NaNoWriMo Update - Only 5 days to go!

While my American readers are celebrating Thanksgiving, I am celebrating a smaller, but an equally important day (OK possibly not!). Today I caught up with NaNoWriMo. Yay!

You may remember that the last time I reported back, I was well ahead of the game, but then something happened with the forthcoming novel, The Navy Wife, which meant that I had to concentrate on fixing some sections of the story I wasn't happy with, and sadly, the National Novel Writing Month had to give way to this, more urgent, project.

Now, I know this goes against everything I preach about writing every day, whatever. My only excuse  is that I was by no means not writing, in fact I was writing more words than my daily 2,000 on the NaNoWriMo challenge. Even so, I fell behind, and have only today been able to catch up again. 

Phew!

It's strange that these little bars on the NaNoWriMo site can have such an effect on me. Especially where they are on the wrong side of the line.

In any case, all is now well in the Halme Author Towers. I can now say that I will finish on time - bar major disasters. (Fingers crossed) 

So, happy Thanksgiving to my American friends, and please congratulate me for once again being on course to finish this all-consuming November challenge!

'Us' by David Nicholls - a review

I, like everyone who read and enjoyed David Nicholls' international bestseller, One Day, was jumping at the bit to get my hands on this new novel by Mr Nicholls, especially as it was short-listed for this year's Man Booker Prize.

So what did I think?

'Us' is a story of Douglas and Connie, a couple whose only son is about to leave home for college, an event which in turn triggers a crisis in the marriage.

Douglas, a successful scientist, sees a chance to save his marriage to Connie, a failed artist, by taking her and their son on a Grand Tour of Europe. This epic journey, which has been meticulously planned by the obsessively organised Douglas, (laminated maps, hotels and train fares booked well in advance) also serves as a means to regain the respect of Douglas' son, the sullen Albie, whose idea of a good holiday is two weeks in Ibiza with his friends, rather than spending it with his bickering parents.

As you may imagine, the trip doesn't quite go to plan. Already on the train to Paris, Douglas, who has promised himself to be relaxed, becomes annoyed when Albie spends the whole of the journey either taking photos of train tracks, or sleeping, and so missing the whole excitement of the first leg of the Grand Tour. Albie wants to study photography, while Douglas thinks he should take a proper (preferably science) subject and not 'devote his life to a hobby'. It now occurs to Douglas that his son has not once taken a picture of his father, while there are several loving portraits of Connie in Albie's collection.

Soon we realise that it's the relationship between father and son which is the root of the marriage crisis. 

Or is it? 

Opposites attract, they say, and in this honest examination of a modern marrage and parenthood, David Nicholls puts this theory to a test. What if the differences between the couple, which so attracted the pair to each other at the beginning of the relationship, become the bones of constant rowing and dissatisfaction later in life? 

'Us' is written from the point of view of Douglas, so we don't get much of a glimpse into the minds of the artistic, disorganised, lazzer-fair parent, Connie, or the teenager Albie. But what we do get is an almost detached account of the small - and large - tragedies that two decades of marriage have thrown at this couple. And we get a lovely account of a journey around Europe - not perhaps a traditional holiday trip, but there are many beautiful descriptions of classic art pieces. Enough to make me want to take my family on a Grand Tour - or perhaps that's not such a good idea after all...

I enjoyed 'Us', and feel it was properly justified in being nominated for the Booker. Shame it didn't make it beyond the first round.

'Us' by David Nicholls

Published by Hodder Stoughton

£20.00 Hardback

£6.99 Kindle edition

  

Misery on Ice or How Finland Won Olympic Bronze in Ice-Hockey

I know this post is a bit like London buses, you wait for ages for one then two come along at once. Last time I wrote about ice-hockey was in 2011, and here I am writing two posts back to back in 2014!

But as you must know by now, ice-hockey is more than sport to me. It reminds me of my childhood, it's part of who I am, and it makes me proud to be Finnish.

Yesterday's bronze medal match between Finland and the US, where Finns thrashed the Americans, was dubbed by the BBC commentator as 'Misery on Ice', but to me it was just a delight to watch.

Here was a team of players which included Teemu Selänne, the worlds most decorated ice-hockey player, and a veteran (he is 43 years old, in theory far too old to be still active in this, one of the most physically aggressive sports), and two others for whom this match was going to be their national swan song. They weren't easily going to give up on an Olympic medal.

But only a day before this same team (although without the wondrous goalie Tuukka Rask) suffered a dispiriting defeat against our bitter old adversaries, the Swedes, and thus missing out on gold or silver. According to Selänne, the team decided in the dressing room just before going out to face the Americans, that they were going to take the bronze - no messing.

History has shown that when Finns en masse decide something, they rarely fail. 

And what a match it was! I could barely watch when in an unusual sequence of events in the second half, with the score still at 0-0, the Finnish player Kimmo Timonen moved a broken stick left on the ice and it hit the puck being manoeuvred by a US player, resulting in a penalty shot against the Finns. When Patrick Kane failed to score, I had a feeling this was a crucial psychological moment for the US team. I was proved right; Finland scored two goals in quick succession and in the third period made the final score a joyous 5-0!

The Finns on ice looked the better team, but you could also tell that, unlike the Americans, they really, really wanted to win.

As if Teemu Selänne, who scored two of the five goals, wasn't a complete star in Finland already, he will be now. Here is an interview with him and some of the other team members after the match. Even if you don't speak Finnish, you'll enjoy watching these tough guys get emotional in front of the camera - except for the hero of the day, Selänne of course. He just makes the reporter weep, saying, 'I promised myself I would't cry, so I won't.'

That's Sisu for you!