Reading Challenge Catch Up

 

I'm very behind with recording my reading, as my last post on the topic took me up to book 9 and I've just finished number 18. So there won't be any very full reviews, more like a list. 

10 and 11 were two crime thrillers that I swapped out some wool for. The Winter Killer by Alex Pine and The Santa Killer by Ross Greenwood. Both well crafted, with good plots. The Pine is perhaps a bit overwritten, striving too hard to 'do good writing' and so comes across as a bit stiff, the Greenwood has some wit and humour about it. I wouldn't look for any of Pine's other books, but I'd definitely be up for reading more Greenwood. 

The next one was dire. Voyage of the Damned by Frances White. It was the Waterstone's fantasy/Sci-Fi book of the month for January and I'm not buying those this year but I go this because I had seen it very well reviewed elsewhere. It's a Young Adult novel,  which are often just grown up books which publishers think would be hard to flog to adults because of their setting or subject matter, but this was very very very much a YA book. It was an interesting crime book premise, 12 people on a ship who are murdered one by one, in an otherworld setting. The writing was not good but I could see why it had been published because the author has gone out of her way to foreground every fancy and 'correct' current trend. The protagonist is Fat. Check. He is gay. Check. Although he is white his lover is not. Check. One of the major characters uses a wheelchair. Check. One of the other characters turns out to be trans. Check. Another one insists on using they/their pronouns. Check. Let me be clear, I have nothing against inclusiveness and diversity in books. I think it's a good thing. A healthy thing. Generally to be applauded. But not when it's obvious that the author has a diversity checklist and doesn't stop until she's ticked all the boxes, greatly to the detriment of the story. 

Next up was Agatha Christie's  Cat Among the Pigeons which I listened to on Audible to help me sleep. I've read it several times before, I know the plot, for a book with several murders it's quite soothing, it did the job. 

Glass Houses by Louise Penny I read for Saturday Slaughters. I must have  mentioned here before that I am not a fan of Louise Penny, but I am very much in the minority here as she sells books by the million. I don't like her lead detective who I think a smug snob, I don't like the community where she sets much of her work because it's weird and most of the characters who live there are crazy and/or unpleasant. Her plotting is usually quite tight but in this instance she built up to a climax that was overblown and worst of all she has pages and pages of clauses masquerading as sentences. I've got nothing against that used sparingly. As a continuous narrative technique it's just annoying.  

15 was a repeat read of Godkiller which I read and enthused about last year about this time. While we were south I picked up the sequel, Sunbringer, which I'm reading at the moment but re-read Godkiller to remind myself of all the details I knew I would have forgotten and which would be good to have in mind while reading the next one in the series. 

Now we get to We Solve Murders (see photo above) by Richard Osman. I didn't know whether I would like this so hadn't bothered to seek it out at the library or on Audible but again swapped it for wool in a ravelry group. I'm so glad I did. It's light and  funny, a fast paced easy read with some great characters (some slightly exaggerated for comic effect ), an interesting plot and a twist which I did see coming but not long before it happened. Definitely recommended.

17 was City of Destruction, the latest addition to Vaseem Khan's Malabar House series set in post Independence India. I'm a fan of these; the stories are intriguing, the writing is atmospheric, there's a lot of Indian history lightly sketched in and Persis, the central character is very believable. 

And finally for now, 18 was the Agatha Christie Book of the Month. The career highlighted was Author and the book was The Thirteen Problems, a set of short stories featuring Miss Marple. I'd only come across one of these before , so 12 were new to me. If you've read a lot of Agatha Christie then most of the solutions will present themselves fairly easily but they're still fun; barring some of the language and attitudes which reflect those of Christie's time and class. 

Just a Bit Cross!

So back on 21st January, which is not all that long ago, is it?  I made this post. 

See that bit where the dentist told me it wasn't a crack, just a badly recessed gum? Well if that was really the case why did said non-cracked tooth suddenly start crumbling to dust yesterday? 

So instead of having an uncomfortable half hour or so getting an awkward filling done last month,  and coming away with the  problem solved, I now have to go next Monday (earliest he can do, let's hope it doesn't start hurting, eh?) and have work done on a much more compromised tooth which I am very afraid he is going to have to extract. Which will be no fun at all. 

Now admittedly I never went to dentist school so I'm not an expert but I really think the likelihood is that that tooth was cracked when I said it was and went to see him in the first place. Not  a happy bunny. And even less happy come next Monday I suspect. 

