M I A and July Book Review

 

I am still not over my tooth extraction whihc sounds wimpish but it wasn't until yesterday that I managed a full day without a painkiller . Today the pain is at a low level so I am hopeful that it will be totally gone in a couple of days. The gum is closing up nicely and the stitches have gone so that's all progress. 

So, July books. Somehow no J D Kirk! how can this be? but Mick Herron made three appearances. This was because The Catch and Slow Horses were my falling asleep to books in July and I suspect a  re-listen of the whole series is on the cards for the next few months. I also read a physical copy of Clown Town because the quality of the audio book was abysmal and I was sure I had missed things when (trying to) listen. 

Rounding off the crime books this time was the Crime Fiction group choice; The Sting in Her Tale by Mark Ezra. This was generally enjoyed by everyone, including me,  as a 'light summer read' but coincidences and unlikely escapes stretch credulity which is always a bit of a no-no for me. I don't regret the time reading it, especially as it didn't take long , but I won't be bothering with the next in the series. 

I met someone at the Gaskell Society Conference who is doing a Ph D on the uses of fairy tale and the fantastic in other genres, and I mentioned Nicholas Stuart Gray to her. This led to me sending her more info and to a re-read  of The Seventh Swan. It's the story of the seventh brother in the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale; the one whose shirt wasn't quite finished in time and who was therefore left with a swan's wing. It's not my favourite of his but I still love it and I took the opportunity of it being down from the shelf to re-read it. 

I took advantage of 2 x 99p deals on Kindle in July and bought and read Written on the Dark by Guy Gavriel Kay and The Cromarty Library Circle by Shona Maclean. Written on the Dark was standard GG Kay fare; his writing is quite mannered and I find certain of his stylistic tics irritating but the plots are good and the characterisation done with more subtlety than might normally be expected in books like this. It was fun to read of an alternative medieval Europe in which the English lost Agincourt and Joan of Arc was saved from burning. The Cromarty Library Circle, an historical novel set (where else?) in the small Scottish town of Cromarty in the 1830s was really interesting; a slow burn but a very satisfying one. 

And finally  a whole bunch of people  recommended A Small Bomb at Dimperley by Lissa Evans to me. I didn't think I had heard of her before but I find she wrote the book on which the film 'Their finest' was based, and which I did see and enjoy years ago.  It seems a lot of her books are set in or just after World War 2. This one is a 'Just After' one and I loved it. What there is of plot is quite gentle but the characters, while being based in some cases on recognisable types, are finely and sympathetically drawn. It's not at all sentimental though as Evans can be quite caustic in her descriptions, but it's very honest and all her people are understandable and most of them you feel some empathy for. I'm not generally fond of small children in grown up novels but there is one here who is a triumph; instantly recognisable by anyone who has had experience of a toddler. Wholeheartedly recomnended by me and I plan to read some more. 

A New Jigsaw

 I know, what excitement (slightly sarcastic sigh!) 

This is another from the 'Dinner With ..  an artist ' series; obviously this one is Van Gogh. I'd had it on my Amazon wishlist for several years and no-one had bought it, so recently, when I was looking for something to take me over the limit for free postage I treated myself. 

Like all of these puzzles it's lovely when finished. They're generally just challenging enough; I have to say this one was perhaps the hardest of the ones I've done,because the sky was a pain, but I persevered and overall I really enjoyed doing it. Definitely a keeper but I must get around to doing some more that are destined for the charity shop soon. 

It also kept my mind off how rubbish I was feeling after my dental surgery. That was on Thursday and it wasn't until last night (Saturday) that I started feeling anything like my usual self, and that was a usual self operating at about 50%. Just another reminder that the older you get the longer you take to recover I suppose. Feeling even better today so I suppose it's onwards and upwards from now. Hope so anyway. 

Happy Birthday - from me to me.

 I'm not five, so I'm not going to do a list of 'wot I got for my birfday' , but  since it was a milestone one  I did treat myself, and bought a one day weaving workshop from Radical Weavers in Stirling. They do several different ones, but this one promised me that I would bring home a three coloured scarf so that was the one I went for. Most of August was booked up when I looked, but they had one space left on 1st August, just before my birthday, so I booked it. 

