You think You know, but You have no idea!!

Before this month’s meeting several of you had given way to the idea that I had completely lost my marbles, due to the homework assignment. Sadly I think it led to a smaller turn out, however for those of us that did participate in my many strange but fun activities we decided that even though my assignments seem totally nuts they do make for a fun evening!!!

For her participation, investigative deduction and cleverness Anna was awarded this month’s bag of goodies. She had us all laughing at her many kitchen item clues!! My personal favorite was the bottle of hot sauce she used to represent Mexico!!

For those of you that are curious the answers to our 12 clue quest were as follows:

Clue #1
In which previous book club book did a thirty year old secretary, decide to take a yearlong adventure of recreating 524 French recipes? ~Julie and Julia

 Clue #2
The fictional (made-up) character of Dracula was based on a man that lived in what Eastern European country between 1431 and 1476? ~Romania

Clue #3

Which book club member said her favorite book genre is Period Romance? ~Lydia

 Clue #4

Which previous book club book, experienced sky rocketing sales during the Amanda Knox’s trials? ~Monster of Florence

Clue#5
Which neighboring country now requires a passport or enhanced ID to cross the border? ~Canada

Clue #6

Which book club member is exempt from all BOOK related homework? ~Debbie

Clue #7

On which past book club, book sleeve were we told that the book was “Gritty, sensual and charged with dark secrets involving love, murder, and a majestic, mute heroine? ~Water for Elephants

Clue #8

In which country is Día de los Muertos celebrated as a national holiday? ~México

Clue #9

Which book club member probably spends more money on wool than clothing? ~Sarah

Clue #10

In which previous book club book, were we taken on a multi-generational journey that helped a girl find her missing history? ~The Forgotten Garden

Clue #11
In which country could a woman from centuries past be considered a half wife, a wife of nightfall, a woman who sold not her body but her skills and with it created a fragile, forbidden world? ~China

Clue #12

Which book club member owns horses? ~Twyla

The Thirteenth Tale had several little hidden secrets and charms and at the meeting we also discovered some interesting things about one another. For instance I am related to Brad Pitt, Anna once danced in a drag show, Sarah’s dad was a Hells Angel, Beth really does like the Family Guy and Marsela does not love Justin Bieber!! I have to say ladies you never cease to keep my laughing and on my toes.

After playing our silly little games and enjoying some awesome food

it was time to discuss our book. Well it was pretty unanimous WE LOVED IT!!! This book was absolutely amazing and I personally felt as thou I had a lot in common with the main character Margaret. Especially her love of book and the way she felt they could completely encompass you.

“There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.”
― Diane Setterfield, The Thirteenth Tale

Several of us agreed with this quote and said we constantly found ourselves hypnotized by the passages in this story. We also agreed that the book would have been better had it ended about 30 pages before it did. The nice little wrapped up ending wasn’t needed and it felt amateur when compared to the other wonderful charms that book laid before us.

For many of us we saw certain sections of the book going very differently. For the most part Anna and Marsela said they had figured the ending out. They knew that our beloved Ms. Winter was in fact not one of the twins. Sarah on the other hand had her pegged as a schizophrenic with definite split personalities and both Beth and I found ourselves wondering several times whether or not there had ever been twins to begin with or if it had always just been one person. I admittedly said I didn’t see the ending coming.

In the end we all voted the book needed to be ranked among the other brilliant stories from our book club past. It has now found a home among our top five.

Before leaving I passed out the cute little patriotic inspired pin wheel invitations for July’s meeting and gave everyone very strict instructions that if they wanted to win this month’s prize they would need to pull out all the stops with their best red, white and blue outfits!!

We had a blast at the meeting and left feeling excited for what next month had in store for us. I personally am very excited to see what everyone comes up with for our next meeting and to hear their opinions of the book An American Childhood.

So until next time as usual Happy Reading!!!