The Scottish Play

 

Our cinema trip at the weekend was to see the film version of the Donmar Warehouse production of MacBeth, starring David Tennant and Cush Jumbo and which had rave reviews when it was first performed. 

I can't pretend we were overwhelmed with wonder. OK , it was MacBeth so a good watch, and it was David Tennant - has he ever turned in a duff performance?  Jumbo was a huge disappointment; even allowing for Lady MacBeth being a thankless part her performance was anything but cohesive and a lot of the time we couldn't make out what she was saying. Five stars from me to an actress called Rona Morrison who took several smaller roles, including that of Lady MacDuff and was excellent in them all. Thumbs down to the  updating of the role of the porter from us; I daresay others thought it was funny/a wonderful idea/ great stuff. 

Am I glad we went? Yes.

Would I go again? No. 

So this really funny (as in odd) thing happened ....

on Sunday morning. We heard a car coming up the drive and assumed it must be the woman who wanted the spare roof insulation that we had offered on the local FB group page recently.

But when we opened the door we were accosted ( quite cheerfully) by someone resembling a disreputable twin brother of Bernard Cribbins, who took one look at the OH and declared 'No, you're the wrong man' .

Anyway it turned out that out he was looking for the local MSP who actually lives in the house two fields behind us. We gave him the relevant directions for which he thanked us and then said 'I didn't want to be bothering him on a Sunday morning but he's never at that place in town for longer than 45 minutes is he?' That place in town is presumably the constituency office, and I'm sure the MSP, despite his, to me, deplorable unionist beliefs, is there for more than 45 minutes at a time. And available by appointment.

Anyway off he popped. 'Do you think Liam's in?' I said to the OH. 'Not if he sees that guy coming he's not' he replied. Which made me laugh.

But really what was the man thinking? Doorstepping his MSP on a Sunday morning? Desperate, unthinking or just rude?

The woman for the roof insulation, despite being local and told exactly when we were in at the weekend, which was almost all of it bar a trip to the cinema, opted to come when we were out. We left the stuff out for her to collect and when we came back it was gone. I suppose it saved us making small talk while she collected it.

More about the cinema trip another day.

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And Now for Some Happy Mail .

Both my anticipated pieces of happy mail came yesterday while I was out at Saturday Slaughters, so that was nice to come back to. 

First up was this. 

I know, yarn. But lovely yarn, the first in a series based on Great Paintings. I haven't signed up for the whole year, intending to pick and choose depending on artist/painting, but this first one was dancers and Degas  so I wasn't passing that one up. The colour is certainly not what I was expecting (!) which is not to say I don't like it, and I wasn't expecting the print either. So that was a nice surprise. 

And secondly was this

A Yoshi backpack. I know, it's only days since I was congratulating myself on talking myself out of buying one of these, but when we were south we met up with a friend who had a small backpack about this size and she was very enthusiastic. We'd actually seen the Yoshi ones  on our way down because we had called in at the Highland Chocolatier in Grandtully where they stock various Yoshi thigs in their very lovely gift shop and after talking to D.  I suggested we drove back that way and I would get one. 

Luckily I opened my e-mails before we set out and imagine my delight to have an e-mail from the company with a '20% off and free postage' offer on everything on  their website. So we skipped the trip to Grandtully and I ordered this when we got home. 

The OH asked if they had sent 'the right one' because it isn't the Jane Austen design of which I have a matching set of almost everything they do. I sighed because we had already twice gone through the thing about how I didn't like the JA design in the backpack and how much nicer it was in this new design. I'm quite pleased I was able to set aside the completist part of me and actually order it in something different tbh, And I'm very pleased I got 20% off!

Not Quite as Happy as All That Mail

Earlier in the week I got my 4th quarter Book and Yarn Box from Beth at Beehive Yarns. I ordered it way back in ?November,  partly to appease the completist side  of me and partly because the book was Hans Christian Andersens' Fairy Tales and it is decades since I read any of them. Plus the yarn was going to be based on The Snow Queen which always floats my boat. There's something about wintry sparkle and beautiful women that I can't resist. 

