Gandalf persuaded him to leave the Ring behind with Frodo when he did.
Years after Bilbo had departed, Gandalf had made a number of journeys investigating the history of the Ring, which was one of many that were forged in the distant past. During this time of Gandalf's absence, Frodo received strange tidings from dwarves and other travellers passing through the Shire and he grew increasingly restless. When Gandalf eventually returned to the Shire he was certain in the knowledge that Frodo’s Ring was The Ring of Power, the One that ruled over all others. He also brought news that the evil Lord Sauron of the Land of Mordor knew now that the Ring he presumed lost was to be found in the possession of a hobbit in the Shire.

'Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all
And in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.'

Now that Frodo’s life was in danger, Gandalf urged him to leave the Shire and travel to Rivendell where the Elves dwelt. The Ring needed to be destroyed, that was understood, but Frodo did not want to be the one take it to Mordor and thought he could pass it on to another.

'I wish it need not have happened in my time,' said Frodo.
'So do I,' said Gandalf, 'and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.'

Frodo did not go alone as was originally intended but was accompanied by three hobbits: Sam, Merry and Perrin. Sam was Frodo’s gardener; simple, practical, a faithful companion, the most unlikely hero, and one of my favourite characters in the story.

On their way to Rivendell they met a character by the name of Strider, a Ranger of the North, a recluse and a wanderer, who was not who he seemed to be, but who nevertheless joined them in their journey.

'All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
the old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken;
The crownless again shall be king.'

Frodo gained Rivendell by the skin of his teeth in an unconscious state and awoke in a room with Gandalf beside him. A Council was held to decide on what should be done with the Ring and after much discussion, Frodo said, 'I will take the Ring, though I do not know the way.'
The Company of the Ring was to be nine and the remainder of the story tells of the adventures, dangers, and disappointments of this Fellowship as they fought for Middle Earth against the spreading evil that threatened to overwhelm all they knew and cared about.

One of the major themes of the book is the examination of power and its effects on those who possess it.
The Master-ring that came into Frodo’s possession had the power to consume and control its possessor. Although it extended the life of the bearer, it burdened that life, stretching and straining it. A mortal who kept one of the Great Rings did not die, but merely continued and grew wearier. If he often used the Ring to make himself invisible, he faded and eventually became permanently invisible, and in the end was devoured by the dark power.

‘But where shall I find courage?’ asked Frodo. ‘That is what I chiefly need.’
‘Courage is found in unlikely places,’ said Gildor. ‘Be of good hope!’

The themes of courage, companionship, duty and loyalty running through the book are multilayered and inspiring.
Tolkien’s linguistic genius and the complexities of plot, may be appreciated more by mature readers and such is the descriptive power of Tolkien’s writing that it is difficult to believe that his imagined world: the Shire, Mordor and Gondor, didn’t actually exist.

For me it was an ideal read during the weeks of uncertainty with the virus lockdown and restrictions. There were many challenges and disappointments for the Fellowship but hope kept resurfacing and seemingly insignificant characters played major roles and helped turn the tide in many instances.

‘There is a seed of courage hidden (often deeply, it is true) in the heart if the fattest and most timid hobbit, waiting for some final and desperate danger to make it grow. Frodo was neither fat nor very timid; indeed, though he did not know it, Bilbo (and Gandalf) had thought him the best hobbit in the Shire. He thought he had come to the end of his adventure, and a terrible end, but the thought hardened him. He found himself stiffening, as if for a final spring; he no longer felt limp like a helpless prey.’

‘Indeed in nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all those who still oppose him.’

‘...we put the thought of all that we love into all that we make.’

‘Don’t leave me behind!’ said Merry. ‘I have not been of much use yet; but I don’t want to be laid aside, like baggage to be called for when it’s all over.’

‘...it is best to love what you are fitted to love.’

'The Shadow that bred them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its own.'

We watched the DVD’s over three evenings after I’d finished reading the trilogy and I annoyed everyone by saying, ‘That wasn’t in the book!’  However, I did enjoy watching them. My youngest also watched them for the first time although she’d read the books a couple of years ago and was waiting impatiently for me to hurry up and read them so we could watch together.

I think the story would be best appreciated by anyone aged 12 years and up, if they are a confident reader. It feels like it was written for around that age group in some respects but like any well written classic it has universal appeal. I don't know that I'd want to read this aloud with the plethora of names and places but it would be a great family read if you didn't mind wrapping your tongue around it all.
Graphic and detailed screen images are hard to put aside in order that your imagination may form its own, so I think it's important that the books be read before the movies. I feel that way with every book but this one more so!




