We’re on to the final book in James Herriot’s memoirs, Every Living Thing. I started reading his series of books…I don’t know when, but it was years ago, and this is the final one.

Today we read about a cat which sounded a bit like our boy:

‘…he was always there, seated upright and majestic on the polished boards near the curtained doorway…It was typical that he never yielded to any unseemly display of emotion. That would have been undignified, and dignity was an unchanging part of him.’

Black cockatoos ripping into the banksia tree out the back. Huge, magnificent birds that are very hard to capture on an iPhone.

Our new Shakespeare play and one we hadn’t done before.

Miss M wrote a soliloquy on our reading this week. Oliver De Boys is Orlando’s nasty older brother:

Oliver De Boys’ Soliloquy

Orlando… I detest the name!
Fraternal affection between us is gone.
He has challenged me more than once,
And won with straight words – the people
Love him – so impotent my wisdom is
To his simplicity. Something there is in him
That loves a wall; he charges bricks
Like they are feather-light.
This time he will find the feathers
Have turned to dust and all that is left
Is a man too high for him to down.
All that is left for me
Is to entice the duke’s wrestler with reports
Of Orlando’s wickedness. He is a good man,
At word of the boy’s misdoings he will be inflamed,
Then will I heat up Orlando with taunting words
Till his sense leaves him
And he goes straightway to challenge the man.
Our father was besotted with the child,
But no such inheritance shall he get from me!

The For the Family’s Sake Read Along & discussion continues and I posted some thoughts on Chapter 2 this week. I found this article that touched on some of the issues that Macaulay addressed in her book and gave it to my daughter to read also. In relation to the home and creativity, finishing what you start etc. I’ve been working on a little quilt I started about five years ago which had languished for some time in the bottom of a basket. I didn’t realise it was big enough to fit a cot so when I found that the top was basically finished, I started hand quilting it. Hundreds of little 1 inch hexagons, but it is quite relaxing and I’ve listened to a couple of good sized books in the process.

Miss M and I have recently finished Quo Vadis and have been using Tom Wright’s commentary on the Book of Romans for our individual devotional reading which tied in really well to this novel. I plan to write about Quo Vadis later on, but in short, I thought it presented a realistic picture of the decadence of Rome and the whirlpool effect its prevailing culture had on its people. Reading the Book of Romans knowing something of the nature of this culture is very helpful.

In John Anderson Conversations this week we watched an interview with Phillip Jensen on The Truth of Jesus. Jensen is a very gracious, articulate man, with a good sense of humour.