Crazy Days and Potato Peel Pie

Hi friends ... it's been almost three weeks since I last blogged, and re-reading what I wrote reminded me what a pensive mood I was in that day. Well, no time for such frivolity these days!!! We've been transforming our cozy, cluttered home into a masterful show-piece (I think!) What did people do before rental mini-storage units??? Ours has been a saviour, and we've been wearing out the road between us and it with car load after car load of boxes, chairs etc. Just "stuff" I can't part with, and extra furniture removed to make our place look "light and airy" (as the magazines say.)

Meanwhile Ray has been working like a mad-man finishing the house! We have a lovely large balcony which leads from our bedroom which I made into my library - two floor-to-ceiling walls of books. I splurged on a lovely leather recliner chair for that area and a super reading lamp, and I can't tell you the joy and peace I receive curled up in my comfy chair, high above the living area, surrounded by my books. Books have that affect on me, they calm me, but they also give me a thrill inside as I contemplate all the hidden delights they contain (many people think I'm nuts!!)

Well, it would have given me much more joy and peace if the area had been finished! It seems Ray ran out of steam a few years ago when he got to that area (books aren't a priority with him) so the area still had the basic drywall, and plywood floor. But, he's been hard at work there, and now it looks gorgeous!! So, once this place is listed for sale (next Friday) I'm going to spend as many hours as I can up there enjoying it before we move and leave it for someone else to enjoy :-(

As crazy as it has all been I have still found time to discover an amazing new book.

It has the most wonderful name "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" - now, who could resist delving into a book with a name like that??? Not me. It has quickly become one of my favourites, and at first I didn't think it would. It is written as a series of letters between the Guernsey group and a writer in London, and it is through the letters that the story unravels. It is not a writing technique that I am usually fond of, as I find I often forget who is who and have to keep flipping back to find out. BUT, the author, Mary Ann Shaffer, has done such an amazing job of character development that you instantly conjure up a visual of each new character as she brings them in and they stay in your mind as a fully fleshed-out person. Fabulous job.

I didn't know much about Guernsey before this book - except that it is one of the Channel islands belonging to Britain but situated close to France. I certainly did not know that it was invaded by Germany during WWII, and that the Germans stayed there thinking it would make an ideal stepping stone to invading Britain. The story is set in 1946, and memories of the recent occupation (which lasted until the war ended) were very fresh and raw. The Guernsey characters in the story are so wonderful and often so wacky, they make me want to meet them!

Anyway, I thoroughly recommend the book ... and it seems I'm not alone because on the book's website there is a section to which readers can write their own letters, and it is full of people gushing like I have. This was Mary Ann Shaffer's first novel, and sadly she died last February before it was published. She had always wanted to write a book, and as her health failed she asked her niece, Annie Barrows (a children's author) to help her finish it.

This book has taken me away from the tiresome jobs I've had to do in the house these past weeks ... and I've got another very promising one sitting on my bedside table waiting for me, it's called "The Cellist of Sarajevo" ... oh, I can't wait to get my teeth into it!

Bye for now.