Quick Lit February 2019

Linking up with Modern Mrs Darcy for another year of monthly reading round ups. January reading got off with a bang, thanks to some shorter classics and frothy page turners - and sickness in the family (lots of hanging around time). Reviewing it, I noticed that my favourites this past month were by women authors who struck out on their own in some way.

Daphne Du Maurier - Frenchman's Creek
Sickened by the shallowness of life as a courtier under Charles II - the meaningless love affairs, the contrived intrigues - Dona, Lady St. Columb, flees London for her husband's Cornish estate, only to find real love and deadly conspiracy in the person of a French philosopher pirate. But this awakening to an authentic life ultimately demands a serious moral reckoning. Only in the hands of a master such as Du Maurier can a novel be both reflective and roistering. A perfect start to the reading year. This is the fifth Du Maurier I have read, and I would rank it fourth.*

Du Maurier has been described as Britain's highest paid woman writer in the 1950s

Zagreb: totally stuffed

I meant to post this earlier, but after a good start to January, three quarters of us were struck down with a flu-like virus. However, since I expected us to get far sicker in the move to a new country, I am not complaining. So, back to the Croatia vacation...

Our last destination in the Krapina region was decided by Robocar Poli. That is, Maribor had been on our list, but every time I turned on Youtube for Alcuin's current favourite show, there were ads for the Advent Market in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, which has apparently been voted best in Europe for several years - and was only about 40 minutes away from our AirBnb. And so, for one of the very few times in my life, I succumbed to direct advertising.

I'm not sure exactly what I expected of Zagreb. The name, of course, conjures up stereotypical eastern European images of a grim, post-communist concrete wilderness.

Walking with Neanderthals

Only true nerds plan an entire holiday around their daughter's desire to go to a Neanderthal museum (and then blog about it), but that's why we ended up in the Krapina region in December. And since it's over two hours from Koper and we weren't going to be popping back, we also booked a guided tour. Mysteriously, our elder daughter didn't feel well enough to come. In her defense, she went back to bed and didn't get up until we got back mid afternoon. Or so she said.

Krapina Neanderthal Museum: Reconstruction Atelier Daynes. Photo by Davorin Vujčić.

The museum is built on the site of a famous paleoanthropological (early human) excavation. As with many of our adventures at museums and tourist attractions around here, we were the only visitors this day, and got a personal tour from Professor Uvodić, the senior educator at the museum.

Quick Lit January 2019

Happy new reading year! Linking up with Modern Mrs Darcy to review the past month's reading. How was your 2018 reading life? I really got my reading muscles going after seriously taking up the reading hobby again. I went from 27 books in 2017 to 51 in 2018 - despite packing/ selling everything we owned and moving across the world. (And amazingly,  I am still married.)

A book stall at Zagreb's Advent market. Pretty neat!

Katherine Arden - The Bear and the Nightingale
I bought this some time back, so I didn't remember any details other than it being a retelling of a Russian fairytale. I haven't read fantasy for years, so it took a little while for me to get immersed in the world, but then I was hooked. Vasilisa is born with the second sight and communes with the spirits around her, also honoured by her people. But her new stepmother, aided by a charismatic priest, tries to stop these superstitions, unwittingly feeding a growing evil. Sensitive readers beware: it morphs into a horror story by halfway through. There came a point in time when I knew I could not read it just before bed. Fun bonus for me: the author uses lots of Russian words, many of which I recognized now I am studying a Slavic language.

Krapina

No, I'm not talking about a bad end to the year, but our trip to the Krapina region of Croatia. Since I had been holding down the fort for much of November and December while Ted went on two business trips, and our eldest child was arriving from the US for Christmas and New Year, we decided to have a little family pre-Christmas holiday, and the Krapina region checked all our boxes: spas, castles, museums and Christmas markets.

The drive there was uneventful, especially for me, who got to sit in the back seat and let our adult daughter be the co driver  - until we got to the border crossing. The guard skimmed through all the passports, until she got to my husband's. Then she shook her head and said he wasn't allowed through here - it was a local crossing, apparently, and non-EU citizens couldn't cross. We didn't even know there was such a thing. Not even his Slovenian residency card melted her heart - so we turned around and wended our way to the international crossing.

