Well I can honestly say we are having some very strange weather at the moment. We woke up on Tuesday to thick fog! Not mist thick fog! You could not see past the end of our garden and this was the view out of the front of our home. Normally we can see across the valley to the hill and all the trees but as you can see nothing! It soon burned off and I think it was after all the rain we had had and it was still warm, it was just a bit of a shock!
Little Man loves the garden, but he is only allowed out once the sun has gone off the garden, he is also very keen on water play.
I got all of Eldest’s work done yesterday and the cleaning for him and then DH and I had dinner with them and Little Man as we will not see them for a fortnight. Today I have been working all day. I was planning on getting home jobs done today but I have moved that to tomorrow now, along with the ironing, packing and a quick tidy of the garden!
I will be taking my sewing machine away with me to try and get the bed quilt finished! I also have a selection of books going with me too. The first week we are on our own so I think we are going to have a chill week as it has been so busy over the last few months for us. Of course last year I was ill the second week of the holiday so I am keeping everything crossed that I am fine this year!
Youngest, Fiancé, Gordon & Blaze are arriving tomorrow night for house and dog sitting and then the Animals will all be going to the kennels for the week whilst Youngest & Fiance are with us. Then they will be back home when they get back for our final week, when Eldest and crew are with us. Once we are all back we have a few other things happening and also the last Bank Holiday of the year at the end of August when we have a very busy weekend. More about that later.
These were my books last year!
I will try and show you my book pile that I am taking away with me and I also have Book Club Friday whilst we are away too which I will be doing. Have a wonderful Friday.
Jayne & I went to lunch today and it was great. We had not seen each other for over a month as she had been away and we are going this Saturday. We discussed our Book Club Book which she chose for July and we both really enjoyed it. This was the book below, which I reviewed on my last Friday Book Club. My only comment was that there was an Epilogue which I did not think was necessary.
The Book below is what I have chosen for August’s Book Club with Jayne. I decided to go out of my comfort zone with this one! It is a love story and I am sure could be a Hallmark Movie!!!! Daphne loves Peter and their love story until he finds true love with his childhood bestie Petra! Daphne ends up rooming with Petra’s ex, Miles, and they do not get on until one night after a lot of alcohol they form a plan to take photographs together to imitate a relationship so that their ex’s see them. However things happen and could Daphne start to fall in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancé’s ex? It is what I would call a frothy book but a good one to read in the summer. I hope Jayne likes it!
I am busy this week trying to get all my work jobs done, my home jobs done, washing & ironing done and getting things packed for our holiday. Youngest, Fiancé, Gordon & Blaze are moving in to look after Coco whilst we are away and the animals are in kennels for the week that they are with us and then back home when Youngest & Fiancé get back!
I will let you know how things go this week! Have a great week.
Yes we sweltered in the heat over the weekend. It is not as hot as I know some countries are but what does it for us is the humidity. I was doing okay on Friday evening until I got up to tidy up, load the dishwasher etc, by the time I had finished I was wet through with sweat! I had the fan in our room going full pelt and Coco and I very much appreciated it!
DH and The Boys had a wonderful day on Saturday at Goodwood Festival of Speed and actually it was cooler there than here. Here are some pictures of the day.
The sun was up bright and early as well as The Boys.
The Grandstands did offer some respite from the sun, whilst they were watching the start of the Hill Climb.
The Boys went to the Goodwood Shop first to have a look at what they had in and found a rather special Visitor there.
The Duke of Richmond owner of Goodwood House where The Festival of Speed happens along with many other events. Above he is with Eldest and Below with DH and Youngest.
He very kindly signed several things for them.
They then had a walk round to look at all the cars who would be taking part in the Hill Climb and the displays.
Richard Hammond, of Top Gear & The Grand Tour fame, was also there with the little car he drove in the Top Gear episode in Botswana which was an Opal Kadett and was called “Oliver”.
“Oliver” above and Richard Hammond below having his mic put on.