Linking to Back to the Classics 2020: Adapted Classic

Notebooks in a Charlotte Mason Education - Year 6

Moon Jelly Aurelia aurita - common ocean animal often washed up on beaches. There's a video about them here.

Science Notebook 

This year Moozle has recorded experiments from some of her science books e.g. Archimedes and the Door of Science; The Sea Around Us; The Elements and The Mystery of the Periodic Table. The experiment below was one she watched via video on the Periodic Table:

Archimedes and the Door of Science

 The Sea Around Us

We had a severe storm with large hailstones about a week ago so we did a study on what causes hail and watched the short video below which explains it reasonably well. The hailstones were the largest we've experienced and made a tremendous racket as they hit the roof. They were about the size of eggs and we ended up with a smashed skylight and damaged pergola.

Nature Notebook

We've been using this series of videos on basic water colour techniques by John Muir and also some by Alphonso Dunn on using ink & watercolours to get some direction and help in this area. Moozle has also been inspired by the watercolouring in A Country Diary of an Edwardian Woman. I wrote a little about that here.

The Portuguese Man O' War or Bluebottle was mentioned in the fourth chapter of The Sea Around Us and around the same time as we were reading through that chapter, we went to the beach and there were heaps of them washed up on the sand. Moozle managed to get stung twice but fortunately, the bluebottles we get here are not the tropical nasties. The stings hurt but what hurt more was the bull ant bite she got a few days later out the back! I know because I got one on the under part of my foot and it was awful!
For an introductory video on recognising bluebottles and treating their sting see here. A marine-stinger fact sheet is here.

The Portuguese Man O' War is an interesting creature. It's not a true jellyfish but a colony of four different types of animals. My nature journal entry:

Bull Ant

We started a tree study earlier this month. So, of course, the best way to do that is to get up in the tree and have a good look.

Poetry Notebook

Homeschooling Help During Lockdown

The Australian Homeschooling Summit, (which is not just for Australians, by the way) was originally scheduled for April but due to the coronavirus it was postponed and will now be held in May from the 4th to the 15th.
This has actually worked out well because some of the presenters have had time to run additional sessions adding to the originally 30 workshops that were planned.

Some Details

•  It's online, so you don't have to leave home - how convenient, especially now we have to stay home!

• This will be Summit's 4th year and it's had attendees from all over the world in that time.

•  About half the workshops are live, and half are pre-recorded, however, when each workshop is released the presenter will be available to answer questions, either verbally if live, or in chat if pre-recorded.

•  All workshops are recorded and added to the website for you to access whenever it’s convenient.

• If you don't have Facebook you'll be able to watch the live workshops and ask questions within Zoom, so you’ll have complete access to everything except the chat in the FB community.

• All the mp3 files are split from the workshop and uploaded to the website, so you can listen whenever you like. Plus, the mp4 and mp3 files are available to download.

• The total cost is only $25 and that's for lifetime access to everything.


My Thoughts

I was in two minds about presenting at this Summit. I've spoken at a couple of homeschooling conferences and enjoyed doing it but this one is online via video so I wasn't keen about that! However, my husband encouraged me to do it and Kelly George, the Summit organiser, makes herself available to help with the technology side of things.
In the last couple of weeks Kelly asked if anyone wanted to do some FB Live workshops and I surprised myself by putting up my hand for that. I presented one on 'Encouraging Kids to Write,' and there were others who presented a whole range of topics such as having a healthy relationship with screen time, self-care, and journaling. These will be available as part of the Summit package.
If you need to refresh your homeschool, whether you're an old hand or brand new to all of this, I think you will find the Homeschooling Summit helpful & encouraging.
If you're feeling a little isolated, come and join in with some kindred spirits from all over the place and meet some new people.

See here for details & ticket sales. Hope to see you there!

An Australian Living Book: All the Green Year by Don Charlwood (1965)

All the Green Year by Don Charlwood is an Australian coming of age classic set during the year of 1929. The story takes place around the Port Philip Bay area of Victoria in the fictionalised town of Kananook, which was modelled on the real town of Frankston when it was still rural.
1929 was the end of an era. It was still the age of silent pictures where ‘mood music’ was played during a movie by a pianist and the American accent was seldom heard.
It was the age of gramophones, coppers for boiling clothes, blacksmiths, cable trams, and milkmen delivering milk into billies outside everyone’s gate. By 1930 this began to change with the coming of talking pictures.