All cottage photo credits from FB page: emakucazaodmor

We rented an Airbnb cottage in the small village of Tuheljske Toplice. Just having two storeys and not being in an apartment was a nice change - as was having a fitted kitchen. There's a balcony running along one side of the house, so the children could go out and scrape snow off the roof which they proceeded to stuff down each other's necks (we just missed a snowfall - the weather got pretty mild while we were there). The place was heated with a wood stove, which had an ingenious vent system taking the hot air through the house. It was a lovely feature, except when it came to debating who had to get up first in the morning to light the fire. We also appreciated the mountain of towels (there were three women in the house - enough said).

We decided to take things easy the first day, and headed off to Krapinske Toplice, for the Aquae Vivae spa. There are lots of thermal hot springs in this area, and consequently lots of spa towns. If this conjures up images of Jane Austen and bath chairs, think again: someone around here had the bright idea of going beyond the health resorts and building water parks over the springs. There were bathing and exercise pools, a wave pool, children's area, water slide, even a scuba diving pool. The fun part in winter is swimming into the outside pool, luxuriating in the hot water when the air is freezing. The other fun part (for everyone else) was the big water slide. However, remembering my rule of two minutes of bravery a day, I had a go. It wasn't too scary. Actually, I was such a wimp that I didn't lie down properly, so I sort of shuffled rather than slid.

Mural in the lobby.

The girls also tried out the wave pool, which was okay, until when I pondered out loud how they were doing, my husband quipped, "Probably drowning,", which roused their little brother into a rescue mission. He insisted I rush him across the spa, shouting "Sisters! Sisters!" The sight of his siblings tossing in the massive waves did nothing to reassure him. "Beatrice! Don't drown!" he yelled. Thankfully she escaped death and came to "shore". After all that excitement, Alcuin had to be dragged to lunch, declaring he wasn't hungry. Except when we sat down, he realised he was starving, and had a meltdown. Since he was wielding a sachet of ketchup, it was not  a pretty outcome.

After lunch, elder daughter went for a massage and we mostly hung out at the children's pool, which was so shallow, my husband lay back with his head on the edge and fell asleep while Alcuin bobbed about in his swim ring and occasionally swam over his father to wake him up. We would have stayed longer, but we didn't want to drive back in the dark and sleet on winding roads, so mid-afternoon, we had to pull our simmered, wrinkly selves out and get on home. First one in gets to light the fire...

Look, they're alive!

Touristy stuff: Here's the link for our Airbnb cottage. We would definitely recommend it. It is well stocked with amenities, plus lots of toys and games. The parking area is down a steep slope, so we parked on the side of the road. Also, if it matters to you, the shower is a small wet room area by the side of the toilet, fine for adults, a little harder for small ones. But Alcuin got a week's worth of baths at the spa, so that was OK.

Here's the link for Aquae Vivae, and the spa that is closest to the house we rented. We think winter is the best time for a spa visit - you get to luxuriate in warm water when it's cold outside, and it's much less crowded. It cost us 240 kunas (32 euros, 29 pounds, 37 dollars) for three adults and two children for day tickets, plus three of us rented bath robes for the day, but in retrospect we could have done without them.
(Don't forget to pack your body lotion like I did - I have to admit I was a little itchy for a couple of days after soaking off a layer of skin.)

Grandfather Frost

"We are entering a messy area of eternal discussion," wrote my friend from the International Office.
What were we negotiating? Deciding on gender neutral translations for a highly gendered language? Precision vs readability?

In fact, it was the annual children's party, and the question he threw in my lap was how to translate the name "Dedek mraz" in the invitation, "because there are many different good men delivering gifts in December."

I am a purist. I voted for the literal name: Grandfather Frost. Because that's who was coming.

Grandfather Frost is the communist answer to the saintly Nicholas or decadent western Santa. He has his origins in Morozko, the stern, often deadly god of frost and ice. No ho ho ho here. As far as my research can tell, there is no clear-cut story of his transformation from Slavic god to gift giver. Labelled a demon by the Orthodox church, legends of Morozko grew and developed over the centuries (here is a popular one), until Dedek mraz eventually became a useful figure for the soviet regime, diverting attention from Saint Nicholas and Christmas with his New Year's gift-giving.

His name and appearance vary across Eastern Europe. In Slovenia, he is dressed in pale robes, with a dormouse fur hat (here I have to pause to say that Slovenian dormice are large creatures, not the tiny ones you might think of).

In case you are feeling outraged at these cute little creatures being killed for their fur, let me reassure you that it is also known as the edible dormouse...

Nowadays, instead of freezing maidens to death, in Eastern slavic countries, Dedek mraz is sometimes accompanied by his grandaughter, the snow maiden Snegurochka. 

