So you turn up to a camp site in Wales. And it smells like manure. What do you do? We giggle and drive to the next field, light a fire and have a good time.
The rain kept off on Saturday. The only night I got to knitting around the camp fire. So only an inch in. Got some reading done though.
There are two sorts of book that I love. The first could be finished in an hour if I could read that fast. The second takes time. Time that you need to savour each word and the beauty of the prose.
Fudoki was, still is in fact, the latter. I'm enjoying every second of the intricately woven plots, the beauty of the description, the fascinating characters. Johnson doesn't explain her world in that awful, clumsy, chunky way that is the feature of bad fantasy. There's no sense that you have to be filled in just this second. The detail of the world is realised naturally. With the action. Making it so much more natural. And Perfect.
Camouflage is definitely the first type of book. It's compelling, interesting and - in parts - shocking. It also switches through three different stories. With several different times spread evenly between them. I usually hate this. It's too easy to get attached to only one and skim through the others. But it worked.
Shopping trips where both successful and unsuccessful. No stereotypical Wales stuff. I was looking forward to some dragons and a T-shirt or two. No luck. I did pick up some Weaving Sticks from a craft fair (better than the knitted dolls and endless honey) and a black sun hat (see daft pic).
Now I'm back. To central heating and a curry.
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