‘Now alien speech poured into our ears: in musicals, westerns, gang warfare, smart comedy. Implicit in my story of boyhood in 1929 would be the suggestion that our era had been much less Americanised than those to come.’

Charlie Reeve narrates the story which mostly revolves around his best mate, Johnno, school, family life, boyish adventures and hijinks.
1929 was the year Charlie turned fourteen and started 8th Grade at school. It was also the year when his grandfather’s mental state worsened and Charlie’s family moved into ‘Thermopylae,’ Grandfather’s house on the cliffs, to take care of him.

This is a memorable story of adolescence, adventure and family friction at the beginning of the Great Depression. Fathers worried about their sons, their school grades and future prospects with the downturn in the economy, and this inflamed the conflicts at home. Both sides in the conflict misunderstood the other or just couldn't relate to their concerns and attitudes. It didn’t help that Charlie & Johnno’s teacher, Mr Moloney, targeted the two of them and made life and learning generally miserable.

'After five grades together this was my last year with Fred Johnston, a tall, melancholy boy of extraordinary physique...head and shoulders above everyone else, as a swimmer and boxer hardly anyone in the town could touch him. He had learnt boxing from his father who at one time during the war had been R.A.N. welter-weight champion...
About Johnno himself there was a contradiction I have never forgotten. He had practically no physical fear, yet he was always afraid of his father and of old Moloney…
His fear of both of them went back a long way; back, I suppose, to the third grade when Johnno had lost his mother. About a year after that Moloney, in a temper, had hit Johnno across the face with the strap. Johnno had gone home and told his father and old man Johnston had given him a note to bring to school. But the note only told Moloney to give him more for not taking his punishment like a man.'

During the year, Miss Beckenstall, a new, young and pretty teacher replaced Moloney and Charlie and Johnno began to enjoy school and do well. She encouraged them with their writing, and read poetry and David Copperfield with them, giving each of the students parts to read.

'“Don’t like being Steerforth,” said Johnno. “Look what he’s done to Little Emily.”

I wasn’t sure what he’d done to Little Emily; in any case Little Emily was being read by Janet Baker, who had nothing to recommend her.

“A chap’s really bad if he’s tough on women,” said Johnno gazing into the distance...

“She’s only in a book.”

He hadn’t heard me. “I’d drop Steerforth cold.” He punched the air absent-mindedly.'

Charlie’s grandfather and his antics were portrayed so well as was the family’s attitude towards him. It was refreshing to read about their sense of duty in their care towards him, making difficult decisions in order to keep him in his own home. He wasn’t an easy fellow to live with.
There were many humorous anecdotes throughout the book: stealing a camel and riding it to school, antagonising a bull, fist-fights with the town bully; the two boys reluctantly escorting Johnno's sister to a dance and 'defending her honour' as they were directed to do by her father; but the author also portrayed the pain and discomfiture of boys moving from childhood to adolescence; their physical and emotional upheavals, as if they were recent experiences for himself.

When two of Australia’s foremost critics commented that the first part of All the Green Year read as a ‘book about boys’ but the second part read like ‘a book for boys,' the author replied, ‘I was writing as an adult repossessed by boyhood and that the state of ‘repossession’ intensified as the book neared its climax so that, briefly, I shed my age and became in spirit a boy again.’
I think this expresses the feel of the book well. Charlwood sounds like he's looking back at events that just happened.

All the Green Year is an evocative novel that is wonderfully Australian. It is honest, compassionate, humorous, sad at times, and a compelling read. It was one of those Aussie classics that I knew about but I’d never seen in book shops. A while ago, I noticed that Erin had used it as a read aloud and their family enjoyed it so I had a look for it online. I saw that Text Classics had republished it so I bought a copy. (They have reprinted some other worthwhile books.)

We’re using it this year in our Ambleside Online Year 10, which I have modified a fair bit for Australia. It had been read in high schools here for twenty years but has suffered the same fate as other noteworthy classics such as I Can Jump Puddles.
Don Charlwood’s writing career spanned more than eighty years and he was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1992 for services to Australian Literature. He served in Bomber Command during the Second World War and later wrote several books about his experiences during this time. He died in 2012 aged ninety-six.

