Only two more sleeps to go! I cannot believe it is Christmas this week it has really appeared by magic this year for me!
Over the last few weeks I have felt, for all of you who watch “Stranger Things”, I have been in the Upside down! The days and weeks have flown by and although I have been getting things done from my usual To Do lists and ticking things off, they have never seemed to be reducing.
One of the Games at the Fun Gala involved inflateable Antlers and Inflateable Characters!
The Swimmers waiting for the Results!
DH finished work on Thursday last and Friday, Saturday and Sunday we were moving the final things for Youngest & Fiancée out of their rented home an dinto storage or to our home. It is all now done and the keys handed back which is great to get it all done before Christmas. Sunday afternoon and into the evening it was the Swimming Club Fun Christmas Gala and the swimmers had a great event and Sue and I did not have to do anyting so we got to watch all the action. Yesterday we had to take the rubbish to the tip from our home and Youngest’s home and DH helped Eldest with the last few jobs he needed to do before he finished for Christmas.
Today DH is out at the company we work with locally their Christmas dinner and I am doing the cleaning, again! I also have a basket of washing and iroining to do and generally get our home ready for Christmas Day, with the two dogs and the cat under my feet!
Our Stair Lights.
We have had to change the stair lights this year because of our new lodgers! Last year DH and I bought new artifical berries which go on wth green garland and the lights. Well Blaze and Coco decided to eat some of them. They did not swallow them just picked them off, gave them a chew and then left the bits everywhere. So we decided to just put the garland and lights on. Well Gordon decided it was a good idea to chew through the wires for the lights, which fortunately were not on at the time! The new set of lights are now on the outisde of the stairs as you can see!!! I always say Christmas is about adapting things!
The double issue of the magazine I have every week, Country Life. I just love the cover.
Tomorrow DH and I are out visiting family over in Nottingham and running some other errands and I will be getting everything preppred for Christmas Day where there will be eight for dinner and festivities. Boxing Day is a quiet and chill day and then Saturday Fiancée, Partner and I are going out for lunch as a little treat for Fiancée before the new arrival in January. DH, the Boys and Little Man are all going out and hopefully going on the steam train. Sunday is also another chill day. Next week will be DH and I getting back to the decluttering of our home and the garage as well as some other jobs which never get done in the normal work day.
New Year we have been invived out to some very good friends for dinner and to see the New Year in with them which will be lovely.
Little Man went with Mummy & Daddy to have breakfast with Santa all together this morning. Here he is seeing Santa although he does look a little worried! They said he had a lovely time though.
Here he is the other day with his cars.
I know I am behind with things, one of which was to do a review of the Year with our Book Club but I will get it done over the holidays. I did manage to achieve and surpass my Goodreads Reading Challenge this year, which along with my Aim of 2025 to read more I set the goal at 50 books! I managed since January to read 55! I am going to set next year’s Challenge at 100 and it will also be another of my 2026 Aims! Look out for the Book Review.
This is Eldest & Partners very good friend, Tractor Ben, who also helps at the garage. He, his father and their friend, dress their tractors up for Charity Drives in the Town of Ashbourne and then they have also done charity drives around Derbyshire as well. This picture is coutesy of Jim Bell who got a great picture of Ben’s tractor. Have a lovely Christmas Ben and we shall see you in the New Year.
Coco had all her beeding, towel and quilt washed in time for Santa Paws arriving and she just loves a fresh quilt cover! She was happy and snuggled in her basket next to my desk
A picture of Gordon and Coco on our stairs watching me coming up one step at a time!
I am doing well with my hip and now walking about at home without the crutch but still take it with me when I am out in case I have to walk long distances or navigate a lot of stairs. I will be able to, after Christmas, use our treadmill again which helped so much after I had my right hip done.
Our weather over the last few weeks has been dank. We have had quite a bit of fog too with the days not being bright at all and not getting light much, so we have had the lights on at home. A lot of people hate this time of year but I love it, because the lights are on and it is very cosy. We have, of course had the shortest day of the year now, so the nights will start to get a little lighter but I still like the dark cosy nights. Of course it means that I can spend more time reading which is always a bonus.
Anyway If I don’t get chance to post again this side of Christmas, I do hope you lovely and wonderful lot have a great Christmas and New Year. I would like to thank Sue & Suan for always leaving me a comment on my posts and to Judy who also comments and everyone else who follows me and reads my witterings, it makes it all worthwhile
Welcome to the December Friday Christmas Book Club!
