Lighthousekeeping - Jeanette Winterson

Drain men are here again, but it is not hoping well. They're not saying much to me, but from the swearing I gather the hole they've just knocked into the wall has not given access to the stack of drains as hoped, and is now just another expensive mess to clear up. I am feeling far from happy about it.

Apart from anything else, and this is running well into the third week of not being able to use my kitchen properly, all of it takes up so much time. Phone calls, emails, waiting for people to turn up, and all the rest of it. I've spent all of today answering calls and the doorbell to one man, if I even think about picking up a book something buzzes or rings, or starts being hammered. To be fair I don't think the drain guy is having a good day either, but he gets to go home to satisfactory plumbing.

Meanwhile it's been quite a long time since I finished 'Lighthousekeeping', and after much thought I'm still not sure what I want to say about it. I enjoyed it, a lot. I think I more or less understood what Winterson was trying to do (though that's possibly optimism on my part) but if ever a book begged to be discussed with a group, or at least one other enthusiastic reader who had some ideas about it, it's this one.

There's a fairy tale element of the fantastic, and a lot of interest in telling stories and the independent life they take on over time. There is Pew the blind lighthouse keeper who has always been at the lighthouse, but has he always been there, or has a Pew always been there. Stories and memories are something we inherit and recycle between generations and friends. Telling them makes them ours and creates memories and legends along the way.

Darwin and Robert Louis Stevenson both inhabit this particular story, along with continuous metaphors about light and dark, or the flashes of light in the dark that can guide us. Mostly though, I just find myself enjoying Winterson's writing.

And now there are two holes in my kitchen wall, but the plumbing/drain issues are no nearer to being fixed. The current conclusion is that the floorboards need to come up. Nobody appears to have plans for the building that show where the pipes go - although they surely must exist somewhere, and I still can't use my washing machine. I've had better days.