These are a few of the wonderful books I’ve read over the past few months.

Reading Lady Chatterley in Africa

What Amazon says

Recently widowed, Mary Merskine heads out to a mountain lodge in Africa hoping to come to terms with the death of her husband, George. However, there are deeper issues surrounding his death that don’t make this easy and her search is hampered by ex-pats and the local staff of the lodge who bring a new set of challenges to her life. Amongst all these problems that arise, she must find some way of dealing with George’s death or else face returning to England and a life of misery.

My review

The book starts with Mary Merskine, an older lady from the United Kingdom, travelling by car to a guest lodge in Africa. The driver, a young man named Caiaphas, stops on the way to the lodge to purchase supplies and Mary is accosted by a scary-looking beggar who gives her a fright. The beggar asks for money and Mary does not give him any. On the driver’s return, he gives the beggar a few coins which are received with thanks. This transaction makes Mary feel uncharitable and serves as the reader’s first insight into the nature of the local people who are generous towards each other and care for their own.

The reader learns that Mary has come to the lodge to manage it while the owner, a good friend from her younger days, is away caring for his critically ill mother. It is revealed that Mary’s husband had recently died, following a long degenerative illness. She has been abused and rejected by her neighbours after his death, but the reason for this negative behaviour is not revealed until near the end of the book. Mary is also estranged from her only son.

Life at the lodge is significantly different to life in a small town in the United Kingdom. There are some wonderful things: the surroundings are beautiful and peaceful although untamed and very natural, and the food, prepared by Solomon the cook, is delicious. Mary is waited on hand and foot by the lodge staff, including a young woman called Esther, who has a young baby. On the negative side, Mary’s closest female neighbour, Joyce, is a selfish, competitive woman, who treats her staff badly and is having an affair with an overbearing boar of a man named Pieter. Mary is introduced to the decadent and immoral lifestyle of Joyce and her compatriots, and it is a shock to her, especially as she is still overwhelmed with grief and loss.

Mary turns to a book, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, for distraction and solace. The book has a strange effect on her, and she starts acting out some of the odd experiences of the main character. These peculiar actions come to the attention of Caiaphas, who becomes attracted to Mary in a way that almost borders on obsession.

Mary needs to learn to deal with the staff at the lodge, her unpleasant neighbour and her acquaintances, as well as manage her on-going grief and fend off sexual advances by Pieter.
The character of Mary was interesting as she professed to love her husband and find it difficult to face life without him, but I didn’t get the impression he’d ever swept her off her feet or that it had been an intensely sexual relationship. In fact, I got the impression that her relationship had been quite staid and suppressive. She carried a lot of guilt and some of that may have been due to the fact that she was not passionate about her deceased husband as well as the circumstances surrounding his illness and death. As time passes and Mary grows from her new experiences at the lodge, she seems able to loosen the bonds of her narrow view on life a little. Mary gets to a point where she is able to appreciate difference and new experiences and look at letting go of what has passed and embracing new opportunities offered in her future.

This book is beautifully written and contains many delightful descriptions, a few of which are as follows:

“She had expected the heat, but not like this. The morning sun, unhindered by clouds, coiled its tentacles around her naked forearms in a clammy embrace, welcoming her to this new, strange clime.”

“Time was a lazy think in their world. It did not adhere to a strict timetable of seconds, minutes and hours. Time would take as long or as short as it needed in their world for things to happen and they all accepted this with ease.”

“A steady rumble of sound leaked through the window of the guest bedroom, a nasal grown from one of the sleeping occupants of the room. Outside the window a dream giggled nervously, wondering whether to risk entering, worried that the snores would wake someone and catch it before it could settle in a sub conscious.”

Purchase Reading Lady Chatterley in Africa

TSL Publications

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Amazon US

Amazon UK

Tidal Falls by Jacquie Biggar

What Amazon says

What readers are saying:

Great book! This is a suspense/romance that will keep you on your toes as well as touch your heart!
Barb

Jacquie Biggar has a wonderful gift for writing hot and extremely likable military men!
by Jacqui Nelson

A woman and child in danger teaches Nick life is worth living.

ALL SHE WANTS IS TO LIVE HER LIFE 

Abused, Sara Sheridan finds the courage to escape her husband. She has no interest in getting mixed up with another alpha, attitude-laden male. Especially with her ex hot on her trail. 

