Happy New Year!

Been a while, been working and travelling - Christmas in a small Spanish town near Valencia- Christmas Eve (noche buena) was such an experience spending a traditional Spanish Christmas with a friend's family where no one spoke English and my non-existent Spanish struggled to leap across the gap, but the sheer warmth of humanity bridged it.....

Then to an English friend's country wedding party immediately after Christmas and

Then home to Naija for New Year's...family, friends, fuel shortage, fun, and everywhere awash in brightly coloured election posters- at least hopefully the printers and graphic artists are chopping small....

I just got back- but there's so much to process and digest and absorb...the multiplicity and the rich and varying strands in the fabric that is my life today

I'll try and blog about it all at some point when I've got a better handle on things...

Meanwhile recent reading-(How do you think I got through all those flights and train journeys):

Kiran Desai's Booker winning The Inheritance of Loss which I enjoyed, although I would probably have given the Booker to Kate Grenville's heartrending The Secret River. I found myself flinching physically at the pain some of her characters went through....
Fatou Diome's The Belly of the Atlantic captured the realities of the immigrant experience deftly. The actor Rupert Everett's autobiography Red Carpets and other Banana Skins while very well-written was slightly too choppy and episodic for my liking. John Cornwell's Seminary Boy was an illuminating and thoughtful account of his childhood and youthful struggles with the Catholic faith, Nigeria's City People and National Encomium were time-passing fodder for the airport lounges with their inane, poorly written and researched accounts of the doings of various Lagos and Abuja Big Boys and Girls, the current edition of Farafina guest edited by Ike Oguine was a refreshing contrast ....