And the only sound is the broken sea

[dolorosa_12]

I feel as if the weekend has somewhat run away from me, but, looking back, I do seem to have got a lot done.

Saturday was gloriously sunny, so once I returned from the gym, I spent quite a bit of the afternoon sitting out on the deck, finishing my book — Bread and War (Felicity Spector) — under the pear and cherry trees. I first came across Spector in the overlapping centre of that social media Venn diagram I occupy between Ukrainian social media and foodie social media — a space she very much occupies as well. She's a journalist and food writer, and since the start of the fullscale war, she's been involved in grassroots fundraising initiatives (mainly involving food), and spending all her spare time in Ukraine, helping and meeting with people involved in all things culinary. This book is her attempt to tell their story, and the people we meet in its pages range from individuals trying to feed the soldiers serving on the front or residents of frontline towns subject to relentless shelling, and those working on government initiatives like the Food Train, to the owners of trendy restaurants, bakeries and cafes in the country's biggest cities, struggling to adapt to keep their businesses running during wartime. One thing that's always struck me since I learnt more about Ukraine is the country's extremely strong culture of horizontal grassroots organising, and a sense that if a situation is bad, the best thing to do is recognise this reality, and then take it upon yourself, your social networks and your community to do something about it. This is on stark display in Bread and War — we encounter endless stories of resilient, adaptable, innovative people who seem to treat every roadblock (even missiles, energy blackouts, curfews, and challenges to supply lines) as something which, with the right application of creativity and problem solving, can be overcome. Also shining through in the book is an incredible sense of social cohesion and responsibility: the idea that — in the face of existential threat — it is the responsibility of every citizen of their country to pool their respective talents and place them in the service of their survival as an independent nation with a democratic future ahead of it. People enlist in the military or accept being conscripted when their turn comes, they volunteer to support the military, or frontline or deoccupied communities, they donate every spare piece of money they can to the armed forces, they scrounge equipment from every source they can to keep their country running, they act as ambassadors for their country's cause abroad. It's incredibly admirable, and an example to be emulated. Don't read this book when hungry, or you will find yourself craving vast piles of food!

On Saturday night, I laid the coffee table with lots of food on which to graze, and Matthias and I watched Eurovision. As I said previously, all our local friends who used to join us for watch parties have moved away, so it was just the two of us, although I had additional company in the form of the group chat of my friends from the Philip Pullman fan forum. Those of us taking part in the conversation were a true pan-European Eurovision crowd: a Welsh person in south Wales, a British person living in Switzerland (but in Geneva, not watching from the audience in Basel), a Finnish person in Helsinki, and two Australians living in England. We all universally agreed that the intermission mashup Käärijä/Baby Lasagne song was better than every competing song, and would have voted for it if we could!

Today, after a slow start, Matthias and I spontaneously decided to do a 5km circular walk, which includes the park by the cathedral, a long stretch by the river (where we saw vast numbers of water birds, and a herd of cows lying placidly in the grass), and then a winding journey through the suburban streets of the town. This at least helped me feel that I'd done some movement for the day.

After our return, I curled up in the living room and read my way through the once_upon_fic collection. I didn't think I had the time to participate in this exchange this year, but I've enjoyed reading the contributions of others. I'll stick a few recs behind a cut.


The Miller's Daughter (3068 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Rumpelstilzchen | Rumpelstiltskin (Fairy Tale), Original Work
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: König | King (Rumpelstilzchen), Müllerstochter | Miller's Daughter (Rumpelstilzchen), Rumpelstilzchen | Rumpelstiltskin
Additional Tags: Treat, Fairy Tale Retellings, spinning, Fairy Tale Curses
Summary:

When the Miller brags that his daughter can spin straw into gold, its she who pays the price.

We Were Never Strangers To One Another (1813 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Andersen
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid/Prins | Prince (Den Iille Havfrue), Prins | Prince/Prinsesse | Princess (Den lille Havfrue)
Characters: Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid (Den lille Havfrue), Prins | Prince (Den lille Havfrue), Prinsesse | Princess (Den lille Havfrue), Heksen | Sea Witch (Den lille Havfrue)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Soul Bond, Magic, Transformation
Summary:

There are many tales out there and not all get cut off at the end.

Where Sea Touches Sky (2723 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Andersen
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Den lille Havfrue | The Little Mermaid (Den lille Havfrue), Søstre | Sisters (Den lille Havfrue)
Additional Tags: 5+1 Things, Missing Scene, Love, but love of concepts rather than people, Character Study, Character Development, Worldbuilding, Pre-Canon, Merpeople, Coming of Age
Summary:

Five little mermaids whose impressions of the human world we don't know, and one we do.

I'll leave you with one final link: the rather cool news that the children's picture book written by one of my undergraduate friends from Australia has been selected for the Australian National Simultaneous Storytelling initiative, which is pretty amazing.

Comments

[chestnut_pod]

A loop walk is the best kind of walk, I think! Yours sounds especially lovely.

[dolorosa_12]

I love a good loop walk. This one is good and lazy, but long enough that you feel as if you've made an effort. We normally walk it first thing after breakfast on New Year's — but it's right there and waiting at other times of the year, of course.

[corvidology]

I miss being able to walk almost anywhere. Where I live, like in the case of of a lot of US locations, I first have to get in the car and drive to somewhere to walk which just seems wrong. The dangerous lack of pavements doesn't help anything. Nor does the boiling hot weather.

[dolorosa_12]

Yes, the UK is so much better set up for walking, especially when compared to the US. (That's not to say I haven't had some hair raising rural walks along main roads with no footpaths or verges, in various parts of the country...)

[corvidology]

One of the big advantages to walking safely though in the UK is that most people still *expect* there to be pedestrians.

Unfortunately, outside of the downtowns of big cities, people here seem perplexed by pedestrians and/or dangerously unaware that they even exist!

[meteordust]

Congrats to your friend for the book! The Truck Cat looks like a lovely story that will be meaningful to a lot of people.

[dolorosa_12]

It's very impressive, and I get the feeling she was quite overwhelmed (in a good way) by the whole thing. The book itself is really lovely.