ALL HE CRAVES IS PEACE AND QUIET 

Marine, Nick Kelley prefers solitude, away from the memories haunting him. So what is it about his reticent neighbor and her child that tempts him to give it up? 

UNTIL LOVE GETS IN THE WAY 

Nick and Sara’s growing attraction leads them down a dangerous path as her ex-husband closes in on the new life she’s made for her daughter and threatens to blow it all apart. 

My review

Tidal Falls is a fast paced and relatively short read in the typical Romance/Action style of talented author, Jacquie Bigger.

Sara Sheridon and her daughter are on the run from Sara’s abusive husband, Tom. Before escaping from her prison cum home, Sara manages to break into Tom’s office and computer and download some very interesting files. Files that associate him with some very bad but powerful people. Sara’s simple action, intended to give her some leverage over her husband in order to gain sole custody of her young daughter, backfires when she realises that the information on the memory stick would send Tom to jail and also potentially endanger his life. Sara has landed in the small town of Tidal Falls and has made some very good friends, but she lives her life in fear of discovery.

Nick Kelly has come to Tidal Falls in an effort to relax and unlock the traumatic secrets his mind has blocked out. Break through memories of his turbulent past as a Marine are making his life difficult and Nick is focused on improving his mental state and not on finding love. When he catches sight of Sara, one of his neighbours, he is instantly attracted to her and despite his best intentions not to be distracted, conspires to meet her.

When Sara and Nick’s paths cross it is a case of mutual attraction at first sight, but trouble is on the horizon as Tom has found a way of tracking his wayward wife down. Tom wants Sara and the files back and is willing to do anything to find her.

This is an entertaining book which contains the best elements of both a romance with lots of sexual tension and a little sex, and an exciting and action packed plot.

Purchase Tidal Falls by Jacquie Biggar

Amazon US

https://jacqbiggar.com/wounded-hearts-series/

Three Years of Her Life by Christine Robinson

What Amazon says

This debut novel is an indelible portrait of family love, trust, commitment, and unrelenting prejudice. A stirring tale that rides the line between historical fiction and romance., inspired by a famous musician’s hidden secret in Germany.

Three Years of Her Life, set in New England and Central Europe, is similar in concern and significant issues to bestselling America epic books of the Great Depression, The Great War and the U.S. South. People and places focused, the novel’s heartwarming and heart wrenching themes mark history in unsettled times.

A mystery woman’s photo, in question, is in famous grandfather’s gold pocket watch for over fifty years. It devastates Elizabeth’s estranged grandmother, and she convinces Elizabeth to find the link. At a loss how, Elizabeth’s on track to be a nurse not a detective, she gets help from Erik, the doctor who captures her heart. He becomes obsessed with uncovering her grandfather’s secret, and discovers more in Germany than the family can take. Now he shares a family heritage. When Elizabeth tries to stand up for Erik and her grandfather, it backfires.

Complicating her own life, Elizabeth falls into an entanglement with her guitar teacher. It’s only a longer-for connection to musicians, her absent father and dead grandfather, but it causes uncertainty. She’s now torn between two very different men. And what happens if and when she lets one of them go? Erik tips the balance for Elizabeth’s decision. He proves his character by risking his life transporting East Berlin hospital patients to the West through the Berlin Wall. But, what if border guards trap him in East Berlin? Unbeknown to Elizabeth, before Erik leaves on the mission, he sets up her future. And, he’s dead serious about the plan.

My review

The title of this book is quite relevant to the storyline as this novel is all about how quickly life can change for either the better or the worse.

The reader first meets Elizabeth as a young girl who has just come out of a failed romance and is quite heartbroken. Despite this emotional setback, Elizabeth is preparing to start training to be a nurse and this is the first indication to the reader of her strength of character. In the first chapter, Elizabeth’s demanding and dictatorial grandmother is also introduced and some of the difficulties Elizabeth faced growing up around this difficult older woman are revealed. It is clear that life hasn’t been plain sailing for Elizabeth. The visit with her grandmother is not a particularly happy or loving one but Elizabeth receives a gift of her grandfather’s pocket watch. The gift comes with a price tag though. Inside the case is a picture of a young woman with a suggestive inscription. Elizabeth’s grandmother is suspicious that her husband, who passed two years after she divorced him, was having an affair. She tasks Elizabeth with finding out who the woman was. This conversation is difficult for Elizabeth who greatly admired her talented musician grandfather.