Here's the photo

I have to say I was a bit disappointed. Not with the yarn which is beautiful and a lot lovelier than it looks in my photograph, and not with the book, but the rest of it didn't seem to amount to much. There was the usual book bag, which is too small  to be of much use and we already have three, and the themed bookmark. There were some oat-y biscuits, which I don't like. I'm sick of getting little plastic needle stoppers which have also made a fairly regular appearance, and the suncatcher ( the snowflake shaped thing) was a bit tacky. I would have liked the soap, peppermint and eucalyptus, very nice- more, had I not already been up to my eyes in hand made soap, which is totally nothing to do with Beth; she can hardly send out a questionnaire to everyone beforehand saying 'do you want some lovely handmade soap in this quarters box?'  And the final thing was a block of chocolate on a spoon with some marshmallows that you melt in hot milk to make hot chocolate and I'm sure I'll enjoy that. I don't know if Beth is intending to carry on with these book and yarn boxes this year but I won't be buying any more. Apart from trying to limit yarn purchases again this year they are too hit and miss for me to feel that they are value for money. I haven't felt this way before so I'm not sure what tipped me over this time; maybe the needle stoppers. Or the biscuits. Or the suncatcher. Whatever, that was the last one. 

New blog posts are going to be patchy for a while. We are currently Going Through Stuff and Getting Rid of Things, two occupations which I'm sure will be only too familiar to anyone who has moved during the last few years. I am also constantly questioning why we have so much stuff? but you know, the ship has sort of sailed on that one! The OH has been going great guns with emptying the shed, the vast majority of the shed's contents are being ferried straight to the dump so the question does arise why we kept it in the first place .... We've been doing kitchen cupboards and book shelves a little at a time for a while now, so they're almost done and almost painlessly and I'm currently doing a massive cull of my paper crafting supplies. Hoping there will be some local groups who will take some of it off my hands. 

I am expecting some Happier Mail shortly though, and I'm still reading so there will be book posts. It's Saturday Slaughters tomorrow again already, and that may well be my last one! Eek. Here 's a surprise, I didn't enjoy the book. But more on that story later, as they used to say on some Radio 4 comedy program. 

Wool stats and Projects - A Good Start to the Year

Well I'm very pleased with this month's wool stats as there was no yarn in at all in January. Hooray! I say hooray because it's good for the stats but it does mean I haven't had any of those little dopamine hits you get when a parcel full of lovely yarn arrives through the post. On the other hand it's quite  a big dopamine hit when you get a good overall destash number for the month, so I suppose it's swings and roundabouts really. 

Wool out, which was  a combination of using up, throwing useless bits away, selling, and swapping for books came to a grand total of 2117g which is obviously the net reduction for the month/year to date. I was very pleased. 

And here are some recently completed projects

The scraptastic cowl made from the Layfamilyyarn week 1 advent. I have enough yarn left to make a pair of fingerless mitts to go with this, one of these days. 

Some socks I made for son no 2 as a last minute Christmas present. 

Fingerless mitts which were from week 3 of the Layfamily advent. This is the pattern I decided on when the pattern included with the yarn proved far too big. They are wonderfully cosy. It was a feature of the advent that three of the weekly parcels included fluff - you had the choice of kid mohair or suri alpaca and I opted for the alpaca - to hold double with the 4 ply. I'd never done that before, don't know that I'd be wild about it in a sweater although people do do that I know, but it does make for toasty necks, hands and in due course heads. 

A friend sent me this pattern and yarn for Christmas. Again the mitts turned out wildly too big for me but luckily they were a good fit for the OH and he loves them. 

I'm aware this doesn't look too impressive for two months work. However I have done lots of granny squares for the |Woolly Hugs charity that I won't photograph and post about until I've done all the ones I plan for now. There was also the Van Gogh advent blanket which I allowed to have a post all of it's own. So not bad going really. 

Even More Exciting News!

UPDATE! - we do have a photo

We've bought a new house. Or more accurately we've had an offer accepted on a house in Alloa, near Stirling and now we cross our fingers that nothing goes awry during the legal bits of the selling and buying process. 

Now we're into the nitty gritty of getting quotes for removals and clearing out, packing, letting people know etc. I daresay it will be stressful but all worth it in the end, and if we go at it calmly and logically ....

We have no photos as we didn't take any, not knowing that we were going to offer on the house when we first walked through the front door. They will come after we move, It's a nine year old 4 bed detached with a manageable sized garden, a bit of green space next to it for the cat, a utility room (! my own particular top of wish list space) and kitchens and bathroom that do not need anything doing to them. This makes a wonderful change. 

It's looking a bit unloved just now because it's been empty; one of the couple who owned it died and the other had to go into a residential home and the few pieces of furniture that were left in there made the place look  a bit forlorn. But I'm sure it won't take us long to turn it from a house into a home.