Book 47 of 2013: Watership Down by Richard Adams

I've had a copy of Watership Down by Richard Adams for years. It came from my great uncle's house and I've tried picking it up to read several times but never got very far. That didn't stop me though, and when I saw Plague Dogs, also by Richard Adams in a charity shop a few years ago I picked that up too. Both ended up languishing in book boxes until my last bookcase reshuffle when it was about time I paid them some attention!



I found this to be quite a slow read at first, taking me from the 25th August to the 12th September to get through. It took me ages to get in to and if I hadn't been admitted to hospital with no other reading material there's a strong chance I'd still be reading it.

Once I did get into it, I really enjoyed it. I just struggled to keep going with it when I had other things going on.

Most people are familiar with the film, it's been years since I saw it but I think it's a fairly good adaptation. The book follows Fiver and his brother Hazel after Fiver has a vision that something bad will happen to their warren.

They set out with a small band of rabbits for a new place to live, encountering other rabbits and wildlife along the way on their quest to create a new warren.

At times it really reminded me of Tolkien, mainly because there was obviously a fantastic history in the story. The rabbits have their own language and series of myths, but you're only ever given little glimpses of these so you're always aware that they fit into a bigger picture. I couldn't help but wonder what Tolkien would've made of it.

Some of the rabbits did kind of blend together for me, especially if I only read a little bit of it at a time. Most had identifiable characteristics, like a tuft of hair, a scar, the shade of their fur, but if they were just mentioned by name I could easily get then muddled up. If I'd read it a bit quicker I wouldn't've had that problem.

Despite having seen the film many years ago, I couldn't really remember the end. That meant there were a few bits where there were cliffhangers or rabbits didn't look like they were going to make it out of a scenario alive and I was genuinely worried. I like it when a story makes me feel that way.

I thought the ending was perfect. Stories like this which go on and on can sometimes have a disappointing ending, but this one was perfect. It went along nicely with all the little rabbity folklore stories throughout the book.

The Plague Dogs is up near the top of my list for the next book book I'm planning to read, after my next ebook on my Kindle, and my next couple of course books.

On Pins & Needles

This is what I've been working on this week.




This being Oscar the Anxious Octopus (anxious because at the moment he has no legs, I've got five knitted so far but not enough stuffing for them) and my seventeen hexipuffs.

I'm trying to do one in each colour I use for another project, hence all the black and pale blue ones because Oscar's legs are light blue, black and one other colour.

I've really got the hang of the puffs now and can do them from memory with just a little cheatsheet reminder of which row I'm working on. I've got my eighteenth on my needles as I type so I'm well ahead of my personal goal of averaging one a day, and they're a nice little break from the tedium of knitting eight virtually identical octopus legs!

Weekly Rundown

This week's been a bit of a busy one. We're at that 'back to normal' time of the year where you have to dust yourself off and go back to five-day weeks. I wasn't quite ready to do that so I took Friday off to go see The Hobbit on the mainland. I loved it, by the way, and will be writing a proper post on it later.

So, aside from galavanting off to the mainland, what've we been up to in the House of Click...

I got my third TMA written and submitted. I'll share a word cloud and some of my thoughts on the assignment in the coming week.

I've read two books; The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling on my Kindle and The Stories of English which I'm working on at the moment. I'm still writing up reviews of books I read last summer so I'm sure I'll get round to reviewing these eventually. I decided to kick the year off with The Jungle Book purely because Mr Click got me the Disney film for Christmas and we watched it at the end of the year, seemed like the right book to pick.

I've been watching so many things this week. Sherlock and Silent Witness have been back on TV so we've been catching them on iPlayer when we're at my in-laws' house. Silent Witness has gone through some big changes in the last two series (namely losing two of the main characters) which I'm still getting used to but Sherlock seems to be going from strength to strength.

We're still not back to watching ER since our blu-ray player is funny about playing some double-sided DVDs, ER being one of them. We've started watching the month series of Friends so the end is nearly in sight there.

And we've been watching films. Lots and lots of films. We watched virtually every Michael Caine film we own, after Mr Click got the Harry Palmer boxset, I particularly enjoyed seeing St. Petersburg again.

We've also watched An American Tail and the X-Men blu-rays I got for Christmas. Oh, and obviously The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, in 3D and it was great!

Knitting wise I've ceased to be a monogamous knitter. I'm working on my Beekeeper's Quilt alongside my current project, a knitted octopus. He currently has no legs and looks a bit worried about it so we've been calling him Oscar the Anxious Octopus. In between knitting each part I do a hexipuff in each colour I used for that bit, in the case of the legs that's three puffs for each leg completed. As the octopus has eight legs, plus a stripy hat and scarf, he's making for a good boost to my hexipuff quota (and I'm staying ahead of my one a day target).