Elizabeth starts her training and her life progresses. She meets a wonderful Jewish doctor, Erik, whom she becomes romantically involved with, but she never forgets about the unknown woman in the pocket watch and her aim to discover who she was. Erik undertakes to help her with this investigation which leads to Berlin in Germany.

This story intrigued me as it contained a lot of different but complimentary elements that I liked including romance, family drama, and a dollop of interesting history.

Elizabeth’s character is a complex one. She has grown up with a dominant grandmother whose husband was always away on tours for his music career and who felt let down by him and eventually divorced him. Her own musician father and left her and her mother when she was a young girl. Elizabeth lacks trust in men who have always let her down. These trust issues cause an emotional barrier for her when it comes to her own romances and she is not able to entrust her heart and life to a man. This aspect of Elizabeth’s character sets the stage for a great deal of turbulence in her relationship, especially since her boyfriend’s Jewish mother is not accepting of a non-Jewish perspective wife for her son. On the other side, Elizabeth’s grandmother and father are not accepting of her Jewish boyfriend so there are difficulties on both family fronts.

I enjoyed watching Elizabeth’s character grew although some of her decisions and reactions were a bit frustrating. They were not necessarily unrealistic in the situation, but they were so obviously poor decisions that I wanted to give her a good shake a few times.

The investigation of the woman in the picture starts off very slowly while Elizabeth’s romance builds and suffers several highs and lows, but it does take off in the second half of the book and becomes quite exciting.

The format of this book is not standard as the focus shifts from a romance to an exciting adventure. Some people might not like this mixture but I didn’t mind and thought the various elements of the romance led well into the circumstances of the adventure.

I would recommend this book to people who enjoy family dramas with a lively adventure included to keep the storyline spicy and move the romance along.

Amazon

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).

You can join in Thursday Doors here: https://nofacilities.com/2022/08/11/clay-hill-synagogues/

My husband, youngest son, and I went on a four-day adventure from Saturday to Tuesday. It was a long weekend here in South Africa and we decided to make the most of it. Our road trip included a visit to a small town called Groot Marico which is the primary setting for the short stories written by South Africa’s most famous short story writer, Herman Charles Bosman. Groot Marico has a literacy centre in his honour with a replica of the original farm school where he taught. From Groot Marico, we went on to Tau Game Lodge in the Madikwe Game Reserve. This proved to be the most amazing place for animal sightings we have visited to date. For those of you who have an interest in such things, there is also a spa you can visit. I spent 7 1/2 hours a day on game drives and 3 hours eating so there wasn’t time for a spa visit.

I am starting backwards with our trip and featuring Tau Game Lodge first. My reason is that I want to record some YT video’s of Bosman’s poetry and a short story to share when I feature Groot Marico and I haven’t started with that project yet.

We arrived to early to check-in to our rooms, so we sat at our table on the platform above the waterhole and watched the animals.

The watering hole was teaming with animals. The following pictures are my attempt at taking artistic pictures (thank you for the idea, Rebecca Budd).

This is my video of a giraffe drinking. It is a very awkward undertaking for giraffes.

This is a short clip of the Wildebeeste coming to drink at the watering hole:

This is a short video of an elephant bathing. It went right under the water which was pretty amazing to watch:

Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).

You can join in the prompt here: https://nofacilities.com/2022/08/04/clay-hill-part-2/

I am going on an adventure from 6 August to 9 August and won’t be around much.

I am leaving you with this picture of some little fantasy houses I took through the window of a shop in the Lake’s District in the UK. I thought they were adorable and love the tiny doors and windows.

Did you know that Charles Dickens re-wrote the ending of Great Expectations?

He made this change after he’d submitted the final chapters to the printers in June 1861. He was apparently persuaded to make the change by a close friend who felt he should end the book in a way that left the reader hopeful that Pip and Estella might get together. It is recorded that Dickens was reluctant to make this change but was eventually won around to the idea of a more conventional ending that he had originally written.

The initial ending depicts Pip accidentally meeting Estella on the streets of London. Estella has lost her first abusive husband to death, but has remarried. Pip recounts this chance meeting as a once-off and there is not expectation by the reader that the two will ever get together. Pip does express a sense of satisfaction and peace that time has softened Estella and made her kinder.

