Eight books, 3 kittens

Southern Spain is a very good antidote to an English summer.   7 days of glorious sunshine, reading, relaxing and even running (but not very far).

There are a lot of cats around the Costalita urbanisation including these three lovely big eared kittens.

They were not around for a few days during our stay and I wondered if they had been rounded up by the cat police but to my delight they were back again on the last day.







Fortunately there are no pictures of the running - so on to the books.

Very early McEwan (I think it is his first published).  Short and rather disturbing story in which bizarre and appalling acts are presented in a way that makes them almost natural

Even Adrian read and enjoyed this one.

Agatha Christies are the perfect holiday books.  Easy to read in a day, intriguing plots and lovely stylised characters.  I enjoyed both enormously.  

I tried Wolf Hall again on this holiday but didn't even get to page 225 this time (as I had the last time) before hurling it across the patio as I couldn't follow which character I was reading about.  I have no idea how this won the Booker Prize, all I can say is it must have been a very bad year.

So I borrowed this book from the emergency flat.  Big moral how to live your life in accordance with modern ecological principles.  Not much happens to not particularly interesting people.  I wouldn't have bothered but I was too lazy to get off the sunlounger to go inside and replace it.




Quite a good murder story the characters were interesting and believable except for the detectives.

Surely police officers cannot be the self absorbed, flawed characters portrayed here and still hold down responsible jobs and even be put forward for promotion.  I'm obviously not ready for post-feminism because wearing killer heels and having hair flopping over ones eyes just seems inappropriate and unprofessional to me.

The whole romantic storyline seemed a bit superfluous to me.  The basic plot was okay, the improbable subplot did nothing to enhance the story.

I remember seeing the John Thaw version of this on TV but it didn't spoil the book for me even though the dramatisation is very faithful to Dexter's story.









I bought this in a hurry at the St Catherine's Hospice shop in Horsham while I was waiting for a nail appointment.

I suppose all crime writing challenges probability but the villain in this one seemed obsessed with revenge to a degree that went a bit too far.  The heroine, an unconventional woman who does not conform to societal norms however has managed to conform enough to obtain a law degree and hold down a job as a solicitor.  I did not find this combination of characteristics convincing.   However, I enjoyed the story and it transported me convincingly to the slightly seedy Norfolk seaside town.




The eighth book (if you exclude Wolf Hall which I didn't finish) doesn't really count as I bought it at Malaga airport on the way home.  Limited choice of english books in a Spanish airport but I am enjoying Call The Dying and hadn't come across Andrew Taylor before.

Why do airports sell giant Toblerones?

Why is it that airports offer a load of rubbish that nobody wants to buy but they don't sell the sorts of things you might actually need?

Wardrobe planning failure meant I had to wear white trousers with cotton gusset pantyhose underneath (even less comfortable and attractive than it sounds).  No problem I thought, I'll buy a pair of plain white or beige pants at Gatwick.

Not one of the multitude of shops in the North Terminal sells functional ladies underwear.  I could have bought an Olympic branded teddy bear, any amount of perfume, raffle tickets for a luxury car, a computer, binoculars, running gear (who does that on holiday?), luggage (bit late after checkin you would have thought), a giant Toblerone - but no simple underwear.

What I want to know is who actually buys anything at these shops?  Even with a flight delay of 8 hours last year I wasn't tempted.

It seems to me that the luxury and mystery of air travel is very much a thing of the past, when will airport retailer planners catch up?  Most of my fellow travellers looked as though they would be more at home in Poundland than Harrods.

No meer cat

Indignant Svidrigailov of Horsham looks on in amazement as an interloper leaves through the dining room window following a raid on his food