Stage Fright

Stage Fright by Christine Poulson is an excellent crime novel. Cassandra James an academic specialising in 19th century English Literature at Cambridge University is on maternity leave following the birth of her daughter Grace. She has rewritten the script for a theatrical production of Mrs Henry Wood's East Lynne. A few days before the first night Melissa, the leading lady, disappears, leaving her own baby daughter Agnes alone in the house she shares with her husband who is cast as the villain in the play.

Concerned for her friend, Melissa, Cassandra is also unnerved by the strange phone calls she keeps receiving and the absence of her partner Steven on a business trip to the USA. The air of menace and brooding is well done and emphasised by the setting of most of the action in the fens near Ely. I found myself completely immersed in the book last night and totally unaware of my surroundings while I was reading - which for me is one of the tests of a good book.

Not my usual sort of book and websites

Michael Wright's C'est La Folie has been making me chuckle over the last few days, even though I have no desire at all to follow the mass exodus of Britons to France, Spain etc.

Michael Wright, in his 30s decided he wanted to grow up and do something heroic. So he and his cat, Eva, bought a tumbledown farmhouse in France known locally as La Folie. The book is the story of his first year or so in his new home and how he learnt to look after sheep and chickens, deal with snakes and other unwelcome visitors and the cat learnt to catch mice even though they spoke French. I found it compulsive reading.

Websites

I had a very unwelcome e-mail this morning from a lady connected with the Fenland Preservation Society with an address in Norwich - which does not appear to have a website itself:

'After some discussion we have come to unanimous agreement that this is the most dreary and poorly written site we have come across this year.

Is there something you can do to jolly it up a bit? And improve the grammar and standard of the pictures?

You do our lovely county a disservice.'

Thanks guys for the no confidence vote. You seem to be at odds with the people from all over the world who have contacted me over the last few years to say how interesting they found it. If we're going to start throwing bricks over grammar then maybe you ought to rephrase your e-mail. This obviously elite organisation only has a snail mail address shown on the e-mail - apart from the Yahoo e-mail address which was used to contact me.

The formatting of my site has gone a little haywire because it has been archived a couple of times recently and not restored quite how it should be and I do want to add to it. Reading it through today I have found some very minor typing errors which I am happy to hold my hands up to. I'm intending to venture out with a camera and take some pictures for it over the next few months so it will be improved.

Neither of the pictures on the site relate to Norfolk and most of the Fens are in Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire in any case so I'm not quite sure why they are complaining. While I accept if you put anything on the Internet you must expect to be sniped at I think this is a shade OTT - especially as they don't have a website themselves. I haven't yet decided whether to reply.

The countryside

I was thinking about the Fens on the bus to work this morning. It was getting light and there was a mist over the fields like the start of an atmospheric film. What attracts me to this area is that it isn't full of chocolate box pretty cottages and tarted up fields and hedges. It is real down to earth working countryside. It's not pretty and to some people can be very depressing and gloomy in winter with all the damp fields and water filled ditches. I love it but then my ancestors lived here so I suppose you could say I'm rooted in the Fens.

At the weekend I had an e-mail from someone who'd seen my web site www.jillweekes.com and wanted to know how work was getting on with the new multi-million pound pumping station I'd mentioned at St Germans near Kings Lynn. As I didn't know - having not thought about the contents of my web site for quite some time - I did some web surfing and found an excellent site maintained by the developers http://www.costain2200028.co.uk/. This has to be one of the best web sites I've seen for any sort of construction work in progress and photographs are posted regularly and frequently.

How this low lying marshy area is kept from sinking back into the morass it was at the time of Hereward the Wake fascinates me. It's a partnership between man and nature which seems to work because man never takes nature for granted or assumes he has her tamed. The internal drainage boards with such names as Black Sluice, Middle Level, Witham Fourth etc are quietly working away in the background making sure we are not walking around up to our knees in water for half of the year.

These days all the pumping stations have two sets of powerful pumps - one diesel and one electric - and they're computer controlled though people are still essential to their smooth running. During periods of heavy rain when all the pumps are going staff can be working very long days. The drainage board employees are the unsung heroes of this area in my opinion. They make it possible for all the vegetables which are grown round here to thrive.

During my journey to work I was also thinking about the Fen Slodgers - as people used to be called. This was because they used to get about on stilts through the marshy ground and I suppose the noise they'd make would be similar to the sound of the word. I wonder how many people fell in before they mastered the art of stilt walking!

Back to books tomorrow before I put off all my loyal readers!