The published ending depicts Pip accidentally discovering Estella in the abandoned garden of Satis house (Miss Havisham’s house that burned down) when he returns to visit Joe and Biddy after many years abroad. Estella has been widowed after an unhappy life with her abusive husband. In the final lines of the novel, Pip comments ambiguously that he “saw the shadow of no parting from her.”

This ending leaves the reader with the impression that Pip and Estella might finally be together but the nature of Dickens’ writing and the use of the word shadow hints at possible mists to come.

The misty marshes near Pip’s childhood home in Kent is an important setting in this book and is used as an instrument by Dickens to symbolize danger and uncertainty. Pip initially meets Magwitch the convict in the graveyard on the marshes on a misty evening and that has significant implications for his future. The search for the convicts by the police also happens in the mist as does Orlick’s kidnapping of Pip. The day Pip travels to London after receiving news of his great expectations is also depicted as being misty, as is the night when Magwitch arrives at his door later in the book.

The hint at shadows and mist in the closing paragraphs with Estella in the garden at Satis house could thus easily hint at further turmoil to come for Pip.

From another perspective, by the end of the novel, the reader is aware that Pip misreads situations and makes incorrect assumptions so the idea that this could be just another wistful idea or ‘expectation’ is not fully expelled.

Personally, I felt that the original ending would have been better and would have given Pip a real chance to move on with his life and find someone better and nicer than Estella. I did not like her even if she was a product of Miss Havisham’s upbringing.

What do you think? Which ending do you think is better for this novel? Do you think Pip and Estella get together based on your reading of the original ending?

Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).

You can join in here: https://nofacilities.com/2022/07/28/clay-hill-historic-district-1/

In 2018, Terence and I travelled to London on our own for two days before travelling on to Budapest. We spent a good 5 hours at my favourite museum. Many wonderful and mysterious historical objects lie behind these doors.

These are a few of my favourite things in the British Museum.

Tree of life – Museum of the World

The Tree of Life is a sculpture created by four artists in Mozambique. The Tree of Life was constructed from 600 000 guns and other weapons that were used during the civil war in Mozambique. After the war ended, citizens were encouraged to hand over guns to the authorities in exchange for ploughs, bicycles and sewing machines. These decommissioned weapons were cut up and provided to the artists.

The Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta Stone is one of the most important items in the British Museum. When it was discovered, nobody knew how to read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. Because the inscriptions say the same thing in three different scripts, and scholars could still read Ancient Greek, the Rosetta Stone became a valuable key to deciphering the hieroglyphs.

You can find out more about the Rosetta Stone by listening to this podcast:

The Holy Thorn Reliquary

What the British Museum says about the Holy Thorn Reliquary:

“This reliquary was made to contain a thorn, supposedly from the Crown of Thorns that was placed on Christ’s head before the Crucifixion. The armorial enamelled plaques in the base show that it was made for Jean, duc de Berry (1340–1416). The Crown of Thorns itself was a French royal relic, housed in its own chapel in Paris. Individual thorns were detached to make precious reliquary jewels.”

I’m going to end this post by sharing my favourite song from the Sound of Music: My Favourite Things

I recently re-read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, a book I read and loved as a pre-teen. This is part 2 of my overview of this famous novel. You can read part 1 here: https://robertawrites235681907.wordpress.com/2022/07/19/roberta-writes-great-expectations-by-charles-dickens-book-overview-part-1/

We left Pip in London, living between the homes of his tutor, Matthew Pocket, and Matthew’s son, Herbert Pocket, who is initially his mentor on becoming a gentleman and later becomes Pip’s best friend. Pip’s initiation by Herbert into the manners and behaviours of a gentleman are depicted in the scene below:

Caption from this snippet on YT: Based on “The Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens. I think this scene alone encompasses how most of us nowadays imagine middle-class Victorian London. The conversation goes on, but I wanted to share the smallest and, in my opinion, most representative moment.

Pip becomes extravagant and self-absorbed as a result of his new found wealth, and leads his friend, Herbert, along the same path getting them both into debt.

Miss Havisham summonses Pip to her home and he discovers that Estella has returned from abroad and is moving to London to live with a suitable older woman and her daughter and be launched into society. The underlying understanding is that Estella is now going to carry out Miss Havisham’s revenge plan and break as many male hearts as possible.

