I had a really hectic weekend so it is a good job I’m off for two weeks otherwise I would’ve been dragging my heels at work. We got back quite late from the Tattoo on Friday night and as usual I couldn’t fall asleep straight away so I watched the first episode of The Tudors S2. I have a love-hate relationship with this show because the historical inaccuracies annoy me to death so I have to kinda watch it without thinking too much.

I still got up quite early in the morning. I guess I’m too used to getting up for work. My nephews and niece were staying over on Saturday night so I decided to take them to see Wall E in the afternoon. I don’t go to the cinema very often because it is so expensive but I don’t often get the chance to take the kids anywhere. The film was actually quite good, although I was starting to get bored by the end. The kids really enjoyed it though so that was more important to me.

Afterwards, I took them to McDonalds which is alien territory to me since I’m a vegetarian. Normally, it would be last place I’d take them because I’m not a big fan of fast food but we were short of time and it was the best solution. They are such fussy eaters though and it drives me insane. I ordered their Happy Meals but nothing for myself because I know their vegburgers are cooked in the same fat as the meat burgers.

By the time we got home, the late night was catching up with me and I really had no energy for much of anything. The kids kept themselves amused while I chilled out on the couch with a growing headache. I am so tired of these headaches but there’s not a lot I can do about the weather. I actually went to bed at the same time as the kids which they thought was funny. I never really got into a proper sleep though because I automatically start listening out for them. They were quite restless sleepers when they were babies so I guess old habits die hard. They are also early risers which is so not a good thing on a Sunday morning.

I had a good time with them though but it is always great to give them back to their parents!

The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko


I bought this book after seeing a trailer for the movie which included a battle scene that looked like something out of the LOTR movies. When I started reading the book, I realised it was completely different from what I had perceived so it kinda threw me a bit.

The Night Watch, the forces of Light, and the Day Watch, the forces of the Dark, have reached an uneasy status quo where they prevent each other from becoming too powerful. If the Night Watch commit an act of good, the Day Watch can retaliate by doing an act of evil of equal power. There are three stories woven into the tale, each one threatening to upset the precarious balance.

I’m not actually sure how I feel about this book because I found some parts of it hard to read and suspect that has more to do with the translation more than anything else. It certainly wasn’t what I thought it was going to be about and for that reason alone, I feel the need to read again once I’ve finished the sequels.

I did rent the movie but found it dreadful.

View all my reviews.

I bought a copy of The Russian Concubine by Kate Furnivall after reading a recommendation on the website of Kate Mosse, author of Labyrinth and I’m so glad I did.

The Russian Concubine tells the story of Valentina, a White Russian, and her daughter, Lydia, who must fight for survival in the International Settlement in China after fleeing the Bolsheviks. Wounded by the loss of her husband, Valentina seeks solace in vodka and pretty much leaves Lydia to her own devices. Lydia finds herself having to resort to stealing to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. As political tensions in China increase, Lydia falls in love with a young Chinese communist which not only places her own life in danger but also those around her.

The love story between Lydia and Chang Lo is very powerful and so heartbreakingly full of despair and promise at the same time. I’ve always been interested in pre-revolution Russia but never felt the same way about China. The atmosphere in the novel is so striking, I’m now finding myself very curious and that can never be a bad thing.

However, the cherry on top of the cake for me, was discovering the premise is actually based on the experiences of Furnivall’s own mother who was a White Russian raised in China and India. While the events of the story are fiction, the premise and many of the names used are directly lifted from Furnvall’s family tree. Furnivall was unaware of her Russian heritage for a very long time and a visit to her website reveals the story behind the book.

Lydia and Chang Lo’s love affair ends abruptly and we will have to wait for the sequel to find out more, however Furnivall’s next book is also set in Russia and I can’t wait for its release.

It’s a bank holiday in the UK today and the sun is actually out! Of course that means all my neighbours are out doing the garden which is why my eyes and nose are streaming. Gotta love that fresh grass smell. Not!

