What's Your Favorite Pastime?
Posted by Judy Taylor on
I think most people have hobbies, or things that they like to do most. I have two favorite pastimes. I love to quilt and I love to read. And when you have two favorites, it's hard to equally divide your time between the two. But I have discovered a way to do both at the same time.
I have found that when I load a new quilt into my hand quilting frame, I can sit and quilt and listen to audio books while I quilt.
My favorite fiction writer is Agatha Christie. I think I have gleaned just about all the used book stores in the three state area gobbling up her books and audio books. She is one of the most prized murder mystery writers in publication. I love the way she paints word pictures of each character so that you can practically visualize them in your minds eye and hear their European voices. So at night I will sit with a hard copy and read it next to my husband as he watches TV, but when I go to my quilt frame, I listen to the audio books all recorded with wonderful British, Belgium, and French accents.
There are two things about Agatha's books that peak my reader's interest. Number one is that she always waits until the last paragraph of the last page of the book to reveal the murderer, holding you captive and in suspense the entire book. The second thing is she was as mysterious in life as she was in her books. On Friday, December 3, 1926, the English crime novelist vanished from her home in Berkshire. It was a perfect tabloid story with all the elements of one of her own 'whodunnit' mysteries.
At shortly after 9:30 p.m. on Friday, December 3, 1926, Agatha Christie got up from her armchair and climbed the stairs of her home. She kissed her sleeping daughter Rosalind, aged seven, goodnight and made her way back downstairs again. Then she climbed into her Morris Cowley and drove off into the night. She would not be seen again for 11 days.
Her disappearance sparked one of the largest manhunts ever mounted, with more than one thousand policemen assigned to the case. For the first time, aeroplanes were also involved in the search.
It didn’t take long for the police to locate her car. It was found abandoned on a steep slope at Newlands Corner near Guildford. But there was no sign of Agatha Christie herself nor was there any evidence that she’d been involved in an accident.
Arthur Conan Doyle, tried using paranormal powers to solve the mystery. He took one of Christie’s gloves to a celebrated medium in the hope that it would provide answers. It did not.
Not until December 14, fully eleven days after she disappeared, was Agatha Christie finally located. She was found safe and well in a hotel in Harrogate. They came to the conclusion that Agatha Christie had left home and traveled to London, crashing her car in route. She had then boarded a train to Harrogate. On arriving at the spa town, she checked into the Swan Hotel with almost no luggage. Bizarrely, she used the assumed name of Theresa Neele, her husband’s mistress.
Agatha Christie never spoke about the missing eleven days of her life and over the years there has been much speculation about what really happened between December 3 and 14, 1926. It has been speculated temporary amnesia brought on by the depression of her cheating husband.
She soon made a full recovery and once again picked up her writer’s pen. But she was no longer prepared to tolerate her husband’s philandering: she divorced him in 1928 and later married the distinguished archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan.
So enjoy your weekend with your favorite pastime, but as for me.... I will be adding the finishing stitches to my quilt while listening to the last chapter of "The ABC Murders".