Pip is tasked with meeting Estella at the train station and taking her to her new home. The complex love/hate relationship between Pip and Estella continues, with Pip firmly believing Estella is destined to be his wife. Estella starts a flirtation with Drummle, Pip’s nemesis, and it causes tension between the two men, but Pip tolerates it because of his belief that Miss Havisham first wants Estella to break hearts and fulfil her ambition of revenge on men as a larger unknown mass, before Pip and Estelle can be married and find personal happiness.

Pip comes of age (21 years old) and has a meeting with Mr. Jaggers, his guardian and his benefactors lawyer, about his ‘great expectations’. He leaves Mr. Jagger’s office with a sum of GBP 500 on which he most live until his benefactor is revealed to him. Pip is ashamed that he’s led Herbert into an idle life of extravagance and decides to invest a chunk of this money into helping Herbert find a ‘business opportunity’. He does this with the help of Mr. Jagger’s assistance, Mr. Wemmick, but without Herbert’s knowledge.

Herbert grasps the opportunity and works hard to improve himself while Pip continues with his life of idleness and luxury.

One windy, cold night when Herbert is away for work purposes, Magwitch arrives at Pip’s lodging and Pip finally comes to realise that Magwitch is his benefactor and not Miss Havisham.

This clip from the original movie is not exactly how I imagined the initial meeting between Pip and Magwitch taking place based on my reading of the book. I think Pip handled it better in the book than the depiction in this scene, but here it is anyway:

Pip is devastated because he believes this will make him unacceptable as a marriage partner for Estella, but he soon learns she has decided to marry Drummle.

Magwitch, as a convict deported for life, has risked his life returning to England. The sentence if Magwitch is caught is death by hanging. Pip and Herbert work together to make a plan to save Magwitch and get him out of England. They are of the opinion that Magwitch’s arch enemy, Compeyson, is aware he is back in England and is assisting the police in an attempt to have him arrested.

The great plan is eventually put into operation, but it goes wrong and Magwitch is instrumental in the drowning of Compeyson and is arrested and put in jail. He was injured during the altercation with Compeyson and is dying. Magwitch undergoes a new trial and is given the death sentence.

In the meantime, Pip has worked out that Mr. Jagger’s servant is Estelle’s mother and Magwitch is her father. Just before Magwitch dies, Pip tells him that his daughter is alive and a beautiful lady and that he – Pip – loves her. This is a pivotal moment in the book as by showing kindness to Magwitch, a criminal, and calling his daughter a lady despite being the daughter of a convict, he illustrates that he no longer thinks of social position in a black and white way.

All of Magwitch’s property is forfeited to the state so Pip is left penniless. He becomes very ill after Magwitch dies and only escapes arrest for debts because of his ill health. Joe comes to London to nurse Pip and he recovers. The whole experience teaches Pip the value of his relationships with Joe and Biddy and Pip’s internal conflict is resolved by his giving up his social aspirations to reunite with the people who have helped and cared for him.

Pip goes abroad to work with Herbert and learns to live on his income.

Next week, I’ll discuss the ending of this book as it is a little controversial. Dickens rewrote the ending and both are known. Many critics believe the original ending was the better one.

A few interesting quotes from the second half of Great Expectations:

“Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since – on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to displace with your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation I associate you only with the good, and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you!”

“So, I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me.”

“Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her over? Because, if it is to spite her, I should think – but you know best – that might be better and more independently done by caring nothing for her words. And if it is to gain her over, I should think – but you know best – she was not worth gaining over.”

“My name is on the first leaf. If you can ever write under my name, “I
forgive her,” though ever so long after my broken heart is dust pray do
it!”

“O Miss Havisham,” said I, “I can do it now. There have been sore
mistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and I want
forgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with you.”

As a general update on my writing, I have a short story called The Nutcracker included in a WordCrafter Press anthology called Refracted Reflections which is now available for pre-order: https://writingtoberead.com/2022/07/23/refracted-reflections-now-available-for-pre-order/

Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time). If you’d like to join Thursday Doors, you can do so here: https://nofacilities.com/2022/07/21/more-from-old-wethersfield/

Last week, for Thursday Doors, I wrote about the impact of doors on my life and how I see my mind as a passage way full of closed doors behind which I store all my thoughts and ideas about life, work, religion, people, and, of course, my writing. There are doors into my children’s writing ideas, doors into my poetry writing and doors into my adult writing. Doors also play a significant role in my books.

