A Self-imposed Elizabeth Goudge Reading Challenge

One of my favorite authors is Elizabeth Goudge, and the book of hers that I love most is The Dean's Watch. I've decided to read and collect all of her novels this year. I have six already with eleven more to buy. I'm going to try and read them all this year even though I've read some before.

I found this quote about her somewhere on the internet. It's a good description of Goudge's books. ‘There is a sort of ‘light’ in all of Elizabeth Goudge’s books, it’s like the light of a sunny day just before the sun has properly risen. A light that catches on dew drops on the roses or icicles hanging from the gutters; a light that shines into people’s lives, a light that can shine into the dark places of the reader’s life’.

There's an Elizabeth Goudge Society which provided the following.

Here is the complete list of Elizabeth Goudge books.

City of Bells series



· A City of Bells (1936)

· Towers in the Mist (1938)

· The Dean's Watch (1960)

· Three Cities of Bells (omnibus) (1965)

Eliots of Damerosehay series

· The Bird in the Tree (1940)

· The Herb of Grace (1948) aka Pilgrim's Inn (1948 )

· The Heart of the Family (1953)

· The Eliots of Damerosehay (omnibus) (1957)

Novels

· Island Magic (1934)

· The Middle Window (1935)

· The Castle on the Hill (1941)

· Green Dolphin Country (1944) aka Green Dolphin Street (USA title)

· Gentian Hill (1949)

· The Rosemary Tree (1956)

· The White Witch (1958)

· The Scent of Water (1963)

· The Child From the Sea (1970)

Children's books

· Sister of the Angels: A Christmas Story (1939)

· Smokey House (1940)

· The Well of the Star (1941)

· Henrietta's House (1942) aka The Blue Hills

· The Little White Horse (1946)

· Make-Believe (1949)

· The Valley of Song (1951)

· Linnets and Valerians (1964) aka The Runaways

· I Saw Three Ships (1969)

Collections

· The Fairies' Baby: And Other Stories (1919)

· A Pedlar's Pack: And Other Stories (1937)

· Three Plays: Suomi, The Brontës of Haworth, Fanny Burney (1939)

· The Golden Skylark: And Other Stories (1941)

· The Ikon on the Wall: And Other Stories (1943)

· The Elizabeth Goudge Reader (1946)

· Songs and Verses (1947)

· At the Sign of the Dolphin (1947)

· The Reward of Faith: And Other Stories (1950)

· White Wings: Collected Short Stories (1952)

· The Ten Gifts: An Elizabeth Goudge Anthology (1965)

· A Christmas Book: An Anthology of Christmas Stories (1967)

· The Lost Angel: Stories (1971)

· Hampshire Trilogy (omnibus) (1976)

· Pattern of People: An Elizabeth Goudge Anthology (1978)

Non fiction

· God So Loved the World: The Story of Jesus (1951)

· Saint Francis of Assisi (1959) aka My God and My All: The Life of St. Francis of Assisi

· A Diary of Prayer (1966)

· The Joy of the Snow: An Autobiography (1974)

Anthologies edited by Elizabeth Goudge

· A Book of Comfort: An Anthology (1964)

· A Book of Peace: An Anthology (1967)

· A Book of Faith: An Anthology (1976)

Anthologies containing stories by Elizabeth Goudge

· Dancing with the Dark (1997)

Short stories

· ESP (1974)

I know I have her biography, The Joy of Snow, somewhere in the house. I'll search for it tonight until it's found. It'll be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Annie Dillard

