Blindness – Theatr Clwyd (Adaptation by Simon Stephen)

Apparently, I’ve been languishing. Organisational psychologist Adam Grant, PhD, wrote in a recent article in the New York Times, that languishing is "a sense of stagnation and emptiness." Whilst in this state, you may not see the point of things; simple pleasures lose all meaning, you lack any sense of purpose, basically you are feeling a bit "meh."

I can attest to that. A global pandemic sort of does that to you. What’s the point of booking a holiday when you know the chances of it being cancelled are so high? Last year I ended up taking my summer holiday in December. Why organise meeting friends when the border between England and Wales keeps opening and closing with more regularity than Tower Bridge? My second “home” at Theatr Clwyd was closed, along with theatres up and down the UK, so there was nothing to get excited about – let alone blog about. Happily, things are now starting to change, and there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Blindness – Theatr Clwyd – Thursday 17^th June

📅 Mon 14^th June – Sat 19th June

Running time 70 mins 

In the heart of a European city, the lights change at a major crossroads. A car grinds to a halt. Its driver, without warning, has gone blind. Within hours, it becomes obvious that this blindness has started to spread throughout the city. The government tries to contain what has become an epidemic by quarantining those infected in a disused asylum. In a panic driven city, are these measures enough, or will they contribute to something more sinister? 

It feels so strange to finally be walking back through the theatre doors. Even stranger, after sanitising my hands and giving my contact details, I’m told to sit down in the bar and someone will come for me. I’m then called forward and asked to accompany a member of staff through the door reserved for actors/staff. I walk onto a very dark stage. I’m told there will only be three ticket holders for this performance, but that a member of staff will sit with us for the duration of the performance. I’m shown to my seat and told to put on the headphones that are laid out for me. I’m also told there is a torch beneath my seat should I feel the need to use it to make my escape…but if I leave, I won’t be allowed to return.

Troubled Blood – Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling)

2020, the year of constant surprises. I’ve never been a huge JK Rowling fan (I mean her books, not the person.  I’ve never met the woman so I can’t comment on her personally, unlike the Twitter dunderheads who like to misconstrue everything they read.) I have to give her credit for her vivid imagination and her wealth of knowledge and the amount of research she must undertake before putting pen to paper, but for me, her writing is prone to too much repetition which detracts from what could be an excellent read.

So why do I read the Strike books if I’m not a fan of her writing? Easy. Tom Burke plays the lead in the TV adaptations and with it he has brought an interesting, complex character to life, one full of charm, charisma, and sparkle. I’ve become invested in the character; I want to know what the next instalment is about and what the future holds for Strike. So, for me to keep up with Strike, and to not feel like I’m wasting any of my day, I turned to Audible books for both Lethal White and Troubled Blood. This way I could go for a walk or do chores and “read” at the same time.

As the orotund voice of Robert Glenister began permeating my ears, I realised that the format of this book was to be the same as the others. Each chapter to be preceded by a quotation…this time it was Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queen. I hit pause, puzzled. It rang a distant bell in my memory and so I trotted over to the bookcase and pulled out my battered Norton’s Anthology of English Literature. Ah yes…there it was…battered and having obviously seen all of its 25 years of service, there was the page marker for Edmund Spencer, and more importantly the Cantos of The Fairey Queen. Forgetting I was supposed to be listening to Strikes adventures, I started pouring over the old verses and the associated notes I’d scribbled throughout the margins. 

Chekov or Hemingway?

Anyone familiar with Chekov will undoubtedly remember his principal “If in Act One you have a pistol hanging on the wall, then it must fire in the last act.” As we enter Strikes world for the fifth time, we find him in Cornwall, visiting his terminally ill aunt, and catching up with his oldest friend Dave Polworth in the pub. The question of marriage arises, and in the defence of marriage, Polworth quotes from another Russian literary giant, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina.  With Strike coming back to his childhood “home” Cornwall and all the people he loved there, Robin dealing with a long and acrimonious divorce, and Strike’s ex Charlotte causing him no end of emotional reckoning, surely the poignant quote must have a bearing by the end of the novel. Or is JKR following Hemingway, whereby inconsequential details are just part of the plot?