Sincerely yours,

Mistress Book Club Wench

Book Descriptions

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter~

When Abraham Lincoln was nine years old, his mother died from an ailment called the "milk sickness." Only later did he learn that his mother's deadly affliction was actually the work of a local vampire, seeking to collect on Abe's father's unfortunate debts.

When the truth became known to the young Abraham Lincoln, he wrote in his journal: henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become learned in all things—a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose."

Fall on Your Knees~

The Piper family is steeped in secrets, lies, and unspoken truths. At the eye of the storm is one secret that threatens to shake their lives — even destroy them.

Set on stormy Cape Breton Island off Nova Scotia, Fall on Your Knees is an internationally acclaimed multigenerational saga that chronicles the lives of four unforgettable sisters. Theirs is a world filled with driving ambition, inescapable family bonds, and forbidden love.

Compellingly written, by turns menacingly dark and hilariously funny, this is an epic tale of five generations of sin, guilt, and redemption.

May's Meeting Re-cap

“Great. Just great. One glimpse of his body and I have a full-blown crush. I honestly thought I was a bit deeper than that.”

 Our latest book “The Undomestic Goddess” by Sophia Kinsella was full of funny quotes and humorous moments, the above quote is one of my favorites, possible because I find that I can totally relate!! As a group we concluded that although the story seemed very farfetched it was still a fun quirky read that led to a very entertaining discussion.

Playing to the books strengths, I decided to make this month’s theme “Welcome to Stepford” fun and quirky as well. I felt that the idea of becoming the perfect woman played nicely into the changes that Samantha went through after becoming a housekeeper, and what else would the perfect housewives/housekeeper do besides plant herbs and look fabulous doing it lol!! Although our Green Thumb competition was only moderately successful it was still quite fun. Congratulations and prizes were awarded to Anna for the best looking plant. We have however decided that she cheated so a full investigation is being conducted by the Thursday Night Book Club board of legal advisors and if she is found guilty she will have to forever give up all bragging rights!! Just kidding Anna I’m just bitter lol, your plant was very impressive. Equally impressive was Alissa’s flowering paper plant.  

 

To add even more entertainment I decided that everyone should look the part of the perfect wife. There were diamonds and pearls, heels and espadrilles and aprons galore. Beth played the part beautifully and therefore became the recipient of my other awesome prize.

This month’s theme and book were in no way serious but just good old fashion fun. We laughed; we smiled and had a great time. We didn’t all agree that the book was great but one thing is for sure, I think we have all decided to plant raspberry bushes!!!

As always once the discussion subsided it was time to unveil the invitations and book for the next meeting. I’m not sure everyone was excited by their homework or culinary assignment but I’m hoping everyone will to have fun with it. So for now I say happy reading and good luck with your clue investigation!

Clue #6

Which book club member is exempt from all BOOK related homework?

My thoughts on April's meeting~

“ I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.”

After reading this months book "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, I couldn't agree with this quote from the book more. I feel that as people there are certain books we are meant to read and I think our particular group for the most part was meant to read and discuss this work of fiction.

Knowing that this months book was less fluff than last months I decided to take this opportunity to be fun and quirky with this months theme and activities. Going off of the April Showers notion I decided that this month should be all about rain boots, clouds, and umbrellas, and everything from the activities right down to the decorations was about just those very things. My favorite part was the traveling rain boot competition and I am so glad that everyone participated. Our rain boots showed up in such places as a bath tub with its friend "rubber ducky" hanging out among yarn covered books, with boots of another color, amidst an algebraic equation, traveling down a snow covered mountain and in the place where love put down roots and blossomed. After hearing why each place was selected, our group determined that Mrs. Beth Page had the best traveling rain boot and she was therefore awarded the glorious prize bag which included all things yummy for a rain day.

