Bookcase: Reading list

This is my current pile of books to read, mostly gained through amazon marketplace and charity shops.

I love Louis de bernieres, as you may gave guessed since the only other bookcase post was on a book of his too! Red dog is a short story based around a fabled dog in australia.

I read Dave Pelzers first book in this series last year, and I've been waiting for the second to appear in a charity shop for a while since. They aren't easy reading, but they are oddly compelling at the same time.

Some of the pile was influenced by my Christmas television watching - did any of you see toast? I watched it and loved it, so thought i should maybe read the book too. I'm about halfway through now, I'm finding it has a slightly darker undertone than the adaptation, but it's still great.

We also watched 'Eric and ernie' which reminded me of a book I found a long time ago about the pair, but never bought and was never able to find again, until now! This one is a republication so I'm assuming that's why I've not been able to.

The two without visible names in the middle were bought with some vouchers we were given, they are two of the river cottage handbooks. We already have several, these ones are for 'bread' and 'hedgerow'. Each one is written by someone who works around river cottage, so the bread one is by Dan his baker there. I thoroughly recommend the 'veg patch' one, I think it will be my reference bible in the next few years!

I read a thousand splendid suns and the kite runner last year, and saw the file of the kite runner when it was on last week. I love these books, despite all the tragedy, they really do show that we should be grateful for what we have, and that out of adversity can come beauty.

And finally, I read birdsong for the first time last year, so I thought I would try a couple of others by Sebastian Faulks too.

Have you read any of these? I'd love to know what you thought of them.

the mens morning

This is a not very picturey post because of James privacy and a not very wordy post because I dont know what went on. these are some of my favouriste photos of them all because its view onto a bit of the day I didn't see, and hadn't planned for 18 months.

He and the best man spent the night before the wedding at one of the ushers houses, and they all got ready there in the morning. All the men met for a pint at the pub opposite the church, which is their regular drinking haunt, and where anna caught up with them.

His nephews were ushers too, (I think they look best in the suits out of any of them! but dont tell him that...)

And from there they went onto the church, to start greeting guests!

The morning of the 16th

I slept better than I thought I would the night before, ably assisted by two cats pinning me down, and my childhood friend, penguin.

I did wake up early though, which gave me a chance to write my cards to the girls and my parents. (cards from papermash, that were in this post many moons ago.) I got up, left my presents out for my parents - I got my mum an amethyst and silver bracelet, and my dad got one of the tie pins we had made for all the men, I'll show them later. I managed to eat a banana, which I was actually rather impressed with since I cant eat when I'm nervous. The girls had all arrived by ten, and we all, with mum trooped p to the salon at the top to have our hair and nails done. the nails took the longest, with our hair being done shockingly quickly. really there was nothing to be done to mine, except having it nicely blow dried with a few rollers, and the girls had theirs put into poufy buns on the right hand side of their head. we'd only trialled this with one of them, and the other two were certain that it wouldn't work with either of their hair types (one too short, and one too fine) so they seemed very chuffed when it worked.

We walked back to our house via the butchers - he had taken a massively sarcastic interest in our impending nuptuals over the previous year, to the point where he got mentioned in our sermon, so I wanted to see him - and we found Anna at our house with Dad.

The next hour or so was a whirlwind of photos, makeup and running round in circles. I wasn't very nervous, certainly not like I had expected I would be, which was good. Anna took photos of all my outfit, we hung my dress off the massive old chestnut in the garden, I think James dad could see this happening from next door and must have thought I was mad! I'd mentioned the chestnut and the porch for hanging the dress up in as it would mean some of the photos had things we associated with the house in.

She also took photos of all my jewellery, thats my great grandmothers locket above, which was my something old and borrowed, and the earrings James had bought me the year before to wear at the wedding.

The girls hadn't been allowed upstairs before we went out, as I'd put their presents out up in my room. There was a little pile for each of them, with a card, a clutch bag, different jewellery for each of them, a hankie (remember them from way back when?!), and I'd found toeless tights, great for peeptoes on an october day, but they were more a practicality than a present! (M&S in case you were wondering)

Our shoes were all different, as we all wanted different heights, and I had anna take a photo of them in height order, as a little joke for me, and she popped them in the porch, which I love!

Lovely bridesmaid spent most of her time doing mine, my mums, and her own makeup, while we all floated around eating cheese and biscuits, and drinking bucks fizz.

I ended up with much less makeup than in my trial, just enough to give me some cover, but since James had done a double take at me that day, I went for a more natural look.

It was around this time that Anna left to meet the men in the pub, so there are no more photos, but we all ran around getting changed, my dad caused 20 minutes of panic when he went off up to the church to drop the car off with all our overnight bags in, and didnt come straight back. Turned out that the car park hadn't been opened as promised, and he went to sort it out himself!
meanwhile the wedding car turned up early to pick mum and the girls up and Mum got in a tizz because dad wasnt back (in all fairness two serious accidents had happened on that road the previous week). eventually he turned up, and mums parting words to me were 'make sure he sorts out his hair'.

Dad and I were left alone in the house, he went and got changed quickly while I stood around in the dress, and then I had to tell him what to do (movetheironingboard/letthecatsoutoftheconservatory/movetheirfood/tidythekitchenabit) while I sort of pivoted on the spot for fear of damaging said dress.

then it was time for us to go too!

all photos by the wonderful amazing Anna