I’m actually feeling very frustrated with myself. I’ve been messing around in PSP, trying to do some website design but it’s totally not working. I try so hard to be creative but I actually suck at it. If someone could just invent software that read your mind and translated it, I would be so happy. Every now and then, I surf round the sites of some top designers and my chin just drops at the awesome stuff they create. I get the urge to hire them to make my site look beautiful but I get bored with layouts so fast, I’d just be wasting my money.

As well as being a bank holiday, it is also Switch It Off weekend. I’m not sure if this is nationwide or just part of our particular govt dept’s initiative but we’ve been getting bombarded with emails about it over the past few weeks. The whole idea is to save energy by switching off appliances you are not using. I know we all have to do our bit for the environment but this kind of campaign annoys the hell out of me simply due to the fact the govt is not good on saving its own energy. How many buildings do you see lit up in city centre’s in the middle of the night? Or in shop windows?

However, I’m not sure the campaign was aimed at encouraging people to switch off their televisions over the weekend because the choice of viewing was so bad. I sorely miss my dose of Supernatural on Sunday nights now that we have caught up with the pre-strike episodes. I finished all my Prison Break DVDs too - awesome series.

So, instead, I curled up on my bed and finished reading Kate Furnivall’s The Russian Concubine which I bought after reading a recommendation from Kate Mosse. The story is about a mother and daughter who flee Bolshevik Russian and end up in pre-revolutionary China. The daughter, Lydia, eventually falls in love with a young, Chinese communist and they must fight to stay together despite the odds stacked against them. I love stories about Russia. I have no idea why but I’m drawn to them.

I’ve been waiting on this book being released for a long time as Margaret George typically takes up to five years to finish a book. Unfortunately, the book’s release proved to be bad timing for me since I lost my grandmother the week before and as a result I found it hard to concentrate on anything. When the book arrived, I thought it would help take me away from my problems for awhile since Ms George is an extremely powerful writer and it’s not hard to lose yourself in her books. However, this book proved to be the exception to the rule and it took me nearly six months to finish it instead of my usual couple of days. I can’t blame the author entirely for that because there was a lot going on in my life and I found it hard making time to read.

However, there is no denying that this book failed to grab me in the same way as Mary, Called Magdalene or The Memoirs of Cleopatra and I found it very hard getting a clear picture of Helen and her motives. Ms George’s research was as stunning as always and she certainly brought the era to life in much the same way as any of her books but Helen never seemed to click for me and I’m not sure the author managed to make her seem like an ordinary person. Most of us know the story of Helen, the daughter conceived by Leda when she was visited by Zeus disguised as a swan, but Ms George tries to throw doubt on the circumstances of her birth and I think it strips the story of some of the magic. I have to admit that I’m a huge fan of Greek mythology and the stories of the Gods and their meddling in the lives of mortals weave such a colourful tapestry, I would’ve preferred a more fantastical approach I suppose.

In conclusion, Helen of Troy is never going to be one of my favourite Margaret George novels but it certainly can’t be considered the worst either. My favourite of her novels is still Mary, Queen of Scotland and the Isles, so it will be interesting to see how I feel about Ms George’s next novel - Elizabeth I - the woman who executed Mary!

Okay, Erica tagged me for this meme! The deal is you’re supposed to grab the nearest book to you, flip to page 123, find the fifth sentence on that page, and then blog the following three sentences. Now, as it turns out, I’m reading a book called The Holocaust by Martin Gilbert and this isn’t exactly a happy extract:

Of two thousand young men and women sent from Radom to work in the Zamosc region, ‘almost all of them perished’. Of a thousand young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five sent from Czestochowa in August 1940, ‘almost none survived’. Thousands more were brought from independent Slovakia, a state delighted to comply with the German request for labour-deportees.

I’m supposed to tag others but I think everyone on my list has done this, if not, feel free!