All the light we cannot see

“At dusk they pour from the sky. They blow across the ramparts, turn cartwheels over rooftops, flutter into the ravines between houses. Entire streets swirl with them, flashing white against the cobbles. Urgent message to the inhabitants of this town, they say. Depart immediately to open country.

The tide climbs. The moon hangs small and yellow and gibbous. On the rooftops of beachfront hotels to the east, and in the gardens behind them, a half-dozen American artillery units drop incendiary rounds into the mouths of mortars.” (‘All the Light We Cannot See’ by Anthony Doerr).

What an incredible opening to a novel. Breathtaking. It won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 2015 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. I will be reading this when I am away in Provence for 10 days. I am staying in a villa near Roussillon and I plan on drinking wine (in moderation) and eating cheese like the dairy apocalypse is nigh! I also have ‘The God of Small Things’ by Arundhati Ray. 

 

 

 

 

Happy new me!

One of my new year’s resolutions was to wear less black. I wanted to phase black out of my wardrobe. My nutritionist told me that wearing black was risky, that it was like taking candy from a stranger when you were a child, risky.

I dressed for a funeral for every day of my twenties. Denim was the only fleeting respite. My wardrobe dirge was like the big black bang. I looked liked I’d been spat out by a big black hole or cloud, miserable on the outside, and on the inside. Sorting my washing was a like a black cotton tanker had hit the rocks and spilled into my laundry basket, it was a nightmare because everything was black, a monster black blob that had escaped from the bowels of washing machine hell. I worked in retail and the uniform was black. There was an economy to buying everything in bulk black. I desperately made up for this with bright, flame red hair. I looked like a chalk white voodoo cigarillo on a good day.

And now,I have many shades of chartreuse waiting to be taken out for the day or night.