Who can believe that we have completed another twelve months of Book Club? I certainly can’t and when I looked at my Diary on Tuesday could not believe that we are only two weeks away from Christmas!
Reading for me has been a bit haphazard these past few weeks and I did not get Jayne’s and My Book Club book finished either before we have the new one for December!!!
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This is our Book Club Book for November and is a realy Christmas Novel. I probably do not need to tell you about the story (it is very Hallmark Movie territory) but it is good and I have enjoyed it as it was very light.
Neve manages the family Hotel, Stardust Lake on a very snowy island in Scotland. However her heart is broken after the love of her life, Oakley Rey, left to go to the other side of the World chasing his dreams. However Neve has a secret she is trying hard to keep from everyone and then Oakley arrives back on the Island for Christmas. Should she get attached to him again if he is only going to go away after Christmas, will she ever get her happily ever after?
I am on Pag 90 and really enjoying it so this gets Five Stars!
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I listened to this book on Book Beat and it was okay but!!!!! A girl is working late at the diner in their little town and after a very long day she walks out to her car to go home when she is grabbed from behind and that is the last thing she remembers until she wakes up im a room which is, she believes, under ground. There follows chapters on her captivity which as she loses all sense of time, is a year, are they looking for her or have they given up, until one day the door opens and a woman appears at the bottom of the steps, is this her rescue or her captor?
It was okay but the ending was a bit blah there was a bit of a twist at the end and it was quite obvious so no I would not read or listen to this again! It got two stars from me.
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I also listened to this whilst I was working a couple of weeks ago. Again it was a bit blah and I worked out who the baddy was by the middle of the book, so I got to the end without any strange twists and a bit of anticlimax as I had worked out who done it!
The city they live in is getting worse for crime, all sorts of different crime but especially murder by one particular person who has been given the nickname of Abel, as in Cain and Abel! Dan and Olivia are modern parents with modern parent problems with their children added to which they are scared about the local crimes and the strain on their already rocky marriage is making it worse. Dan hates Olivia’s boss and who he suspects might be Abel, Olivia hates Dan’s best friend who she thinks might be Abel and then they both don’t like their postman, milkman or their neighbour; one of the three might be Abel too! Can they survive Abel’s reign of terror and will their marriage survive?
It was another one of those hmm books it was okay but not terrifc so I gave it four stars.
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Now this is definitely a quirky book. It is about a provincial small town in the Deep South USA and the fact that the local women’s committee do not like some of the books which are at their local Library so get them banned. The main instigator of this plan is none other than the Chairwoman of the committee Lula Dean who was born and raised in the town and who’s family were once very prominent, they are not now! However Lula still behaves like they are. She decides that to counteract the disgraceful books at the Library she will open her own little Library on her property and put in some very appropriate books. This is when one of the locals decides that it is not up to Lula Dean to decide who can read what, so swaps the very suitable book covers and puts them on some very thought provoking books! As the locals stop by Lula Deans little library she is so pleased to know they are reading proper books, if only she knew!!!
The story goes along in that vein and ends with Lula Dean being put firmly in her place by her family but the thought provoking books help more people than can be imagined! I sort of liked the book but I was too sure about it, I don’t think I would read it again though so I gave it Three Stars.
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This is my Five Star read for December. It is a well written book, the dialogue flows well and the characters are interesting althogh you do not get bogged down with too much detail about them, so you do not have to go back and re-read anything to remember who they are or what they are doing!
D I Walker was a cop in London who was faced almost daily with intricate cases including murder, armed robbery and many other crimes. However his wife, Annie, wants to move back to the little Cumbrian village that she was born in, Kirkby Abbey, as it is so much safer there.
However an early Christmas present is left on their doorstep after the move and when he opens it there is a gruesome sight and with a note which says there are twelve days left to Christmas and there are going to be twelve murders, one a night, expect the first that evening! The snow starts to fall and James Walker is told to expect the Village to be cut off, how is he going to deal with a murder or more than one with no resources and a killer loose in the Village?
Yes I really enjoyed it, no I did not know who the murderer was until the end and so this got five stars. It is also the first book in the D I Walker series, the rest being : The Killer in the Snow, The Winter Killer, The Night Before Christmas, The Killer in the Cold and finally Cold Blooded Killer.I am definitely going to get these other books and may even listen to one or two of them!
