A few days ago an influx of water turned my smooth, green, mirror like lake surface into an unsettling pale and creamy puddle. It has been almost a week and the turbidity, the opaqueness of the pond, has only just now started to improve, tinging the pond green.

 

I’ve just read Fathers and Sons, which is a curious Russian novel from the late 19th century. It reads a little like an English novel from the early 20th century, so the Russians can certainly congratulate themselves on being progressive. It has lovely, quotable lines, and a barely disguised didactic nature which puts me immediately at home. The whole thing is doomed to tragedy from the start{{1}}[[1]]It helps when you’ve skimmed its wiki entry[[1]], and yet, the characters all have, underneath it all, such a foundation of wholesome love that I can’t help feeling the survivors will do very well indeed. Against all common sense I trusted this author by page 30.

 

This is TBR number 7 for me, since whilst reading the Magellan bibliography I remembered Oppenhiem’s Fortunate Wayfarer, half-finished on a previous encounter, and gobbled it up in a night. So I only need sixteen more books to finish the challenge. I am combing my shelves for thin works.

 

In between reading I have been tracing. My mother acquired some Swedish tracing paper, which she carelessly allowed me to pinch, and I have been tracing Rosalie stockings and Gertie’s Wiggle dress. It is lovely stuff, the tracing paper, pushing me on towards such daring things as grading between sizes and “drafting” a new neckline.  I’m afraid I didn’t pay proper attention to where I was grading, and likely the waist on the front will be higher that the waist on the back, but it is so hard to tell since, of course, the pieces are flat and the finished object won’t be.

As predicted my weekends have been busy, and the ones I’ve had free have been spent in that desperate, headlong way that shows a true lack of foresight. I am looking forward to this coming weekend’s activities, though, and even more to seeing myself continue to grow a little wiser each day.