So Many Books... - A Traveller's Tales, Part -- Whatever

04:27 pm - A Traveller's Tales, Part -- Whatever

So, last weekend it was off to the UK for a wedding in Cambridge - steepholm's cousin's son, whom I'd never met, being the one whose marriage was being celebrated. (The couple had actually had a civil service on a beach in Honolulu, and the wedding invitations had the pictures to prove it.) I know many of you will have been waiting anxiously to hear that the €125 bottles of water have been selling like -- well, like €1 bottles of water on a hot day. I duly kept an eye out while passing through Dublin airport this time, and spotted someone in lengthy conversation with a woman working in the area. I rushed closer to eavesdrop when the potential customer had left and the woman was reporting on the conversation with someone who seemed to be a manager. The report was that he had never seen anything funnier in his life (score!) and then the woman said she thought he was someone on television. As I couldn't catch up with him to check this, there it stands for this UK trip!

The day before flying to London, I caught one of my favourite campaign posters for a long time.



I showed it to Becca who also appreciated it, and said it was the only good one of the whole lot, as all the 'Yes' crowd have to do now is say 'We need Europe'. We both agreed that we also need democracy, but last time we'd heard, that didn't automatically mean there was only one way to vote to be allowed keep it.

Flying to Gatwick, I had to put away Shiver, which I was rereading for review purposes, as I started crying again, in the aisle seat, with no tissues. Fail. (Me, not the book.) But I did manage to catch a picture of



I can only assume they meant the motorized carts that carry people the enormous distances between security and boarding gate, but really, a buggy is a pram/stroller.

Wedding went off very well, and a lovely chance to spend some time with steepholm's mum and other family members, though it is a bit embarrassing to be seriously drunk and partied under the table by his 93-year old aunt. All right, anyone could drink me under the table (were I to try to keep up), but the out-partying is more shameful.

Two things indicated how very different this circle was from the ones in which steepholm and I normally pootle around. One was the meal at the reception, which was pork. A whole pig's worth of pork. (Not the apple-in-mouth presentation of a French feast, but still, it was a full-sized pig.) And the second dish? Where you might find the vegetarian entrée? Sausages! Seriously - vegetarian, Jewish, Muslim, just don't like pork - doesn't seem to have been an option for the guests.

The second



This cake, a delicious chocolate sponge with buttercream, made by the bride's mother, was left like this after the photos of its cutting. (Sand-castle fitting in with the beach theme of the reception.) Yes, left, abandoned, never served, just left left. A cake isn't just for the photos....

We got to meet emmaco and talisen and potter around Cambridge the next day, which was lovely, and - of course - involved bookshop-visiting. I was pleased to see Wishing for Tomorrow out on prominent display and was anxiously starting to push emmaco towards belief in its wonderfulness, but she already has it ordered, so that was okay! I had audiobook listening to get me back to Bristol on the bus(es) that night and picked up -- maybe stole -- steepholm's copy of the just-published Paradise Barn by Victor Watson for the flight home on Monday. Victor Watson gave a talk at an IBBY conference I went to a few years ago, and included a really interesting section on Hilary McKay's Saffy's Angel (he was a big fan of the Casson family books), so I was very pleased to like Paradise Barn so much. More book reports soon.