It was an early start, I had to be in Stirling and ready to go by 9.30 which is  a bit of an ask, depending on how ready you are to take a risk on the train that gets you somewhere just in time not being cancelled - that's not a risk I'm particularly willing to take when I've shelled out a significant amount of money for an all day activity. 

I've wanted to try weaving for a long time - hence the purchase of the tiny weaving kit while on holiday and which excited me enough to spur me into looking for a local workshop. There was someone in Orkney who taught weaving, but it was in six week blocks and we were never in Orkney for six consecutive weeks when she was doing the lessons. And then, when I had decided I would make sure that we were there, by dint of not booking anything until the dates for the weaving classes went up, they stopped appearing and when I messaged to enquire I got ghosted. Turns out the teacher and her husband were all caught up in building themselves a new house and she had no time for teaching,  but I can't help feeling that she could have found two minutes to message me with that information. 

Leaving that aside, now I've had a grumpy rant about it, I did finish the Stirling workshop and I did come away with a three coloured scarf and I am more or less happy with  it.. Here's a photo. 

If you've been paying attention at the back you'll realise I used the same inspiration photo for this as I did for my dyeing at Lay Family Yarn in June. Same picture, totally different effect. I'm not happy with the edges which, despite my best efforts, are a bit iffy but I know that's mainly because it was my first go and therefore a learning experience and that if I were to continue weaving they would get better. 

However I am not going to continue weaving*. I had not appreciated quite how tiring it is physically. We worked from 9.30 to 5.30 with about 40 minutes for lunch and I was exhausted long before  finishing time. Also I was bored. I know lots of people find weaving meditative and mindful and that's fine, but I didn't. I found  it dull and repetitive and totally unstimulating. I'm obviously not wired to be a weaver. But at least now I know! 

*well except for finishing the kit coaster which I'm 2/3rds of the way through. 

A Very Big Birthday

is what I celebrated earlier this week. I'm not saying quite how big it was, but those who remember Project 60  can easily work it out.

To celebrate the OH and Son No 2 and I all went out for afternoon tea at a posh local hotel. 

The food was delicious , although they could possibly have made some of the sandwiches in brown bread,  and I would have liked the offer of a second pot of tea. But those are my only really tiny niggles. They had taken on board that we didn't want anything fishy and the carrot cake had little chocolate rectangles that said Happy Birthday on them. So full marks for that. 

And I am fairly reconciled to hitting this particular landmark by reflecting that I neither look nor feel my age. That said it's been a bit of a week. 

On Monday I went to the dentist with what I thought was a gum infection which could be cured by either time or antibiotics. One x-ray later and she's recommending that she refer me to an oral surgeon for  a possibly tricky extraction. So guess where I'm going tomorrow? all the way up to that there Embra to get a tooth out. Half the time I think, well it's only having a tooth out, it's not as though you haven't had it done several times before, and the other half of the time I think ' but that's been by a normal dentist, why do I need something different now?'  And then I sway back to 'but if the OS is the expert then that's the best place to go'. And then generally I just do a mental calculation of how in X hours it will all be behind me. In addition to all this I went to see a physiotherapist this morning in an attempt to get my back sorted before our big holiday in October. 

So all in all the Big Birthday was the least of my worries! 

Wool Stats and Finished Projects for June

 Stats are good for the first time in ages. Wool in in July was Nil. Nada. Nuffink. Hooray! Albeit this was partly down to the late arrival of the Madrigal Yarn Sock club, but you know, I'll take that. 

Wool out was 447g. There were three finished projects this month. 

A scarf knitted with some wool that arrived in a swap

The socks from the June club yarn, which are for son no 2

And Freddie the Fox, which was a kit I bought very recently and made more or less straight away. The balance of the wool out went into a long term project.

Net decrease for the year is now 1986g. It's slow work getting it down, but I suppose that's what happens when most of your wool stash is 4-ply! 

A day of Two Halves-ish

 So obviously not the account of the day we both really enjoyed in Wales - that's still to come in due course. Meanwhile  on Wednesday we went up to Birnam. 

Obviously we didn't go there for a woodland walk or we would have needed to go to Dunsinane. We went to see an exhibition by my favourite print make Abbie Lois,  in the Birnam Arts Centre. 

