So Much More than Peter

Although she is certainly best remembered - and arguably most loved - for her creation of Peter Rabbit and his woodland and barnyard friends, Beatrix Potter was so much more than the author/illustrator of children's books. That became evident the further I read in Linda Lear's marvellous biography Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature. In fact, years before Peter, Beatrix was a very knowledgeable amateur scientist, with a particular interest in fungi. She made incredibly detailed illustrations of these as well as other plants which are still studied today. And some of her observations about fungal reproduction and spores were decades ahead of their time. While not appreciated when she made them (especially with the double curse of being an amateur and female), they were subsequently borne out.


Despite having to deal with somewhat difficult parents, Beatrix was a very fortunate girl and young woman. She was well educated, albeit at home with governesses, never attending school (something she was grateful for later, saying school would have rubbed off some of her originality). Her parents were very well off and able to indulge her interests, whether she needed new reference books or art lessons. She was able to experience life outside of London on annual holidays to places like Scotland, Wales and the Lake District. And her parents were tolerant enough to accept the wide variety of creatures she and her brother kept in their third-floor schoolroom. Really, her parents were probably just conventional Victorians of a certain class who expected a dutiful daughter to care for them - not one as ambitious and energetic as Beatrix. All things considered, Beatrix was certainly far better off than most women of her era I'm sure.

Beatrix's most productive years, literature-wise, actually constitute a relatively small portion of her life, mainly in the first decade and a half of the 1900's. Subsequently, with her Peter Rabbit et al proceeds as well as some family inheritances, her focus turned increasingly to farming and land preservation. In conjunction with the National Trust, Beatrix was almost single-handedly responsible for saving huge swaths of land in her beloved Lake District. She was also a canny shepherd, and worked hard to preserve and promote the hardy Herdwick breed of sheep native to the region. Other areas of interest included the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides whose camps she welcomed on her land and classic furniture (especially old oak pieces from the area). And, although she really didn't write or illustrate much in her later years, she did become close with the editor of Horn Book magazine and kept abreast of the world of children's literature.

She certainly was a busy and active woman, very much involved in her community. Just reading about all her work left me feeling slightly exhausted! Although it would have been nice had she written more, I respect her choice to move on to other things that she found more interesting and important. Unlike many authors, she had a relatively happy life in later years. She didn't let the tragic loss of her first love and fiancé blight her, enjoying a happy thirty year marriage with a local lawyer, despite her demanding parents' disapproval. All in all Beatrix Potter Heelis was a remarkable woman who left England a rich legacy in both literature and land.

I Would I Were a Penderwick!

I spent an absolutely delightful couple of days this week with the Penderwick family. I reread "The Penderwicks on Gardam Street" first (I had already read the original volume at least twice anyway), then moved on to "The Penderwicks at Pointe Mouette". That was a pleasure I had been saving for just the right time ... and this week was it.

For the uninitiated, the Penderwicks are a creation of Jeanne Birdsall. Though they are recent volumes, they are also old-fashioned and timeless, definitely destined to be classics. They are reminiscent of authors like Elizabeth Enright with her Saturdays series. They're the kind of books where nothing extraordinary really ever happens (although the third book did have a rather large, coincidental revelation), yet they still manage to be compelling reading. Genre-wise, they'd be classified as family stories; I call them ordinary books or daily life books because they're about the everyday sort of things you do - or wish you did.

Basically, the Penderwicks are four sisters (currently 13, 12, 11, and 5) who lost their mother shortly after the youngest was born. At the very end of the last book their father remarried and they also have a new, toddler step-brother although, conveniently, both parents and brother are absent in the third volume. (So too, largely, is eldest sister Rosalind. The younger three sisters, along with a good friend and their aunt are vacationing in Maine.) Loving but limited adult supervision is a hallmark of stories like this, as is great characterisation. You get to know each sister intimately; each has a strong and distinct voice: Rosalind is the nurturer, Skye the tomboy, Jane the dramatic and it looks like young Batty will be musical, as well as being an animal-lover, perpetually accompanied by the family's beloved dog Hound.

Reading about the Penderwicks life and adventures is such a wonderful experience. You really feel you are a part of the family. I would be a mélange of the sisters - nurturing, an animal lover, a reader/writer with a hint of tomboy too. I would like to come in right between Jane and Batty, I think. As an only child, reading about the relationships between the sisters is fascinating and makes me more than a little envious too. How wonderful to grow up with such a loving, supportive group of people. And how fortunate readers are to be able to share their experiences with them. Supposedly the series will have five volumes ... personally I hope it's even more and can hardly wait for book number four. I don't have an especial favourite yet in the series; I think it's still being written!

