The Salt Path by Raynor Winn

This could have been very boring. I have tried to write diaries while walking and believe me, they are dull, as you just describe the terrain and sometimes the view if you raise your head at intervals. But Raynor Winn pulls it off by not bothering too much with the minutiae. She doesn't tell you much about the steepness of the hills and on the South West coast path they are steep! She and Moth (her husband), as all the reviews will tell you, had very little money because they were horribly cheated out of their farm and home. It might have been legal cheating but it was still wrong. They are middle-aged people - not old - physically tough, and they go walking because they can camp out in the open and live independently. They have nothing else to do. I understood very well all the problems of should they pay for a cup of tea or should they eat some protein, because I've lived it too, I knew that life when I was in Australia. The lovely writing absolutely transforms the experience. Raynor worries about the future, her children, what she and Moth are doing and most of all, Moth's illness, but the walk distracts them. They are united in their love of nature and being out there walking next to the wild ocean and Raynor communicates the complete transformation she feels.

She also describes what it's like to be in a sheep-shearing team and I tried very hard to visualise the situation as it is something of a closed world.

They start to identify with other homeless people and feel concern and anger on their behalf. The homeless need all the attention and kindness they can get. More and more people are falling outside society, falling off the road, and the common attitude is complete callousness. The government has no plans for the lowest 20% of society. I believe that this is disgusting. To this government they are "low-value" people. The Victorians had kinder hearts and were less morally bankrupt.

Big Sky a novel by Kate Atkinson

These novels are like boxes of chocolates for me - I consume them horribly quickly but I enjoy them so much!

Kate is still torturing Jackson Bodie (her fictional protagonist). Reasons Jackson (a private detective) has to be not at all cheerful:

• When he was a child his beloved older sister was murdered.
• When he was a child his older brother killed himself (hanging) and Jackson found the body.
• His parents were quite grim, one gathers. He had a spartan upbringing. (only two outfits, one his school uniform). Actually, he sounds contemporary with Alan Bennet and he is supposed to be younger. I don't know how old he's meant to be.
• He was in the army which one supposes was not all roses but where did he go? Northern Ireland? Kosovo? Iraq?
• He was in the police and no doubt dealt with horrible accidents and people not at their very best.
• His first wife left him and took their daughter, whom Jackson loves, to New Zealand. I think it was NZ. In Kate's books people are always hiving off to New Zealand as though it is a pleasant limbo she can park them in.
• His first wife was very critical of Jackson and it is hard to tell why.
• He met and loved a witty actress called Julia. She got pregnant with his baby and didn't tell him until the baby was a child, so he missed out on a lot of years with this boy. I have no idea why Julia is so rotten to Jackson and why he forgives her. 
• He was in a train crash and died, but was resuscitated.
• He suddenly got rich, but was briefly married to a woman who stole all his money and scarpered. He must be a really hopeless detective otherwise he'd have been wise to her.
• In one book he was beaten up and put into a dustbin.
• He loved a Scottish policewoman called Louise, but because Jackson operates quite obliquely to the law - he's more of a vigilante though he'd hate you for saying so - he felt they had no future, because he wouldn't have been able to tell her all the things he does. But he still thinks about her.
• Julia is endlessly sarcastic to Jackson and he has internalised her mocking voice, so he mocks himself all the time. Never has a moment to feel content or manly pride. 
• Jackson's son is fifteen, terribly boring and terribly bored. Jackson loves him.
• Just as Julia takes over control of Nathan the son, paying for his education, she also takes a large stake in the dog! Jackson isn't even top dog with the dog. 

So I worry about Jackson Brodie as a man who is honest, does manly things and loves his children and saves lives, but no-one appreciates him at all. Even when he saves a boy from drowning the boy is too gauche to say thanks. His main hope is to protect the people he loves, and his secondary hope is to protect complete strangers from disaster. He survives alone but he'd much rather be with Julia or Louise, so from that point of view he's incomplete - lonely.

You wonder, if men are so stoical and unappreciated, (and Jackson is not the only one in the book, there is also a character called Vince whose wife chucks him out, claiming the marital home) how long can we carry on with a society that isn't delivering fulfilment for so many of its people? These men are lost.

The plot is really good in this book, and there are plenty of interesting characters, and lots of amusement to be had from them. I also like the setting in the North East of England, by the coast there, although it's not an area I'm in any hurry to go back to but my mum loved it and went on many a coach trip from Harrogate.

The plot concerns sex trafficking and child abuse. There are a few survivors of child abuse in the book, and they are not unmarked by it, I am sure, but only one of them looks like a victim. The other two are resilient, which is not to say that they aren't damaged, but they are not defined by their histories. It reminded me that I saw an interview with Germaine Greer where she describes how she was raped back in the day in Australia, and she says, yes, it's bad, but it won't ruin your life unless you let it, you have to be resilient. I liked that.

