Book Notes: The Casual Vacancy

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

Pagford is a cozy little English town that suddenly loses one of its young civic councillors to a brain aneurysm. The machinations to replace him on council begin.
If I had read this before I read all the Harry Potter books, I might have enjoyed it more. The ending summed things up quite nicely but it took a long time to get there.
I found it hard to like or sympathisize with any of the characters even tho' I may have respected the teenaged-daughter-of-the-drug-addict for what she tried to accomplish. Pettiness and 'adult' themes abound. And perhaps that was the author's intent, to not provide any clearly likeable characters.
This is not the worst book I have read, but it is certainly far from the best. I'm rather disappointed becasuse I know Ms Rowling has quite the imagination.
I would recommend borrowing it from the library; it is not a book I feel the need to read again.

The Accidental Hybrid

 Around last February I decided I wanted a new skirt, particulary a fuller skirt so I pulled out this pattern. I pinned down the front piece, and then, as has happened so many times during the past couple of years, I was too tired to finish, and I wandered off.

When I returned to the task in late March, I totally forgot that the one (that's right, one) pattern piece was not for the front AND the back, and feeling very smug at my frugal use of fabric, I cut it out. THEN I realized that one piece was ONLY the front and I did not have enough left for the back. Way to go, blondie!

So I dragged out my TNT skirt pattern and used the back piece of that pattern, cut across the grain, to finish it off.

I guess the skirt didn't turn out too badly, all considered, tho' my poor, beat-up Birkenstocks do not add anything to the finished outfit.

And because I forgot to take a shot of the back, one has no way of knowing how it turned out.

I guess you'll have to trust me on this.