The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge (1963)

‘At least there is hope for a tree:
    If it is cut down, it will sprout again,
    and its new shoots will not fail.
Its roots may grow old in the ground
    and its stump die in the soil,
yet at the scent of water it will bud
    and put forth shoots like a plant.’

The Book of Job

About 20 years after the end of World War II, Mary Lindsay, a single middle-aged woman living and working in London, received word that her older cousin, whom she had only met once, had died and Mary had inherited her home in the country.
Making a sudden decision to leave her prestigious job, her friends, and her future plans, Mary went to live in her new home. She had read Jane Austen’s books and decided that she would like to look at the few last fragments of Austen’s England before they disappeared forever - at least, that is the explanation she gave for her for her resolution, but deep down she knew there were other reasons.
Mary had led an interesting life and worked in the Admiralty during the war. It was there that she met her fiancée but he had been killed a week before they were to be married. With her trademark resilience, she poured herself into work with the Red Cross in Germany after the war.
Now, twenty years later she has made a life-changing decision that will help her to understand the past and gain insight into the lives of others that have touched her life in some way.

The Scent of Water is quite a lovely story with an unusual protagonist. Elizabeth Goudge really excelled in her characterisations and this book is peopled with some interesting and loveable characters. It’s so good to read a book and connect with the people in it. Her characters are always flawed people but she never leaves them without hope and one of the attractions of her writing is her gift of bringing these persons to a better place than they were at the beginning.

“People talk a lot of ballyhoo about suffering improving you. I should say that what it does is to underline what you were before...No, I can’t blame what I am on the war.”

“I deceived you and deception is stealing because it takes away the truth...”

The library catalogue of this book classifies it under ‘Domestic Fiction,' amongst other categories  (e.g. ‘Retired teachers,’ ‘Country Life’ and ‘Self-actualisation’ ), a description I haven't seen before but I like it. It could be interpreted as dull or prosaic, but in Goudge’s hands it is charming and filled with wisdom and insight.
The author weaves a domestic story that introduces the reader to a whole village and its doings. She delves beneath the surface and gets to the heart of things, revealing heartbreak, disappointments and difficulties but always with the purpose of redemption.

‘If anyone had asked her what she meant by integrity she would not have been able to tell them but age had seen it once like a picture in her mind, a root going down into the earth and drinking deeply there. No one was really alive without that root.’

Mary’s cousin kept diaries over the years and in them she reveals her struggle with mental illness but also her belief that she was meant to ‘build something up for somebody, make something to put into the hands of another’ when she died. That ‘other’ was her young cousin, Mary, whose father had brought her with him to visit her many years earlier.

The quote at the beginning of this post is from the Book of Job in the Old Testament of the Bible. It highlights a theme that runs through the story and involves the various characters.
I did think that the story felt a little unfinished. There were some loose ends and I would have liked to have seen some of the situations more fully resolved but it was very endearing, nevertheless.



Linking to 2020 Back to the Classics: Classic with Nature in the Title

A Charlotte Mason Picture Study Resource

Here is Part 2 of the Australian Artist Picture Study featuring the work of Tom Roberts. I've concentrated mostly on his portraits this time. For a short biography of his life see Part 1.
Download the PDF for Part 2 here. I hope you find this helpful and if you find any errors or have difficulty downloading it please let me know.

‘By making art the perfect expression of one time and one place, it becomes art for all time

 and of all places.’

Tom Roberts (1856-1931)

'A gauntlet with a gift in 't.'

‘God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, 

And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face, 

A gauntlet with a gift in 't.’ 

 Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

I think we’d all agree that we are in challenging times. I remembered this poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning the other day and it seems to me that there is a gift in this gauntlet. God has often answered my prayers in a challenging way, but there is always a gift hidden in the challenge. 'God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.'

I’ve heard it said that ‘this virus writes its own rules,’ and it remains to be seen how long our ‘quarantine’ continues and whether it becomes more rigid. That’s out of our control but regardless of the outcome, each situation we find ourselves in will have its own challenge, and in some measure, its own gift.

A couple of nights ago we had our ‘Mum Culture’ evening via Zoom instead of our usual get together at my home. The topic had already been picked some time ago: Habits. But as I thought about the topic, I realised that we have an ideal time to work on some of those habits we’ve let slide or those that we need to put in place. When we have full days with lots of outside commitments good habits are easy to break and harder to form. Habit is a good servant but a bad master. Like fire in some aspects. When we’re home for large portions of time it becomes obvious when we’ve let things slip. We get to see the gaps more clearly. So this is an ideal opportunity to work on the important little things that we otherwise may overlook. I’ve been trying to find the gifts in this challenge I've had thrust upon me; to look with fresh eyes at our everyday lives.

