a journal of the North year

Read a surprisingly enjoyable book, Pagans by James Alistair Henry, taking place in an alternate Britain, split into three warring ethnic nations, the Celts, the Saxons, and the Norse. Where Christianity is a fringe sect, The Norman Conquest never happened, and the Industrial Revolution (first) took place in Africa. The ethnic traits and enemities are rather overdone, the evil one(s) are as too often too omniscient but the building of the alternate World and of the collaboration between Saxon and Celt police officers work out well. I just wonder at the title since there are several pantheons attached to the different ethnicities. The part inspired from the January 06 Capital storming is riveting and terrifying. I also read The Black Loch, by Peter May, which mostly supports the general theorem that trilogies should never exceed three volumes! The trilogy takes place on Lewis, Outer Hebrides, with cases always related to the traumatic childhood of a group of school friends. This more recent addition is set ten years later and involves the same (surviving) characters, but the frequent returns to (yet undisclosed) events of their youth feel reheated and improbable, while the cliffhanger episodes defy any flavour of plausibility. The many mentions of the island geography and beauty would fit a Lonely Planet guide, for a while, but are quickly annoying here. A good point, though: the book will put you off from farmed salmon!

Cooked chicken and made salads for a 30⁺ person picnic on a Marseille island beach as part of our daughter 30th birthday, leftovers being eaten from a kayak the following day during a paddling tour of the Cassis calanques! No one got sick and I even brought back leftovers of leftovers to Paris for a final meal..! I also enjoyed very nice Italian fare at a “grotto” in Lugano.