czech-mate

..and Turkey come back from the dead and win 3-2!!

what an exciting match it was last night , it was amazing to watch, the Czechs just lost it in the last ten minutes, and the normally unflappable Petr Cech made a dreadful mistake to let Turkey back on level terms.

Brilliant stuff!

I got quite a bit done on Mimi too, the sleeves are now cast off (huzzah!), so only the rest of the back then onto the collar. Not sure whether I'll put pockets on it or not.

I've been listening to some short stories this weekend , courtesy of Craftlit, one by Mark Twain, about a bicycle, one by Guy de Maupassant "The Diamond Necklace", which I remember studying for "A" level French, many moons ago, although my favourite from the anthology was "Le Boudin Noir", a story of an old lady seeking revenge who has no male relatives left to help her & who trains her dog to attack using black pudding ..."le boudin noir". Then a story by Edgar Allan Poe, " A Case of Amontillado" which gave me the creeps ( how surprising!!) and one called " The Woman Who Tried to be Good" by Edna Ferber.

I'm enjoying the short stories so much ( the Edgar Allan Poe story not so much!!), and today have had " Beauty & the Beast " and "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman which have very different views of womanhood.

"The Yellow Wallpaper" is the story of a woman's descent into madness, probably following PND and is very sad and quite funny at the same time. The writer had some experience of depression and felt that the prevalent treatment of bed rest (late 19 th century) would make people worse rather than better. It's very well-written and reminds me so much of the classic Virago books that I used to read so much 20years ago.

I must track down more contemporary stuff through the Library, as I'm going to use up the Craftlit back catalogue pretty quickly, and it's good to hear modern voices too. Next up on my mp3 is "A Spot of Bother" by Mark Haddon who also wrote "A Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-time" which was a brilliant study of Autism. Amazingly this book was recommended to me by my Dad, who'd just happened to pick it up at the library and got totally absorbed by it. It's not a book I would have thought to buy for my Dad ( it's good to know that he can still surprise people in his 70's!) and I was so pleased when he bought it for me.

While I'm listening to stuff today I've been weeding the garden and doing some crochet to make a fruitbasket for my fruity amigurumi . I need a rest from Mimi!