 

Olympic Adieu

Yesterday the games of the 30th Olympiad in London came to a close. As IOC President Jacques Rogge said, they were indeed "happy and glorious" and I thoroughly enjoyed them.

I wasn't particularly fond of the closing ceremonies - just not my style of music, I'm afraid, and to me fashion and models are a bit incongruous with the Olympics - but I certainly enjoyed watching many of the events. Coverage (at least in Canada) was superb; in the rare case I couldn't find something I wanted to see live on one of the five channels covering the games here, I could always catch it online using the CTV app or website.

Londoners truly did themselves proud and made their city a place I'd definitely like to visit some day too. Everything ran like clockwork - if an event was scheduled for 9 AM, it started then - and the literally thousands of volunteers always seemed to be smiling and pleasant. Regular glimpses of royalty (William, Kate and Harry were at many of the events) were a nice treat too. It was lovely to see the pride Great Britain had, and it was well justified. Not only were the games a huge success, so too were their athletes. They came in fourth in the medal count with 29 gold!

I was also glad the games came off safely; beforehand there were some concerns about security and I admit I was a little worried someone might try something. (I really need to be a lot more positive and optimistic and just trust that everything is going to be OK. It puts such a damper on things when you're always fearful.) It was so good to see the world coming together, being happy and fair for at least a few weeks.

There were so many heartwarming stories too. There's Oscar Pistorious, the double amputee who nonetheless ran (and well) for South Africa. There's Jamaica's Usain Bolt who won the "triple double" or "double triple" depending on how you want to say it: the 100m, 200m, and 4x100m gold medals in both the 2008 and 2012 Olympics and has to be the greatest runner - at least the greatest sprinter - of all time.

And there were several stories from the pool: Michael Phelps - the greatest swimmer of all time - ended his career with an additional four gold and two silver medals for an astonishing total of 22 Olympic medals ... 18 golden! In men's diving, our own Alexandre Despatie competed despite smashing his head on the board in training only a month or so before the games. Two other young divers might not have been there at all. Three years ago Britain's Chris Mears ruptured his spleen in a diving competition, lost five pints of blood and was given only a five percent chance of surviving - let alone diving. And Australia's Ethan Warren had a serious heart infection just last year and wasn't sure he'd ever be able to dive again. None of these three won medals, but they all made the event finals and exemplify what the games are all about - just going out there and doing your best. In my book that definitely makes them all - just like the games - winners.

Another Day, Another Controversy

Yesterday it was a badminton scandal, with eight players (from four teams) being sent home for trying to throw matches in the hopes of getting more favourable matches subsequently. It was pretty pathetic to watch. The poor referee was pleading with them to just play, to actually attempt to hit the shuttlecock. Instead they just kept swatting it limply into the net or batting at it so halfheartedly that the longest rally was a mere four shots. Talk about unsportsmanlike conduct!

Today we're back to gymnastics again, the women's all-around finals this time. That would be the event where the best aren't all competing because their countries' teams were too strong and had too many good athletes. Anyway, the U.S.'s Gabby Douglas was awesome and deservedly won the gold medal, followed fairly closely by Russian Victoria Komova. And the two of them were followed by the second Russian, Aliya Mustofina and the second American, Aly Raisman.

In fact, they were followed identically by those two. Now in other sports, if there were an exact tie, all the way down to the thousandth of a second or point, they would share the bronze medal (and I'm positive I remember shared medals in previous games, although perhaps not that recently) . But for gymnastics, that would be too generous, apparently. So there's a whole complicated procedure to prevent ties from happening. You drop the lowest scoring apparatus, one at a time, until the tie is broken. In the highly improbable case that it isn't, you then go by the highest execution scores and, if it still isn't, by start values. At that point - which of course will never happen - a tie would stand.

So in the end, because Mustafina's three best events were better than Raisman's, she got the final medal. It just seems so petty. To tie to the thousandth of a point was already pretty remarkable, showing they were both worthy of a medal. Why not give it to them both? Would it really have done any harm? I think, along with the "maximum two qualifiers per country" rule, this is another area the Gymnastics Federation really has to take a look at. As with all other sports, don't you really want the best competing, and don't you really want to reward deserved achievements even if they do cause the slight inconvenience of an extra medal? Hopefully by the next Olympics things will be just a little bit different, just a little bit better.