'Life after Life' and second hand books

I recently finished reading 'Life after Life' by Kate Atkinson, which I really enjoyed and highly recommend. It centres on a character called Ursula, who is born in England in 1910. The key premise is really that there are different courses that our lives might take, dependent on what happens at particular points in time. This might sound like a truism, but in Ursula's case, we see her life pan out in multiple ways, multiple times. In one version of her life, she dies at birth, the umbilical cord strangling her with the midwife stuck in snow and so unable to attend. In another, she survives infancy, only to die falling from a window in pursuit of a doll that her brother has thrown out. In another she she meets and marries an abusive man, who eventually kills her. In yet another she doesn't meet this man, but works as an air raid warden during the second world war and is killed by a falling bomb. And so on.

The story is intricate, remarkably clever and makes you think. What happens in one's life really is, to a large extent, a matter of fate, no matter how much control we may feel we have over events. In addition, the story paints a vivid and fascinating picture of what it was like to live through the second world war.

'Life after Life' was published in 2013, so I have come to read it a bit late. But this is because I picked the book up second hand in Oxfam. I have recently discovered the joy of books on sale in charity shops. I love reading and I like to own my own copies, but with most books priced at around £8 now, this can sometimes be hard to justify. I was in Oxfam buying Christmas wrapping paper the other day and by chance went across to browse the books. I came away with three for less that £6, all of which were good reads. So, I'm now a second hand book convert!

Agatha Christie overload

We have been doing a lot of Agatha Christie recently.

We suddenly realised that we have a whole load of Agatha Christie TV adaptations recorded (over 30 in total!) which we haven't yet watched, so we have started ploughing through those. We watched both 'A Pocketful of Rye' and 'Murder is Easy' this weekend.

And then on Saturday we went to see 'The Mousetrap' at the St. Martin's Theatre. My husband and I saw this production a couple of years ago (albeit with a different cast) but the grandparents had been looking for a family show to take us and the children to and thought that this would be a good one. And it was -- rather overacted, but all good fun. A clever twist at the end, a beautiful set and everyone enjoyed themselves. What more could you want?

We're planning to watch the new TV adaptation of 'And Then There Were None' over the Christmas period. I gather that this may be rather different -- an altogether scarier adaptation than usual.

Perhaps I'll start re-reading all the books, as well. I read most of them as a teenager, but haven't picked one up in the last thirty years or so. Not terribly sophisticated, but highly entertaining -- and even more widely read than the Bible, I hear!

Christmas Extravaganza -- a bit of a damp squib

Late yesterday afternoon, we went out en famille to see the Abingdon Christmas Extravaganza -- specifically, the fire show followed by the Christmas light switch on and fireworks.

We were particularly looking forward to the fire show.This was a new attraction last year and had been brilliant -- a very skilled guy who performed all sorts of acrobatics and antics with batons of fire.

We arrived early and managed to find a reasonable place standing up behind the few rows of benches that were set out for those who preferred to be seated. However, once the performance started, we found that we couldn't see a thing. People had pushed in front of us and stood blocking our view, while those people at the front who had benches, and so should have been sitting down, chose to stand up, thereby blocking everyone's view, In a desperate attempt to see something, we and the kids walked round to a point behind the stage and stood on the edge of the pavement so that we could peer through the gaps in the backdrop and at least get vague glimpses of fire. However, even here, an adult pushed in front of my oldest daughter, entirely blocking her view.

At this point, feeling very disappointed, we gave up and went in search of a warming hot chocolate from one of the nearby cafes, but unfortunately, the queues were so long there, that we simply decided to go home. We caught a glimpse of the fireworks on the way (which were good), but we didn't see the actual light switch on.

It's funny how sometimes the things that you are most looking forward to turn out to be the most disappointing, while something totally unexpected can be amazing. It's also sad that people can be so selfish. If people had behaved a little bit better, it would have been possible for everyone to have a good time and enjoy the fire show. As it was, those of us who weren't prepared to push and think only of ourselves lost out.

Greenwich

We had a great day out in Greenwich a couple of weeks ago. I worked out that this was one of the few areas of London that I hadn't visited and so we decided to make a day of it.

We travelled there by the Docklands Light Railway, and this in itself was quite an experience. The Docklands area is very dense and we found ourselves travelling along very close to many skyscrapers (largely owned by financial companies), interspersed with small modern housing developments and lots of restaurants and eateries. This looked like a good place for a young professional to live -- if you could afford to buy a property here!