It had a cheerful bear by the door 

and I have to say it is a lovely large bright and airy space. The gallery where the exhibition was is upstirs and this is partly  why I say it was a day of two halves because I was just a wee bit disappointed in it. This was my fault, as I was expecting there to be more new work than there actually was. A lot of the prints I had seen before and although they are lovely I'd been expecting more new things. It's one thing to nip into Stirling to see less than you had expected; another to drive all the way to Birnam for the same experience. 

Since we were in their neck of the woods we'd arranged to see my friend S and her husband for lunch and I'd suggested the cafe at the Arts Centre as on paper it looked fine. On closer in-person inspection not quite as good as anticipated, especially since it was approaching lunchtime and all they had in a savoury line was two rather depressed looking ham and cheddar baps. Even if at least one of us hadn't been a vegetarian that wasn't going to feed four of us. Luckily, as the exhibition hadn't taken as long as anticipated we were able to have a quick stroll  around the village , bits of which are very picturesque,

and we found an alternative venue, which I think was called the Oak Tree cafe and it was just what we were looking for. We managed to intercept the others before they got as far as Birnam Arts and we had an excellent lunch and, just like my previous experience at Meze Meze, we were there for quite a long time after we had  finished eating! It was great to catch up. I know my stay at the Ilkley Hotel earlier this month gave rise to some funny moments but Sharon had just been staying in a hotel in the Highlands which obviously gave it a run for its money. Much laughter around the lunch table. Definitely no lack of enjoyment during this part of the day.

I am out all day tomorrow doing something exciting, of which more anon; next post though  should be wool stats and project news for July and for the first time in a while I'm not dreading totting up the numbers!

The Welsh Mountain Zoo

I have to say not our most successful zoo trip ever. This was partly because it was hot which meant that most of the animals very sensibly stayed in their little houses. In fact during the first half hour the most active animal we saw was a rat running through one of the bird enclosures, and for  a long time I thought that might be the only things we saw moving all day. In the end it wasn't quite that bad. 

Being fairly far up a mountain the place does at least have fabulous views. 

We did catch sight of a few things. 

The brown bear 

Ring tailed lemurs

and of course the ubiquitous meerkats

We did see various other things; some penguins, a red panda, gibbons and a variety of birds but I didn't get any good pictures of any of those. The catering was average, and the entrance fee was very  expensive. Not a value for money day in my opinion. In all fairness, possibly on cooler days when more animals are on show and not cowering in any shelter from the sun they can find, it would be a much more fun day out. 

On the way back we stopped at Bedd Gelert for an ice cream and a stroll by the river where we spent a few enjoyable minutes watching two middle aged walkers take off their boots and socks and gingerly step over some rocks into the river, then gingerly step out again only to realise they had nothing with which to dry their feet. Rather than wait for nature to do the job they put socks and boots back onto wet feet. Ugh! 

This was the coolest picture I took all day - the river at Bedd Gelert

Tomorrow, a day we both really enjoyed!

Wales Day 2 - Another Garden

 So on Day 2 we took ourselves off to another garden; this one on the Lleyn peninsula. It was called  Plas yn Rhiw. It was even hotter than the day before and it was a long drive ( at least the car has air con!) and the garden isn't anything like as nice as the one at Plas Brondanw 

Plas yn Rhiw belongs to the National Trust so at least we got in free although I have to say our National Trust for Scotland cards were initially treated with a blank expression; you would think NT employees would be taught to recognise the cards for similar organisations with  reciprocal agreements re entry but apparently not. Well either that or this guy had forgotten everything he ever knew about the NTS. 

The house is currently shut for some very necessary renovations ( bees nesting in the ceiling anyone?) so only the garden was on show. I'm sure it's lovely and very interesting but it didn't particularly float our boat. But as I said it was uncomfortably hot and that coloured our reactions to things almost every day for the whole week.

They had a very nice tearoom though; it was full to overflowing when we arrived but, once we'd looked at the gardens, the coachload of German visitors ( who we had seen the previous day at Plas Brandanw and who we decided must be on a tour of 'Little Known Gardens of Wales') had gone. I had the nicest piece of sponge cake there that I have had out in years; it was delicious. I'm not saying that it was worth the long drive there just for the cake but it possibly came close! 

The other thing the garden had going for it was fantastic views.

A few photos

Tomorrow - a disappointing visit to the Zoo!

Remember we went to Wales?

 So here are a few photos/memories of the first couple of days.