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I did listen to this one and it is in the Cosy Crime section on Book Beat. Christmas has arrived in Penstown and the Penstown Players are busy rehearsing “Aladdin” for their upcoming pantomime season. DCI Nathan Withers has avoided getting a part and so has his wife Jodie, who also used to be a detective but now runs her own catering business. She was allowed to not have a part if she did the catering for the opening night party. During the first performance the Mayor’s husband, Tim, who is playing Widow Twankie is waiting in the wings for his big entrance when he trips over what he thinks is a bundle of costumes but which is, in fact, a dead body! Who would want to kill someone and who has a terrible secret?
I loved it! I actually listened to it on Book Beat and the narator, Zara Ramm, was so good! It is very much a tongue in cheek book but the writing is light, enjoyable and very funny in places and they do get their man or woman at the end. It is another series of books and I will be looking out for more of them.
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So that is December done and dusted and another year gone by. I will do a review of all the books this year next week and my thoughts on my reading year, which I can honestly say I have achieved that Aim this year with reading more!
I hope you lovely lot have a wonderful weekend and get some time to read in this very hectic period of the calendar.
Well I had a look at the calendar at the weekend and suddenly realised that there are just two weeks left before Christmas! I do not know how it has managed to sneak up on me, but I suppose having had six weeks out recuperating from my Op has not helped!Jayne and I were out yesterday for our Christmas Ladies who Lunch and we had a great time. We always go to The Cavendish Hotel at Baslow, Derbyshire which is owned by Chatsworth House and is, in fact, on the Estate. The drive to it is also lovely as you get to see some of our wonderful Derbyshire countryside, although it was pouring with rain and was quite dark so the lights were on all day. The food was lovely as always, we both had Christmas dinner, and a little drink. We had drinks in the lounge afterwards where there was a roaring fire and it was so lovely to spend a few hours doing nothing really!
The Garden Room where we had Lunch.
So we have moved back in Youngest, Fiancée, Blaze and Gordon with their clothes, books etc and the rest of their home is going into storage over this weekend and next. They have done well to get their old room sorted at home and at the weekend we took their family picture for their Christmas cards.
It is very cosy in there.
They went to Youngest’s Dinner and he came Third in the L2 Technician of the Year 2025 Jaguar Land Rover UK Awards and was presented with a Trophy, Certificate and some other goodies. We are so proud of him.
It really has been a very busy few weeks, so much so that decorating our home for Christmas had been done over quite a few days rather than being able to get it done all at once. However we finally got there. Here are a few pictures that I have taken so far.
Our tree this year and although it does not look big all our decorations have gone on really well. We also bought some new lights for it and they have made it look great.
The lights on the bookcase. I love the lights at Christmas when all the other lights are off.
My little village. I got three of the houses last year on sale and bought the Church, the Christmas trees, the reindeer and the two larger houses this year when they were on sale.
These are our Christmas Cards this year and I always get them from the “Help For Heroes” Charity. I managed to get them all written, addressed and stamped on Sunday and posted them off yesterday!
I also managed to get all the presents wrapped and put into their various Sacks!
We got the trees from the Garden Centre in our village and they always have a great choice. This is the display as you go in and then you walk through the Christmas area and they always go a great job with the displays and they also have quite a few different decorations.We got there as they opened and we got the trees and wreath, paid for them and DH loaded it all in the truck and then we went for Breakfast. By the time we came out the car park was full and you have never seen so many people. We were very glad we got there early, there was only about ten customers in then!
Here is Eldest, Youngest Sisters and Little Man in front of their tree. They managed to get theirs decorated and up the weekend we got them!
On Sunday it was the Village Christmas light switch on and there was quite a good turn out despite heavy rain! One year it snowed and that made it quite magical but most years it is raining! DH did not get back until 9.00pm having left our home at 2.00pm! I did not go down, I usually do but decided I did not want to get cold and wet!!!!!
Friday evening The Girls were involved in the Lantern Parade in their home town of Ashbourne. Little Man and Eldest walked along the side of the parade and they walked from the Church into the Market Square where Carols were sung to kick off the Christmas period.