You can read last weeks post here: https://robertawrites235681907.wordpress.com/2022/07/14/roberta-writes-thursday-doors-doors-to-my-authors-mind-part-1/

Thank you to the talented Teagan Riordain Geneviene whose post about her author’s mind inspired this two-post series of mine. Your can read Teagan’s post here: https://teagansbooks.com/2022/07/07/thursdaydoors-to-my-authors-mind-noisy-characters/

The cover of my first poetry book, Open a New Door, also features a door. I took this picture through the doorway at the game lodge where Terence and I got engaged in 2000. We took the boys there for the weekend and enjoyed revisiting it very much.

The inspiration for this title and cover came from my favourite Broadway show, Mame, featuring Angela Lansbury and Beau Arthur. When I was a very little girl and before my youngest sisters (numbers 3 and 4) were born, I used to play my mother’s collection of LP’s on her old record player. Often I used to dance and sing with sister number 2. We would dress up in mum’s theatre dresses, hats and scarves and make up shows to the music. We even performed them occasionally for the farm employees and I performed at school a few times when my dad could be persuaded to bring the record player to school and I would dance and sing for the class. I loved to sing and always had a place right at the front in the school choir.

My purple Quality Street song from Mame was called Open a new door. You can listen to it here:

This is one of the first poems I ever wrote. It’s not my best poem, and I wrote it when I thought all poetry was rhyming verse, but I still love it. It reminds me that there is more to life than my daily hamster ball.

Who’s really free

The sky is dark, coloured an unrelenting grey

Outside it’s damp and dreary, a dismal day

I gaze out of the window, splattered with rain

I stretch – an attempt to ease my physical pain

The lines of traffic extend for miles each way

A depressing sight that fills me with dismay

The landscape is blurred, shrouded by a soft mist

An addition that gives the scene a threatening twist

Tall buildings adorn the horizon, shabby and bleak

Tiny ants dart inside, refuge from the rain they seek

***

A ray of sunshine, creeps through a gap in the cloud

It gleams bright and bold, of its success quite proud

An arrow formation of birds crosses my line of vision

The rain and the cold have forced a flight decision

Such a contrast from my world, confined and cramped;

The birds, completely free, from this land have decamped

They roam, unfettered, across an unrestricted, spacious world

As I watch, my toes in my smart shoes, are tightly curled

I turn away abruptly, back towards the bright, artificial light

I quell any questioning thoughts invoked by this compelling sight.

By Robbie Cheadle

My book, A Ghost and His Gold, also features numerous doors; some opening, some closing, but all signifying change. Here is a short teaser:

“The muffled rapping penetrates Pieter’s thin early morning sleep. He stirs and rolls over. The insistent rapping continues, forcing his reluctant consciousness upwards, towards full awareness.
Sitting up quickly, he awakes fully, sudden fear acting like a bucket of cold water. The blankets drop away from his body and the frigid iciness of the early June morning chases away any remaining vestiges of sleep.

Over the past months, fear has eaten into his mind’s core like a malevolent caterpillar. Fear of the future. Fear of the soldiers. Fear of losing his farm. It’s been there, rotting his brain matter, ever since the declaration of war in October the previous year. The injury he sustained early this year exacerbated its effect until his mind is a worm-infested apple, brown and soft inside. He takes some deep breaths, determined to prevent the poison from spreading and affecting his reactions. Poor reactions could result in his death and that of his family.

He stares into the total blackness, trying desperately to see, while his body reacts to the biting cold, with gooseflesh breaking out on his torso and arms.

Who can be knocking on my door at this time of morning? It can only be bad news.

Next to him, his wife, Marta, starts to stir as she too responds to the intrusion.

“Pieter, are you awake?” The piercing voice competes with the wind that rattles the slats of the wooden blinds, and whistles under the ill-fitting front door.

Something’s wrong.

This is a picture of the front door of the farm house that inspired A Ghost and His Gold. It is purported to be haunted by the ghost of a man who became my Pieter van Zyl.

When I was a little girl of 8 years old, my sister, Hayley, was born. Hayley was a dreadful baby, she cried all the time and she would not sleep, ever.

My dad was sleeping in the spare room so I moved in with mom to help her with the baby. I did get Hayley to go to sleep a few time by walking her around for a few hours while she wailed non-stop.

