OK, let's not beat about the bush. This has been a horrible, horrible month. (Details of all the crap are here and here. Reminders of Kuching's gentle compensations -- mainly friends and food, and I'm really grateful for both -- are here and here.)

In a nutshell: Firstly, it seems we drastically underestimated the after-effects of Nigel's recent surgery. It was only a minor operation, but he has taken a long time to mend, and still isn't really 100 per cent.

I, meanwhile, started the month with concerns over one body part, and am finishing it with major question-marks over four. At that rate, assuming three check-ups a year, I'll have 4,096 body parts to worry about in two years' time...

I had a letter from the UK pensions people this week, asking for Proof of Life... I'm beginning to wonder who they've been talking to...


Anyway, you're welcome to tell me any of the following, because they're all true:

-- Many people have way more problems, health and otherwise, than I do.
-- Things could be much worse.
-- I need to woman up, and stop whinging.

Tick, tick, and tick.

But I think what I'm wrestling with is the whole dynamic of getting older.

Which sucks, frankly.

Any youngish person reading this probably won't understand at all, but the thing is: We just don't FEEL old...

Really. We both take on board a bundle of new ideas and information every month. We let all that modify our old ideas and knowledge and behaviour. We learn new things (ask Nigel about his synthesizer...). We vary our habits (well -- we vary them in the way that cats do -- which is to follow the same routine religiously for about two weeks, and then start doing something completely different). We're active (some of the people we meet in Kuching think we're ridiculously active...). And we're always happy to shoulder our rucksacks, and march off to a new adventure.

None of this says "old" to me.

And yet the body parts are saying something different. The body parts are saying: Serious stuff happening here; be prepared for changes...

I find it scary and depressing. And, though I'm not generally prone to hypochondria, it's certainly true that knowing about these things makes me question every little blip.


But enough of all that. I should listen to Zelda Fitzgerald, who certainly had plenty to put up with: "Stop looking for solace: there isn’t any, and if there were, life would be a baby affair."

A propos of which, when you're down, there are always books...

-- I'm still chasing rabbits from my Paris-in-the-twenties phase. The lesser-known member of the Fitzgerald duo was the focus this month, with Superzelda, a delightful biographic comic by Tiziana Lo Porto and Daniele Marotta; and Zelda, a more conventional but very readable bio, containing loads of fascinating primary material, by Nancy Milford.
-- Casting the net further afield, however, we had Jasmine and Stars by Fatemeh Keshavarz (as an antidote to last month's Reading Lolita, it didn't quite work); Stay With Me by Ayobami Adebayo (moving but slightly credulity-straining at times); See You at the Seaside by Dorit Rabinyan (an affecting story about the doomed love of an Israeli and a Palestinian, made even sadder by the current awful circumstances); and My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk (an intricate novel about cultural change and its ramifications).
-- Completely sui generis was Faith, Hope and Carnage by Nick Cave and Sean O'Hagan. This was both thought-provoking and inspiring, and an effective backbone-stiffener after a tough month.
-- Meanwhile, the mystery category featured The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes (a wonderfully creepy story, just a tad marred by its ending); and Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Sutanto (fun, but a little too cosy for my taste). I also took in a couple of influential early spy novels, both great reads: Ashenden by W. Somerset Maugham; and Uncommon Danger by Eric Ambler.
-- Plus, there were two "tidying" posts: The first in a series called Book notes; and a (somewhat desultory) movie round-up.


Re books -- and long may I conserve the eyes to read them -- I came across two really good quotes recently:

Ethel Rohan: "I'm worried for us... We are increasingly riddled with a chilling lack of empathy even as we witness dystopian levels of rage, hate, terror, and tyranny worldwide. Books won’t thaw or save us, not as a whole, but they can profoundly affect individuals. For decades reading has rescued me -- from boredom, loneliness, depression, inertia, bias, ignorance, and an overall smallness of mind and heart. I turn toward books like a bud to the sun, and during the best of reads I am enveloped in a haze of interconnectedness... Each of us is all of us."

Beth Driscoll: "Books remain powerful... Adaptable and enduring, books have not been replaced by new media, but sit alongside them... Reading, on its own, can’t solve every problem. But it can help us gather the resources we need to live in a way that is meaningful. It can be a practice that helps us make sense of the world and our place in it."

Hear, hear.

We're off on a little trip this coming week. Up to Sabah, across to Labuan, and back via Limbang and Brunei. It'll take just over three weeks, and I'm really looking forward to it. I think a change of scene is exactly what we need at the moment.

Let's hope July qualifies as a Much Better Month.