Saturday evening we were at Great Central Steam Railway to see Santa and Mrs Claus! Fortunately the rain had stopped for our visit and we had a great time.We got on the tran at 3.30pm and so as we set off it got dark and all the lights came on and it really was a magical trip. We start the journey in Loughborough at the Station which opened in 1899. It has been restored to reflect the 1940’s and 1950’s.
The Fireplace and open fire in the Platform Buffet which has two doors so it can be accessed from both platforms!
Mrs Claus was on the Platform and having her photograph taken with the young guests in front of the large Christmas tree.Eldest Sister.
Mrs Claus and Youngest Sister.
DH, Little Man, Youngest Sister and Mrs Claus by the steam engine “Witherslack Hall”
The three of them with hot chocolates and snacks.
The steam engine waiting to pull out.
Little Man and DH inspecting the Engine.
Walking back to the Train after Inspecting the Engine
Little Man getting his gift from Santa Claus on the train.
The Christmas Tree at the Station between the Platforms.
It has been very hectic and the next two weeks are going to be busy too. This week we have work to do of course, quite a lot of our customers are trying to get things delivered before Christmas so they are ready after the shutdown for work in January! Today I am doing home jobs, going to Eldest’s tomorrow for work. Friday morning DH and I are taking the morning for ourselves and then in the afternoon Fiancée and I are having our hair cut and coloured, her auburn and me blond! Then it is grocery shopping and a night in. So we may be watching a couple of Christmas films!
Saturday evening it is the Swimming Club Presentation Night but DH will be going up at about 2.000pm to set up and help. I may have to go up with him as I do not still have my vehicle (!) and it will be a late finish and then DH has to pack everything up! Sunday will be a day off although there are always jobs to do!
Next week I have work to do, home jobs to do and try and finish some quilting if I did not get it done on Sunday! DH has a couple of business Christmas lunches to go to and that weekend will be the final push to get everything into storage for Youngest & Fiancée. SO it will be all tucked up before Christmas. On the Sunday afternoon we have the Swimming Club Fun Gala! Then, of course, we are into Christmas week!
Monday will be a sorting out day, Tuesday I have the Christmas food shop to do, DH is out at his final Christmas lunch and I will be cleaning! Christmas Eve we are picking up the meet from the Butchers and also see DH’s cousin and taking her for lunch in their home village where they were born. We will be visiting the Church also with the wreath and then looking at all the Christmas lights on our way home.
Christmas Day we have Eldest & Partner, Little Man, Youngest, Fiancée, DH and I, Coco, Gordon, Blaze and Honey at home for dinner. I am so looking forward to it. Boxing Day is always a laid back day with food being put out buffet style and everyone helps themsleves when they want to eat.
Between Christmas and New Year we have a few other things happening which I will tell you about soon. Tomorrow I will be doing a post about Christmases Past!
I hope you are all having a wonderful time in the run up to Christmas and all organised. Don’t forget my Christmas planner on my side bar to help with all that organisation.
It will be of no surprise to those that have followed me for a while that I would love “Stranger Things”! I have watched it from the first Season so the final Season 5 is a must watch. I have just watched the first four Episodes that opened yesterday and as always they have left us hanging until Christmas Day!
I think I have loved this series because it is set in the 1980’s and we all know that the music from that decade was so good. I was 16 in 1980 and I really hit the 1980’s at the right age. It was a great decade for me and one that I look back on very fondly and in fact would love to go back to! Anyway onto this new Season.
For those that have not watched it yet do not read on!!!
There has been a lot of discussions out there as to who of the main characters may end up not making it out of Hawkins at the end. Will has now discovered that he has powers like Eleven and finally able to stop the Demogorgons from attacking his friends.
Having seen these first four Episodes my own personal opinion is that Will is not going to make it. Right from Season One Episode One when he disappeared everyone thought he was dead then and by some miracle that no one seems to have talked about Joyce got him back which has all been a gigantic plan of Vecna’s to keep an eye on what has been going on. I think Will will die in the end leaving the rest of the friends to survive but mourn his loss. I think Max will find her way out with Holly just in time to defeat Vecna, the Demogorgons and the Mind Flayer once and for all thus freeing Hawkins from the Upside Down and all who live there.
Will they show our Heroes going back to their normal lives and getting back to living without the constant fear of Vecna and crew or will we be left after the final battle to then believe what we want to believe about them moving on? A lot has been said about the endings of shows that have been so popular with audiences, especially the ending of Game of Thrones which was a travesty, especially to those who have read all the books, ME! Therefore I hope that The Duffer Brothers have taken this on board and give us a good ending. We shal know on New Year’s Even when the final Episode airs!