One evening, Mom and I watched Great Expectations. I’m not sure if I would have been allowed to watch it if Mom hadn’t been very tired, but watch it I did, and I never forgot the opening scene when Pip meets Magwitch in the graveyard. I also remembered Miss Havisham in her wedding dress living in her spooky dark house with the banquet table covered in rotting food among which rats played and spiders nested.

During my first year of high school (12 turning 13), I read the original of Great Expectations with a dictionary by my side. I looked up words I didn’t know and some of them, like countenance, I’ve never forgotten. A few of these words even creep into my own writing from time to time. If you have read A Ghost and His Gold, you would have experience my usage of countenances in this scene:

“After a further period of timeless silence, another presence makes itself known. A shadowy red form. It exudes anger like flashes of lightening, making the fine hairs on Michelle’s arms stand to attention. The shadow elongates like a piece of chewing gum and tears down the middle. The rent widens and stretches to form a mouth.

“I hate you,” the voice that issues from the rent booms.

The voice frightens her, and she turns and starts pushing her way through the countless milling people, their faceless countenances disfigured by gaping holes from which a collective and continuous doomed moan issues.”

This is the opening scene from the original movie of Great Expectations that I never forgot:

I have re-read Great Expectations a few times over the years, it is my favourite Dickens by far, and I listened to the audio book recently.

I thought I would write a few posts about it and this is the first in which I will share an overview of the book. If you haven’t read it and know nothing about the story, but wish to read it in the future, don’t read this overview as it will contain spoilers for the story.

An overview of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Pip is an orphan boy who lives with his older sister an her husband on the marshes in Kent. His sister is an overbearing woman who abuses Pip physically and mentally and also mentally abuses her kind and gentle husband, Joe. Joe tries to protect Pip from the worst of his sister’s unkindness, but he is not willing to be overly confrontational with his wife so his protection is limited. Joe reminded me a lot of gentle Matthew Cuthbert from Anne of Green Gables although Pip’s sister, referred to as Mrs Joe in the book, makes Marilla Cuthbert seem kindly and pleasant by comparison.

Pip has a habit of visiting his parents graves in a lonely graveyard on the marshes. While he is visiting their graves on Christmas Eve of his 7th year, Pip is discovered by an escaped convict. This convict, who we later find out is called Abel Magwitch, uses vile threats to compel Pip to bring him a file and food early on Christmas morning. Pip’s conscious smites him all night, but his fear forces him to steal food, in particular a beautiful pork pie, and alcohol from his sister’s pantry and take it to the graveyard. On the way, Pip comes across another escaped convict, who we later discover is called Compeyson. Pip tells Magwitch about Compeyson, thinking they are friends, but it is quickly obvious they are not.

Later on Christmas Day, Pip witnesses both convicts being recaptured while fighting each other in a ditch.

Pip’s pompous Uncle Pumblechook, a man of some financial means and obsessed with social standing, arranges for Pip to go to the home of an aging wealthy woman who is very odd and reclusive but who has an adopted daughter, Estella. Pip is to play with Estella and amuse the older woman, Miss Havisham.

When Pip arrives he discovers that Miss Havisham was jilted at the altar by her fraudulent fiance who conspired with her jealous half-brother, Arthur, to swindle her out of a sum of money. Miss Havisham never recovered mentally and still wears her wedding dress and the wedding feast is still laid out in the great hall. All the clocks in her decrepit and decaying house were stopped at twenty to nine in the morning which was the time Miss Havisham discovered her fiance’s treachery. She is eccentric and embittered and seeks revenge on all men for her fiance’s and brother’s betrayals. She raises her daughter, Estella, to be cold and plotting an an instrument for her future revenge on all men.

Pip is greatly influenced by the wealth he sees in Miss Havisham’s house, Estella’s beauty and haughty manner and dismissal of him as a labourer who is far beneath her in social standing. He wishes to uplift himself in her eyes and sets about trying to improve his own education and standing in life. Pip becomes disgruntled with his own proposed future of becoming an apprentice to Joe and learning his trade as a blacksmith. An arrangement Pip had previously looked forward to but after working for Miss Havisham for several months, seems to keep him in his place as a lowly labourer.

Pip sister is meanwhile attacked and sustains a serious injury which leaves her brain damaged. His teacher, Biddy, moves in with him and Joe to help look after Mrs Joe.