Excuse the crazy placement of this photo on the page.  The only thing I could manage to do was rotate it so you wouldn't have to stand on your head to see it!  I'm a slow learner.
Anyway, my bookgroup is reading The Maytrees by Annie Dillard for October.  I've tried three different times to begin this book.  I'll get a few pages into it, get mad, and throw it down.  "This book is stupid!" I said, the last time I tried reading it. 
I know there are lots of Dillard fans out there.  I've tried to be one too.  I read about half of Pilgrim's Creek and started An American Childhood.  But I admit defeat.  She's not for me.  
For one thing, her non-fiction is excruciatingly detailed; too much information about things I don't consider very important.  And her fiction!   She breaks all the rules of writing.   Not that I'm adverse to rule breaking; I'm a rebel myself in that way.  But I want spoken words to have quotation marks around the actual phrases.  I want a book to flow smoothly along and not jar me sideways every other sentence.  I don't want to have to keep re-reading a sentence until it makes sense. Sometimes it does; often it doesn't.  I get mad when I can't follow the story for having to re-read so much.
So there.  I'm not going to read Annie Dillard, and I'm not ashamed to say so.

Oregon Greenery

Yesterday I finally arrived in Portland at 6:00 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), rented a car at the airport, arrived at Mom's house at 7:00 p.m., then we left to go to Oktoberfest at Oaks Park in Portland. Mom, my sister and I had a fun time eating wurst (sausage), red cabbage, dancing the polka and chicken dance, watching the Tirolean dancers and listening to oom-pa-pa music.

Hey, how come I'm the boy??

Tirolean dancers.

Tirolean dancers.

At 9:45 p.m. we headed back to Mom's house.

This morning, after reading the Sunday paper, Mom and I went to Sherwood and did a 5K (3.1 mi.) Volksmarch through countryside and neighborhoods. We had wind and some rain, but overall it was a pleasant walk. Even though it was 62 degrees, we were quite warm with our rain coats on.

The first signs of fall colors.

Sherwood, Oregon countryside

Pampas grass in bloom.

Quite the mailbox set up!

Zinnias in bloom now.

This afternoon, Frank and Gina (brother and sis-in-law) visited and brought a new card game for us to play. I can't remember the name of it (something) 10. We had a good time playing that, then we switched to playing pinochle.

A gorgeous rainbow was over the golf course. We could see it from her living room.

Brilliant rainbow - we could see all the colors vividly.

View from Mom's living room window.

Michael, my son, came over for dinner. Mom had cooked lamb shanks and yams in the slow cooker and Mike brought Hawaiian sweet bread rolls. Plus we had a marinated cucumber/tomato salad, steamed green beans (fresh-picked from Mom's garden) and cinnamon applesauce. For dessert, Mom served warm apple crisp with whipped cream. Such a good meal!

Mom, Michael, Frank, Gina sitting down to dinner.

After dinner, we all sat down to watch the movie "21" with Kevin Spacey. If you didn't get to see it at the theater a few years ago, it's about MIT students who learned how to count cards for the game of 21. They went to Las Vegas to make money at the casinos and lived the high life while they were there. Then they'd go back to MIT and continue their studies as if nothing happened.

Movie time - Frank, Gina, Mom, Michael

Tomorrow night, I'm meeting friends, Curt and Lexi, in Wilsonville to have dinner and get caught up on how they're doing.

Time to go read myself to sleep with a John Sandford novel, "Chosen Prey."

Night night.

My Heart Was In My Boots

This one is for Meggie on the Prairie.

This was the side courtyard at the 'forever' cottage which I left behind

I vividly recall the day The Byre became ours. It was a bleak, bone-chillingly cold day - inside and out. I stood in the dirty, shabby, building and wondered what on earth we had done. I couldn't believe that I had agreed to leave my 'forever' home.





The Byre was built to be the cow shed, stables and cart shed for The Old Farmhouse. We had already agreed that our daughter and her husband should have the original farmhouse, we would have the other building and turn it into something which should suit us for a long time. The location was ideal, the gardens large,the potential enormous.





An old brick, high in the house wall, over what would have been the original front door had been scribed with J&D April 20, 1861. That seemed to be the clincher. Our daughter is called Davina, her husband is yet another Jonathan.

J&D? A sign that it was meant to be?

I wandered from room to room, across carpets which stuck to my boots, trying to avoid the dirt on the woodwork, hardly daring to breathe in the kitchen - and let's not even mention the bathroom. All enthusiasm, motivation and inspiration had deserted me. It felt as though it would never return. I truly could not see myself living here.