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Today I don’t think my feet touched the ground once! We were up very early and having sorted out Blaze and Gordon loaded Coco up in her crate and went off to get Honey for their Spa Day. I was taken to Eldests where I was able to get his work done. DH got back having collected a Christmas present on the way, to get the girls at 12.00pm, drop Honey off at home and then have some lunch with us before we had to get home for DH to leave for the Christmas Light Switch on in Ilkeston tonight! It has been colder today and rained heavily earlier so we are hoping that it will stay dry for tonight.
Tomorrow morning we are going to get our Christmas tree first thing as well as Eldest’s as they have all come down with the sickness bug! We are going to have some breakfast and then get back, do some jobs and then decorate our home! I still have some parcels to wrap and our cards to write and then we will be ready! The days are flying by and so are the weeks of course!
I hope you lovely lot have a wonderful weekend. and I shall see you all here on Monday.
To All My American Friends & Followers we hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
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This week has flown by as usual after my little pity party yesterday! Today has been home jobs day and I have not only had Miss Coco following me around today, I have also had Gordon too!
Gordon is quite happy being here and Blaze, having lived here for well over a year is just home. He has a little route around our home and he just goes back to doing it. The reason they are here is because Youngest & Fiancé are going to a hotel tonight for Youngest’s work. He has been nominated by Jaguar Land Rover nationally for an award. He is up against others for the award so we will not know how he has done until tomorrow night, but being nominated is amazing as it is a National award and there are six others so he has already done very well. There is a buffet dinner tonight and then tomorrow night there is a dinner and ball. They will be home on Saturday morning.
They are also going to come back to living here with us as well. The home they have been in since the beginning of the year has been fine but one or two things have changed and so the decision has been made to come back home. We are putting all their things into storage and they are bringing themselves and the animals home. We will have to do some re-arranging but we will fit them all in!
Tonight is the first of the Christmas Lights Switch On in Long Eaton which DH is commentating on and tomorrow night is Ilkeston. The Christmas Light Switch on in the Village is not until the following week. We have some other events coming up so it is going to get very busy. We have Presentation Night for the swimming club and also a Fun Gala too, we have dates arranged for seeing family and friends. DH and I are going to a Classical Concert and we also have a couple days of shopping to do and he also has a couple of business lunches to go to as well. Jayne and I, Ladies who Lunch, are also out for our Christmas Lunch on December 9th and I will get some pictures of that. Can’t wait.
We are hoping to get our Christmas Tree on Saturday morning and decorate our home, as well as getting a couple of jobs done and also write the Christmas cards. I have almost finished the present wrapping and then on Sunday we are celebrating Youngest’s Birthday and hearing all about his Event. Before we know it, it will be Monday again!
Tomorrow Coco is having a spa day and we are also taking Honey again for a wash and deshedding spa day for Eldest & Partner. I will be at his to get the work done as well and then be home for Blaze and Gordon and then DH will be off to the Light Switch On! Another busy day. Our weather has been very cold for quite a few days and frosty and one day being quite foggy. The sun tried very hard to break through the fog but did not quite clear it. Today has been mild but tomorrow is cooler and then we are going to have some more frosts next week. I will try and get some pictures.
Have a wonderful weekend you lovely lot and don’t spend too much tomorrow on Black Friday!!!
Do you ever, in your life, think that the Universe has got it in for you? I know over the years at certain times I think it has had it in for me! Well yesterday was one of them! I had an eye appointment at the Hospital, yes the one I have just spent three days in with my hip. My Optician noticed that at the back of my eye the fluid which is normally attached is pulling away. This happens and normally it is not a problem except for me! It is not pulling away properly and is, in fact, creating a hole which if it carries on can cause my vision to be reduced by up to 60%.
The solution another operation! However the first five to seven days after it has been done I have to spend 45 minutes of every hour with my head resting on my arm so that I am at 45 degrees! Then it will be six to eight weeks befoe we know if it has been successful. If not they do it again! Apparently this can happen to anyone although it is more common in women than men and is often hereditary, thanks Mom & Dad! Of course because they both died when they were 55 I will never know if it was because of them or my Mom!
Only ME!
