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This is on my TBR and I’ve been advised elsewhere that in order to better understand Ulysses it’s a good idea to first read The Dubliners. I have not yet done that either 😁 There is also much in the way of online guidance to help as you go along. Well done getting through it, though

#2. Ulysses (James Joyce, 1922) Well, after about 9 months of picking away at it I finally got through this and I probably understood like 7% of it. It references a ton of things, none of which I know anything about, not even The Odyssey or Shakespeare and I don't know anything about Ireland or the 1900s or Ireland in the 1900s. Every chapter is also written in a different writing style and some of them might as well have been gibberish to me. That being said, the 7 or so % I did get was usually pretty funny and often enough even the bits I don't get at all have some fun lines. The edition I have has a ton of notes and stuff in the back and I might have referenced those had I known they were there before I got to the last chapter lol. Speaking of the last chapter, gosh I wish the whole book was about Molly Bloom singing songs and whoring around solid ending there and now that I'm on the other side of it I do think of the whole of it a bit more fondly than when I was trudging through it though you can't convince me some of this isn't unnecessarily padded, especially the penultimate chapter written in a Q&A format (I liked the point A and point B but everything in between was mind-numbing). Even though I was grasping at straws a lot the craft of it was never in doubt even if it feels for the sake of itself at times. Hard to rate a book that went this far over my head but I'm gonna say... 7/10

I guess that's why they call it the blues - Elton John

Josie Dew. Long cloud Ride. A woman bikes and hikes across New Zealand.

on his nose, in

I omitted 3 or 4 that weren't quite fitting for this forum. 😁

Summertime Blues - Eddie Cochran

Summertime - Fun Boy Three (my favourite version of the Gershwin song)

Wasn't Richard also a hostage for quite a while, and the English people had to pay a fortune in ransom for him, which didn't make him very popular! I didn't know about the Far Right adopting him,they need to do a bit of research I think! I think he died abroad as well, as you say he spent little time in England at all despite being King.

Eleanor of Aquitaine by Alison Weir “A husband or wife did not have the right either to demand sex from his or her spouse or to refuse it, and there was a catalogue of forbidden sexual practices, notably homosexuality, bestiality, certain sexual positions, masturbation, the use of aphrodisiacs, and oral sex, which could incur a penance of three years’ duration. Nor were people to make love on Sundays, holy days, or feast days, or during Lent, pregnancy, or menstruation. People believed that if these rules were disobeyed, deformed children or lepers might result.” Ostensibly a biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine who lived in the twelfth century and was the wife of two Kings and the mother of ten (two of whom became Kings) and lived to eighty-two, a great age in those times. She was married to Louis VII of France and Henry II of England. As with the other biography of Weir’s I have read (Katherine Swynford) this is more of a history of the times. That is the history of monarchy and aristocracy of the early Plantagenets and the complex politics of France. There is also a good deal about the mores of the ruling classes and how those interacted with religion as per the quote above. The politics of the time was complex. The English King also owned large parts of France and there were constant minor wars, skirmishes. Weir guides the reader through all of this and Eleanor’s role in it all. At various times she ran her own provinces in France (Aquitaine), ruled England whilst her son Richard was crusading, acted as regent for Henry II when he was warring in France, was imprisoned (in some luxury) by Henry for almost a decade, plotted and schemed with her sons against her husband and lived in a nunnery. It's worth noting a couple of points. There is a fair amount about Richard I (aka Richard the Lionheart). Currently Richard has been one of those adopted by the far right in England to promote and support the current anti migrant anti people of colour messages they are pushing. Ironically Richard spent very little time in England, didn’t speak English, hated the place and spent most of his time in the South of France looking after his possessions there. He did briefly spend some time in Nottingham in the mid 1190s which later was used in the Robin Hood myths. This is an interesting account, but it is very much a political history with Eleanor periodically surfacing in it and playing a significant role. It’s informative if you don’t know much about the early Plantagenets and want to. 7 out of 10 Starting The Duncan Grant Murals in Lincoln Cathedral by Edward Robinson

hand and video camera

In The Summertime ~ Mungo Jerry

I can remember this advice too, I think it's the cold air that helps. I found it worked for one of our children who had mild croup. But I'd definitely get medical advice if it was more severe.

I took Adrian back to hospital because his breathing got loud again. It's called something like 'stator', loud in-breaths. He had to submit to another nebulising. I had to hold a mask over his mouth and noise while he breathed in vapour. An old treatment was to make them breathe in steam or to moisten the atmosphere in the room. He was also given some steroids, which were administered by mouth. As it was the second day he was brought in, he was kept in overnight. He has had quite a good night. He has slept right through and his breathing is quiet.

Best wishes Kev . Thinking of you and Adrian. Sending love to the boy in the struggle with croup.

That sounds very frightening, I hope he gets better soon. I haven't heard of croup for years, I think one of the treatments used to be opening a window, presumably to let in fresh air. I wonder if that's a function that the nebuliser does, getting more oxygen into their system.

One good thing about being wrong is the joy it brings to others. If your outgo exceeds your income, then your upkeep will be your downfall. My wife and I decided to never go to bed angry. We've been awake since Tuesday. My wife said: "That's the 4th time you've gone back for dessert! Doesn't it embarrass you?" I said: "No, I keep telling them it's for you." Being old is when you don't care where your spouse goes, just as long as you don't have to go too. I want someone I can share my entire life with who will leave me alone most of the time.

In the Good Old Summertime - Nat King Cole

One thing that surprised me about the plot was that an injustice was allowed to happen, which would not normally be allowed to happen, at least not in light fiction.

flexing muscles, mirror in

Summertime Blues - Eddie Cochran

and show dominance by

Long Gone Lonesome Blues ~ Hank Williams

Croup IS scary with young children, hope he gets better very soon. One reassuring thing about children, though, is how quickly they bounce back.

Thanks Luna. It was alarming how quickly he got ill. I don't think he had reached a dangerous stage, but I was thinking of conracting the G.P. tomorrow. He might have reached a dangerous stage by then. As it was he had a high temperature and a nasty sounding cough. When the nurse connected him up to the monitoring device his pulse rate was in the 170s, even when he was asleep. A few hours later it is in the 120s. I don't know what is typical for two-year-olds. The nurse nebelated him. She put a mask over his face and made him breathe steam with some medicine in the steam. I think the medicine might have been adenaline.