In a departure for Strike and Robin, they take on the 40-year-old cold case of a doctor who mysteriously vanished one night. The client gives Strike a year to solve the case, and what a year it will be for both Cormoran and Robin. Many of the original witnesses for the case are dead, and for those still alive, how accurate will their memory of events be? Looking through the notes of the original chief detective on the case, it was apparent he was suffering with his mental health. Were his notes a sign of madness, or was there something more to his readings of tarot and astrological charts?

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil & The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt (Paperback)

I'm sat in a gorgeous chalet in the middle of a working farm, bedecked with Christmas lights, surrounded by various livestock in Lauder, Scotland. Being December, it means long evenings in which to amuse oneself; it is the perfect setting to sit wallowing in a hot tub but I needed books I wouldn't mind getting a bit damp! Two books I bought in a charity shop were the solution:

"Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" is based on a true story. A crime classic published in 1994, set in a world of highly original literary characters who only require the author to weave their tales together to produce this compelling gothic tale of a Savannah society. Settling back, mug of tea in hand, I travelled to America to be alarmed, entertained, to laugh out loud and gasp in shock with these overtly colourful characters.

The main narrative of the book is the shooting of Danny Hansford. Shots are heard ringing out of the home of respected antiques dealer Jim Williams in the early hours of 2^nd May 1981. For a decade, the question that required an answer was whether the shooting was murder or self-defence. Jim Williams maintained that the killing was in self-defence and that Danny (his employee and also a male prostitute) was prone to losing his temper, and, on this occasion, had grabbed a gun that was on display and pointed it at him. He had therefore shot back to protect himself and he testified that the murder had not been premeditated in any way. The complexities around the shooting, and a desire for the truth led to four murder trials taking place; the fourth eventually being moved outside of Savannah so that a different jury could be sworn in. 

“there is truth in the Hebrew fable, that the knowledge of Good and Evil brings forth Death.” Alestair Crowley

Walks in Mysterious Cheshire and Wirral by Tony Bowerman (Walk 10 - Little Budworth)

“Fancy doing a walk Saturday or Sunday?”

“Yeah, sounds good to me.”

“I thought we could do a walk in Little Budworth and hopefully find a spot by the lake for a picnic.”

In Norman times, much of Cheshire was covered by four forests. To the west was Wirral Forest which had been substantially cleared, Macclesfield Forest covered the east Pennine slopes, whilst the central part of Cheshire was covered by the forests of Mara (now Delamere) and Mondrum. Back in those times, forests were no more than wastelands which were protected by laws so that the privileged may hunt in them. The forests were a patchwork of mixed oak woodlands and open lowland heath dotted with meres. Up until the 14^th century, wolf packs could be found hunting amongst the cover of the trees, and both red and fallow deer grazed the lands until they were hunted out during the 17^th century Civil War. Rare birds such as merlins, hobbys and sparrowhawks graced the skies, whilst swarms of bees gathered nectar for honey. Until the 1800s, Little Budworth was called Budworth-Le-Frith, from the Welsh for woodland ffridd. By the 17^th century, as the forests were cleared and settlements began to spring up, Mondrum was no longer forest…that is, apart from the most worthless part, Little Budworth Common. This was the last vestige of the forest to remain standing, and this was where today’s walk was going take us.

For once, the guidebook showed what looked like an ample sized carpark. This didn’t stop me from driving straight past it, and having looked in my rear-view mirror, I screeched to a halt and reversed back up the road to turn into it. Kate arrived shortly after, and after dancing around the carpark with the “are we, are we not allowed to do huggy hello’s” nonsense, we got our walking boots on and checked what the book said about the start of the walk.

“From the car park, go through a narrow gap in the fence, on the opposite side of the car park to the toilets, and walk past the large sculptured chair.”

“Ermmmm, I can’t see a fence” I stated. “When it says opposite the toilets, does it mean like directly opposite…or does it mean where that large wooden board is that’s kinda to the right of the toilets??” Kate looked non the wiser and just shrugged. Hmm…. “let’s go investigate the big wooden board” I suggested. (Oh this walk was going brilliantly, we couldn’t even find our way out of the car park!) “I think we should go in here” I suggested, and a few metres later I suddenly spied a large sculptured chair and nearly wet myself with excitement. Suddenly I felt like Anneka Rice on Treasure Hunt. All was not lost and it seemed neither were we, as we strode off confidently on the start of our 3 mile walk around the village of Little Budworth.