All three of them had a great day and they got to see and do everything they wanted to do.
Us Girls got together in the afternoon with Little Man and had a great Indian Takeaway for dinner which was really tasty!
Honey was hot but found the bend in the stairs to be the coolest place and was fast asleep.
This was our garden before we went out in the hot sunshine.
Sunday we did not get up early and had a lazy morning and The Boys got back around 2.00pm so it was a great weekend for us all.
Yesterday was a sort out day as well as work and I also did my ironing because it was so much cooler than the weekend. Today it has been raining most of the day and a lot cooler, in fact I have a thin jumper on because although it is still warm it is 10° cooler than the weekend. Our plumber has been to repair our downstairs toilet and the tap on my kitchen sink, there is always something!
Today has been all work and then tomorrow I am with Eldest at his work and then Thursday will be home jobs. Friday I am having my hair cut before we go away and I have some jobs to do before the weekend when Saturday and Sunday we are at the pool for our Club’s swimming Championships. Normally we do not host these events until October or November but have had to move them because of some County events which are now then. There is also going to be a Club BBQ on Saturday night but I am going to come home, as I will be shattered and we have to do it all again on the Sunday! In between I have some jobs to get done too! Quilting has taken a back seat this week.
Welcome to Book Club Friday! I have been keeping up with my Aims for the year and been reading more and I have also discovered audio books now, especially when I am working. Also Jayne’s and my Book Club is making me read more as well. To that end I have finished two books and several audio books in June!
This is Jayne’s & My Book Club Book for July. I am on Page 229 out of 424 and am really enjoying it. Nancy is trying to rebuild her life after her mother & step-father were murdered by her step-brother and to help her heal she heads to her Grandmother’s home, Tall Chimneys, in Cornwall. However the press find her wanting to know what really happened on the night in question and Nancy just wants to forget but Tall Chimneys has its own dark legacy from the last War and someone knows all about it and about the night of the murders and they have nothing left to lose. Can Nancy keep all the secrets hidden?
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This is my book I am reading at the moment and you know, for those who have followed me for a while, that Clive Cussler is my go to Author for escapism! This book brings together the original book by Mr Cussler “Raise The Titanic” a Dirk Pitt Adventure with the Isaac Bell Adventures set in 1911. Bell is tasked with explaining the deaths of nine miners in a mine in Colorado but it was not an ordinary mine and they were trying to locate a rare element which eventually takes Bell to Europe. Dirk Pitt when he raised the Titanic was looking for the very same rare element, how are these two cases linked?
I have only just started this but know it will be a great story.
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I am still not convinced about audio books! There I said it! I have out of the fifteen I have listened to over the last few months only found three that I have given Five Stars to! Twelve of them have ranged from one star to three stars! I get to the end of the book I am listening to with a quite deflated view of the book, the author or both!
This one, “The Book Seller” looked quite promising but! It is about Helen who has been released from prison on Licence after killing her Boyfriend who was abusive to her. She has decided that instead of going back to her civil service job she wants to own a book store selling second hand books and with some money she has inherited is using that to set up the shop. However from the start things go wrong with a break in at the shop and her home, neighbours at the shop she is worried are trying to get her out of her shop so they can take over and a Parole Officer who is obnoxious! She gets some good luck with buying second hand books for her store and is given a vast collection of books by an elderly lady as she is downsizing her home. Helen is ready to open until someone else comes in and trashes all the work she has done so far! Can she sort it out before her opening day and will she be able to succeed?
The premise was good but very slow in places repeating the same sort of day over and over again before we actually got further into the story. The ending was predicatable having been led there right at the end of the book in all a rush to finish it! I would not read or listen to this again and I only gave it Three Stars.
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I have seen a lot of books around Bookstagram and reviews for Freida McFadden’s work and have her most popular book “The Housemaid” in paperback on my TBR shelf. So when I saw this on the Must Listen To section I downloaded it! I really wished I hadn’t! If this book is anything to go by I may not like “The Housemaid” either! I gave this book only Two Stars!