Coincidentally, I just read a retelling of the Morozko legend involving the Russian folk heroine Vasilisa the beautiful, The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden. If you like your fairy tales dark, I recommend it.

And the party? I was afraid Alcuin would be scared, but the education students warmed up the audience with a cute play about a mouse who lost her house. Then they got the children to chant for Dedek mraz, and by the time he appeared, gift bags in hand, Alcuin was ready to leap over and grab his loot. He was so quick, this is the best photo I could get.

Indeed, many good men have come gift giving. We modestly celebrated Saint Nicholas Day on the 6th, and we'll have the traditional December 25 visit from Father Christmas, with a final present from the Wise Men on Epiphany. I think our new Slavic tradition is going to go down well in our household.

Quick Lit December 2018

Linking up as usual with Modern Mrs Darcy for QuickLit. It was a superlative month to finish out the year, squashing three tried-and-true favourites between quick coffee-time reads.

H. Y. Hanna - Dark, Witch and Creamy
Oh yes, I did. After being contaminated by The Gathering, I needed the literary equivalent of sitting down with a big slab of cake (because stress eating works). This was free, I am mildly curious as to what the appeal is in paranormal cosies, the author is an Oxford graduate, so I thought, why not? It has witches, chocolate, a kitten and murder. The beginning was a little cringe worthy, but I soon got into it. I read it in a day and it left me happy, which is a type of literary merit, I suppose.

Rumer Godden - In This House of Brede
If Dark, Witch and Creamy was not enough to rid myself of the taint of the aforementioned book, a 500-page novel about nuns finally cleansed my soul. This is the story of a group of cloistered Benedictine nuns, focusing on Phillippa, who leaves a successful career in government mid life to pursue a vocation. Godden makes the inner and outer lives of the Benedictine nuns so tangible, I was there in the monastery, hooked on the drama of living in community, even though you get several hundred pages in before anything conventionally dramatic happens. Wonderfully crafted, too, almost like a documentary at times. I almost wept when I got to the end and had to leave Brede.

Sue Monk Kidd - Dance of the Dissident Daughter
The author of The Secret Life of Bees traces her transformation from Southern Baptist wife and Christian inspirational writer to claiming a feminist spirituality outside the church. I would go with the Goodreads reviews on this: It will meet you where you are, and you will love it, or it will leave you flat, maybe irritated if you see journeys to the sacred within us as narcissistic. Having rubbed shoulders with Southern Baptists for twenty years, I empathised with Kidd's dilemma, and the book certainly gave me a better understanding of those espousing a feminist spirituality, but I cannot say it resonated strongly with me.

Dodie Smith - I Capture the Castle (audiobook, read by Jenny Agutter)
An eccentric, genteel, impoverished family living in a ruined castle. Yes, please. This is the type of novel I wish I had written. Through the journals of seventeen year-old Cassandra Mortmain, we learn of her family's plight, sinking into ruin thanks to a 'literary genius' father who has not written for twelve years. Then, the American heirs to the nearby estate arrive, and a Pride-and-Prejudice-style marriage plot is set afloat to save the Mortmains. The plot could easily be cliched, but Smith subtly traces the emotional and intellectual growth of Cassandra across the course of the year to give it a depth belied by the age of the narrator. Beautifully read by the accomplished British actress Jenny Agutter - I put my life on hold to finish this.

Dylan Thomas - Under Milk Wood
This prose-poem "play for voices" was on my definite TBR list for this year. It depicts a day in the life of a Welsh village, from dreamtime to dreamtime. As I opened the book, I had the inspired idea to look up a performance and listen as I followed, so that I could really take in the words. I recommend that, if only so you actually know how all those Welsh names are pronounced! I was fortunate to immediately find the radio cast led by Richard Burton. I listened to it in an evening while my husband was away. A literary nerd experience.

Maggi Andersen - The Viscount's Widowed Lady
I am shamefully behind on reviewing books for members of my critique group. I had read a few chapters of this novel when it was a WIP, and wanted to finish the story. I don't read romance as a rule, but I liked how Althea stood out even among Maggi's always-relatable heroines. She is a widow from an abusive marriage, and although she guards her heart carefully, she is still open to love and strong enough to fight for what matters to her. Viscount Montsimon, an investigator for the king, is at first only interested in seducing Althea, but she quickly becomes embroiled in his latest mission; her late husband had in his possession something that several people would kill for - and Althea stands in their way.

Vesel Božič from Slovenia!