Travels with my Aunt by Graham Greene (Audible)

Graham Greene is possibly best known for his seminal works like "The Power and The Glory," "Brighton Rock" and "The Third Man." I can’t pretend to be an authority on his work, I read "Brighton Rock" whilst still at school; I’ve never read "The Third Man" but enjoyed the filmed version starring Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles. I don't know why I chose to listen to this specific book, I came across it and it seemed like a release from the pandemic lockdowns...if I can't travel for real, I can travel via a book!

Greene apparently wrote "Travels With my Aunt" as a bit of fun and a departure from his normal style of writing. His work often involved fragile, flawed characters that found themselves in distant lands; so this novel is no different in that respect, however, it’s impossible to try to tie Greene down to one stylistic genre. For those who have read nothing by Greene before, this humoristic jaunt in "Travels With My Aunt" is not like many of his other writings which are very dark, although there remain traces of darkness in this book which give an interesting insight into the authors character.

She is a rebel, he a conformist.

Henry Pulling is a single, retired bank manager; a straightforward, honest man, whose greatest pleasure is growing dahlias in his garden. He is a man who lives a quiet and sheltered type of life, who has seldom left the British shore he was born on. It is at his mother’s funeral that he encounters his long-lost Aunt Augusta, a formidable woman, equally glamourous and eccentric, who has rather a bombshell to deliver Henry whom she has not seen for over fifty years.

The Split - Laura Kay (Book Preview)

When this book appeared in my in-tray, it was the comment about the cat that grabbed my attention. The cover didn’t interest me, nor the title, but the idea of someone storming off having found out that they have been betrayed by a loved one, cat whisked underarm, really appealed to me.

Ally’s relationship is over, and she’s taking the cat...

Romantic novels (or RomComs) are not the typical genre of book I’ll head towards in a bookshop; however within reading the first few pages, I realised that Laura had written a rather special novel which kept me engaged throughout the course of the story.

The Split is a story of love but not your typical romance, it is about the strongest love of all…friendship. It doesn’t really matter what life throws at you if you have a strong support network of friends and this novel highlighted this.

Ally lives with her girlfriend on a houseboat in London; that is until one morning when she is brutally dumped by Emily. She announces she is going to spend the night at her “friends” house and leaves Ally to wallow in self-pity, despair and confusion. Now homeless, jobless, friendless and unable to face Emily’s return the next morning, Ally bundles up her belongings and decides to head home to Yorkshire to stay with her dad. She’s not going home alone though; she bundles Emily’s cat Malcolm into his carrier and heads off to the train station with suitcase and cat in tow.

It must be strange to head back to your childhood home and to try to come to terms with your life apparently going backwards, but for Ally, comfort was there in the arms of her father and also her childhood friend Jeremy. He had returned home to live with his mother due to his life unravelling around him and he too was broken-hearted and wanting to live under a duvet for the foreseeable future. You would think at this point that this might be a depressing book but it’s not. It is a vibrant book full of warmth and humour as two misfits try to make some order of their life, dragging themselves out of the hollow of self-pity, torturing themselves by scouring Instagram pages of their ex’s and opening their hearts over cake and bottles of wine in the process.

Neither party really knows what they want to do with their lives, but they know they need something to focus on. Jeremy thinks he sees his ex in town one day, and comes up with the notion that him and Ally should run the Sheffield half-marathon to show their ex’s that they can achieve something worthwhile in their lives. The only problem is, neither Jeremy or Ally are runners, and the race is in eight weeks! Now I am not one of God’s little athletes, so reading about Ally slogging her guts out around Sheffield really resonated with me. Her description of school PE lessons didn’t run amiss either…it was as if someone was writing about my foiled attempts to get out of gym class. I could relate to those descriptions of the body being on fire, not being able to breath and desperately wanting to be sick in the gutter; so I cheered them on with their ludicrous ambition whilst lying on the sofa, tea in one hand, biscuit in the other.

