Saki Blogs

Title: RED SEAS UNDER RED SKIES
Publisher: Gollancz
Author: Scott Lynch
Edition released: 2007
ISBN: 978-0-575-07925-0
586 pages
Reviewed by: Adam Donnison

RED SEAS UNDER RED SKIES is book two of the GENTLEMAN BASTARD SEQUENCE, following on from THE LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA.

Locke Lamora is a con-man and thief, the consummate Gentleman Bastard. Teaming up with Jean Tannen again for the ultimate con, against the ultimate gambling house, the Sinspire. Jean is the brawn to Locke's brains, and together they get themselves into (and quite often out of) all manner of trouble.

The set up is coming along quite nicely when Locke and Jean are sidetracked, and forced into piracy with a unique and deadly threat. When you don't know how to sail, nor the difference between a binnacle and a barnacle, you know that things are going to get hairy.

In this almost madcap escapade, Scott Lynch has created a rather fun world where Locke and Jean run rampant. The twists and turns, while sometimes comedic, are always entertaining and there were only one or two places where the pace slowed. All in all a great read and this reviewer will be on the lookout for future Gentleman Bastard Sequence titles.

After a bit of mucking around - the "boys" have been moved off to a separate pen on their own as we moved the new girls (6 of them) in on Sunday and they promptly all hide behind the nesting boxes and wouldn't come out. I think they need a little settling in time, as they are only 12 weeks old.

But they are absolutely gorgeous:

Sophia is in there as well, so there are 2 white, 2 silver, 1 brownish, 2 blackish.

6 new girls names required... this is getting complicated.

We posted a while ago about 3 lovely little silkie hens, and one cross-breed rooster that we bought from Talbot - Charles and the Courtesans.

Well, it turns out that we've got Charles, Neil and Kevin and the poor single courtesan Sophia. A bad set of circumstances as the roosters are huffing and puffing at each other a little, but not really getting into fighting - they are all too busy ganging up on Sophia. Which is most definitely not good.

We're off to Talbot again tomorrow so we'll bring home some more hens if the normal seller is there, but we also needed to rework the housing.

Which is tricky as Adam's done his back in badly and is limited in what he can and cannot do.

Enter Tim - who helped out tremendously with the task at hand!

Oh - with his little shadow of course:

With Tim doing the lifting and bending, and Adam doing the squatting:

We've now got a secure house and a run that will be okay for the days when we're around.

We'll move two of the roosters in there tomorrow when we get the new hens, and I'm ordering a couple more mobile / smaller pens in flat pack mode so that we've got some fall back positions for these little problems in life.

The ducklings have very quickly gone from little fluffy balls of yellow down to darn hard to pick from their parents at a quick glance.

Angelina and Jim are at the top of the photo - we've still not named the babies, too hard to tell them apart yet.

Mum and Dad on the left here:

Couple of photos of the finished pergola (well we've still got to finish stretching the shadecloth and spreading the mulch) but it's working / house is more comfortable in the heat now.

Meg has decided that Tim's somebody she can work with - and most days if we can't find her she's either outside following him around, or keeping him company whilst he watches a DVD.

Of course, sometimes you have to guard against intruders and Meg's not going to be sharing Tim with Jedda and Clancy anytime soon ... so she sees them off whenever they try and join in.

One of the things that we wanted to use this blog for is as a record of what we've done over the years that we intend living on this property. It's a huge pity that I never remember to do these postings on a more regular basis - but one of the big jobs we've been working on recently has been putting some sun protection on the front of house.

This was quite a few weeks of effort - but most of the constructions is finished now (and just in time with our next 40+ temperature day due on Monday, and it is working really well. It was a tricky construction job as most of the work was up in the air - but we sorted it out, mostly doing a couple of hours in the late afternoon / early evening when the sun had gone down enough to make it possible to work out there.

Temporary work station was set up - we ended up with quite an efficient cartload of tools and things that were dragged in and out of the shed as required.

The first set of uprights and overheads - Adam basically built the whole thing in blocks once the uprights had gone in.

Mind you, this tree is terrific for shading the front of the house - but an absolute sod of a thing to build around. Much muttering, swearing and cursing of the darn thing.

By now, nearly finished - although the far end is a lot higher than it looks - ladders and things quickly became not quite long enough!

The nail guns were absolutely invaluable in doing this job - and we ended up spray painting most of it as well - the rough hewn timber was an absolute bastard to paint with a brush.

The little dog in the foreground is Meg - more on her in a later post.

We wanted to paint it and we really really really didn't want to paint it in the same green that's all over the place - anything for a bit of colour - so terracotta it is (might even do the front door with the same paint one day...)

As you can see we solved the ladder problem in a slightly unusual way...

And here we are - painted and ready for shadecloth. We're going to run shadecloth over the thing for a few years and plant some vines and climbing plants to eventually replace it.

The workforce on shadecloth pulling day - Adam's brother Tim in the background helping out. (He's staying with us for an undefined period of time as Adam's mum has broken a collarbone in a fall and has been stuck in hospital since the week before Christmas).

The full workforce (well Adam and Tim) with Jedda and Meg supervising). Clancy will be inside under the bed - the first whoosh of air from the compressor on day one of construction and as soon as we go anywhere near the pergola he disappears.

Fully finished photos on their way.....