We started off by visiting the Old Naval College. This was beautiful -- both the Painted Hall and the chapel are open to the public and they are covered in stunning eighteenth century frescoes. Furthermore, this is free. So well worth a visit. There was also some filming going on outside the collage when we visited, which the kids found fascinating.

We went on to the maritime museum -- again free and full of interesting exhibits to do with the ocean. We particularly enjoyed the environmental exhibition, the exhibit showing artefacts of sea travel throughout the ages, and the hugely ornate Prince Frederick's Barge (built in 1732 and used for royal occasions).

Last but not least, food. We ate lunch and tea at the Waterstones Cafe in Greenwich. This was a pleasant place -- not as busy as the other local cafes and with very friendly and welcoming staff. We ate supper at Cantina Laredo on Upper Saint Martin's Lane. This serves delicious Mexican food and is one of our favourite restaurants in town.

We didn't manage to visit everything that there is to see in Greenwich, so we plan to go back at some point to see the observatory, the Queen's House and to have a wander in the royal park.

Pumpkin hunt

Today, my daughters and I followed our usual half-term tradition of doing the pumpkin hunt in the beautiful Waterperry Gardens, just outside Oxford.

At 11 and 13, I thought the kids might consider themselves too old for this kind of thing, but no. A few weeks ago, my youngest asked if we would be doing the hunt this year (she thought her sister may not want to, being a teenager now), but my oldest confirmed that she would be happy to do it too. And so we did.

We worked out that we have now done the Waterperry pumpkin hunt for nine years in a row, since the kids were tiny tots. The only difference is that we are now super-speedy at finding the pumpkins. It took us just 20 minutes today!

As usual, we wound up with a treat in the cafe.

On the way out, we noticed that Waterperry is running a reindeer hunt in the gardens during the Christmas holidays. Guess what? My youngest declared that she wanted to do that too! Talk about tradition!

How people's live can change

It sometimes amazes me how people's lives can change over time; how someone's life can begin on one trajectory and end up on quite another.

For example, many years ago, when I lived up in Scotland, I had a very close friend. We were studying for our PhDs together and we saw each other most days. She was even a bridesmaid at my wedding.

My friend was (obviously) very bright and she was talented in other ways, too -- she was outgoing, sociable, and a great comedienne and mimic. I have no doubt that she would have excelled at stand up, had she tried it. She was the heart and soul of any party and she was also a bit of wild child -- an extremely heavy drinker and a bit of a flirt. She was great fun to be around. And she seemed destined for a successful career, gaining a temporary lectureship at a time when jobs in academia in the humanities were almost impossible to come by.

Yet, not long after I received my PhD and moved down south, things seemed to take a turn for the worse for my friend. She gave up her job. She was in a car crash. And the next thing I heard, she had been sectioned.

Our lives took quite different directions and we gradually drifted apart. We exchanged Christmas cards for a while, but eventually lost touch completely.

The other day, in an idle moment, I did a Web search for my old friend and was shocked to find that she had been the subject of a missing person search. She had disappeared and police had appealed for witnesses, saying that they were becoming increasingly concerned for her safety, as they considered her to be "vulnerable". To my relief, she had been found safe and well a few days later.

But all of this made me think how transient success can be. Someone can apparently be headed in one direction, and then something can just change, which makes their life veer off in another direction altogether. My friend should have been a successful academic (that's where things seemed to be going), and yet, ultimately, her life has turned out quite differently.

A perilous Sunday afternoon

We had a rather perilous Sunday afternoon out last week.

We decided to combine something for us and something for the kids. The something for us was a walk in the beautiful Shotover Country Park, which comprises a lovely open plain plus numerous paths that meander through beech woods. The something for the kids was a visit to the cinema to see 'Pan', a film that they were keen to watch.

The walk turned perilous when we were almost run over by an escaped Shetland pony! We were alerted to its presence by the sound of galloping hooves behind us and turned round to see the pony bearing down on us, followed closely by a horse ridden by a woman who was clearly in a state of panic. We hurried to the side of the path out of the way, while the woman shouted at us to grab the pony. We didn't, of course. What idiot would try to get hold of a pony that was galloping along full tilt?!

We never did find out what had happened. The pony and horse disappeared out of sight altogether, and we didn't see them come back again. I only hope things ended well and that no one -- passer-by, horse, rider -- was injured in the fray.

'Pan', by contrast, was quite uneventful. A perfectly pleasant but totally non-engaging (for adults anyway) film. Cara Delevigne had a cameo appearance, which made my oldest daughter very happy. (You see, I wouldn't even know who Cara Delevingne was, were it not for my kids!)