Saturday 15 October 2016

On The Way Home


The Penguin is packed and I am sitting in a large Dublin Hotel waiting to leave for the airport.  My flight is not until 10:35 pm so I don't need to get there until around 7:00 pm.

I have had all day not talking to anyone but the person who sold me a coffee earlier this afternoon. I sat in the lobby downstairs as it is a large conference hotel at the end of the Dublin Runway and lots of really comfortable couches and chairs downstairs.

I noticed on this blog that blogger has done something strange to my page. First it has deleted all the lists of Penguin books I had arranged under the title page of books owned in all the series. I will have to decide if I reload them all or not. The lists are not lost, just the placement of the lists on the blog so people can see what books are in my library. So I can see what books are in my library especially while hunting for them. Is this important to continue? I am not sure. Perhaps the main list is all I need to repost. Will look at it on my large desktop computer when I get home.

Then they have also deleted the Blogroll down the left side. I had listed all of the blogs I follow regularly. It is just gone. So while I sat downstairs this afternoon looking for anything to do I googled all of the blogs I could remember that I follow and just subscribed to them via email. I think I will put them back up as I believe some people do use the list to catch up on other blogs.  I know I often read others' lists of blogs they follow and have found some good ones doing that.

I have had a person or two write me to say that but I wonder if it is any longer the case.

At least I won't miss out on  reading them anymore as they come directly to my travellinpenguin gmail account. Will think about it.

I was able to secure a book online I saw in a B and B we stayed in. It is called The Curious Chars of Arthur Pepper. It is written by Phaedra Patrick, an author I was not familiar with. I have also started it today.

It is the story of a man whose children are grown and his wife has been dead for exactly one year. It is time to clear her things away.  He is dreading doing that but once he gets stuck into it he discovers a gold charm bracelet in the toe of one of her boots he has never seen before. There is a single name and a phone number inscribed on it from India. Amazingly he calls the number and chats to the man who gave it to her. Evidently she cared for him when he was a teenager. The Indian boy loved her then but at the time was jealous as he grew older and his sisters got the attention. He made up a lie that got her sacked and always regretted his actions. He gave her a golden elephant charm. But...interesting...the bracelet has other charms. Her husband wants to know the story behind all of the charms and now the story begins.

According to the blurb on the back of the book he begins to travel. He has never been out of the UK before and thus another quirky travel tale begins. Shades of the 100  Year Old Man Who Went through the Window and The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.

I have no idea of whether it is any good. Only published this year I look forward to seeing all of the quirky people he meets, stories he hears and what the story is behind all of the charms. It seems to be an easy read and if there is nothing good on the Boxed Sets on the plane I may continue reading it.

I find it hard to concentrate on books while travelling on a plane. There are so many interruptions and I seem to reread the same paragraph again and again. But as I never sleep on a plane and I have at least 23 hours in the air maybe I can squeeze it in.

I'll let you know. Not being one to always enjoy modern stories I do like the premise of this book.

I hope I have signed up to all of the book blogs I follow as I have followed these particular ones for such awhile I would miss them. If I don't comment on your blog soon please send me the name of it either in the comments below or at  travellinpenguin at gmail dot com.

Off into the wilds I go.  
Photo by Travellin Penguin













8 comments:

  1. we'll be thinking about you winging it over the planet on the way home...i've heard some weird things about Google blogs from other sources, also; apparently some types of blog structure tend to fade out or disappear for some reason which at this point seems indiscernable. not sleeping on planes makes it tough; hope it goes okay... take care and have a nice trip...

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    1. The trip went well though it is very long. Good to be home.

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  2. I don't envy your long trip home, but you'll feel so good when you get there and can take a nice shower or bath and go to sleep in your own bed. I could never sleep on planes either, but 6 or 7 hours is the longest flight I've ever taken. Thanks for sharing your and Penguin's trip with us.

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  3. Safe travels! I've enjoyed following your vacation here and on instagram :)

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    1. I look forward to getting back to normal and relaxing a bit with some good books. Life gets very hectic at times.

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  4. I've come to your blog after you came to mine after seeing it on someone else's, so it all joins up and I like checking what people read, too. I use Feedly to read my blogs, by the way, you just pop the URL in, it finds it and collects all the updates in one place. You can categorise them and, crucially, Save For Later, so you can click on the posts you fancy reading them and have a catch-up another time.

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    1. Yes, I am familiar with feedly. It is a great app. Thanks for stopping by.

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