As well as some creeps in the trafficking trade and some paedophiles, and the luckless Jackson and the luckless Vince... there is a male character who seems good, resourceful and sensitive. He is a schoolboy. I think the character of Harry is the light of hope in the very dark story. Meanwhile, his kid sister is kitted out in sugar pink and Disney outfits, and it makes you think, why have we dreamed up this ridiculous travesty of femininity? Is this a fetish? While the child's mother, in her kit, goes for the whole Love Island look, it's just a kind of disguise. Underneath, she is practising martial arts, clean eating and keeping her secrets.

At one point though, Kate Atkinson goes partisan for remain. It's quite near the end of the book where she sizes up a character and says I bet he/or she voted leave, and it's someone quite horrible, and I thought, ooooh, you're alienating some of your audience there probably. I mean, not everyone who reads K.A. voted remain, surely? You just can't tell who voted leave. What a terrible divisive sword it has been.

P.s. In last week's Times Saturday Magazine there was this rather idiotic American man who made a big fetish of his fitness and his "biohacks" - even injecting stem cells into his penis and trying to lift weights with his manly thing. But right at the end of the article, just as you were despairing of the sheer narcissism and waste of it all, he said that his fans are starting to ask him advice about life rather than fitness. They ask him "How do I pray?" How do I have meals with my family?" and "What is all this for?" And he wonders, maybe fitness is something you concentrate on to block the fact that your life has no meaning. I was stunned that he had mentioned this because it was not in his interests at all: but he just offered it up as a possibility. But yeah.

Jackson Brodie goes running, and he quite enjoys it. He puts his music in his ears and runs into the wind. There's not so much narcissism in that.

Diet, exercise, Hampton Court

So far the diet is going really well. I skip breakfast which is quite a sacrifice, but I have suspected for a long time that the small amount of muesli or banana I eat in the morning could be tipping the balance towards me gaining weight.

There is a NO SNACKING rule which the doctor is very stern about. If you need to snack, he writes, you should just drink water. You need nothing between meals. Your stomach is designed to go a long time between meals and you won't even feel hungry after the first few days. I think this is true. So far I have lost 3-4 pounds and some of it is off my double chin!! A visible difference. He predicts I will lose much more in the first week than I have but I think he must be predicting for men who burn calories faster. Few people burn calories slower than the post-menopausal woman, even very active ones. Went to another exercise class yesterday - arms and weights apart from the usual squats and abs exercises. Very good. The day before was a Hampton Court day.

Both Ichiho and Hilary were there and the tasks were to load the melon beds - the hotbeds - with compost or to move some semi-rotted compost from one bin to another. Chris and I did the first task which involved lots of loading and wheelbarrowing. Really, we work hard at HCP but of course, it's only for a short time. In winter we go home early so it's only three and a half hours of actual work and in summer it's four and a half hours. It can be a long afternoon in the summer.

We moved nearly all this to the melon beds.

Nasty stuff and not composting at the mo - too cold

Unfortunately, we tried to fill three of the beds instead of two but we hadn't moved too much stuff to the wrong bed. It won't take them long to rectify our mistake! Itchiho and Hilary both seem pretty fed up with the hotbeds which they have spent hours digging out. Hilary is getting some horse manure to boost the compost.

This is a pic of the new mound in the Magic Garden where we put some of the spent soil from the melon bed. The magic gardeners are still working hard on their landscaping.

The River is Up

We have had so much rain that the river was on red boards (Caution strong stream) last weekend and today the river was deemed too dangerous to row on, so my friends went for a walk and I went to the Legs, Bums and Tums class that does me good on a Monday morning.

I felt very FAT so I started a diet today. It was inspired by an article in the Saturday Times about how to lose weight fast because you are heading towards being diabetic. I think I need to do this 800 calories a day diet or I will have to live with all this excess weight and I am beginning to find it a real problem. Can't bend over without gasping! I have always lost weight before if I wanted to. Post-menopause it seems so much harder. One of the problems is my lack of vanity. Before I was terribly aware that I needed to look as good as I could and I was ridiculously vain. Post-menopause I feel I'm too old for anyone to lech over and I can I either be a skinny old lady or a fat old lady and it hardly matters which. EXCEPT for health reasons and exercise reasons - in that I feel too heavy and cumbersome to exercise well.

Last week I went to meet the other skiffers in a cafe after their walk, but they weren't very friendly to me so I didn't bother today.