The OH had volunteered to find and book the accommodation for our week in Wales which accounts for the fact that we stayed somewhere that had a steam railway running across the top of the back garden. I was assured that there would not be many trains in a day, but this did not take account of the fact that both local heritage railways, Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland were having a festival the first weekend we were there and so ran lots more trains than normal. 

That said the inside of the cottage was charming although, despite the fact that it wasn't teeny tiny, it felt a bit cramped to me sometimes. 

And here's a 'gravity train' going past at one point of the weekend, seen from the garden, which was on a steep slope. It had several lovely places to sit out, but sadly the week was so hot that actually doing that would have been an invitation to heat stroke so we never got to do it. 

You'll need to click to enlarge the photo to see all the people properly. 

The OH's brother was with us but for the first three days he was partaking of the steam festival so we were on our own to begin with. First up was a return trip to Plas Brondanw which we had loved so much the last time we stayed in the area. Still loved it, although this time it was the wrong time of year for the hydrangeas sadly.

The welsh cakes in the cafe were as good as before

and the grounds as beautiful. Just a few photos as I know I have a lot of the place on here from last time ( somewhere!) 

So that was arrival and Day 1. More coming .... 

Happy Mail - Not Yarn!

 I treated myself! 

I was introduced to Rituals via a You Tube channel about eight months ago. Before that I'd never heard of them, but it wasn't long afterwards that I saw they had opened a shop in the Stirling Shopping Centre, so I went in for a browse. I didn't buy anything then, but a while later when I needed some new shampoo I went  and had a look and bought a (very expensive!) bottle of the stuff.

Well I say very expensive but it's lasted ages and it's very kind to my hair so perhaps it's not in the grand scheme of things. As seems to be normal nowadays I was encouraged to sign up for their e-mails which I did and I generally give them a quick look when they come and then discard them. 

Last week though they had a special offer on a box of three full size shower gels, on-line only and I thought, Why Not? Obviously I did my usual thing of thinking um, and ah, and should I really do it,  for several days first, but I did eventually persuade myself that buying three bottles of shower gel on special offer didn't make me a selfish horrible person and I ordered them. They came today, so very quickly and in a nice box ( see above) 

And now they're out of the box, as below

If I remember I'll report back on which is my favourite in due course. 

Yorkshire Part 2 - The Conference

I don't think I have ever not enjoyed a Gaskell Society Conference and this one was well up to standard. For a long time it seemed to be the case that either you got great food, but the accommodation wasn't so brilliant, or vice versa but on the past few occasions both have been acceptable or better , and to be honest you're not there for the beds or the food but the friends and the papers. Although I'm aware that not everyone takes quite such a sanguine view. 

The hotel wasn't perfect, mainly due to being short staffed,  and I did end up having basically the same dinner two nights out of three, but that wouldn't have been the case if I ate fish so it's not fair to hold that against the catering. The sandwich lunches wouldn't have set the world alight but then when did a sandwich lunch ever do that? And it was certainly far too hot to add soup. 

The current chair of the society had taken it upon herself to try and up the academic content a bit, so there was actually a call for papers this year and we ended up with a very wide spread of subjects being talked about; some more interesting than others. but that's always the way. I particularly enjoyed a Ph D student from Edinburgh talking about dress in Gaskell's novels with particular reference to North and South and, my surprise of the weekend, was enjoying an analysis of Gaskell's novels which sought to prove whether or not she understood the industrial changes she was living through and whether she was more positive then negative in her attitude towards them in her writing. Oddly, to me,  this seemed to show that she was fairly neutral about it in all her books which I found very surprising since industrialists complained bitterly of her negative attitudes towards factories and factory owners in Mary Barton and she wrote North and South in part to even up the score. So an analysis which showed that she was equally positive about industrial change in both these books made me wonder if there was something wrong with the basic analytic method...but what do I know? It was an entertaining talk. 

There were outings. The first was to the Brotherton Library in Leeds. I spent a lot of time there as an undergraduate so there was nothing new for me in the actual building and they had a very dull exhibition on in the special collections gallery. They did however get out some of their Gaskell treasures and they were well worth looking at. We were all fascinated by a recent discovery - here's a photo 

Each piece of paper has a page number at the top, referring to a page in a biography of Gaskell and then an excerpt written out in blue. Underneath in red,  and occasionally very cross, writing are corrective comments, written it is believed by Gaskell's second daughter Meta. I think it's fair to say she had a lot to find fault with. 

