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Sep. 4th, 2007 11:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
changelingSo. I'm still on drugs, still have pleurisy, and was thinking yesterday as I went into work, "Thank goodness. At least I'll have something else to talk about." Other than Diana Wynne Jones, that is, as I have now read every single book in the Chrestomanci* series. I went to the library on Sunday and picked up the last few – including The Lives of Christopher Chant, because Steph and I love Christopher and think he's darling. My only complaint is that, as these are YA books, we don't get to see enough of C. once he's grown up; obviously the children are the focus of the books. I'm currently reading The Crown of Dalemark, the final book in the Dalemark Quartet. I read the previous three in a couple of weeks, borrowing the next from the library as soon as I was done with the previous one, but then some little sod borrowed the final one. I'm not sure I like this one as much as the others – yet, anyway. It seems to be on crack. My favourite of this series is currently The Spellcoats. Makes me want to learn how to weave.
Anyway, on Saturday Steph and Nat did the shop (I've been feeling really tired a lot of the time recently, and occasionally rather weak), and as Nat's mum kindly drove them, Steph bought the mulch and compost we needed to start building up the no-dig gardenbeds we're setting up in the six square metres (or whatever) we have in the back yard. What we discovered is that it took much more of everything than we expected; we only did one of the two planned beds (at least it was the larger) and used up everything we'd bought: two blocks of coir, two bags of compost, two bales of lucerne. We'll probably need that amount again for the second bed.
Tired. I'd better get some work done on this damn bird book. Curse all tardy authors!
* I am such a dork. I wanted to know what "Chrestomanci" means, since I know from my classical studies that –mancy means "divination" (c.f. oneiromancy, bibliomancy), although its meaning seems to have spread to encompass a more general definition of "magic" (c.f. necromancy). I looked it up (as "chrestomancy", of course), in case it was a word I'd simply not come across before, but it wasn't. I did find out from the word "chrestomathies" that chresto– means useful. So: "useful divination" or "divination of what's useful", or, more appropriately to the series, I think, "useful magic".
Anyway, on Saturday Steph and Nat did the shop (I've been feeling really tired a lot of the time recently, and occasionally rather weak), and as Nat's mum kindly drove them, Steph bought the mulch and compost we needed to start building up the no-dig gardenbeds we're setting up in the six square metres (or whatever) we have in the back yard. What we discovered is that it took much more of everything than we expected; we only did one of the two planned beds (at least it was the larger) and used up everything we'd bought: two blocks of coir, two bags of compost, two bales of lucerne. We'll probably need that amount again for the second bed.
Tired. I'd better get some work done on this damn bird book. Curse all tardy authors!
* I am such a dork. I wanted to know what "Chrestomanci" means, since I know from my classical studies that –mancy means "divination" (c.f. oneiromancy, bibliomancy), although its meaning seems to have spread to encompass a more general definition of "magic" (c.f. necromancy). I looked it up (as "chrestomancy", of course), in case it was a word I'd simply not come across before, but it wasn't. I did find out from the word "chrestomathies" that chresto– means useful. So: "useful divination" or "divination of what's useful", or, more appropriately to the series, I think, "useful magic".
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no subject
Date: 2007-09-04 05:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-04 05:57 am (UTC)