Tuesday, November 9, 2010

How could I have forgotten how long it takes to finish a cross stitch.

I feel like I have been doing it for days - which of course I have, slotting it in here and there whenever the light  is good enough to be able to see what I am doing.

But it does just feel as though it has been going on and on and on and on and on.

Anyway to give my poor tired eyes a break today I did all my paperwork - it was starting to feel as though Mondays were becoming a bit too routiney with the piles of stuff that sprout willy nilly on my desk so I swept them all aside yesterday and cut out another couple of bag patterns ready for the weekend in my studio and deferred the paperwork to today.

How easy it is to fall into a routine, and how depressing when that routine is so drab.

Whoever dictated that Monday's should be reserved for horrid things like tax forms and bills?  I don't work in an office anymore, I don't have to do things in office hours, and I particularly do not have to sit down and sort paperwork on a Monday morning if I don't want to.  The problem is that I am just the teensiest bit anal about things.  I often wonder what it must be like to be spontaneous and, well, exciting.

I went through a stage of reading various chick lit offerings, full of girls who jacked it all in and ran away to do something much more thrilling, and I just found myself getting frustrated with the characters, practically yelling at them through the pages 'why didn't you just do x y or z ARRRGGGHHHHH!!!'

Not sure if frustrated yelling is a pro or a con when it comes to the enjoyment derived from a novel.

Rapidly returned to mystery and crime, it was a less disquieting read.

I also had a shot at Stephen King's Dark Tower series, reading the first couple of novels.  I am really not sure what to make of these, on the one hand I think I would like to finish the series, it may get better, but on the other hand, I would have to invest in the purchase of these and I am not sure if I would find them worth the money.

I recently had some swapsies with a friend so I have a new set of books to devour, handy when the weather is grey and sleeting - yes sleeting - brrrr.  By now I normally have a couple of books on my wish list for Christmas, but so far nothing is jumping out at me.  When bereft of a library, and only ordering books on line, I find it hard to cruise around and find individual titles that grab me, I prefer to find a series of books or an author, it makes it easier to order and find them on line, knowing I will enjoy what I get.

Anyway back to Stephen King - what happened to him?  He used to write such interesting books, and now they all feel like 100 page novellas streeeeeetched out to huge novels that go nowhere and have nothing new to say.

It may be time for me to try a new genre of books, I feel as though I have read crime, horror, mystery and chick lit to death, I am not touching romance, although I did read some Georgette Heyer and found them remarkably readable some years ago, I have read a few classics but Ivanhoe stumped me and I came to a screeching halt on those, and the vampire-were-mances are a no go after reading the ultimately dreary Bella, Edward, Jacob series (obviously just for research).  Maybe some Stephen Faulks, or perhaps fantasy, I do like David Eddings - ideas on a postcard.

Right - that's me done now, letters answered, cheques drawn, online forms filled in, off to the post office then to work, and then - yet more cross stitch this afternoon.

7 comments:

resa said...

I've been recommending Walter Moers' Zamonia books to everyone I know. They're absolutely charming fantasy books full of puns and references to literature (especially The City of Dreaming Books) and some of the cutest illustrations.

They're definitely books that I'll be rereading again and again, so obviously I think they're a good investment. And they're not really a series, just set in the same world so there's no particular order they need to be read.

Affi'enia said...

I'd reccomend reading the whole Dark Tower series. I'm in the middle of re-reading them at the moment. Which one did you get up to?

Absinthe Fairy said...

I love Terry Prachett books, set on the Discworld, lots of jokes, plays on words, and 'real' world references, will check out Walter Moer as they sound vaguely on the same lines. Thank you for the suggestion.

Absinthe Fairy said...

I have just the lent the books out again so can't remember exactly but it was something like the Drawing of the Three - not sure how far in that is.

Damn The Broccoli said...

Given what I know of your sense of humour I would recommend Robert Rankin. He wrote a series about Elvis travelling through time with a sprout called Barry sorting out the world. Armegeddon the Musical is the first one I think. Very Funny. Tom Holt is quite amusing in a similar vein to Mr Pratchett (he once sent me an email!)

I can't agree with m'Lady enough abou the Dark Tower series but have to agree about the pricing thing. Sad thing is we gave our spare set away or else you could have had them. All I would say is it does get much better although I liked the early books. They spanned such a length of his career that you can really tell changes in his style, they are also totally different to anything else he has written. A lot of the other is frankly dross if you ask me, and I have read a lot of it!

Final word on reading matter, if you are into fantasy then try out the Riftwar saga by Raymond E Feist. It is a mighty tale and some excellent character developments.

These days I tend to have my nose in a text book of some variety.

Absinthe Fairy said...

Love Tom Holt, have read Riftwar, can also recommend Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen Donaldson, not tryed Robert Rankin so will have a look out.

Going to a garage sale Saturday morning which is offering free english books, from a couple selling up their gite business so hoping to find something there to see me through the winter too.

I do have the Millenium trilogy by Sven Larsson to look forward to but they are supposed to be for Christmas.

Damn The Broccoli said...

I haven't read the new chronicles but I thought the first three of the Unbeliever were ace.