Here be Dragons

and amazingly enough, a bit of knitting too.

Brisingr arrived yesterday and is a riveting read as you would expect from Chris Paolini. That's if you can keep other people's grubby mitts off it. When my son came home he swiped the book as I was making dinner "don't lose my place" I called after him, more in hope than expectation.

After dinner I was hunting around looking for my book only to find his pal JF had arrived and he had his nose in the book too. I had to scowl at him pretty fiercely before he relinquished his grasp.

I kept the book by me while I untangled the soya yarn, listening to the football on 5live. I enjoy radio coverage, the commentators go off at such tangents if they get bored, and man, was it boring as St James' Park. Two teams (Newcastle & Spurs) without confidence, losing their way, one managerless, the other trying to reassert itself in London. The football was so bad the radio guys started discussing the thick soup that they were having.

D and J1 couldn't even bear to listen to it, and are only going to the match on Saturday out of a sense of duty (had Keegan still been there, they would have headed south for the match full of excitement and anticipation. Ah well. ).

Thankfully Spurs managed to win (2-1), it would have been awful had it gone to extra-time and then penalties I don't think anyone, the fans, the commentators, myself, could have stood any more. Pompey were probably relieved that the night was over too, as they had another walloping , 4-0 at the hands of Chelsea. Their normally lively fans were pretty quiet too.

At least I had dragons to look forward to. Brisingr is an excellent tale. I enjoyed the film Eragon but it only told half the story. Book 3 sees Eragon and Roran trying to rescue Katrina from the clutches of the Ra'zac. Nasuada is building forces with Men, Elves, Dwarves and Urgals and at the camp is Angela the herbalist, fortune teller and heavens knows what else, with her werecat Solembum. Paolini is such a good writer he remembers to add the little details. Angela is stood talking to Nasuada about the whereabouts of Eragon :

'Angela laughed. She was knitting a sock using five bone needles which clicked and clacked and scraped against each other with a steady, if peculiar, rhythm. " How? He'll be traveling during the day, and Saphira daren't fly around searching for him when the sun's up and anyone might spot her and alert Galbatorix." '

How cool is that? Dragons and sock knitting!