Of course the other complication is having just had my hip done that is going to delay having this done but I cannot delay too long because they don’t want it to get too bad! Also I have to lie on my side at night which is also not easy so another reason for the delay! I have to go back on January 2nd for another scan to see how it is, there is always the hope that it has managed to detach itself and the hole will repair itself but you can guarantee it will not and won’t so I am looking at an Op in March or April! Of course I will not be able to drive again for probably two months and I have to hope that it works the first time! I will also add this is all done under local again!
To say I am sick of hospitals is an understatement and now this after my hip. Of course I will worry myself to death over it until it happens so I am already not looking forward to 2026! I will let you know after the next scan how things go!
I keep seeing on Instagram all these people putting up their Christmas decorations! Now you know I love Christmas but even I think it is a little too early on November 17th to be putting them up. I know the stores have had the decorations up for a while now but it is sort of expected and the decorations are going up in the towns but I have seen quite a few homes already decorated. I think it is because people are so fed up with the World as it is at the moment that the decorations add a little bit of cheer. Saying all this I have decided to get our decorations down and sort them out next weekend!!!!
I think I will change my Blog over to a more Christmas feel in the next few days.
DH was out all weekend and I did get some quilting done which is not quite finished yet. I still need to get five more little quilts done before Christmas so may take the odd day here and there to ensure they get done.
Speaking of Christmas this film is 35 years old on November 16th! Now how did that happen? DH and I went to the cinema to see it when it first came out, I was 26 and DH 33 and we had been married for two years. I remember sitting in the cinema crying with laughter at the film, I don’t remember any other film ever having that affect on me. I just loved it and still watch it now all through the year but especially at Christmas. I think Christmas movies are like Christmas songs there are a few which you play every year and are never fed up of and will play them on repeat well Home Alone is definitely one of them. I do not like Home Alone 2 or any of the subsequent ones just the original.
Here are some pictures of our garden in its Autumn finery. The big space in the picture above is where we have had to take out the Box bush so that will stay like this now until Spring when I have some plans for some new plants to go in.
Our two trees in the garden the one onthe right which is the cherry tree has lost all of its leaves now. The one on the left is the Cotoneaster which keeps its leaves all year except for a few is sheds. It was trimmed when the men came into more of a round shape.
The conifers have also had trim and shape as well at the top of the steps. We still have a little bit of work to do with trimming some of the summer plants which need to be done in the next two weeks when it will be the last brown bin of the season.
Coco is having a snooze this morning!!!! The weather is turning this week into more of our normal Autumn temperatures with freezing overnight so she is getting into hibernation mode!
Have a wonderful week and I will post photographs as and when I get the Christmas decorations up!!
Well one of my Aims at the start of this year, as in most years, was to increase my reading. I don’t know about you but I do go through phases of reading non-stop and then only reading a bit a day and of course there is the inevitable reading slump which seems to affect everyone at some point. I have also got myself out of my reading slump by listening to books through the BookBeat App when I am working. This has definitely helped and some of the books have been really successful and others not so much but that happens with hard copy books too.
Anyway onto the books I have read and listened too in November 2025 so far;
Thisa is a hard copy book which I started last month and have about twenty pages left. It is about the three Dahlias and them investigating a murder at the Castle in Scotland where they have been invited to the wedding of their dear friend and the Laird of the Castle. The castle gets cut off by a bad snow storm and also loses power and then the murder happens. Not only is a young woman dead but she is wearing the wedding dress and a diamond necklace which had gone missing! Why and who did it? It is a gentle read with no horros in it and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Just waiting to see who the murderer is!!!!
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This is one of the hard copy books I am not sure of! I sort of liked it but then the more I got into the book the more I did not like the main character at all!
Dinah Marshall meets up with her old Oxford University friends for a weekend away but she was not invited the first time round, she was invited because one of the other friends could not make it. So Dinah knows she is second best. It does not help that she did not finish University with her friends but that was another story. They are staying in a fabulous home in one of the Home County villages whilst the owners are holidaying abroad. To Dinah this home represents everything her life is not, her small flat would fit into the sitting room and her job at the local cafe does not provide her with much money. She becomes obsessed with the owners of the home and starts to stalk them, putting herself on the fringes of their group and then miracle of miracles she gets drawn into their group, but it will end in murder.
