Bienvenidos! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 28/05/20 The All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness. I feel like I shouldn't love it as much as I do because it's basically chocolate for your brain. It's fawning and the relationship between the two main characters seems to develop unrealistically quickly (willing suspension of disbelief re: the whole witch/vampire things notwithstanding..) But love it I do. Apart from a couple of details which really nark me. As a historian, Harkness includes a staggering amount of detail about Elizabethan England in the second book which really enriches the story, but I wonder if she has actually ever spent a midsummer evening here. There is one scene where Matthew takes Diana around London on Midsummer eve, and they go to see the lights in the Royal Exchange. Harkness sets this scene at around 8pm, writing about the sun having set around an hour before... Excuse me?? I think not. I had to re-read that several times and it annoyed me immensely that she would have overlooked this. I doubt the sun set any earlier 500 years ago than it does now. The other bit is in the third book, after the babies are born, where it is implied that Diana feeds her daughter with her own blood as regularly as she feeds her son breastmilk.. do witches have a spell to replenish their intravascular volume by magic? And how could she possibly prepare bottles of milk and blood to last the whole time she is away from her children without exsanguinating? And lastly, shagging only about a month after delivering twins - vaginally?? Again, unlikely. Unless some witchery going on that is not mentioned. In other news. I tried to go back to work this week. I failed. I had a phone consultation with my GP who thinks I am actually depressed, rather than this being a reactive low mood type thing. So today I decided to just let the feels come without trying to suppress or bury them or whatever, to just let it all wash through... let M take over looking after the boys today and not put any expectation on myself of what I 'should' be doing... although I wanted to stay in bed but I got up. I didn't have breakfast. I didn't get dressed. I didn't talk much. I didn't have lunch. I showered and changed eventually. I didn't go out. I have hardly moved from my corner on the sofa. I have felt empty and flat all day. I only ate dinner because M cooked it and put it in front of me but even then it was a struggle. I feel like my face is forgetting what a real smile feels like. I hugged my kids fiercely because right now it feels like they're the only people I can hug. I feel strangely hostile towards M, and I wish he would do something that would justify it. Instead he keeps ordering 'treats' and then I feel guilty for wanting to shove him away. I don't want to hug him. I don't want him to touch me. I would rather share my bed with the boys than him at the moment. But we're just stuck all together, no respite. The latest lockdown easing gives me no joy or hope because the only people I would want to meet up with would be my parents and if I can't hug or even be near them then what is the point? It would only make things worse. 9:43 p.m. - 2020-05-28 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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