Blake Porter has been made VP of Marketing in the company he has been at for ten years in Manhatten. He has just bought a lovely old Brownstone and he is engaged to a wonderful woman who bakes!! In the space of a week his world collapses when he is fired from his job, his wages of which are paying for the mortgage on his home. The only way out is to rent one of the bedrooms to someone whilst he looks for a new job and enter Whitney who is down to earth, charming and willing to pay what he asks for the room. After the first week things begin to go wrong, Blake’s food is going missing, his neighbour is upset with him, he wakes in the middle of the night to hear strange noises coming from their Tenant’s room. Blake begins to think he has done the wrong thing renting the room out but then his business life begins to have problems again does Whitney know more about him than he thinks?
I will give you a trigger warning for this book some of the descriptive bits are very yuck! Very, very yuck! By the time you get to near the end of the book, again, you see the twist and admittedly it is a good twist but by the Epilogue you really don’t like any of the characters and the conclusion you are left with a bit of a well it happened but no explanation of how it was resolved sort of thing!
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I think this is my problem with audio books I start off with high hopes of the book being good and then, for whatever reason, by the end of it I think if I had been reading it I would have probably DNF it! It does while away the hours whilst I am working to be able to listen to something as I find I cannot listen to music in my ears whilst I am working! Don’t ask me why?! So will continue to listen to the books but I do think as a bit of a palate cleanser I will listen to a few of my most favourite books, to help with these books that I really don’t like!
I will let you know how I get on with “The Housemaid” when I eventually read it!
I hope you are all having a wonderful Friday and you find time to read and a great weekend to come.
Thursday again, they do seem to come round very quickly! I suppose it is because it is home jobs day! It has been very warm here today again so I have decided I will not do the ironing today and will fit it in when it is cooler.
I have had some new lenses in my glasses and collected them on Monday and am now trying to get used to them. They are a new type of lens especially made for the work I do, computer work and then when I am reading. I only use them for reading as my distance sight is fine, but it is taking a little while to get used to the gradient in them.
As it is #TBT I thought I would show you these pictures from 2012 when we went to The Harry Potter Studio Tour. It was the first week that it opened and we thoroughly enjoyed the visit to see where it was filmed and all the props. The Boys and DH were not very keen on the Butter Beer though!
Here we are in “The Mirror of Erised” which shows the viewer their deepest desire which, for me, is DH and My Boys. Eldest was 16 and Youngest was 12.
It was a great day and something we said we would do again, especially as they have added more things onto the tour now, like the train.
You can walk down Diagon Alley and here I am outside Flourish and Blotts
The Boys getting their Wands at Ollivanders!
I am sure that, if we are all honest, we would all love to get our letter inviting us to attend Hogwarts by owl!
When I was at Primary School I devoured the “Malory Towers” books by Enid Blyton about Darrell Rivers who begins her First Year at Malory Towers Boarding School. I would have loved to have gone to Boarding School and had all the adventurs that Darrell had with her friends. My best friend at the time was called Judith and she and I read these books together (I still have my set). Judith had a sister, Glynnis who was quite a bit older than she was, so Judith was like an only child like me. Her room was the smallest in the house as her sister had the larger room and Judith’s bed fit between the two walls and above her bed she had bookshelves with her books on them and I loved her room. Her bed was like a reading nook and you could look out of the window which was at the base of the bed. I was lucky to have a bigger room but I really liked her room as it was cosy. We were about eight at the time. We then moved on to reading The Narnia stories, again I still have the set!
Anyway this is all leading up to tomorrow which is Book Club Day! I have quite a few to discuss with you. Happy Thursday.
At the end of the week we are in for some more hot days over 30°C again! It is not so warm where the Boys are going. At least it is at the weekend when I don’t have to work.
