English v Scottish dancing

I've talked a bit recently about how I haven't had enough time to do any dancing, and we've worked towards fixing that, but a conversation with atreic yesterday reminded me of something I had almost forgotten.

When I was little, and dancing a lot, I mostly danced English dances. Then in my late teens, it turned into dancing mostly Scottish dances. English dances have a different feel, and so it was particularly lovely to be dancing more in the tradition I was dancing as a child last night. I hope I can remember to fit in more of that, in particular.

Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta

I'm not sure who recommended this book, because I never write that down when I put books into my to read list, but whoever it was, thank you!


For everyone else, I really loved this book. It's about water and tea and life and death, and the interaction of these things. It's post-apocalyptic dystopia, but focussing on one woman and her struggle, rather than the big picture. The apocalypse was vclimate change and a plausible future if we don't do something - the world was plausible and consistent, but a nice background to the main character, Noria, and her life, loves, hopes and fears.

It's beautifully written, the metaphors aren't laboured but rather free flowing. I think this is now my favourite fantasy book about tea - feel free to recommend more!

Also, that is now four books in a row which I have had enough thoughts about, so either I've been reading thinky books or I've been just generally in an introspective mood, which is possible.