The other outing was to Thornton near Bradford where many of the Bronte children were born, as their father was the curate there before he moved to Haworth. The birthplace has recently been restored and opened to the public by no less a personage than Kween Kamilla. We had a guided tour led by someone who had been involved in all the hard work of raising money, and getting the thing done so he had lots to tell us. They have made  a very good job of it. Of course they can't get hold of authentic Bronte artefacts, unlike the Parsonage at Haworth, but they have managed to furnish it with contemporary furniture. 

This is the writing desk in the parlour

Someone made a beautiful scale model of the house and it's on display in the scullery/kitchen

There are three bedrooms you can sleep over in (via Air BnB if you're interested!) They'd had a Chinese Bronte scholar staying and she had donated a copy of Jane Eyre in mandarin

After the birthplace which very sadly wasn't serving refreshments that afternoon, we went to the local church where there is a small Bronte exhibition. I was more interested in a couple of wall hangings they had 

 

this was one of them. It looks like a quilt but in fact it's a printed textile. It was lovely. Sadly the lady at the Church Information Point had no information on it.  

They also have a window designed by William Morris, 

not the best picture ever but it gives the general idea

After the Church, and despite the heat, we were dragged across the road to the ruins of the church where  Patrick Bronte had been the curate; the one we had visited was built much later. There's not much left of it , bar the cupola

which, thanks to the ivy, has an appropriate gothic aspect. 

I did miss that normal Gaskell Society staple; the cream tea which was sadly not in evidence this time around. But not the end of the world. As is usual I came home re-fired with enthusiasm for C19 writers and writing, and as a result I am currently working my way through Juliet Barker's The Brontes: A Life in Letters again. I am a trifle concerned that I am not as irritated with Charlotte and Emily as I normally am, but I tell myself that will be rectified once I tackle Barker's huge Biography once again. 

And of course I'm wondering where the next G S Conference will be; there were no hints to be had at this one! 

Well that was a fun day

 The OH returned from his trip to his island paradise (Orkney) on Monday, by which time I was totally frazzled after 3 days of total responsibility for a cat that, despite what they said at the shelter when we adopted him, does indeed love exploring away from  home and displays an uncanny ability to find spots to lie down where his tracker is shielded from anything that might pick up its signal. I hardly dared let him out of my sight so I was extremely glad when the Master of the House returned by mid-afternoon, after which I took myself off to bed and slept for about six hours. 

I had arranged to go to Edinburgh for lunch with friends on Tuesday and by Monday evening was regretting that I had ever contemplated such a thing, as I still felt totally wiped out and unwilling to engage with anyone beyond faintly requesting yet another cup of proper coffee, but on Tuesday morning I got up, pulled up my big girl pants, bought the ticket and got on the train.  

I'm so glad I did. I was early so I pottered around a couple of shops, had a coffee and a brief look around in the National Gallery and then made my way to Meze Meze on Rose Street  where my friend G had booked a table for lunch. We were joined by S, an academic at Edinburgh University who I know via Facebook and who I had long wanted to meet in person and R, a friend of G's who she was keen S and I should meet. 

The table was booked for one o'clock and we left at four which I think says a lot  about how much we were enjoying ourselves. Lots of academic discussion and lots of academic gossip(!) plus various discussions on travel, cats and coping with bereavement all played their part in our conversation. The company was wonderful and so was the food ( Meze meze is a Lebanese Restaurant and I can't wait to go back) 

Firsts ...

... and seconds . Uncharacteristically I did not order a creme brulee which I normally do if it's on the menu; two of the others did and I'm told they were very good, but I was happy with my alternative choice. 

The service was friendly and unpushy and altogether it was delightful place to eat. I'd told the OH that I would come straight home 'after lunch' and I suspect he was therefore expecting me somewhat earlier than 18.03! which was the time my return train pulled in to Alloa station. 

A Nice Thing to do on a Wednesday (reprise)

 So last year we went to a Strawberry tea fundraiser in the local village of Dollar (see  here if interested)  and this year, we did the exact same thing. I see that last year it was 'sunny' but this year it was what I described several times as 'too bloomin' hot'.

Anyway, Dollar, the strawberries and the flower arrangements were all as lovely as last year, although the scrumpled table cloth scraped my ever so slight OCD-ness - especially as, despite several tries, I could NOT get it to lie flat.  

