John Bunyan - Pilgrims Progress

Wow, that took a long time to read. It wasn't a hard read or particularly boring, maybe too archaic and too simple in some ways. Very religious of course and trying to be instructive on being Christian in the 17th Century. I'm glad to have finished it, but never again.

http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item126922.html

Boats and apprenticeships

Another probably two weeks now have passed since my last blog entry. it's been rather eventful and all for the good.

Eleanor applied for an apprenticeship and the Norwich Arts Centre, had two interviews and a follow-up meeting, and now starts next week. The role is only for a year and no real chance of a permanent post, but it'll be great for her. It'll give her an insight into a different sphere of work, in a place she loves, and will give her loads of contacts and bands to watch.

Eleanor is at the best she's been since her depression and we are so happy for her. She's up and out every day, socialising with her friends and work colleagues, and constantly doing things.

Joanne and I had a night on the boat last weekend, sailing up to Ludham on Saturday, staying overnight with S&R, and then leaving to return at daybreak. We had a lovely drunken evening being attacked by bats and watching a satellite cross the sky. Sailing at daybreak was stunning. The weather was warm and by the time we were home, we were tired, burnt, and dehydrated.

Things are good.

John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge - God is Back (How the global rise of faith is changing the world

Quite a dense and academic book. I found it originally in the UEA library, read some of it there and decided to buy it.

It mainly covers the rise of Evangelical Christianity in America and of Islam in the middle east. It's a scary, but not unexpected, story of how people are rejecting the modern world and breakdown of families, and grasping religion as a guide. Crazy nut jobs the lot of them, but understandably nutty.

Milan Kundera - The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

A series of linked short stories. Stories about troubled relationships and lonely characters, against the backdrop of the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia.

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (Czech: Kniha smíchu a zapomnění) is a novel by Milan Kundera, published in France in 1979. It is composed of seven separate narratives united by some common themes. The book considers the nature of forgetting as it occurs in history, politics and life in general. The stories also contain elements found in the genre of magic realism.

The first time an angel heard the devil's laughter, he was dumbfounded... The angel clearly understood that such laughter was directed against God and against the dignity of his works. He knew that he must reach swiftly somehow, but felt weak and defenceless. (p86)

One morning (and it will be soon), when everyone wakes up as a writer, the age of universal deafness and incomprehension will have arrived. (p147)

You begin to liquidate a people, Hubl said, by taking away its memory. You destroy its books, its culture, its history (p218)

Whoever wishes to remember must not stay in one place, waiting for the memories to come of their own accord! Memories are scattered all over the immense world, and it takes voyaging to find them and make them leave their refuge. (p229)

A rubbish Easter

Rubbish from a weather and getting out and about front.

But good with Sue and Alan visiting for four days. Didn't do a great deal due to the rain and cold, only going into town once, plus a couple of meals up at the Grand-parents.

Otherwise stuck inside doing DIY.

Father illnesses continue, although both getting better. Thorton with pneumonia and my Dad getting over his Chemo.