Wimbledon has picked up a little bit although the new AI line calls have come under fire for getting things wrong, oh what a surprise! I know that the human line judges were not always right but at least they were there unlike the disembodied voice and the players are not happy with it either!
My only other complaint about Wimbledon this year is the fascination the media has had of the “names” attending! You just know that these “celebrities” are not interested in tennis at all, but are there because they have been asked into one of the Hospitality areas and it is good for publicity!
It was the British Grand Prix on Sunday where it rained for most of the day but a British Man won, Lando Norris, mainly because the British drivers are used to all the rain in this country!!! We did not get to watch it as we were recovering from Carnival and out with Youngest & Fiancé but saw the highlights.
Whilst the Boys are away us girls are getting together on Saturday and for dinner we are having an Indian meal which we are very much looking forward to. We will also try Little Man on a very mild sweet curry to see if he likes it. He is keen on the children’s versions of the curry so we will see how he gets on with this one. I will try and get you some pictures.
I will be trying to get the backing done for the bed quilt and then need to get it pinned and started on the actual quilting. I will probably we taking it away with me to get it finished and get the binding done and sewn to the back.
Little Miss Coco waiting for her Biscuit.
Straight afterwards she was in her basket fast asleep!
One corner of our garden is in flower at the moment. I decided, as I had missed when we should have put the bedding plants in, not to do them this year and will just put in the Winter pansies when it is time. I have also not put in my usual tomatoes that I grow but may put some salad leaves in when we get back from holiday.
Managed to get this picture of the Peacock Butterfly on our Buddleja and there is a bee to the left of it too.
Tomorrow is home jobs day and I will be getting on with them early as it is going to be warm as well tomorrow but not as warm as Friday & Saturday! Also have the washing & Ironing to do and grocery shopping. Friday I may sneak the day off and get the quilt back done.
As promised here are some pictures of the two baby Quilts I have managed to get done.
This one is for a good friend whose little boy was born in May. I have not seen him yet but hopefully after our vacation I will get to see them.
I just loved this fabric especially for little boys with a farmyard theme, tractors and farm animals. It is a little different to the other baby quilts I have made in the past, but I wanted a change. DH helping with the photographs.
For the back I bought some more of the tractor & truck fabric.
The quilt below is very similar and is for Baby Oscar who is Partner’s Great Nephew.
Again I used the farmyard fabric and added in some reds, greens and yellows.
The backing for this one I used this lovely cow fabric to make it different to the other one. I have already given this one to Oscar for when he is doing tummy time or under his baby gym.
The bed quilt I have managed to get the side pieces done and am just about to sort the fabric out for the backing, then I will need to sandwich it and get the quilting done. I am going to do half of it then turn it round and do the other half which I think will be the best way with my machine. I will just then need to bind it and I will be able to gift that. I have plans for my Christmas gifts to get done but I also have some sewing repairs which I need to get done before we go away as well. I think I might sneak tomorrow off and get the quilt done. I am still working on a full size quilt for Little Man and still working on a quilt for DH and I and a Snoopy quilt for me! They will get done eventually!!!
I was at Eldest’s work today as he is busy tomorrow and also has a dental check up and then Thursday it is home jobs day! I hope you lovely lot are having a good Tuesday and week so far.
Saturday dawned quite cloudy but very warm, so perfect conditions for Carnival Day in the village. At least we would not have any people with sunburn!! It was also quite blowy. My little visitor arrived at 8.30am and they went off to help, DH having left at 5.00am. Coco and Gordon were a little manic together so as I was on my own I decided to let them out of their crates one at a time and then over lunch they were both in their crates having had their lunchtime treats. They were very good and went to sleep for a couple of hours.
The Floats were judged by Sir Richard Ranulph FitzHerbert, 9th Baronet of Tissington Hall, Ashbourne. He is also currently High Sheriff of Derbyshire and came dressed in his regalia.
We were also lucky to have several previous Carnival Queens who arrived in style on this lovely antique bus.
