Books, knitting, daffodils, and diet

One of my favourite weekend activities at the moment is to knit while listening to audio books. I’ve got through several very good books lately that I can recommend if you’re looking for something.

First is The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. This a brilliant, funny but tragic novel about an Irish family going through some difficult circumstances. Each member of the family is consumed by their own problems they don’t realise what’s happening to other members of the family. It builds up to a climactic ending that will have you gripping the book with suspense.

I enjoyed it so much that I decided to read another of Murray’s books, Skippy Dies. This was equally brilliant and funny but also tragic. Set in a boy’s boarding school it follows the lives of the students and teachers before and after the death of one of the students. The teachers and parents of the students are all so self-absorbed they don’t see what’s happening to the boys until it’s too late. Somehow the author had me laughing out loud and sobbing all at the same time.

I also read, or listened to, the Children of Time series. This is a science fiction series set in the future when humans have abandoned earth and are trying to establish an existence on other planets. It contains souped-up spiders and ants, intelligent corvids and cephalopods, an AI overlord, and a terrifying alien which parasitises every life form it encounters. All three books are excellent.

Here’s the cardigan I’ve been working on. I should finish it in the next couple of weeks.

We went for a walk beside the River Dee today. Spring has definitely arrived and the daffodils are just beginning their seasonal show. They’re probably one or two weeks away from their peak. Here’s the River Dee lined with daffodils.

Ben’s wearing a jumper I knitted for him last year.

Gosh, my hair in this next photo looks awful but the kids look nice, as do the daffodils, so I’ll post it anyway. I’ve been trying for years just to let my hair return to its natural colour but I grow it half-way out and end up caving and bleaching it because I don’t like my natural hair colour. I thought I’d found a happy medium recently with a darker shade on some parts while still maintaining the grey. However it looks so light in this photo. Lighter than I had intended. Thankfully I live somewhere where it’s ok for women to get old, have wrinkles and greying hair. I should embrace it and I am trying to. Unfortunately I’m just as vain as the next person. The main thing is I’m in excellent health.

The bridge in this next photo is the Bridge of Dee, dating from 1527, and always admired.

The sunny spring days have turned the greenhouse into a lovely warm spot to spend time in as Victoria has discovered.

There’s a an article in the news this weekend about the rise of cancer in young people, particularly the rise of colorectal cancel which traditionally affected mostly older people. Unfortunately all the conspiracy theorists have jumped on the covid vaccine blame game. Perhaps one day we will discover a link between vaccines and cancer but we already know and have known for years that there’s a link between a low fibre diet and cancer.

We all know that we should be eating whole grains and avoiding processed food – don’t we? And yet you go to the shops or a restaurant and it’s all white rice, white pasta, white bread… I know I must be one of few people buying whole grains when there’s a whole wall of white pasta in the supermarket alongside one tiny packet of wholemeal. The message doesn’t seem to be sinking in. It’s like there’s some great inertia stopping people from making healthy changes; like trying to reverse the direction of a train that’s full steam ahead.

I remember when Dame Deborah James, Bowelbabe, tragically died of bowel cancer last year. She greatly raised the profile of the disease but did anyone actually change their diet? It seems not: a BBC survey at the end of last year found that 28% of people in the UK reported eating less healthily due to the cost of living crisis. Is this her legacy? That now we all know about the disease but everyone is happy to continue on that train, full steam ahead.