We had some friendly discussions!

It took a couple more weeks of wandering around the place before an idea, for how we could be comfortable in the place, began to form. We wanted fewer, larger rooms, no need for an en suite as it would normally only be George and I living here, open plan for the living area. We thought, and re-thought, decided on what we would really like and what we could do without.

The 1970's kitchen

We had decided on the layout - based on the original location of doorways and openings and worked the rooms in to fit. We consulted with the local planning people - very discouraging. He told me he would oppose our proposals!





That was just what I needed. Red rag to a bull! My enthusiasm suddenly took a leap, we would fight them on the beaches, if necessary. I wanted those plans passed. We got a local architect to draw them up - if only Jonny had done his architecture degree by then he could have saved us the fees!





We got ready for battle, prepared our defences - and felt almost deflated when it was passed first time! Ready or not we were in business. So we set to and stripped back as much of the building as possible. We filled skip after skip and ferried countless wheelbarrow loads of rubbish out of the house. We prepared the way for the builder to come in and do his stuff.

He stripped it back even further, until eventually it was practically just four walls left flapping in the wind as we waited for the new roofing timbers to be fitted. We hadn't wanted to go that far, but we had found, as we stripped it back that the roof comprised three separate sections and would need to be unified. Just what we needed!

We took this rainbow to be a good omen!

I fear I have gone on too long and will have to make it into a two part post. Apologies!



PS. We checked on Old John today, he remains battered, but undefeated. We'll keep looking in on him.

Singletrack Mind

At breakfast this morning, a friend of mine described me as having a "singletrack mind". (Thanks Dave - I like the term.) Let my try to explain.
I tend to work to find the root of the problem and bring up with single, working solutions. No wandering or waffling. Lets get to the point and can the extra garbage. No "one track" mind, but a "singletrack" mind.
There's another way to look at things. At least here in our area, mountain bikers (that breed of cyclists that have a passion riding in the dirt - singletrack) seem to get things done. No long, protracted discussions. No endless tabling of issues. They/we seam to just "get it done". Maybe that's why I like working with T.H.O.R., Psycowpath, and others.
Please, folks, don't take this the wrong way. Some times it takes hitting up on the side of the head with a 2x4 to get attention. But damn it, once they/we realize something needs to done, it gets done at lightning speed.
On another subject, I rode at Manawa today. Great to be in the dirt. Rodes over 12 miles today. The trails are in awesome condition. The only problem is that lots of leaves have finally dropped. Now, I ride almost every week at Manawa, but today I missed one turn in the trail. From the photo, it looks that I am not the only one that missed that turn! (The trail turns to the right there).
Get out and ride!

Who says calm days can't be fun?

Sharon paddles along a breakwall east of Navy Pier.

"You wouldn't want to go paddling today," a friend said in a message on our voice mail. "The wind is light and the water is flat."

We missed her message because we were out on the lake.

In fact, it was a lovely day. We could put in and take out anywhere we liked. We didn't even have to pay for parking at North Avenue Beach. We saw only two boats: a tour boat heading for dry dock and a Coast Guard boat zipping to shore. Most of the buoys were gone.

First we visited the four-mile crib, one of the city's water intake locations. It's a fortress-like structure with a Tim Burtonesque tower on top. The water was calm enough that Alec was able to bring out his non-waterproof camera.



Alec shooting the four-mile crib.

From there, we paddled down to 12th Street Beach. No sunbathers, no lifeguards, no seagulls. Just groups of elementary school students on field trips to the Museum Campus, who found us at least as interesting as the marine mammals in the Shedd Aquarium. We rounded out our paddle by visitng various lights and lighthouses along the breakwall east of Navy Pier.



Sharon gives some scale to the boulders at the base of the lighthouse.





We paid our respects to light number 1.