This weekend we entertained friends whom we had not seem for many years, and the husband was a very old friend of my husband but I didn't really know much about the wife apart from that she was pleasantly chatty and quite unusual in that she's very earnest and has no sense of humour. She is one of those people who finds an oblique way of criticising you to your face, which is quite funny. As we were shopping she made a remark about thick fluffy towels which made me realise that I had lent them towels which were not at all up to the mark! She also said "Isn't it lovely when you've washed your hair in the morning and it feels all lovely and fresh" and she must have known I had not washed my hair, but she implied that I should make a habit of it. She gave me a tip for making salad dressing and I realised she was mildly disappointed that we had not served any raw veg the night before because she is a vegan food nut. She believes that eating the right food can cure every kind of inflammation, and she has some proof of this because her mother came to live with her and the family about ten years ago and was at that time suffering with rheumatoid arthritis amongst other things and the family eating regime was foisted upon her with the result that she lost loads of weight and all her ailments cleared up. But then alas, she got vascular dementia and died anyway! I asked my friend if her mother had expressed dismay at the lack of cake etc, and her enforced weight loss, and she said, no, her mother was very "compliant". Compliant!!! My mother would have shouted the house down, which is why I never seriously suggested having her to live with us (of course I suggested it but I was not upset when my OH vetoed the idea. She was always rude to him.)

But my friend was interesting to be with because she is so different from me, and all her oblique criticism is meant to be kind in a life-coachy, you can do better than this, sort of way.

My sense of smell came back

My sense of smell came back slowly. First I noticed I could smell coffee, and then I noticed other things. At first some of the smells were the wrong smells, for example, my body still smelled of celery. Also, last summer I found I could smell many musty plant smells which I couldn't before, so I was continually sniffing and saying "what's that smell?" and wanting to track it down to some bush or other like a bloodhound. I found it very entertaining. It was a long time before I could smell all the smells, for example, smelling bleach took quite a long time, but now I find it a terribly strong smell, I can smell it from yards away. And I can smell shampoo! How lovely!

I told my hairdresser about this. She told me that her sister had a terrible accident to her head, and lost both her sense of smell and her sense of taste, which is a real affliction. My hairdresser says recently she has noticed her sister sniffing at things in a puzzled way. I do hope it means she is recovering.

I think that it was the blow to my upper lip that temporarily damaged my sense of smell, although I can't find it written anywhere that this is possible as the olfactory nerves are not located there.

Return to the book group - This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay

I stopped going to the book group because the other readers were so annoying, so unable to appreciate literature, but the person who runs it is not annoying, but the reverse, the sort of person who soothes one's nerves. I finally caught up with the book groups because they chose Adam's Kay's autobiographical book about working as an obstetrician in the NHS - This is Going to Hurt.

The book group was composed of the same elderly people that went to it before, so I knew all the faces except two - another elderly gent and a woman who has had a stroke and comes in a wheel chair. At the end her carer came to wrap her up and take her home.

First of all, the elderly people doubted that the book was true. They agreed that the NHS gets overwhelmed but this is surely because the population is ageing. Why then, does this affect obstetrics?

The men said the book was not for men. They do not like reading about the things that affect women's bodies. "Revolting." It's very interesting that the men in the book group radiate their feeling of pride in masculinity, as though being born male was such a huge achievement they hardly have to do anything else to prove themselves. (Why have the women in their lives not questioned this? I think it is maybe because men who served in WW11 deserved recognition for their efforts, and then this carried on when men did National Service. - call ups ended in December 1960. In 1963 the last of the National Servicemen left the army. Only after this did this "men are wonderful" mindset start to change.)

The group agreed that the NHS is badly run. For example, the NHS sends its patients for private operations, which it pays for. All agreed that this is a stupid waste of money. It's possible because they have private health insurance and think NHS patients should not get the same treatment as those who pay. They also tend to the belief that the people from other countries come here for medical treatments which they are not entitled to, having never paid their National Insurance, and they are never charged. I said that this is not possible any more, but they said they think it happens all the time.

The group believed that the government is making a false economy by stopping the bursary for training nurses, not providing nurses and hospital doctors with accommodation, and the nurses should also get free food in the staff canteen.

Examples of waste in the NHS includes their refusal to take back Zimmer frames and walking sticks which have been used (apparently they are too expensive to clean. Couldn't you make a large steriliser and do it easily?) There was a long digression into using Freecycle and how it works - also what the Red Cross can provide you with if you are in need.

Self-inflicted injuries - the group agreed that patients should pay to have objects removed from their rectums.

I suggested that there were three areas which in this account of a junior doctor's work are really shocking:

1. He was often far too tired to be responsible for a department full of patients. If another doctor was ill there was no cover available and he might have to work for 24 hours at a stretch.
2. The Consultants who were senior to him were no practical help at all, and this is WRONG.
3. The training method is "see one, do one, teach one" and this is NOT TRAINING or not enough training.

Everybody agreed that this was really wrong and shocking but they are secure in the knowledge that the Conservatives are in power and it will all be sorted out. "Boris is very clever" they say, misty-eyed.

Many of them said the book was not true, it was just for a laugh. The swearing was awful, really awful. The writer is gay. Hmmm.

Marks - all 7 and 8 out of 10.

I was trying to work out if they are all able to "go private" and I think about half of them are. They really don't care about what's going on outside their own lives. It is very depressing.