Full Metal Wheelbarrow

Spent this morning moving everything out of the hall to try to find where the musty smell was coming from. Discovered dampness on the carpet under the radiator, but not near either of the valves. Lifting the carpet showed mould underneath and on the underlay.

Carpet has been ripped up, underlay removed and binned, likewise the Gripparods round the edge. whole floor and skirting boards washed down with Miltons solution and the electric radiator is now in there to try to dry it out.

Coats stored in the hall have been washed and shoes spent the day in the garden to air.

Still not sure exactly where the damp is coming from - can't find any sign that the radiator is leaking.

Bah.

88. Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper. 135 pages. 1962

I'm generally hopeless at picking favourites, but if I absolutely had to pick a list of my favourite books, this one would definitely be on it.

The attitudes of the characters on many subjects (smoking, colonialism, exploitation of natural resources to name but three) would horrify many people today, but I can forgive most of this on account of the book having been written in 1962. And on account of the Fuzzies themselves, who are probably my favourite fictional aliens.

The plot is pretty simple really - an old prospector finds a small furry creature, makes friends with it and finds there are many more on the planet. The possibility that these creatures may be sentient threatens the tenure of the company that owns the planet and they try to prove that the "Fuzzies" are merely animals. When a company official lkills a Fuzzy, the ensuing trial has the fate of the planet and the species at stake…


89. Fuzzy Sapiens by H. Beam Piper. 137 pages.

Sequel to Little Fuzzy. Not quite as good as the first one, but still entertaining.

90. The Attic Term by Antonia Forest. 248 pages

I was going to say that one of my few criticisms of these books is that many of the plot threads are left unfinished, but it occurs to me that this is actually an achievement in realism, because life is like that all too often.

Another slice of School life with the Marlows. Forest could have taught Enid Blyton a thing or two.

91. Grave Sight by Charlaine Harris. 263 pages.

After being struck by lightning, Harper Connolly discovered she had the ability to find dead bodies and to tell how they died. She uses this ability to make a living for herself and her stepbrother Tolliver Lang, but their clients aren't always as grateful as might be expected.

When Harper is called in to find a missing teenage girl in a small town in the Ozarks, she uncovers not just a body, but a whole can of worms…

I think I liked this better than Harris' Sookie Stackhouse books, as the supernatural elements are far more understated and, I think, more effective because of it. I shall look out for the rest of this series.

92. Fuzzies and Other People by H. Beam Piper. 143 pages.

For many years, it was thought that Piper only wrote two books about the Fuzzies and there were a couple of sequels written by other people in the same setting, but eventually, more than 20 years after Little Fuzzy was published, this book was discovered and put into print.

It continues where the second book left off and it gives a closer insight into the lives of a group of Fuzzies living in the forests as well as carrying on the adventures of the original group of characters. Very enjoyable.