Having learned from last year we had gone early which made finding a parking place slightly easier, and we also managed to snaffle a jar of marmalade before the stall was sold out. 

After we'd finished our scones we strolled down to the bookshop but managed to come out without buying any books. This was partly because, faced with a shop fill of books, most of the titles I'm interested in browsing and perhaps buying instantly fly out of my head and I think I may need to take to compiling lists and carrying them around with me. 

Yorkshire Part the First

 I was very lax about taking photographs during the first part of my visit - most unusual for me - but I kept thinking, there's s no point as no-one will be interested in photos of random people they will never meet. This does not excuse my laxness in other areas; no photo of my hotel, which was a beautiful C19 building, none of its grounds, or indeed of any of the interesting buildings in Ilkley itself. What can I say? I was obviously not thinking straight.  

So  a brief, picture-less account of my first few days. I arrived on Monday after a smooth train journey and a very hot and bothersome walk up the steep hill to my hotel. A recurring theme was established very early on, in that they were having problems with the key card machine and for my first three days mine only ever worked once after being activated, after which it had to be activated again. This was irritating, but not a huge problem as I tended to go out after breakfast, come back about 4 and not leave my room again until breakfast the next day. My room was lovely, with a great view out over the hills behind Ilkley, but extremely hot, not helped by the fact that the en-suite bathroom had a heated towel rail which would not turn off. However I made good use of the provided floor standing fan. 

There was  a positive whirl of catch up activity. Tuesday with my group of Dorothy Dunnett readers, Wednesday with a friend from the last job I had in Leeds over twenty years ago, Thursday was lunch with two colleagues from my Leeds M.A. days ( both looking remarkably well considering they are both at least 10 years older than me - a very heartening thought!) and on Friday a pleasant morning in the shady Leeds back garden of a friend from the Russian department where I did my undergraduate degree. 

Thursday night brought an unpleasant experience, which I confided to a few friends in a private fakebook group as follows (just to save me typing it all out again!

  I have just had a really scary experience. I'm staying in a hotel on my own which hasn't been a problem, but about 40 minutes ago the couple in the room next door started a really aggressive argument: shouts, tears, bad language, threats of violence etc. It calmed down after a while but then it started up again and I was really scared that they were actually going to start a physical fight. It took ages to raise anyone on Reception ( the place is very short staffed) but eventually I got through to someone and they came up. The shouting and screaming was still going on. Long story short they said everything was fine, closed the door, and presumably thinking he'd gone started up again. Possibly they then heard him talking to me as they both came out and the bloke announced they were leaving and they walked off in the direction of the stairs. I was really surprised when I saw them, they were quite young, late 20s? I'd thought they were middle aged! Anyway it seems they have gone, I certainly hope so, but I'm still shaking and shaken.

In fact they came back later but stayed quiet; however I spent the rest of the night with a bedside light on and a chair firmly pushed against my locked door. The clearest case of 'coercive control' I've ever seen. Horrible. 

It was so good to see all these friends again; I am just about getting over the surprise that people actually want to spend time with me (lack of self esteem much?) but given that they give up their time and undertake quite lengthy journeys in some instances I suppose I can start to believe it. 

Friday afternoon saw the arrival of the coach with the majority of the Gaskell Society Conference attendees on it and I took care to register as soon as I could and prepared for the first talk. Report on the Conference to come. There will be photos. 

Yes, yes, yes and sorry

 

Did you not get back from your time away yesterday Anne? Have you not had an exciting week catching up with Yorkshire friends, then a weekend in an intellectually stimulating environment which you're dying to share with us? Should you not have done a blog post today? 

The answer to all those questions is yes, and I'm sorry that I haven't managed a proper blog post about at least some of it, but the fact is that an exciting week catching up with friends followed by a weekend in an intellectually stimulating environment, which was itself then followed by a stressful journey home ( thank you whichever railway company runs trains between Leeds and York) was all  very tiring and at the time I had planned to do a blog post today I had fallen asleep on the sofa. Soz. 

Normal service resuming at some stage and sooner rather than later I hope since I still have Wales to write up too. 

June Books

 Sadly no photo as I didn't think to take one of any of the physical books I read in June.

