Views From the Past

What past am I writing about? Just a few days or weeks really, but they seem so long ago now. I look up and the year is already three months old with nine more to go and if they go as fast as these three did, I will be writing about Christmas again! I don’t know if it’s my age or if time is really traveling faster, but it seems to be a blur at times. Back in the fifties there was a movie “The Time Machine.” It starred the man who was in the tv show “Mr. Ed,” a show about a talking horse. You have to be old to remember that! Anyway, in the movie, the man was in a time machine where he could watch out a window and see the seasons changing rapidly. That is how fast it feels time is going for me. I didn’t mean for this to be about time traveling, but that is where my mind has wandered.

Last blog I said I would tell you about an author I really like. Her name is Jenny Colgan and she writes about a little island off the northern coast of Scotland. A made up island called Mure between the North Sea and Norway. An island where seals live and puffins and where whales come to mate. Where everyone knows everyone else. She picks one main character on the island to write about in each book, but they all are connected and you feel like you know them and their families. There is the book mobile lady who is also a caretaker of the children of a man whose wife has died. You can imagine how that will end. Another book tells of a girl who has a tiny bake shop who becomes the head of a group of employees in a grand hotel. There is a chef who does things his way, but is so good at what he does, he gets away with being obnoxious. Another book is about the island librarian. These are just a few of the characters she writes about. Ms. colgan has written about another island off the Cornish coast and about other things. She is just so good at describing the characters and the landscape and the beauty in all of it. Her books are a delight to read and I usually hate to finish one I am so engrossed in the lives of the people in them. To me that is what makes a great author. I am reading a book now by a different author and I really don’t think she has anyone editing them because she writes about something and a few pages later she changes where it was taking place or what they are looking at. For instance, the heroine in this book was looking out a window,presumably during the day as she was describing the flowers and lawn of a particular house and then proceeds to say how dark it was and how many stars were in the sky. If it was so dark, how did she see the lawn and flowers out a window? Maybe I am nitpicking. I love to read. Rather do that than watch television in many cases. David and I have discovered a show on Britbox called Shetland about a detective solving murders on the island with his comical,at times, sidekick called Tosh. I have become engrossed in that.

Remember when I told you we went outside in March and watched the partial eclipse of the moon and I was in my nightgown and got too cold to I went inside? David took some pictures of the moon and it was beautiful.