Witch Light by Susan Fletcher

I picked up this book in my favourite bookshop, the Bookmark in Grantown-on-Spey. When the wonderful Marjory got to it in my rather large pile of booty (see below) she was full of praise, making me promise I would e-mail my thoughts when I finished it.  So expectations were high.

Heck, expectations were high based on a number of facts: The book is about a young woman being accused of witchcraft in the 17th century, a subject I've been interested in since school.  A large part of the novel takes place in Glencoe around the massacre, an area I love and a historical event that morbidly fascinates many, myself included.  All this expectation was weighing on me so despite my initial excitement I shelved this and left it to cool off for a couple of months.

I shouldn't have bothered, this book didn't just exceed my expectations it smashed them.  I can't even begin to describe what I liked best, I still haven't come close to deciding.  Witch Light has everything.  The interwoven stories of Corrag and Charles Leslie and the impact their meeting has on the other are compelling and would be enough alone to have had me waxing lyrical but the way in which Susan Fletcher writes is just mesmerising, lyrical and poetic.  I can't recall ever having read something that transported me so completely.  3D writing, I was there seeing, smelling, hearing and feeling as Corrag.

Then like the icing on the cake, the theme of love being Corrag's true magic.  Not just her love for Alasdair but the healing powers of allowing herself to love first her grey mare, then Glencoe and it's people and ultimately how her story enchants Charles Leslie and transforms the dour, hate filled church man.  His later letters home to his wife are heart wrenchingly beautiful and such a contrast to those we first read.

I don't think I've read anything that comes close to this book and if I'm honest I'm not sure I ever will again.  I don't mind.  Witch Light was good enough to keep me warm for lots of cold Glencoe winter nights to come, but I am winter born!

In praise of 'stupid' shoes

These are my favourite shoes.

I'm not going to go into all the reasons why they are my favourites but suffice to say I adore them and the way I feel when they are on my feet.

So I wore them yesterday.  I'm not sure many people turn up to an adoption panel in 15cm heels.  Well I do.

I'm a Mum who works part time in a coffee shop my opportunities for dressing up and wearing amazing shoes are severely limited.  The council doesn't maintain the pavements well enough for me to totter round to do the school run in these and I'm sure that the health and safety bods would comment if I tried to wait tables in these.  So when an opportunity to dress up presents itself I grab it, completely accepting that my toes might nip by the end of the day.

Yesterday I needed confidence.  An adoption panel is pretty intimidating.  There were 9 people sat hanging on our every word as the Chair quizzed us on why we felt we were ready to adopt a second, what we had learnt in the 6 years we've been parents and other questions that less than 24 hours later I've completely wiped from my mind.  But when I'm wearing shoes with shooting stars trailing rainbows nothing can phase me.  How could life be anything less than amazing with shoes like this?

The adoption panel obviously agreed.  We've been approved as prospective adoptive parents and now just need to be patient while they find us our second child.  I'm not sure I have shoes to make patiently waiting possible but at least if I'm wearing my favourites my feet will look fabulous as I impatiently tap my toes.

Muddling through

I have no idea what I am doing.  While this isn't an entirely new sensation it is not one that I am comfortable with and I am going to try and not freak out too much.  

I normally write with a fountain pen in a notebook and at the moment that is seeming even more wonderfully straightforward than usual and that takes into account exploding ink cartridges, trying to remember how to spell and finding my notebook.  I didn't think that I was a luddite until I started setting this page up, I obviously am and I'm not terribly impressed with myself.  

I have spent a considerable wedge of Sunday trying to work out how to add a twitter linky button widget to my page and I'm still at a loss.  Whist I'm not admitting defeat I am heading off to find something more productive to do with my time.  Something like repeatedly headbutt the wall.