April — they are back and busy month

Out come the animals and they are devising a board game with them.

Very complicated rules.

And the floods - it now doesn't rain every day but every second it seems. When the sky is blue the reflections are wonderful.

and the painting from a similar view more or less - no one has yet recognised it!!

Easter Sunday lunch at Lisa and here are Darcey with her little cousins, Lucy and Effie who had both just been in the hot tub.

The rain persists but the stock market is up and energy prices are expected to fall though diesel is still about 14p higher than petrol.

We have my bookclub choice The Lincoln Highway here. Here is my comment about it.

This is quite a multi-layered story. It is 1954 and the story takes place over about 10 days.

Three 18-year old boys met up at Salina youth correction facility for different misdemeanours. This is the only reason they would ever have come across each other. One from an impoverished farm in Nebraska, one a WASP from upstate New York and the third the son of an itinerant, errant and often absent actor.

Emmett ( meaning truth) is returned to the family farm by the warden. His mother fled 8 years ago when his younger brother Billy was just a baby and their father has recently died bankrupt and the farm is about to be taken in and sold. While Emmett was at Salina Billy lived with their neighbour Sally and her father.

At the back of their barn is Emmett's baby blue Studebaker and hidden in the spare wheel recess is an envelope containing $3000 put there by his Dad. Emmett's father left two legacies, the money and the page torn sacrilegiously from Emerson's Essays. I was not familiar at all with this though no doubt American readers are. I think basically the message is that each person must plough his own furrow. Each to follow a dream? I'm not sure about that though each has a purpose in mind.

Following instructions from Professor Abacus Abernathe's big red book, The Compendium of Heroes, Adventurers and other Intrepid Travellers, Billy and Emmett pack only what they most essentially need into their backpacks for their adventure.

Hidden in Billy's backpack is another envelope in which there are 9 postcards sent by their mother when she took her trip to California all those years ago. This was hidden in a drawer of their father's desk. Hidden too is his tin of silver dollars. More things will be revealed as we read the story. Meanwhile hidden in the trunk /boot of the warden's car are Duchess and Wooley.

Emmett has an idea of renovating houses in a growing part of the country and settles on Texas until discussion with Billy. Additionally there is a photo of them as a family at the 4th July fireworks in their town of Morgen. They decide on tracing her trip along the Lincoln Highway BUT of course things don't go to plan.

With Duchess and the rather strange Wooley now in tow, life becomes more complicated. The care with which Duchess manages Wooley's medication does not last until the end of the book and this addiction, to probably morphine, is never explained. It will be noted later that his sister also carries around a little brown bottle.

There is the altercation in town and the interference by Duchess - the first hint at another side to him. Then the visit to the orphanage where he was once dropped off by his father - the taking of the Studebaker leading to Emmett and Billy having to hitch a ride on a freight train. There we meet one of the least likeable characters Pastor John who tries to steal Billy's collection of silver dollars. Ulysses pops through the roof of the boxcar and deals with him. Meanwhile Duchess has a score to settle with the previous warden Ackerly.

Throughout we have the marvellous depiction of a young boy with a passion for reading and for details. Some of us may have known or do know someone just like that.

The story now becomes a chase. What will happen next. There are always clues to follow. In New York where Duchess meets up with Fitzy an old friend of his still elusive father leading to more stories. Ulysses and Billy find their way to the camp on the elevated line (now known as the Highline). Duchess and Wooley visit another previous inmate Townhouse and give away the Studebaker.

There is the visit to the Empire State Building to see Professor Abernathe who later meets up with Ulysses to hear his story.

A visit to a circus brings the boys together again.

Shortly after Emmett also meets up with Townhouse and the Studebaker is retrieved but needs to be repainted as the by now the police are on the trail of the murderer of Ackerly and the man in Morgen hit by a 4x2.

There is Emmett's fanciful story about an actor for rodeo and we chase around New York with Emmett trying to catch up with Duchess.

A visit to Wooley's sister Sarah reveals a hidden Cadillac. This is quite an odd section of the book - though does give a meeting place for the 4 boys before the final section. It does give Duchess a chance to tell his story.

At Wooley's family estate up in the Adirondacks there is a safe in which should be $150000 which has been left to him by his great-grandfather. The plan is to split it three ways. The ever astute Billy works out the combination for the safe.

This is a book of stories within stories. It is also one of forgiveness and kindness, of revenge and hope and the paying of debts. There are deaths, 5 at last counting, the 2x4, Ackerly, Pastor John, Wooley and Duchess. What did Duchess mean when he said One down two to go - (page 238).

How was the author going to end it we must all have wondered? Neatly actually, Wooley takes a rather large dose, which appears to be premeditated (remember him handing over the watch to Billy and his farewell to Sarah) Emmett puts the non-swimmer Duchess into a boat with his share of the money but there is a hole in the bow. (we remember The Italian Job).

Emmett removes the little brown bottle - is this to protect Sarah>

Sally joins Emmett and Billy in the yellow Studebaker, with the wonderful words "There is nothing bigger than a man's opinion of himself." page 528

There are very few women in the book (the sister at the orphanage, Sally and Sarah and even more fleetingly the women in the brothel) and are they peripheral to the story or anchors. After all there are always women in men's lives even if they abandon them early on.

Each chapter is either numbered from 10 - the 10 days the story covers or headed by one of the characters. Only Duchess though is in the first person.

There are some really lovely little vignettes - my favourite is Billy reading to Ulysses in the boxcar.

You can also get muddled as to what happened when for instance at what point did Wooley drive off with the Studebaker, or was it the Cadillac?

Sadly as I reported earlier ash trees are being cut down. Here on the road to Cirencester from us you can see the devastation and those trees that are still standing will go too.

I have been meaning to paint this old shed on the way to Aldsworth.

Here it is.

It looks less battered than it is.

In Cirencester today the 19th Otis birthday to have yet another booster I wandered into st Michael's park in the Waterloo part of town. Here is the park and church,? St Michael

And Bingham hall where the jabs are delivered. The Hall was paid for by Daniel Bingham who had been born in Cirencester and left money for the Hall.

A concert in Abingdon with Sheila, Rachmaninov played by Japanese pianist.

Smart meter showing normal usage.

Trip into Oxford to see an exhibition of art by this Iraqi artist with Diana. Then lunch in the restaurant and a pic taken by her she says 'colour coordinated'. There is to be a modern boutique hotel where Boswells was but it is taking ages. The Broad is now almost all pedestrianised.