Ally convinces herself that her athleticism and commitment to something will bring Emily running back to her…and if that doesn’t, there’s always Malcolm. Surely Emily will come up to Sheffield to rescue her beloved cat, right?! In a series of emails, it becomes clear that Emily wants her cat, but she’s not leaving London or new beau Sara (without an H.) Ally stole the cat, Ally can damn well bring the cat back; plus there are loads of friends in London missing Ally – surely she wants to see them again. Would that be the close friends who managed a couple of WA messages and then quickly gave up bothering to see how Ally was coping? The friends that were really Emily’s friends who just accepted Ally because she was “always there.” It was interesting reading the dynamics of what you perceive to be a friendship and what a friendship really entails. The people who had been closest in Ally’s life disappear, whereas someone she had been at school with, someone she had not connected with for years, ended up being the support mechanism she really needed.

As Ally commits further to the half-marathon, she decides to buy some proper running clothes, and it’s here that she meets Jo, a post-grad student who has formed a running group. She tells Ally and Jeremy to join them, and so Ally forms a new plan of attack to win Emily back. If Malcolm has failed to tug on Emily’s heartstrings, how about telling her all about the new woman in her life…Jo?

This was such a poignant, but light-hearted debut novel from Laura Kay and a real break from the books I normally read. Laura has created some endearing characters, and I heartily recommend that you share the laughs and tears with Ally and her companions when the book is published in March 2020. 

The Split by Laura Kay is published by Quercus Books in March 2021. Follow @lauraelizakay @QuercusBooks for further details and updates to publication.

Thank you to Hatchett UK for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Genre: Fiction, Romance Novel, Humor, Contemporary Romance, LGBT Literature

Release Date: 18^th March 2021 (Hardback)

Publisher: Quercus Books

Pages: 400

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Walks in Mysterious Cheshire and Wirral by Tony Bowerman (Walk 5 - Willington)

With lockdown seemingly starting to ease and vistors being allowed back into the country (Wales) my friend Kate, popped over for the weekend. We did a quick afternoon walk (3 miles) around a village near me called Hope. (Live in Hope, die in Caergwrle as the old saying goes…the two villages are adjacent to one another and this saying has been used since at least the 19th century!) Anyway – unbeknown to me, Hope has a heritage park “Park in the Past” and whilst it was still closed due to Covid restrictions, Kate and I took a walk along the public footpath that surrounds the park which was still open. It’s a place I will be heading back to in due course at it looks rather beautiful and the field at the end of the walk was just teaming with swifts or swallows skirting over the grass catching insects. An absolute surprise and treat to watch so I grabbed a quick video on my 'phone. Not the best quality, but I hadn't expected to come upon such a wonderful sight! 

Sunday was another dry day and I thought it would be a good idea to do another walk from Tony Bowerman’s book. (If you haven’t read about our first walk – click on the link)

Following the Victorians to Little Switzerland

As travel abroad is a bit hit or miss at the moment, Kate and I followed in the footsteps of the Victorians and took a trip to Little Switzerland, deep in the Cheshire Countryside at Willington.

Willington has been known by a myriad of names over the centuries. It was derived from the name of the first settlor recorded in the area, Wynflaeda. In the Doomsday book the name had changed to Winfletone and in Norman times it was called Wylaton. In the 1840’s the railway line from Manchester to Chester opened and the Victorian city workers took the opportunity to escape to the countryside.

Willington sits on a sandstone ridge, the “backbone of Cheshire.” 50% of the ridge is of great ecological and historical value as it has remained relatively undisturbed. Photographs taken during our walk do not look much different to the photographs taken 100 years ago. There are six hillforts which are situated along the length including the one at Willington, Kelsborrow Castle. This hillfort was built to exploit the natural defences the area of land held and Neolithic axes have been found at the site, suggesting that it was an important site long before the Iron Age fort was built. 

Victorian tourists walked the path up to the fort in an area known as Little Switzerland due its far-reaching views of the Clwydian Mountain Range, Peckforton Hill and the Mersey and Dee estuaries. Wherever you stand in the village, you are afforded stunning views, but views like that require some effort, and whilst the walk is only 3 miles long…approximately 2/3^rds of the walk requires walking up a gentle ascent. (Thank goodness we walked the route we did – the opposite way round would have been a killer!)

