In Which I Learn That New Houses Are Like Chocolate Bars As We Go From Penarth To Barry With George

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

A Sunday where like the day before the grey sky threatened snow but thankfully chickened out. Still it was bitterly cold helped by the wind which swept up and wrapped you up in its icy embrace.

Perfect day then to go out.

Wife and I had decided to spend the day going out and doing some of those things that my short illness stopped us from doing the weekend before. First off was a trip to Penarth but not the Penarth by the water but the relatively new housing development called Penarth Heights. Which is basically housebuilder speak for you can see the sea but from a distance

Once upon a time this was known as the "Billy Banks". The area with, shall we say, the reputation. Now on this matter I'm not going any further simply because it wasn't long after I moved to Wales that things began to change and this development began (what I'm trying to say is that I've no personal experience of what it was beforehand). Clearly though things had changed. These new houses had this multi coloured building block look. As if constructed by Lego.

Going into the sales office we agreed to go and view two three bedroomed showhomes. Both as it happened were a waste of time. New homes we realised were just like chocolate bars as they were smaller than in the past despite the glossy exterior. Few of the bedrooms on show tellingly had wardrobes but you instantly knew they'd be too small.

The living rooms too made you wonder where would you put more than one sofa.

The most incredible part of the trip was when the wife enquired as to whether there was an attic in the second house. "Yes" came the reply from the sales lady. But because of the insulation if the developers discovered you had put stuff up there for storage then if there was a problem you had violated the terms of the new build guarantee. An attic without storage......daft really.

It had been a good learning experience even though in the end we didn't go further forward.

The second part of the day was to be spent visiting a friend in her new house in Barry Town. She actually moved last September following her divorce but that particular weekend I'd not been able to visit because of a preplanned trip to visit my mother in Essex so I had not visited the house before as other factors (mainly work) had stopped me.

From the outside the house was that classic Welsh terraced look which is not unattractive. However it gave no indication of the clean ,modern look inside. It was one of the most deceptive houses I had ever seen. It appeared that by having the wall between the dining and living rooms taken away open plan living had been achieved in an instant. Our friend it appeared had fallen her feet. We were pleased for her. The past few years had been tough.

And through all this time I had George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss with me to read when opportunity arose. It has become one of those books you are itching to read at every possible moment. Yes it's that good.

It's not the book I've finished today though. That's Welcome To Kington by Miles Kington. To be honest I didn't like it at all. It simply wasn't funny. Alan Coren is still king in my eyes.

Amongst the great e unread on the Kindle the next book selected is a book of poetry by Christina Rossetti. We'll see how that pans out.

Until the next time.

From Wales To Armenia In A Day. That's What Reading Can Do

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

It's three forty five pm yesterday. I'm in the car waiting for my daughter's school bus to arrive. The weather is cliché Welsh. Cold, grey and pouring down with rain. No matter that this band of rain is going to sweep across most of Britain it's obviously "Welsh" weather. To sprinkle the cliché off you remind yourself that it's a Monday. I want to go home and have a cup of tea.

For this day I'm abandoning my normal reading schedule. Having hardly read anything for the last few days from being unwell I decided to concentrate on finishing one book of the current four I've got on the go at the moment. And, as it's the one, closest to the end that was An Armenian Sketchbook by Vasily Grossman.

This book is an account of his time in Armenia helping to translate a work by an Armenian writer into Russian. It's in the nineteen sixties so, Armenia as an independent nation doesn't exist (part of the then USSR). Interestingly Grossman does refer to Armenia as a nation often in this book. I'd wondered whether at that time it was rather like what Wales, Scotland are like now.

I've no idea whether calling it a Sketchbook comes from the Russian, but it's really a perfect title. There seems to be an organised randomness where he would explain something that happened to him and then go off on a tangent on something else only to return to the original event. The point though is that it's done effortlessly, and you the reader are not lost as he does so.

It's exactly what Twilight In Italy by D H Lawrence should have been but wasn't.

You can guess from the above that not only did I finish this book but I loved it. A book about a country (now) that I know little about in a time I can barely remember and yet (early days I know) it's the best book I've read this year so far. When I eventually move towards his novel Life and Fate it will encourage me.

Would it also encourage me to visit Armenia? No. Simply because I'd suspect that most of "the Armenia" that's in the book has long since gone. A few years ago I'd decided to visit the village of Gilfach Goch as it was apparently where Richard Llewellyn based his novel How Green Was My Valley. I knew that the coal mine was no more (interestingly there's now a wind farm there - quiet as well) but the building that the Inn/hotel was based on in the book was a ruin bordering on rubble.

One final point that I've mentioned in an earlier post. Not exactly a spoiler but the introduction might mention a fact about Grossman that will affect how you read the text. I can't go into any further details but you have been warned and not read it until you've finished the rest of it.

So the next book amongst the great eunread is Welcome To Kington by Miles Kington. A collection of this humourist's columns. I got it as I was wondering who else to read in this vein aside from Alan Coren and he came to mind.

From Wales To Armenia in a day.....that's what reading can do.

Until the next time.