Dinah is not a likeable person and the more you get to know her the more you don’t like her but then she has to put up with a very pushy younger sister who treats her like her third child and a mother wo does not care about her at all, she is seen as just a nuisance and her sister has spies reporting on Dinah’s behaviour to her! Therefore you begin to feel sorry for her but then she does something and you are right back to the you could quite cheerully smack her!!! This is where I got to with this book and at the end it is a bit of a mess. Would I read another one of Ruth Irons books? Probably not but I did give it four stars.
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I gave this Four Stars as well because again I was not sure about the story and again the ending was not quite right!
Two couples, one bad decision a death and a cover up! Kirsten and Nick are driving home after a weekend away in Devon when they are involved in an accident and a man is killed. Instead of calling the autorities they decide that they will cover it up including taking the dog that the man was walking!
Amy & Greg have been married for ten years and are expecting their first baby together. When Greg fails to come hom from a short dog walk Amy begins to worry and calls the Police, their friends and his parents. The Police first think that Greg has left because of his life changing, baby on the way, his business is slow, been married for ten years. However Any knows that Greg would not leave her and something is wrong but they cannot find him or their dog Rusty. Amy decides to investigate his disappearance herself and vows to get justice and if she cannot get justice then it will be revenge!
The story wa good although in parts slightly annoying. There is a twist in the end but then the final bit is a bit far fetched so hmm. Definitely one I would not read again.
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This I listened to whilst doing a job on Thursday and finished it on Thursday as well! I loved it! If I could give it more stars I would!
DI Barton is about to retire but he is not sure if he actually wants to. His loving wife Holly has put up with so much over the years and now their children, one at University and one about to go, are older he wants to give Holly time to do what she wants to do for a change. However there is one last case he needs to deal with before he leaves and it is an unusal case. Firstly he has to help his young neighbour who has been abandoned by her husband with their almost one year old son. He finds her stood in her living room with no heat or lights on and a knife in her hand. She has not done anything but she is stood looking into the distance, her son is safe upstairs in his cot. He taks her and the little boy home and Holly moves into high gear getting her warm and feeding the baby. He knows they are safe.
The same thing cannot be said for a member of the local Book Club. He and his wife went home after the meeting at the beginning of December and whilst he was in his study have a nightcap whisky he falls to sleep never to wake up. It is assumed he died of a heart attack until the Pathologist finds no heart disease. DI Barton and his team take on this last case to find the murderer before he strikes again, although he may already have done so.
This story is well written, DI Barton and the characters are very likeable and he goes about his investigation without any fanfare but does so in a way where he gets answers without too much stress. It is funny in places and there is no angst in it. All in all a great read with a good ending. There are several of the DI Barton books so I am now able to go back and read the others which is always a bonus finding a new set of books!
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As we are going into the third week of November, the third “Ber” Month, I have got out my “Christmas” books which I love to read at this time of year, all those cosy Christmas books with the odd Christmas murder thrown in!!!! I will let you have a list next month.
I have also started to listen to this on my Book App. I have seen a lot of recommendations for Riley Sager books and as we know what one person likes is not always liked by someone else and this may be the case with his books! I am 20% of the way through this and will be listening to it whilst I am cleaning but the Narrator, Stephanie Cannon, her voice is a little hard to listen to! She comes across as a little girl playing dress up!!! I will contine to see how it goes but not sure yet!
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That is my round up for November. December is looking good as I got quite a few Christmas books on my TBR shelf from last year. As the nights are drawing in fast, it is now dark by 4.15pm, it is the perfect time of year for reading by the fire. Hopefully by the end of today I will be able to finish my book and then start another. I hope you lovely lot are able to find time to read over the weekend.
Well another named storm has blown through the UK and particularly for us in Derbyshire and I have never seen so much rain! It began on Thursday night with the rain and it never stopped yesterday at all and it was heavy rain too. We also had high winds so lots of branches and some trees down. It was named Storm Claudia. Can we please stop naming them! Because since we have been naming them they have seemed to be so much worse than normal, lets just call them Winter storms!!!!!!
Eldest was out with his Fire Brigade unit over night and have, with another unit, resced 57 from a bus which was stranded in flood water! Generally in this weather it is silly people who drive into flooded roads and then their cars die because water gets into the air intake and then end up stranded. They are rescued and then ask the Firemen to rescue their cars which, of course, they do not do!!!
