A little before noon I went to do my laundry. The usual middle aged Korean couple weren’t minding the place this time but the much friendlier and more enthusiastic who looks Chinese was there instead. He came around after I’d put my laundry in the machines to ask if everything was okay and then to tell me it would be half an hour.
I went home for a while, then back to put my stuff in the dryer, then home and then pack to pick it up. It was just after 13:00 when I was finished.
I had chips, salsa and yogourt for lunch.
My body’s been feeling stiff lately because of very little bike riding.
I finished reading the required selections from books one and three of Spenser’s The Faerie Queen. Britomart is a female knight who is the embodiment of chastity. She is the fictional ancestor of Queen Elizabeth I and may actually be her. She travels in faerie land posing as a male knight with the knight Artegall, who I thought was Arthur but I guess he isn’t. There’s a funny scene where a woman tries to seduce Britomart and slip into bed with her, not realizing she is a lady.
I read more than a quarter of Brother by David Chariandi, about two sons of a Trinidadian mother growing up in the rough neighbourhood around Lawrence and the Rouge River in Scarborough. The story is told by the younger brother about his elder sibling Francis, who got into some trouble and it seems he died, though it hasn’t been revealed how yet. The mother is shattered with grief and has lost some of her mind. I don’t know the specific neighbourhood but I have ridden my bike in similar areas not far from there. I think he made the area up because there’s no Lawrence Avenue Bridge over the Rouge Valley. Lawrence ends just at the Rouge River. He might mean Highland Creek. The roughest neighbourhood along Lawrence is around there, I think at Kingston Rd.
I had two small potatoes a slice of roast beef and gravy while watching Interpol Calling.
A young Dutch woman named Emmy Van Veer is helping a journalist named Slater research the circumstances that had led to her brother Onno’s death fifteen years before. He was a member of the Dutch resistance and was shot. She gives Slater a photo of Onno and a hundred gilder note that had been among the money that Onno was trying to deliver to the resistance before he was killed. What Emmy doesn’t realize is that Onno is still alive. Slater is killed by Onno and his research notes are stolen. Onno’s death was faked, he changed his name and he and a Nazi named Esler took the 300,000 gilders to go into an export business together. Esler tells Onno that Emmy is a liability. Duval learns that a wartime issue 100 gilder note was found on Slater. He also discovers that Esler was the German officer who had ordered Onno’s execution. Duval questions Esler but he reveals nothing. Esler decides to go to Amsterdam. When Onno hears of this he realizes that Esler plans to kill his sister. When Duval goes to check the office of Esler’s partner in Amsterdam he realizes that he is Onno. He thinks Emmy might be in danger. When Esler comes to kill Emmy Onno surprises his sister by revealing himself to be still alive. He steps in front of the bullet meant for Emmy just before Duval arrives. They follow Esler to a boat on one of the canals and capture him in the hold.
Emmy was played by Leigh Madison, who co-starred in the British TV series “Our House" and the movie “Behemoth the Sea Monster”.
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