Only seven finished this month and only one of them wasn't crime, so I'll start with that. Unruly by David Mitchell , which  is described as a history of England's  Kings and Queens. I hadn't really taken on board the England bit, so I found myself surprised when it ended with Elizabeth I. I thought maybe he had got bored. Actually it doesn't end with Elizabeth I as the last section is a hymn of praise to Shakespeare, which seemed odd. Anyway as far as it went, I enjoyed it. Clear, instructive, no pretense of being impartial and often laugh out loud funny. The bad language got a bit tedious after a while, it's over used, but other than that a 5/5.

The Crime Fiction Book Group book was Unsolved by Heather Critchlow. This generally went down well although not with everyone and certainly not with me. If you don't like monetised podcasts, like I don't, (or the interminable BBC ones either) avoid this one, as that is how the protagonist makes his living. I will say that the bits of the book that were supposed to be from the podcast caught the tone of them really well, but given what I just said this was obviously not a recommendation for me. It's the first in a series and I can only hope that Critchlow got better at a) plotting b) characterisation and c) hiding her perpetrator. 

Then  there was Muse by Celina Grace. For some reason that escapes me, possibly they were cheap, I bought a lot of Celina Grace on Kindle a few years ago. She writes a series of police procedurals set in Devon. They're self published and rather better than that implies but I can sort of see why a publisher hasn't picked them up. Anyway I got an e-mail saying Muse was free so I downloaded it and read it and it was fine. I really can't put my finger on why I am so luke warm about these books as the plots are good, the police team is well drawn and the characters and crimes are credible - all the things I criticise in other books when these qualities are missing. But somehow they just miss the spot. 

Two J D Kirks - I must surely be running out of them by now; Where the Pieces Lie and A Death Most Monumental. It's the mixture as before and you either get Kirk and love him or you don't. ADMM had a great joke about The Only Way is Essex though, which I  loved even though I've never actually watched the program. 

It's Not What You Think by Clare Macintosh was disappointing. The 'big twist' at the end  was exactly what I thought it wold be from very early on. In fact so sure was I that I was right that I skipped most of the last third of the book which I found extremely slow, and listened to the last 20 minutes or so just to be sure. It's sad because I loved her trilogy of Welsh set police procedurals, but I suspect that this is just further proof that the domestic  psychological thriller is not for me. 

Last up was Karin Slaughter's We Are All Guilty Here, the first in a recent new series set in a small rural town in Georgia. I liked it so much I have reserved the follow up from the library. Other than that what can I say? relatable characters in a credible setting that Slaughter obviously knows inside out, and some other writers could take lessons from Slaughter in hiding the perpetrator in plain sight. Slight warning note; as  always with KS the details of the crime are grim; although she doesn't slaver over details as some others do, these aren't for the faint hearted. 

There's a reason I've got all the standard posts ( books, wool stats, stash enhancement) out of the way so early this month,  and it's because I'm about to go away again. I'm off to Yorkshire for a week; starting with a lot of old friend catch ups,  followed by The Gaskell Society Conference which this time around is in Ilkley. Happy me. I'm back on 13th after which I will have two trips to write up, and given how empty the calendar is looking after that I should have plenty of time to do it! 

Wool stats and Finished Projects for June

 Well the good news is that for the first time in several months I managed to finish more than one project this time June, although two of them were, inevitably socks. 

For Son no 2, from stash 

and for me, the self striping yarn club for May. 

and then I finally finished my So Faded sweater 

the colour representation isn't the best on that picture. The pinks look rather more 'candy' pink than they are IRL.

So, how did I feel about finally making myself a garment after many years of being too scared to try? Upside, it fits so all the measuring and swatching and arithmetic was worth it.  There is a bit too much fullness under the arms and I wonder if I could have gone down a size at that point. I also had to fill in the neck because the neckline was too low and wide for me, but it was just a case of a few extra stocking stitch rounds and a few  finagled decreases at the front. It's a bit too clingy for my liking, but I've realised that what I don't like is not that it clings, but what it clings to! I'll certainly be wearing it, so that's good. I did not in fact need five skeins , which is good ( look I'm not humungous! smiley face) but bad (not so smiley face) in that I have an extra skein that I didn't need. however I can use it for something else, so we'll chalk that one up to experience. 

Numbers In 1390, out 621, net increase for month 769, net decrease for year now only 1539.Possibly I need to finish something heavy!