We parked in the centre of the village in a little bay at Willington Corner/Chapel Lane. If people can be bothered to park their vehicles correctly, there should be ample space for about 20 cars, however, as there are no white lines, the idiot/lazy fraternity just dumped their car and left. When I arrived there was only one space left which was a tight squeeze, but I managed to reverse in leaving sufficient space at the front of both mine and idiot drivers vehicle, so all parties could get in and out without damaging either car. Fortunately, as we were about to walk up the road, someone else appeared who was heading home, so I waited a few minutes and moved into their spot…this meant I could enjoy my walk without being anxious about the apparent inability to drive of the person that had been next to me!

A short walk up hill took us towards the sheltered, south-west facing fields of the market gardens where in the 20^th century crops of hard and soft fruits could be seen growing. Fruit has certainly been seen growing on the slopes of Willington Hall since the 1940s, and apples, strawberries and blackcurrants thrived in the fertile soils, whilst damsons grew in the hedgerows. The fruit was sold at the local markets in Chester, Frodsham, Knutsford, Liverpool and Manchester. Despite the popularity and quality of the fruit, the nearby Eddisbury Fruit Farm has since closed its doors, and the area was very quiet when we walked past where Winsors Fruit Farm and shop was supposed to be.

In keeping with the area, we turned into Gooseberry Lane, not named after the fruit farms which didn’t appear until after WWII, and continued heading upwards towards the are known as Little Switzerland. As we stopped to catch our breath and move out of the way of a red car, we could see the spectacular views that had caused Victorians to gasp in awe. As we headed further up the road, we were greeted by the driver of the red car, a sweet old lady who lived in one of the cottages on the steep bank. We stood and chatted to her for a while as she told us about the area and where the best views were. The cottages were built from the 1860s onwards; many of which have been enlarged from the original rural workers cottages they once were. The cottagers were wily souls and would clear out a bedroom to offer it out as a B&B for the visitors that had made their way from the station in a horse-drawn cart.

As Gooseberry Lane came to an abrupt end, we followed a narrow, raised path between someone’s house and garden. The path seems to hang in the air, as to the left the land falls away, and an area called Boothsdale comes into view. As we drew towards the top of the path, we remembered the words of the lady we had been talking to and stopped to take in the views. She was right, if you wait until you reach the top, the trees obscure the far reaching views…this spot was perfect, and gave us a little breather before negotiating the wooded steps carved into the woodland, that would take us towards Kelsborrow Castle.

Up Dick’s Mount

Open pasture greets you as you leave the shade of the trees. This unassuming area of green has had a chequered history. This is where the promontory fort of Kelsborrow Castle would have stood. Centuries of ploughing have left it difficult to see where the ramparts would have been on the enclosure. Excavations in 1973 revealed that the rampart had been revetted with timber, and the earthen bank was reinforced with timber also. The original width of the rampart was 4 metres and the ditch had been dug 8.5 metres in front of the rampart. Today, the bank stands about half a metre high and spread across an area 30 metres wide. Despite this, you can still get a sense of the scale of the fort.

Electric fences now keep grazing cattle off the public footpath, but years ago this area of Castle Hill was a stud farm for shire horses. John Kenworthy first registered a stallion on the site back in 1898 and all the horses were prefixed with the name Delamere. The stallions were taken to Delamere railway station and transported to Chester, Helsby and The Wirral for their services. A standing stone was removed from the field in the 19^th Century, but local lore suggests that its origin was less prehistoric and more likely the marker for a prized stallions grave. The last recorded stud fee was fifty shillings back in 1935. This was the end of the line for the Kenworthy Shires, but not all is lost in the Shire horse world – three miles down the road at Cotebrook lies the Cotebrook Shire Horse Centre where this beautiful breed is continuing to be bred successfully.  https://cotebrookshirehorses.co.uk/

During World War II, the RAF placed a communications aerial to the right of Dick’s Mount, as this elevated position was perfect for receiving signals. Its exposed position meant that locals had to be especially vigilant during black outs. A light from this area could be seen as far away as the Welsh border and be prone to attack. Standing there, it did make me think about today’s society. How would people cope with such orders? Seeing as how folk are loath to even wear a mask to protect each other, I suspect black out’s would have been an infringement of their liberty and to hell with everyone.

