May 2021

These are the three lovely books I bought  in The Edge of The World bookshop in Penzance as soon as the bookshops opened. I started with  DARK SALT CLEAR by Lamorna Ash.

This is an absorbing read, especially for all those who know Newlyn well and watch the fishing boats head out each day. Ash went to live for a while in the fishing community in Newlyn to learn and observe their increasingly difficult and threatened way of life. She went out on the fishing trawlers in all weathers and bravely pitched in to help when most of us would be whimpering with fear. Her respect and admiration for fishermen and their families as they battle to keep a way of life that is deep in their blood, is obvious. Her book is dotted with fascinating literary references and is a wonderful new reflective voice in nature writing.

 

 

 

At the moment we still cannot travel. But you can travel vicariously to Malyasia and New Zealand in THE HOUR BEFORE DAWN… A child goes missing and is never found… Years later  her twin and mother return to Malaysia and the past slowly, spookily unfurls…It is on special offer again. 99p for the whole of May.

As I write it is a cold,wet May Sunday with a threatening bruised sky. No goldfinches in the oak tree chattering and gossiping. Even the fighting magpies and crows have disappeared. May is such a rich month for wild flowers.  As the gorse and hawthorne fade the thrift  springs up on the cliffs and the woods are full of bluebells.

Beauty is everywhere, even in the patterns and symmetry of a ploughed field like an art work…