Much Ado About Nothing

Oops, I see that a whole week has gone by since my last blog post! I blame the weather, which has continued to be mostly grey, rainy, chilly and windy, and providing very little inspiration for blogging.

 Artwork on a wall near our station and tourist office.

My most exciting (?) adventure lately was probably Friday the 8th, when I went for a rainy walk into town and intended to buy myself another bouquet of tulips to to add some colour to the greyness (besides, it was also International Women's Day - and no one but myself was likely to buy me flowers). I also bought some fruit. Because I also had my umbrella to wrestle with in the wind and rain, I put both the bag of fruit and the (wrapped) flowers in my backpack for the walk back home - the bouquet sticking out a bit, but it felt secure enough. However, when I got home... I discovered that the flowers were missing! They had fallen out somewhere along the way, without me noticing. Possibly just taken by the wind; or perhaps pushed by my umbrella while I was wrestling with that in some street corner...

Easy come, easy go... (sigh)...  I decided just to imagine that they were found by someone else to brighten their day... (??)

This weekend, I had better luck: I managed to buy yet another bunch of tulips, and to bring them home safely this time...

 

Book Review: The Stone Circle

The Stone Circle 

(Ruth Galloway Mysteries #11) 

By Elly Griffiths (2019)

This is one of my absolute favourite crime series from recent years, about the forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway in Norfolk. After an excursion to Italy in book 10 (The Dark Angel), we're now back on familiar ground at the seaside and marshland of Norfolk. In fact, the 11^th book is paying very deliberate homage to the first book of the series (The Crossing Places), by returning to the same settings. Ruth and DCI Nelson are both receiving anonymous letters, reminding them of similar letters that were written back in connection with the very first investigation they were involved in together. But the author can't be the same, as that person is no longer alive... None the less, the past seems to be haunting or catching up with everyone in this book; in more ways than one.

I was lucky to find this book available just in time for a rainy and windy weekend, perfect for letting oneself just stay in and get lost in (more or less) non-stop reading of a book of this kind.

All the references to the past in this book also teased my memory enough to want to go back and reread The Crossing Places as well... Because as usual, I tend to remember the background settings and recurring characters of a series a lot better than the details of each individual mystery, after a while. So I've just got started on rereading the first book now... Even though I also have another new Elly Griffiths book waiting, which does not belong in this series!

Tooth Fairies and Trolls

 

(Tooth Trolls; drawing by Thorbjørn Egner)

 In the English-speaking tradition, there is the Tooth Fairy, who comes to collect children's teeth (and pays good money for them!). In the Scandinavian tradition, we have Tooth Trolls. I remember them from a book in my childhood; but when I check the facts now, I find that the original is Norwegian - created by Thorbjørn Egner. The trolls were called Karius and Bactus, and they lived in cavities in the teeth of a boy - thriving when he ate sweets and forgot to brush his teeth; but finally driven away by better dental hygiene. 

What brought them to mind for me this week was another visit to the dentist (less than two months after my annual checkup in January, when they found nothing wrong). It happened at lunch on Sunday. Whether it was fairies or trolls at work, they didn't quite succeed: An old artificial tooth crown came loose, but I somehow managed to salvage it rather than swallow it. Phoned the dentist's on Monday morning and got an appointment for Tuesday. In the meantime, I kept a kind of half-fasting diet of soup and yoghurt + meticulous use of toothbrush... And as the dentist saw no evidence of trolls having moved in, he was able to put the crown back. Phew. (For how long this time, remains to be seen!)

Long gone are the days when teeth grew back of themselves and the tooth fairy left money behind for the ones she took away... Nevertheless, I have to say that on the whole, I'm rather thankful for the advances made in dental care since back in my childhood!

 Fairy tale illustration by John Bauer (1882-1918)

Yellow

Yellow tulips this weekend, to celebrate the 1st of March! (Never mind the weather forecasts predicting gloomier and more wintry weather again for next week...)

I've also put my yellow curtains back up in the kitchen.

Playful Postcards

Some playful and colourful postcrossing cards received in February. From Germany (the Mole), the Netherlands (Little Red Riding Hood) and Finland (the cow, and the butterfly).