Coco has not been happy going out in it although last night just before bed when it was raining very hard she stood on our patio gazing around getting soaked, then objected to being dried when she came in!!!! She is going to have a much needed brush later which she will not like either but she is a mess where she got very wet!!!
DH is spending today and tomorrow here at The Arc in Matlock for one of the local swimming clubs their Open. We will be here in January for our Open. I, of course, have other jobs to do. I did not get the cleaning finished on Thursday for another reason which I cannot share just yet, so I will be finishing that this morning. Part of that reason was for our trip out yesterday, I was not at Eldest’s yesterday so I am doing his work today as well. I also want to get some quilting done too and it may be that I will get most of that done tomorrow. I will perhaps pinch a day here or there to get things done.
I am having the day off on Tuesday as Jayne is coming for lunch here, as I cannot still drive yet but I am making lunch. Really looking froward to seeing her. We have our next book to read which is Jayne’s choice and have a catch up. The next few weeks and weekends are going to be busy and in between all of that we have to get the Christmas decorations up and sort out visits to Family and Friends. Tonight when DH gets back we are going to sort out the Christmas gifts I have got already and then perhaps wrap them which will then be another job ticked off the list. Just the Christmas cards then to do!
Yesterday should have been Book Club Friday, but we did not get back until late so I will be doing it and the post will go up later today.
I hope you wonderful lot have had a good week. Next week we are due to get the first cold snap of the year which I think we have done well to get to the third week of November without it being too cold so far. We are going to have some frosty mornings and there will be scraping of car windows, quite glad I do not have to go out early in the morning! Have a wonderful weekend.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condem. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will Remember them.
Laurence Binyon
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We had a busy week last week and Friday we were with Eldest at the garage me work and DH sorting jobs out! Over the weekend we had nothing on so spent the two days in our garage sorting out boxes. We did get quite a few done and several things sorted out and ended up with six boxes emptied and cleared. There are still quite a lot to do but quite a few of them now contain toys from when the Boys were little which need sorting and tidying and some of them can already go to Little Man and some for when the new Baby arrives.
This week has been busy again and I have been doing work and sorting things out in our home as well. Coco has been helping although getting in the way is more accurate. Bonfire Night lasted for two weekends and the actual day of last Wednesday although it was not as many fireworks as might have been as the weather was not good. I had two visitors last Thursday to see me whch was lovely and Jayne is coming for lunch next Tuesday and this weekend DH is out both days at a swimming Open so I will be quilting.
My hip is coming along nicely and the only thing which is slowing me down at the moment is going up and downstairs which is still difficult, but today it has been three weeks since the Op, so hopefully the next three weeks and my checkup after the six weeks I am hoping it will have got a little easier. We shall see.
Even though it is just DH and I now, as well as Coco, I always seem to have a basket of ironing to do! That is today’s job and then Thursday is home jobs day. Friday DH and I are visiting a customer in the morning and I have a visit to the quilt shop which is near to where we are going. That is too good an oportunity to miss out on! I am going to have to get Eldest’s computer and work and do that over the weekend this week as we will not have time to go there as well on Friday.
It is our Wedding Anniversary this week; 37 years! The above is from our Wedding Album and no it is not sepia coloured just the light when I took the picture! With DH being out all weekend we are thinking of having a takeaway on Friday noght, Date Night in. Friday it is going to be heavy rain all day and the temperature is dropping so it is not making me want to go out. The day we got married it was a very clear frosty day with bright sunshine but cold and our pictures were amazing. We got married at 11.00am and then after photographs etc we sat down for the wedding breakfast at 1.00pm aand then finished around 5.00pm. We did not have an evening event but went away on Honeymoon to The Lake District, where it snowed! We had a great two weeks.
Then the weekend after that we are taking the children to see Santa on the train. That has come round very quickly since I booked it in July this year! The last weekend in November we are babysitting, not the children but the animals! Blaze and Gordon are coming to stay whilst Youngest & Fiancé are away for the weekend at a work event for him. We will also be sorting out the deocations that weekend and the Tree and possibly all of us going for a meal out because it will be Youngest’s Birthday too. It is all go. Then it will be the headlong rush to Christmas but the best bit of it all for me seeing family and friends for Christmas. This is why I like to get everything done before December arrives so that we are able to actually enjoy the Festive Season without trying to do it all. Well that is the plan anyway!
I hope you lovely lot are having a great week.
Hugs & Love, Susie & Coco xx
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