By the time we returned to North Avenue Beach, the sun was getting lower (even though it was barely 3 p.m.) and the air was starting to cool. We landed on the empty beach, packed up in the abandoned parking lot, and returned to the chaos of rush hour traffic--two water creatures in a current of landlubbers.

Don't Waste Your Life

I finally finished reading Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper. I really like his convicting, hard-hitting style.
Here are some portions from the last chapter entitled My Prayer-Let None Say in the End, "I've Wasted It". And now shall we who treasure Christ and know your love is better far than life lay up, like all the world, our treasures on this earth? Would not we hear you say, as you once said, "Fool, will not this same night your soul be taken back? And then whose will these barns of bounty be?" Forbid, O Lord, that while the world is filled with need we would sit down and say, "Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry." A terrible reversal waits such lovelessness. "Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation."
Oh God, such riches are a wasted life. Protect us, Lord. Grant us to hear and heed another call: "Lay up your treasure not on earth, but in the place where moth and thief will never come. Make treasures for yourself that cannot fail."
The answer is that in this life we may begin to treasure Christ, and here gain an aptitude for joy in him. It is delighting in his fellowship beyond all family and friends. It is embracing all his promises that there will be more pleasure in his presence than from all the lying promises of sin. It is a gladness in the present taste of glory and the hope of future fullness when we see him face to face. It is a quiet peace along the path he chooses for us with its pain. It is being satisfied that nothing comes to us in vain.
He calls us now to use our riches for the poor and to join him in this final task of frontier missions. Is not this, then, the way we lay up treasure in your house-to give our money and ourselves to make as many rich with God forever as we can? Grant that we move toward need and not toward ease.
As God lives, and is all I ever need, I will not waste my life...through Jesus Christ, AMEN.

FESTIVAL OF LIGHTS - Hidalgo, Texas

Hidalgo Festival of Lights is the largest Christmas lighting display in Texas with more than 2 1/2 million lights and more than 250 large lighted displays on a 3 mile trail through Hidalgo. We went with a group of 10 from the Park. $10 got us dinner at Town Hall . .





a narrated Trolley ride thru town . . ..





, and entertainment by the Rio Grande Valley Sweet Adelines . . .

and Washboard Willy!The Lights were spectacular. The town square iscovered with lighted displays and there are lots more throughout the town.

































Getting ready to board the Trolley

Ramón Ayala is an accordion player and singer of norteño music from Nuevo León, Mexico. The King Of The Accordion and 4 time Grammy winner, featured in 13 movies, and has recorded 105 albums. He is known for his great generosity and annual Christmas party for children at the annual Posado in Hildago. He provides toys for thousands of children along with a concert and food.















Would like to go back and check out the Christmas Displays at the Pump House

In 1910, an irrigation pump house was established on the banks of the Rio Grande in Hidalgo. Water from the river was pumped into a canal system, at a rate of 400,000 gallons per minute at its height, to irrigate thousands of acres of chaparral, which were then cleared and sold for the growing of sugar cane, cotton, citrus and vegetables in the semi-arid land.

Mousse au Chocolat

See recipe below.

I Get Exhausted After Working Too!

I know how hards Mama and Dad's work is, but I put my two cents' worth in too. Don't have the pictures of today's workout, but I'm so tired after obedience training that even Ma's flashie beast doesn't faze me in the least. Pawesome treats, but dinner was sparse, cause my teacher called me "fat" again tonight. Arrrgghhhhh.

Enjoying the blue hour at Bandon Beach

A shot of Jessica and I from our November trip out west. We had spent the day sightseeing and been in and out of rain all day long. As we drew near Bandon Beach just before sunset the clouds started to clear and it looked like sunset was going to be nice. And indeed it was! The sky lit up with glorious colors as the sun dipped below the horizon. We had a blast watching the changing sky and finding star fish and other sea life clinging to the sea stacks. After the sunset color faded from the sky we headed further down the beach to get closer to some of the sea stacks. From a distance they don't look very big but when you get close, WOW are they huge! I just had to get a shot of us posed in between these towering formations. It was a great end to a fun-filled day!