After the fun festivities subsided it was time to move onto more serious discussion and our brown bag book reports. I was amazed at how creative all you ladies were at finding items to describe your favorite characters, scenes and something that truly saddened you. I especially loved that Anna actually took the time to bag up rubble from her driveway and found it a personal honor that she felt our friendship strong enough to leave her rubble baggie in my keeping. I believe her exact words were "nothing says friendship like rubble from my driveway" Anna I love ya!!

This months discussion was great and it was very interesting to hear very differing opinions on many of the books topics. We for the most part did all agree that we were truly invested in the lives of the characters. We felt connected to these souls and could see ourselves sitting at their tables discussing how their lives were forever changed after the war and the scar that it left on them all.

After the discussion it was time to pass out my very cute flower pot invitations for next month and explain the activities for May. I am very excited to see every one's growing herbs and the aprons and high heels that I'm sure will make Stepford Wives everywhere proud.

So with that I will leave you for now. I say good luck on your green thumbs and enjoy the laughter that I'm sure Sophie Kinsella has made allowance for with her tale of "The Undomestic Goddess"

Guernsey Then and Now.....

Guernsey then and now!!

As I have been reading this month’s book I have been wondering what this place, this Guernsey Island looked like. If you are like me you get an image in your head of what a character or place in a book looks like, and it can shape how you feel about either that person or place. Well knowing that this island was an actual place I decided to do some investigative work and see what it looked like during the war and today. So without further ado...

 “Guernsey then”:

On 15 June 1940, the British government decided that the Channel Islands were of no strategic importance and would not be defended, but did not give Germany this information. Thus despite the reluctance of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the British government gave up the oldest possession of the Crown "without firing a single shot”. The Channel Islands served no purpose to the Germans other than the propaganda value of having occupied some British territory. The "Channel Islands had been demilitarized and declared...'an open town' ".

The British Government consulted the islands' elected government representatives, in order to formulate a policy regarding evacuation. Opinion was divided and, without a policy being imposed on the islands, chaos ensued and different policies were adopted by the different islands. The British Government concluded their best policy was to make available as many ships as possible so that islanders had the option to leave if they wanted to. The authorities on Alderney recommended that all islanders evacuate, and nearly all did so; the Dame of Sark, Sibyl Mary Hathaway, encouraged everyone to stay. Guernsey evacuated all children of school age, giving the parents the option of keeping their children with them, or evacuating with their school. In Jersey, the majority of islanders chose to stay.

Since the Germans did not realize that the islands had been demilitarized, they approached them with some caution. Reconnaissance flights were inconclusive. On 28 June 1940, they sent a squadron of bombers over the islands and bombed the harbors of Guernsey and Jersey. In St Peter Port, the main town of Guernsey, some Lorries lined up to load tomatoes for export to England were mistaken by the reconnaissance for troop carriers. Forty-four islanders were killed in the raids.

While the German Army was preparing to land an assault force of two battalions to capture the islands, a reconnaissance pilot landed in Guernsey on 30 June and the island officially surrendered to him. Jersey surrendered on 1 July. Alderney, where only a handful of islanders remained, was occupied on 2 July and a small detachment travelled from Guernsey to Sark, which officially surrendered on 4 July

The German forces quickly consolidated their positions. They brought in infantry, established communications and anti-aircraft defenses, established an air service with mainland France and rounded up British servicemen on leave.

The Germans built four concentration camps in Alderney. The camps were sub camps of the Neuengamme concentration camp outside Hamburg and each was named after one of the Frisian Islands: Lager Norderney located at Saye, Lager Borkum at Platte Saline, Lager Sylt near the old telegraph tower at La Foulère and Lager Helgoland in the north west corner of Alderney. The Nazi Organization Todt operated each sub camp and used forced labor to build bunkers, gun emplacements, air raid shelters, and concrete fortifications. The camps commenced operation in January 1942 and had a total inmate population of about 6,000.