• Moozle usually swims three or four times a week so instead of dropping her off at the pool we’ve been having a good walk together or she’s ridden her bike while I walk/jogged. She had her cello lesson via Skype with her teacher the other day and we have FaceTime with her niece and nephew so they don’t forget us!
• We’ve set up the sewing machine in the garage because my husband has taken over the kitchen/dining room for work and we’ve started a quilt for her older brother.
• I had to order some fabric online, which I’d never done before. It wasn’t quite the same as it looked online but it’s fine.
• I’ve been in phone contact with a whole lot of friends I haven’t talked to in a while and we’ve checked in via Skype with my relatives in Scotland a few times.
• I’ve almost finished ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ which I’m reading in tandem with my daughter-in-law & checking in with each other on our progress. There is something about this book that is restorative and calming. Frodo faces extreme danger throughout but is always rescued, gets up and goes on, even in the face of his great fear and the unknown of what is ahead.

When life gets back to normal, or non-lockdown, we hope to watch the movies together. I’ve purposelessly not viewed them as I wanted to read the books first. Looks like I’ll have plenty of opportunity to do that!

Having said that, I don’t feel like I’ve got any more time now than I did before everything shut down. I just have different opportunities. I don't want to look back on this time and feel that I've wasted any of them.

Opportunity

This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream:—

There spread a cloud of dust along a plain;

And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged

A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords

Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's banner

Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes. 

A craven hung along the battle's edge,

And thought, "Had I a sword of keener steel—

That blue blade that the king's son bears,— but this

Blunt thing—!" He snapped and flung it from his hand,

And lowering crept away and left the field. 

Then came the king's son, wounded sore bested,

And weaponless, and saw the broken sword

Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand,

And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout

Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down

And saved a great cause that heroic day.

Edward Roland Sill (1841-1887)

Rainbow Lorikeets on the Birdfeeder

Kookaburra Interrupting our Lesson on the Verandah

Something we've had the opportunity to concentrated more time on is writing poems. Moozle wrote this after spending some time listening and watching outside in the garden:

My Home

Nestled in the side of a valley,

Tucked up a long driveway,

It met the eye as you walked up the ascent

Shadows lying in their vague way

Across the pebbles,

An avenue of trees and bushes

Leading to the house.

Weather beaten, brown brick

Piled on top of brown brick,

Trees arching their backs to the

Miracle of light above.

A wilderness of beauty

Wrought with a divine hand,

Surrounding man’s creation.

Imperfect, yet perfect,

It lay there placidly.

Beauty was in the eye of the beholder –

But I considered it beautiful.

The furthest city light

Not far for the seeking,

But still it was peaceful,

Untouched, a piece of paradise

In the suburban world.

It was said of the house

That it was unfinished,

Wrong, the hand of the designer

 Had slipped in his work.

The verandah was massive,

A table, turned grey

By the wind and the rain,

Crowning the centre.

 It was a thing of rough beauty,

I thought, with the

Flashes of colour made by

The flowers in the middle,

The pots staining the shadows

With white and orange clay.

Truly we take our possessions for granted.

Visitors marvel at

The beauty of the surroundings,

The dwellers say,

‘The gardens are untenanted,’

Left except for an occasional sprinkle of care.

But that is the beauty of it,

An unfinished work of art.

 The first brush of orange,

As the sun slips down the sky,

Skidding out of sight,

Only held in place by

An invisible string, controlled

By some unseen hand.

Night wings over,

Blackness settling down

Gently upon the earth,

Shrouding the home in darkness.

A myriad of lights,

Bright shining in the dark,

And a round circle

Where the moon beams down

Kindly upon the humans

That inhabit the earth.

The moon like a pock-marked diamond,

Rough-hewn from stone.

From the rising of the dawn,

To the putting out of the sun,

From maze of stars,

To spume of suns,

An unfathomable mine

Of never-failing skill.

The clouds straddling the sky,

Like cloths of heaven,

Left out to dry.

A swashbuckling bee

With stripes of terracotta,

Zooming in among the flowers,

Gathering its life-giving dust.

Surrounded by countless trees

And miracles of colour,

A work of art

Encircling a house.

No, it was not a house,

It is my home.

I often think of my online friends in your different parts of the world and it always brightens my day when I hear from any of my readers.