Pushing my cynicism to one side, we continued past the cows and into a small wooded area to come out on a green with a lake. People were sat having a picnic on the grass, casually watching the world go by as Kate and I starred at the map. It advised us we would emerge on Quarry Bank Lane and to turn right and follow the lane uphill. There was no Quarry Bank Lane, certainly no signs for it, and did right mean the road at the top that disappeared to the right…or did it mean turn right past the lake. There was no lake mentioned in the guidebook. There was no Quarry Bank Lane on Google either. We decided we would do option 1 – the road that disappeared to the right. As we walked down it, none of the house names mentioned in our guidebook appeared, although some beautiful mansions that no doubt cost at east a million pounds loomed into view. After about a quarter of mile, we decided that we couldn’t be heading uphill…neither of us were out of breath. We turned around and scurried back, past the people at the lake, and the road started to climb. (Also the names of the houses in the book appeared which was a blessed relief…we didn’t want to head back to the lake and start asking people where the hell we were.)

The Urchin’s Kitchen

At the crest of a hill (I wish I’d read the route before we started) we saw a carpark (🙄) which took us into Primrosehill Wood. The route took us down a bridleway which was straddled with wild raspberry canes on either side. They looked a little pat their best and so we continued through the woods and onto the route known as the Sandstone Trail. Just off the path, we took a small detour into a sandstone gorge filled with rhododendrons and pine trees. Hidden within the tree this was the atmospheric Urchin’s Kitchen, a glacial drainage channel formed at the close of the last Ice Age. As the climate warmed, meltwater under immense pressure scoured out the 20-30 foot deep gorge, enlarging the natural weakness in the Triassic sandstone.

Obviously, we had to take a closer inspection, looking down into the gorge wasn’t an option…there’s no point going on a walk unless you can do a bit of exploring.  I probably should have been banned from reading The Famous Five as a child, anyway, despite both of us doing this walk in trainers rather than hiking boots…and it has been a bit wet lately, we strode through the undergrowth and into the gorge. This was where a pair of welly boots would have been most welcome, as the pair of us tried to daintily(?!) cross bits of fallen logs in a bid to not be knee deep in mud. At some point Kate saw sense and gave up whilst I tried to go further in. The mud however was getting deeper and stickier…and there was a group of people at the far end who I’m sure would have laughed like a drain had I fallen into what was turning into swamp. I trudged back to Kate and we negotiated the logs back to the Sandstone Trail.

Now you maybe asking why the area is called the Urchin’s Kitchen. I have no idea, although it is suggested that as the Middle English name for a hedgehog was an urchin, as when in curled up with its spines showing, it looked like a sea urchin. This may have been an area where hedgehogs used to hibernate because it was sheltered and full of autumn leaves.

Time for Tea

We headed through the woods and onto open farmland, here the guidebook advised “the path emerges on Tirley Lane beside Summertrees Tearoom and Garden – an attractive family run café that welcomes walkers.” Perfect I thought, as both of us had nearly run out of water and a loo break is always welcome. I did wonder whether Covid might have put paid to the place being open, but you can always hope. We walked past a very much closed “tearoom.” There were no signs confirming that this was ever the place and that, I realised, was one problem of using a guide book that hasn’t been revised and updated since 2006. As it turned out, it wasn;t Covid that had closed the tearoom, the place, whilst appearing rather popular in online reviews, had closed circa 2013/14. This was the only issue completing the walk, the village of Willington has no amenities except for the Boot Inn and Willington Hall hotel neither of which cross this walking route. Even the post office, churches, school and community rooms have long gone and been converted into houses, so it was a timely reminder that if we tried any of the longer walks in the book, to check them out carefully before we started and to ensure we had snacks and drinks with us!

At this point we were on Roughlow Lane (the name suggestive of a Bronze Age burial mound or similar nearby – again showing the prehistoric routes of the village) and the walking was sharply downhill back to where we started. As we headed further downhill on the pavementless winding road (pavements are pretty much non-existent) we remarked how grateful we were not to have had to climb this route. We took a moment to remember the Italian prisoners of war who in 1946, were recruited to rebuild a wall and repair the damage of a steam roller belonging to the County Council which had toppled over the side of Roughlow, taking a section of the road with it. I couldn’t help but chuckle too…I work as a contractor with a County Council and the standard of driving hasn’t really improved much in all those years!