The Borkum and Helgoland camps were "volunteer" (Hilfswillige) labor camps and the laborers in those camps were treated harshly but marginally better than the inmates at the Sylt and Norderney camps. The prisoners in Lager Sylt and Lager Norderney were slave laborers forced to build the many military fortifications and installations throughout Alderney. Sylt camp held Jewish forced laborers. Norderney camp housed European (mainly Eastern Europeans but including Spaniards) and Soviet forced laborers. Lager Borkum was used for German technicians and "volunteers" from different countries of Europe. Lager Helgoland was filled with Soviet Organization Todt workers.
In 1942, Lager Norderney, containing Soviet and Polish POWs, and Lager Sylt, holding Jews, were placed under the control of the SS Hauptsturmführer Max List. Over 700 of the inmates lost their lives before the camps were closed and the remaining inmates transferred to Germany in 1944.

During June 1944, the Allied Forces launched the D-Day landings and the liberation of Normandy. They decided to bypass the Channel Islands due to their heavy fortifications described above. As a result, German supply lines for food and other supplies through France were completely severed. The islanders' food supplies were already dwindling, and this made matters considerably worse - the islanders and German forces alike were on the point of starvation.

Churchill's reaction to the plight of the German garrison was to "let 'em rot"; even though this meant that the islanders had to rot with them. It took months of protracted negotiations before the International Red Cross ship SS Vega was permitted to relieve the starving islanders in December 1944, bringing Red Cross food parcels, salt and soap, as well as medical and surgical supplies. The Vega made five further trips to the islands before liberation in May 1945.
Although plans had been drawn up and proposed in 1943 by Vice Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten for Operation Constellation, a military reconquest of the islands, these plans were never carried out. The Channel Islands were liberated after the German surrender.

On 8 May 1945 at 10 am, the islanders were informed by the German authorities that the war was over. Churchill made a radio broadcast at 3pm during which he announced that:

Hostilities will end officially at one minute after midnight to-night, but in the interests of saving lives the "Cease fire" began yesterday to be sounded all along the front, and our dear Channel Islands are also to be freed to-day

The following morning, 9 May 1945, HMS Bulldog arrived in St Peter Port, Guernsey and the German forces surrendered unconditionally aboard the vessel at dawn. British forces landed in St Peter Port shortly afterwards, greeted by crowds of joyous but malnourished islanders.
It appears that the first place liberated on Jersey may have been the British General Post Office Jersey repeater station. Mr. Warder, a GPO lineman, had been stranded on the island during the occupation. He did not wait for the island to be liberated and went to the repeater station where he informed the German officer in charge that he was taking over the building on behalf of the British Post Office.

“Guernsey now”:

Post war, tourism started to really take off and around 250,000 people per annum were visiting Guernsey. The tax rate was reduced to 20% in 1959 and a large influx of wealthy UK individuals followed. Housing controls were brought in during the 1960s to try and control the population growth but with limited success.

In the 1970s the old harbor and Victoria dock were converted to marinas for local and visiting boat owners and in 1973 Guernsey became an Associate member of the EEC. At the start of the 1980s the North Beach marina and car park were built. Today, two million visitors (largely European) treat the twenty-five square mile island as their own pretty Bermuda.

Luckily, a small but determined band of history-minded volunteers—who later formed an organization called Fortress Guernsey—decided that the past should not be whitewashed away, but instead studied and, in some cases, restored. They recognized too that the details of the Nazi invasion are little known to outsiders, perhaps in part because huge casualties did not occur.

Presently, through the efforts of Fortress Guernsey, a visitor can come to this peaceful island, enjoy all its amenities, and they can also view what many military historians consider part of one of the largest war invasion efforts. Using Fortress Guernsey brochures, booklets and maps available at the tourist offices, it is possible to visit the coastal defense works, the underground hospital and the Occupation Museum.

Richard Heaume, born after the war was over, had a fascination with the treasures he dug up as a boy: helmets, knives, bullets, guns. Today many of these items are in the Fortress Guernsey Occupation Museum he runs. "I would trade things I found with other boys. Gradually I realized it all had to be preserved. It is part of who we are." At the museum you can see a recreated St. Peter Port street, along with some of the wars oddities: a gas mask for horses; the forbidden "V for Victory" signs, and even packets of ersatz foods, such as parsnip tea and carrageen moss, that islanders ate to allay their hunger pains.

