Due east before tacking south

 198 people have been here and felt moved to review.  Laura noted ‘Great place. It is located on a plateau with great views of the mountains and the coast. The children can play on many devices and the tables invite you to have a picnic.’


Well, that’s it.  What can amuse us for the next 2 kilometres.  Horatio Hornblower has been mentioned before. We ran into him when he was held prisoner in Ferrol.  We are heading towards the coast where HMS Sutherland earned him the nickname ‘the terror of the Mediterranean.’  



Hornblower came into my life in the form of Mr Midshipman Hornblower in a bargain bookshop in Portsmouth. I was hooked, well, once we got through the first chapter. In fiction I like problem solving.  Generally, I want my detective to be hunting down wrong doers, not struggling with his own side.  I never got on with Sharpe for that reason. Every Sharpe novel seemed to be Sharpe is happy; Sharpe loses everything; Sharpe ends up slightly worse off than when he started.  Much beastliness will have happened, much to do with his own side.  I read a lot of them.  



The thing with Hornblower is that, like rereading The Hobbit. It is centred in the mid Twentieth Century.  I mean, The Hobbit really could be renamed ‘A Tetchy Don takes some quarrelsome students on a walking holiday - with dragons.’ Hornblower is a solid chap with enough faults to make him interesting.  Forrester can write.  He must have been able to.  He was on the reading list of St Paul’s Girls School.



Currently I am reading ‘Brewer’s Luck.’  James Keffer is carrying on the naval tradition with William Brewer.  Brewer had served under Hornblower. I am not sure how it is going. He has resurrected Captain Bush, who will retire to live near Hornblower.  I am not sure how I feel about that.  Fan fiction is fun but changes should be tweaks but this seems a bit too much. I’ll tell you what I think.















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