I also received my copy of The Big Book of Knitted Monsters by Rebecca Danger that I ordered over Christmas. I can't wait to get stuck into knitting some crazy creatures.

Other than that both Mr Click and I have colds. Let me tell you sore throats are no fun when you have to spend all day talking to people! But it's been a good excuse (as if I need one) to spend the weekend begging in front of the TV, knitting, with my jammies on!

Kind of like a less furry version of this:

Film Review: E.T.

One of the films I got Mr Click for Christmas was E.T. on Blu-ray. I think it was a pretty good gift as he'd mentioned it offhand when he saw it in one of my film magazines, so I bought it and hid it away (so well that I forgot I'd bought it until nearly Christmas time). He was very pleased when he pulled it out of his stocking.

If you're not familiar with the story, here's a recap; E.T. is an alien who's on a mission to earth with some others of his kind, they're collecting samples when some government guys almost stumble across them so they are forced to make an emergency getaway. Poor E.T. is left behind, to be found by a young boy named Elliot whose parents are divorced and he's struggling with his place in the family.

The more time Elliot and E.T. spend together, the closer they become, developing a sort of psychic bond. Elliot's older brother and sister learn about E.T. and together the kids work to help him 'phone home'. But the government are onto the visitor and E.T. is at risk of being taken away from Elliot and never getting home.

It's a film that used to really annoy me when I was younger. I'm not sure exactly why, though I used to think that E.T. looked a bit like a large turd. This time around I really enjoyed it. I think now that I'm older I can appreciate the way that the story is told.

For one thing, it's actually a really timeless film. Although it's obviously from the 80s the clothes and hairstyles aren't that dated. Yeah, the cars are old and yeah, the kids are lacking modern gadgets and electronics, and yeah, it's highly unlikely that ten-year-olds are going to be dissecting frogs in their science classes, but it's aged remarkably well.

It's also a really well constructed story. I love the way that the kids interact with E.T. and the way that Elliot and E.T. grow to love each other. I really like how the family relationship works as well, as far as Michael is concerned, Elliot is his annoying younger brother, but when he needs him, he's there for him. The same with little Gertie, it's really sweet.

The special effects are obviously of their time. The iconic scenes with the kids on the bikes being levitated by E.T. have that dark halo around them, like the unedited scenes in the original Star Wars trilogy. But you can overlook that, because it is a cinema classic. Speaking of Star Wars, I love the little nods to the trilogy, with Elliot showing E.T. his action figures and E.T. appearing to recognise Yoda when he sees someone dressed as him at Halloween. Apparently a group of E.T.s can be seen in the first Star Wars prequel, when we finally get that on Blu-ray I'm definitely going to look out for it.

The Blu-ray version of E.T. that we've got has quite a lot of special features and I'm quite curious about the making of it. There should be some interesting featurettes there. I'll let you know what I think.

Fingers Crossed

 

Weather permitting, either today or tomorrow I will finally be getting to see The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug in the cinema.

I say weather permitting because recent weather has caused the ferries to be off more often than on. Last year when we went to the cinema to see The Hobbit I booked in advance but as the weather is being somewhat crap at the moment there's no predicting if we'll actually get off the island.

One way or another I will get to Glasgow to see this film!

Day Zero Project: Get breakfast in bed for my husband

This is one that I've only just achieved recently.

Ever since we moved into our little cottage, Mr Click has been in charge of the kitchen. With good reason. My last two forays into the kitchen have involved me throwing toast all over the cooker, nearly breaking the grill pan in the process, and grating my thumb instead of the lump of cheese I was supposed to be working with.

So it's understandable that the kitchen is firmly his domain. And he does a good job too. There's very little that he can't turn into some sort of edible meal, and the slow cooker I got him for Christmas has prompted him to try a whole bunch of new meals as well.

That's not to say I'm a complete failure in the kitchen. I can cook. When I need to. But he's much better at it than I am, and he doesn't make so much of a mess either.

Each morning begins in more or less the same way. The alarm goes off, I turn it off, head to the bathroom and deal with the dog, then Mr Click gets up and deals with our breakfast. It's quite easy now he's got his funky coffee machine, he sets it up the night before and the most I ever have to do is press the button to turn it on if it's not had the timer set the night before.

For Mr Click's birthday last month I did actually get up and not only press the button on the coffee machine, but also poured it into his mug and taken the nice fancy breakfast out of its packet, put it onto the plates and then took it through to the bedroom. We don't have croissants that often, but it made for a nice easy breakfast in bed that day.

I'd love to do some sort of fancy fry up or pancakes or something but that's not the sort of thing we have for breakfast so for now this simple little breakfast will do. Besides, even if I wanted to do cereal, it's all stored in a cupboard which is too high up for me to reach, so I'll just have to carry on with the simple meals, hehe.

Wordless Wednesday: Stormy