Book 59j: Bagthorpes Battered, by Helen Cresswell

The final book in the Bagthorpe Saga! It's taken a long time to get to the end (the first, Ordinary Jack, was among the earliest of my challenge books; I remember reading it on the train back to Scarborough in July). This volume begins with things as chaotic as they were at the close of the previous volume (i.e. quite chaotic). Rather than neatly drawing the threads of this series together, Cresswell opts to introduce yet more unlikely elements in the form of new pets for Daisy - not, as she had hoped, a giraffe, but a rather moth-eaten and decidedly foul-mouthed parrot, and a garden snake in a cardboard box. Mrs Fosdyke's misadventures in the clutches of journalist Patsy Page are indeed rounded off, but at the close of the volume it seems that life in the Bagthorpe family will, alas, continue much as usual.

Book 59i: The Bagthorpe Triangle, by Helen Cresswell

Another tale of the Bagthorpes! This one was very difficult to acquire - I had to get Ed to borrow it from Bristol library for me. I started it during the wedding-dress-hunt-week that was half term, and finished it yesterday just before Youth Alpha. This one I read out of order because it was hard to find, so it effectively filled in the gaps between my last two Bagthorpe books. It was in keeping with the rest of the series: one feels sympathy with Jack and his mother, and sometimes with Uncle Parker; the other characters leave much to be desired in terms of pleasantness. On the whole I rather enjoyed it as a little light reading in between the stresses of wedding planning and being a Reception teacher.

Oh yeah, you want an actual synopsis... Mr Bagthorpe, having sucked a sock up with the hoover, departs into town with said hoover in the boot of his car, ostensibly to get it fixed but in reality to have scampi and chips at the local pub. Meanwhile his wife, finally overcome by the stresses and strains of living in her less-than-sympathetic family, utters an astonishing scream and shortly afterwards disappears. Nobody, apart from Jack, seems remotely concerned for her welfare. There is, however, a concerted search on for the also disappeared tramp, Mr O'Toole, whom Aunt Celia believes to be a guru of great spiritual importance to the life of her unborn twins, and whom Mrs Fosdyke believes to be an eccentric millionaire in disguise. The widespread rumours of a murderer on the loose, coupled with the unexpected (and untidy) reappearance of a member of Mrs Fosdyke's own family, lead to a series of events extreme even by the exacting standards of the Bagthorpe family.