Yesterday, I had my taxes done for free by volunteer AARP tax preparers at Haddon Twp. Library. Sadly I was unaware that this year, for the first time they had instituted appointments, so I showed up early in the morning and sat in the parking lot for 2 hours waiting for the library to open and the sign-in line to form.
I was #7, so I thought it would move pretty quickly but, the appointments showed up and it took hours. Nonetheless, I repeat, it was FREE! My old tax preparer retired and when I looked into a new one, I discovered that they were going at $275 to $300, which, at the age I am now, and used to paying $75 to $150, seemed exorbitant, so I looked around and found the senior AARP tax aid. I do believe you need to be under a certain income level and also that your return has to be relativley simple, all of which criteria, I fit into.
So, while I waited I picked up a book from the book sale shelves. I may have mentioned before that I love a good mystery. My current favorite both in books and on the screen, is Ann Cleeves, author of the VERA novels and SHETLAND. Both VERA and SHETLAND are featured on amazon.com prime video, via the BritBox channel.
I allow myself this relative luxury because I rarely go to the movies anymore. First off, my vision is a problem, secondly my back and knees are a problems for sitting for that long in the theater. At home, I sit on a recliner sofa, which takes the pressure of gravity off my spine and precludes a backache.
Sitting at the AARP however, speaking of backaches, was torturous for me, so when I found a mystery on the shelf with an attractive wintry cover scene, and a back cover blurb that sounded different, I gladly paid my $1 and bought it. The author is Cecilia Ekback, a Swedish woman who lives in Canada. Her novel is based on a real unsolved murder, a historic case dating to the early 1700's in the northern part of Sweden that borders on and overlaps with Lapland.
The Colonial period, whether in America or Europe, the 1600's and 1700's is a period of particular interest to me and I have read a lot of books about it, but never one set in Sweden before.
This weaves together with so many many interest of mine - the Swedish settlers who were among the first European settlers in South Jersey, along with the Dutch, and the Swedes who built the church I attended as a child. Most recently, I discovered through ancestry dan that I have 27% specifically Swedish ancestry - a surprise because I have NO knowledge of any Swedish ancestors. I did find a Danish ancestor a few years back doing family history who was connected to a male ancestor from Jutland. Since more than 52% of my dna is United Kingdom, it is no surprise that the mysteries set in Northumberland and Shetlands, as well as Sweden, should speak to me. I might add I read ALL of the auto fiction books written by the Norwegian author, Knausgaard. They were fascinating to me.
This new novel is called Wolf Winter and it begins with a family newly moved to a remote farm in Northern Sweden from their previous home, a fishing village further south. Right away, they discover a murdered man in a meadow whom everyone at first and relentlessly thereafter decides has been killed by a bear or wolf though clearly, his wound was a clear slashing disembowlment, not a tearing or ripping wound. The Swedish farm woman on the new to her farm site, decides to investigate. The wife of the murder victim, also, feels certain her husband was killed by a human and not an animal.
The book unfolds slowly and with great subtle literary atmosphere, like the enveloping fog of a mid-winter forest morning. The writing is beautiful in regard to describing the weather and the land.
So this blog entry is a tip for tax prep and an incentive to go to the library and look on the book sale shelves for something good to read on cold and dreary February days!
Happy Trails, in the woods or in the wood of a good book!
Jo Ann
wrightj45Wyahoo.com
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