Miss Havisham lets him go from her employment some months later, after ensuring he is indentured to Joe as an apprentice.

Not long after Pip starts working for Joe, he is visited by a prominent London lawyer, Mr Jaggers, who tells him he has a secret benefactor who wishes him to be brought up to be a gentleman. Arrangements are made for Pip to leave Joe’s employ and his sister’s home and go to London to live as a gentleman and obtain an education. Pip wants to go and turns his back on his old life in order to try to win Estella’s affections. Pip is convinced Miss Havisham is his secret benefactor and intends for him and Estella to ultimately marry. Pip does not make any attempt to gain employment or use his better education to earn his own living, preferring to live a life of idleness and runs of debt. Pip expects to settle this debt when he comes into his ‘expectations’.

This is the scene when Pip meets Miss Havisham and Estella from the original Great Expectations:

Next week, I’ll share an overview of the second half of the book.

Welcome to Thursday Doors, a weekly feature allowing door lovers to come together to admire and share their favorite door photos from around the world. Feel free to join in on the fun by creating your own Thursday Doors post each week and then sharing your link in the comments below, anytime between 12:01 am Thursday morning and Saturday noon (North American eastern time).

You can find Dan’s latest post here: https://nofacilities.com/2022/07/14/return-to-old-wethersfield/

Last week for Dan Antion’s Thursday Doors Challenge, Teagan Riordain Geneviene wrote a post about her author’s mind. Your can read Teagan’s post here: https://teagansbooks.com/2022/07/07/thursdaydoors-to-my-authors-mind-noisy-characters/

Teagan’s post got me thinking about doors and their meaning in my own writing life. They do seem to play a significant role because I see doors as entry points into new and exciting things in life.

Opportunity (tanka poem) 

Make your own success 

Leave no pathway untrodden 

Opportunity 

Will knock only once in life 

Be sure to answer the door 

from Behind Closed Doors by Robbie Cheadle

I also believe I have a tidy mind. Each ‘collection’ of thoughts and ideas in my life has its own ‘room’ in my mind and they don’t pass through the doors and get muddled. People often ask me how I manage so many projects at once and all the different aspects of my busy life, and this is how. Everything has a separate storage space in my head.

When I was writing my poetry book, Behind Closed Doors, I saw a cover, designed by Teagan, which exactly captured my ideas about how my mind would look if it could be caught in a picture.

This was the cover:

Each of those doors represents a different storage area in my mind: Family, relationships, work and corporate life, prose writing, reading, artwork, conservation, and poetry. Within those layers there are sub-layers and each has its own entry point into my life.

My writing incorporates a lot of doors, either through though processes or though actual depictions of doors and physical choices. Every door is different and every outcome is coloured by that difference in choice. Even artworks are different and have different purposes and meanings.

This cake below was a Covid-19 memory cake and depicted life during lockdown.

These are a few of the poems (limericks) I wrote to go with this cake:

Inevitable side-effects of Zoom and working from home (limericks) 

He sat on his cellular phone in the room 

Having just finished a meeting on Zoom 

What a frightening sight 

His expression, dark as night 

The seed of a monster starting to bloom 

***

Endless back-to-back meetings on Zoom 

Fill employees with a sense of gloom 

The leader strikes like a snake 

When colleagues make a mistake 

When will it end and normality resume? 

from Behind Closed Doors by Robbie Cheadle

The above artwork and thoughts are completely separate from my children’s artwork. This cake is called Dinah in Wonderland. Dinah is the little back cat who is sleeping at the front of the dark chocolate cake. She is dreaming about a wonderland for cats. A place where nothing would be as it is and everything would be as it isn’t.

This cake and the limerick story I wrote to go with it was inspired by this song from Alice in Wonderland:

I’ll end this post with an extract form Alice in Wonderland, a book I adored as a child and of which I have eight different copies as an adult. Of course, this quote is about a door:

“Alice finding tiny door behind curtain

Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head though the doorway; `and even if my head would go through,’ thought poor Alice, `it would be of very little use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only know how to begin.’ For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.

There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she went back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes: this time she found a little bottle on it, (`which certainly was not here before,’ said Alice,) and round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words `DRINK ME’ beautifully printed on it in large letters.”

You can read more of Alice in Wonderland and see more pictures here: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rgs/alice-I.html