Systematic idleness

We've been doing a fair bit of sitting and reading of late.  Well, there's nothing we can do from here about the tomatoes, the grass or the badger diggings, so it's maybe time to catch up on reading and relaxing.  I've read a J K Rowling (The Casual Vacancy), a Lee Child or two, and an Ian McEwan, and have started into a third from the Booker Shortlist.  One of the few consolations of insomnia.  J K Rowling's piece puzzles me.  The subject matter is essentially depressing - sudden death, suicide, squalor, bigotry, bullying, self-harm, addiction, paedophilia, rape and worse - even Parish politics.  Yet the narrative is bouncy, breezy, and I'm tempted to think, a bit 'look at these amusing examples of The Lower Orders and pompous provincials!'.   Lee Child is Lee Child: he should live and be well.  At least his plots are gloriously over-the-top, and the good guys win.  Of the Bookers, I'll mostly keep my own counsel till they pronounce.  So far I prefer the Japanese and Zimbabwean narrators to the Palestinian one, though I suspect the last is the best piece of writing, with a nod in the direction of Ms Mantel as to the obscurity of the central character until a chapter or so in - or maybe I'm just too dim to catch on.  Lit Crit was my utter downfall at finishing school, it must be remembered.

We've had a fair mix of weather - still and warm, stormy with torrential rain, hot washing days, breezy washing days.  A trip to the seaside, and today an amble down through the Corbières to Perpignan and back.  The restaurant at the airport was closed, so rather than sit and look out over the apron, we had indifferent bought sandwiches beneath the memorial to the soldiers of the First Republic who fought the Kingdom of Spain at Peyrestortes in 1793.  It is doubtless sacrilege to remark that the memorial came in handy to file down a nail I broke on the door of our beastly hire car.  While we were there, one of the Orly flights came in, so we ambled down to watch it from the perimeter fence, next to the taxiway.  I was taken right back to my train-watching childhood when we got and returned (in that order) a friendly wave from the flight deck.  Nice to know that simple pleasures never lose their appeal.  Likewise the deep blue of the Med was fabulous today, and the wind- and kitesurfers on the Etang were having a spectacularly good time of it.  And the washing is dry, in and - ce qui n'est pas toujours le cas given the strong winds around here - all present and correct.

Of the car, hmmm.  It has all sorts of clever gizmos, and the one that annoys me most is the light that prompts you to change to a higher gear.  I caught myself shouting at it today 'if you're so [expletive deleted] smart, why don't you bloody do it yourself?'.  That said, the vehicle is 'chuckable' like an old Hillman Imp: you can throw it fast at corners and it whips round them as if on rails.  In normal driving, at the steering wheel, it's like with a Russian condom: if you can feel anything, you must be hallucinating.