Tuesday 17 June 2014

Anne de Courcy’s “The Fishing Fleet: Husband Hunting in the Raj"



Here is a review by Carol Herman that I liked very much.

On May 12, we faced the wind and the rain to gather in Jonna’s lovely home to discuss the heat and the dust described in Anne de Courcy’s “The Fishing Fleet: Husband Hunting in the Raj”. Opinions were divided: once we had recovered from the shock of realisation that we were not to be treated to a cosy, Barbara Cartland-style romantic novel, we put on our social historian hats and settled down to read this rather exhaustive – and, it has to be admitted, at times rather exhausting – account of the marriage market in colonial India. Often repetitive and deliberately anecdotal, the book concentrates upon recounting the stories of a socially-speaking somewhat limited sample of women who travelled to India, married and settled there over a period from the end of the seventeenth century to the middle of the twentieth and India’s independence. Some of the insights are fascinating, some horrifying; the unremitting boredom of the life of a planter’s wife making do in the middle of nowhere, living from one gathering at “The Club” to another, is well described as is the contrast between the wealth and display of ceremonial festivities with the sicknesses and dangers of life in India and the heart-breaking separation from children sent “home” to be educated. Several of the novels we have read have featured the lives of these “Raj” children and it was interesting to reflect on these. A mixed review for de Courcy’s book: like the Curate’s egg, “Good in parts!”

Friday 13 June 2014

Gina Ford "The contented baby" and Tracy Hogg "Secrets of the baby whisperer"















I read somewhere that men are programmed for one age. They do not change internally. Some are fifty years old in their passport and twenty five years old in reality - they still rush to become the alpha male, they try to chase the most females and to mark the widest territory. Some are forty-five and what you observe is the eve of puberty - they tend to play musketeers and will be playing until their death, such a program runs in them. Some are stuck at age seven forever- they have not yet come out of the age of infant cruelty :)))

Everything is different with women. They change over the years internally: girl- young woman - woman- old woman, from the family perspective: daughter - wife - mother - grandmother. This is due to childbirth and meno-cycle.

As for me, at the age of .....I finally reached the stage of being a Mother .

I am a mom of a beautiful daughter!!!

Therefore I tend to read specific literature, for example books on how to handle babies. Two I found helpful: "The contented baby" by Gina Ford and "Secrets of the baby whisperer" by Tracy Hogg.

One promises a contented baby and contented parents provided you strictly follow a schedule, the other one promises the same by following much more relaxed routine. I found truth in between.