Another train of thought

About 18 months ago, I posted the following on another blog I kept for a while (www.chaisociety.wordpress.com). I was prompted to re-post here, as I am re-reading War and Peace and I was challenged for a second time about my reading habits.

Flicking through a magazine in a doctor’s waiting room today set off a whole train of thoughts; a train with many carriages and compartments.

The article I leafed through was about Mark Twain. I am ashamed to say I have never read any of his works, even though I know he is revered as a writer and intellectual on both sides of the pond. My bookshelves don’t groan with many 19th century writers from North America. Emily Dickinson sits rather lonely between Keats, Manley Hopkins, Coleridge and Wordsworth.

This worries me. I would consider myself literate. I have an honours degree in English literature from a prestigious university. If I haven’t read Mark Twain, who of the next generation is reading him?

I am curious to know, is there anyone out there, under 35 (and not in a university) who is reading Tolstoy, Hugo, Dumas, de Maupassant, Eliot, Gaskell, Dickens, Dostoyevsky? What are we doing in our education systems if we are not inspiring young adults to read the greatest thinkers and observers of life? How can we make the world views of these writers accessible to today’s generation, so that the questions of life can be interpreted and in some case answered by these great minds?

For years I have revelled and rolled around in translations of Russian literature, like a new foal on warm grass. I just can’t get enough of them. But if my circle of young friends is indicative, they haven’t read any serious literature either in their native tongue or in translation.

Please will someone prove me wrong on this? I hope I am not the last generation to choose several hours with my nose in a book over several hours on Facebook?

Slow train a comin'

Lest you think I was exaggerating in my 21st July post (Shake Rattle and knit), above is a photo of the train I caught home this evening.

This is the train which was removed from the museum and returned to service, when it was apparent that we wouldn't have enough rolling stock to survive until new carriages were delivered in 2010.

The same train is being used for collecting food before Christmas to be distributed amongst the poor in our community.

Say Cheesecake

Just to make you feel hungry

Being held accountable

Last night, I posted on my Facebook profile that I had a lot of projects this weekend to complete, and that any one of my 444 friends could check back with me and see if I'd managed to tick any off the list.

Well here is proof of one of them. I have asked the girls in the office to save their throw away coffee cups, as I wanted to plant some seeds on the windowsill. The trays at the bottom are recycled lids from cat food. The holes for the courgette seeds were drilled by a pair of bamboo disposable chopsticks, from one of our few sorties to the local noodle canteen. I doubled up the cups, so that I could poke a hole in the bottom for drainage.

I also bought a huge "inner" from a crock pot at our local charity shop. This is now planted with one of my french bean plants (until it needs repotting).

I suppose I should request that you check back with me in a month, to see if I have courgettes growing in bigger pots in the garden.

Garden of dreams

Taken this evening on the deck

At the front door of the office

Where I dream during office hours