Today locally grown vegetables, including the justly famous tomato, as well as freshly caught fish and shellfish make up most of the popular meals at both upscale restaurants and fish and chip shops. French cooking means that it is impossible to get a bad meal here.

Islanders host events each year for almost every interest: kite-flying, bridge and chess tournaments, agricultural and horticultural events, Petanque (French bowling), and even a real ale and cider festival. During the month of April, people flock to Guernsey for the Annual Festival of Food and Wine. Local restaurants compete for awards, producing attractively priced menus and creating new dishes. On May 9 every year, the residents celebrate Liberation Day with fireworks, street entertainment and speeches. In September, Fortress Guernsey hosts a symposium about the events of the war and the progress of the restoration.

Sports events also bring in many visitors: horse driving shows, air shows, fun races, duathalons, triathlons, swimming, hockey, and yachting regattas. Vintage car rallies, ballet performances, jazz events are scheduled throughout the year at the attractive Saumerez Park, where you can also visit the attractive manor house and the floral gardens. Floral festivals and plantings are practically a cottage industry all over the island.

It’s obvious that even though the war is still evident on the walls and buried deep in the ground, Guernsey has dusted itself off and gained its strength. It has become a beautiful thriving community that will always remember what it went through to get to where it is.

(some text taken from wikipedia and travellady.com)

"Rain Boots" a brief history

For those of you that know my daughter Jillian you can attest to her love of rain boots. She wears them with everything, to put it plainly Jillian’s boots were made for walking and they have been a lot of places. Jillian’s love of rain boots and our upcoming “traveling rain boot” competition got me wondering. Where did thee ever so popular rain boot come from? Well I’ll tell ya......

The “rain boot” formally known as "rubber wellies" may not mean as much to more recent generations, but they were essential in transforming the way people now so effortlessly approach wet and muddy grounds. In the nineteenth century, Arthur Wellington, first Duke of Wellington, requested that his shoemaker modify a pair of Hessian boots. Hessian boots initially made of leather, eventually evolved into the effective form of rubber foot protection that we know today.

 "Wellies" soon became the practical choice during World War I because they were waterproof. They provided soldiers with suitable footwear for time spent in flooded trenches and other treacherous conditions. Both World War I and World War II sparked the creation of vast quantities of Wellington boots and soon after, men, women, and children of all ages were wearing, what we now refer to as, rain boots.

In the 1850s, a French footwear manufacturer, teamed up with Charles Goodyear to patent a rubber footwear product that would become an overnight success. Perhaps most logically, farmers took advantage of these technologically advanced shoes and traded in their wooden clogs for rubber boots.

Since their creation, rain boots have accumulated quite the collection of nicknames as they have found their place in countries and cultures all across the world. South African and New Zealand natives refer to rain boots as "gumboots". Older Australians refer to these boots as "Blucher boots" and "Gummies", while Irish statesmen have coined them "top boots".

In the United States you can still find a bright yellow version of "wellies", but most British residents typically don green-colored rain boots. No matter the color rain boots have become an essential part of the dress code for young children, as well as for fashionistas and trend-setters as they step out for a cup of coffee on a sunny day.

From practical protection to puddle jumping to surging fashion trends, rain boots have evolved into much more than a simple piece of footwear. Today, rain boots have effectively created and established a name for themselves that appeals to audiences ranging from parents to style gurus and everyone in between.

As you can see rain boots have traveled the globe, coming a very long way from where they started. Where will yours turn up?

I look forward to seeing all your rain boots in action ladies. Get those cameras ready; remember I’m looking for the most unusual/unique pictures of your boots!!!!

(portions of this post were taken from a paper written by Avand Amiri)