Charlie has returned, bringing me to a grand total of TWO unexpected returns of loved ones this month! So far, June is getting a big thumbs up from me! She is being brave and letting us pet her, and she even came into the KITCHEN, a place into which she rarely dares to go!

I'm trying to read Map of Glass by Jane Urquhart and I'm having a hell of a time with it. It's for a book club that I joined recently, and I just can't get into the damn thing. It's all, ooh, I will describe the landscape and it will be a metaphor for how the character is feeling, and then just in case you don't get it, I will reiterate that the character is feeling these things and that it is a metaphor! Allow me to demonstrate:

She glanced at the map, then looked through the window into the yard, which was partially illuminated by the kitchen lamp. It was the middle of a cold April and only recently had the thaw begun in earnest. At this moment everything beyond the kitchen windows appeared to be weeping; droplets were clinging to her clothes-line and shining on branches, and icicles that had disengaged themselves from the eaves were embedded like spears in the remaining heavy snow near the foundations of this house in which she had lived all her life. This is the anniversary of sorrow, she thought — everything moist, transitory, draining away, everything disappearing.

Did you get that? Did you? Everything seems to be WEEPING, but that is not enough of a hint as to what is going on. No, we must inform you ALSO that the character thinks that this is a season of SORROW and TRANSITION. Just in case we hadn't already gone on and on and on about it for CHAPTERS, just looking out the window earnestly, observing the SAD weather. And- AND! this is SPRINGTIME! Imagine what depths of emotion the character will reach in AUTUMN when everything is DYING!

Ahem. Of course, this attitude is getting me nowhere with respect to trying to finish the book, which must be done by next Thursday or I am a Bad Book Club Member. Please Ms. Urquhart, some plot would be appreciated! And less about the weather, even though, yes, it is a very useful metaphor and we recognise that you are fond of it!