We also had another celebrity driving the tractor for the Carnival Queen, Attendants & Crown Bearer, one Harriet Cowan
You will probably not know her name unless you follow “Clarkson’s Farm” on Amazon when she went to help Jeremy Clarkson on the Diddly Squat Farm in Oxford to ensure that he did not make a complete mess while his Farm Manager, Kaleb Cooper, was on a speaking tour. Harriet’s family are farmers in Derbyshire where she helps out and knows Simon who farms in our village. Here she is in the above and below pictures with the very large Deutz-Fahr tractor
Our Carnival Queen, Ada, on the float with the Crown Bearer
The Gallopping Horses were on the Park and below The Barlow Red Barrows Display Team. One of the Owners of one of the companies we work with used to be in the display team!
The sun had managed to come out by mid afternoon and the sky had cleared a bit which was good for the fly past.
We managed to get a fly past by this magnificent piece of history from The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. It is the Hawker Hurricane of which there are only 12 operational ones left in the world. One of them is the last one to enter service with the RAF and the other one they have is the last Hurricane built. It flew over the Carnival and our home three times before heading home to RAF Coningsby in Lincoln, not far from us in Derbyshire.
These two pictures are from past village Carnivals
The Carnival itself finished at 5.00pm but then Youngest & DH had to pack up all the equipment and get it home which took quite a while. Yesterday we all went out for dinner at one of the local pubs for Sunday Lunch and we had a lovely few hours together after a very busy week. Tonight is the last two events; The Dog Show & Junior Football as it was far too warm last Monday to hold the events. There are a few other events taking place in September and October to then conclude the 100 Years of Carnival.
Busy week this week with work and then The Boys are all off to Goodwood on Friday and The Girls are having a girly weekend!!! Have a wonderful week.
To all of my American Friends & Followers, wishing you a very Happy 4th of July!
It is sunny and warm here today and much nicer than the extreme heat we have had this week, it is a true British summers day today.
Wimbledon has gotten a little better since my moan and I have seen some good matches, in between working of course. Managed to get my home jobs done early and just now have a basket of ironing to do and I am up to date with my jobs before the weekend when I am babysitting Gordon!
I have also got the two baby quilts completed and just about to wash them and then I will be able to show you them. Still doing the bed quilt which is taking longer than expected but hoping to get quite a bit done on Sunday after our lunch. I think I may also sneak a day this week to get it done, but don’t tell DH!!!!!!
Coco is really enjoying the weather and is out most of the time lying on the patio or in the garden. This was last week just before her Airecut!!!
I will try and get some pictures of the weekend for you and whatever you are up to this weekend I hope you have a wonderful time.
Well here in the UK we have made it to Thursday without falling with heat stroke, we are just not used to it!!! It is a lot cooler today and very welcome and is supposed to be like this for the rest of the week. Tonight for Carnival it is Wild, Wet & Wacky for the teenagers where they play silly games with water and foam! Of course they would probably prefer it to be like Monday when it was very warm. The two years The Boys competed they came home completely wet and frozen! They were also dirty! I made them both strip outside and I had a towl for them and made them both go straight up and have a hot shower!!!
Last night they were both helping DH at The Duck Race:
DH on the Bank commentating and Eldest in the brook.
Youngest at the finish Boom waiting to collect the ducks.
Waiting for the ducks to round the bend and almost lost his footing whilst collecting them!
Waiting to get in the brook and then sorting things out before the start.
My Boys – I love them to bits.
And for #TBT here they are twenty one years ago on holiday in Scotland! Eldest was 8 and Youngest was 4!
I did not get my home jobs done today so that will be for tomorrow now. Carnival tomorrow is getting everything ready for Saturday but in the evening there is a Cake competition and Bike Race. Saturday will be an early start for DH and I am dog sitting Gordon whilst they are busy helping out. Sunday we are out for lunch which will be lovely.
Happy Thursday you lovely lot. Hugs & Love, Susie & Coco xx
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