That's it, the end, you've seen them all!

At last I have got to the very end of the book shelf pictures.

It has been an interesting experience. I've spotted a few books in the wrong place. Lots that can go when we downsize and many that I wouldn't part with ever. I don't have 2 of anything as far as I can see ( except The Hovel) and it's also amazing how few were bought new and I had no idea there were so many!

So here we go .....towards the end.
In the porch where I keep my campsite handouts and checking in stuff ready for people arriving on site are 4 shelves of overflow books that need sorting out. Most will go when we move.

Above are craft books in the craft room - some of these will go to a car boot sale.That giant book - The Quilted Planet  was bought for £1 from a charity shop book clearance about 4 years ago and it's cheapest price on Amazon is £10.20. So I got a bargain.

And finally, the two pictures above are the cookery books in the kitchen.

Then there are 5 Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House Books on top of the shelves in the hall that I've forgotten  to photograph.

(Also several books out in the campsite recreation room/library but they are for people to borrow or swap so I won't count them.)

5 +114 in the porch, 42 in the craft room and 75 in the kitchen is another 236 so the  great grand total is

1,482!!

 Oh my goodness. A lot of weeding out to do when we downsize. 

Welcome to Jill a new follower on Google friends.

Thank you to everyone who has said they have enjoyed the book pictures. Maybe it's given people a few ideas for things to read.
 
Tomorrow  I shall be doing a normal diary post with not a book in sight.

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Sue

 

The penultimate bookshelves - Thank heavens

Page views have dropped by several dozens with these book shelf pictures so I shall be glad to get to the end tomorrow and get back to normal.

My newest collection are my Persephone Books they are publishers who search out books that haven't been seen for years, usually written by women, and reprint about 4 a year. They then also do the most popular in a special coloured  jacket ( That's the 4 on the left) The coloured endpapers which always feature a fabric pattern from the period and always a book mark to match make them very popular. When I go in a charity shop I often scan the shelves looking for the grey cover. I've recently gained two more and had a shuffle of books on the other shelves to leave a space for any more I might acquire in the future. On the right are some old books which I actually had before Persephone re- printed them - 2 by D.E.Stevenson which are  dreadful 1970s paperbacks with covers that bear no relation to the content or the period of the original books. Also Saplings by Noel Streatfield.There are also two other older books housed with the WWII books that I had before I knew about Persephone.

Under the Persephone Books are 4 books that are the first I bought when I started work in 1971. They are childrens books - The history Of Everyday Things In England -  I had loved these books at primary school where we spent ages tracing all the different costumes.

The  owl was given to me by my Cub Scouts when we moved away from Bacton  in Mid Suffolk where I had been Cub Scout Leader for nearly 20 years.

Next are all sorts of classics, bibles, poetry and other books that I ought to read but never will.

 

On the right of the photo above are two Penguin paperbacks that I've had for many years, they are the books written FROM the TV series of The Good Life. Usually TV programmes come from books but these appeared afterwards - all the words exactly as spoken on TV. They really should be moved to a different place.

 

Right at the bottom are some odds and ends and Shakespeare!
That is 110 + 1136 = 1246


I think I have some new followers on Google who I haven't mentioned so Hello to Chris and Gerry and andy on Bloglovin'.

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Sue

More books - Mostly his this time

When we married I had several books but Col had none, he didn't read much and for many years I went to book sales on my own. But over the last 15 - 20 years he has really got into reading - although he doesn't read fiction. Now he has his very own collection.
Canal, railway and a few sports books are on his shelves. The books he borrows from the library are WWII RAF or Army biographies or similar but there are an awful lot of them so he doesn't collect them to keep.
I've read quite a lot of the canal books too and a couple of them were mine before I generously allowed him to put them with his collection!

This shelf above has some of my books as well as his. On the left - School without tears by Mollie Jenkins is the book that first got me interested in Home Schooling. I can see a Kevin Costner Biography - definitely mine. There are a couple of old Scouting books from my time as a Cub Scout Leader and a few more country books. They ought to be on other shelves - I shall have to sort them out.

244 here. Plus the 892 from before takes us to 1136.

We are heading towards the end - Thank Goodness

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Sue

It's a Crime!

........................well actually it's lots of crime. I do read some fiction other than crime but rarely buy to keep ( except for the Miss Read)

And, as we say in Suffolk , I seem to be slightly on the huh!

Some have been borrowed from the library and read and then searched for secondhand to keep, others have been collected but are unread.  I've only read up to J in the Sue Grafton Alphabet crime series. Some have been bought from Amazon ( Maureen Ash and some of Margaret Frazer) because they are only published in the States - which is weird as they are historical crime by American Authors BUT set in England. Quite a few are ex-library and are waiting to be read when the time comes that the libraries are so hard up that they don't buy new books! Or when/if we move to somewhere where they charge to reserve books.
 On the very bottom shelf are all the Ellis Peters Cadfael books. I read these as they were published and then a few years ago I kept spotting them in charity shops so decided to collect them, so that I can read them all again.
Do you see how big the 5 C.J. Sansom books are. It takes him 3 or 4  years to write each of these Shardlake series and I'm now reading the 6th - borrowed from the library of course . Then I shall wait for it to appear in paperback in a charity shop where I'll snap it up for about £1.99 instead of the £20 which people who don't use libraries will pay - MAD! ( Pot calling kettle black springs to mind when you look at how many books I actually possess!)

Now to count this lot.........................188 + 704 is errrrr...........892

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Sue

Gooseberry Jam and 5 Old Books

Due to putting loads of fruit in the freezer last Autumn, plus the half lamb  plus Christmas stuff we have had 2 chest freezers on for the last  5 months. Now both are about ⅔ full, so I need to sort out, use up and squash everything back into one.
Therefore today was gooseberry jam making day, it all went well which makes up for the redcurrant jelly disaster last week. Seven and a bit jars added to the cupboard. I don't eat any myself but Col likes a slice of toast and jam everyday. Gooseberry is one of his favourites and so is Plum and Greengage and Strawberry!

It's still mild here again today but rather grey and dismal. Col did a few odd jobs over at our neighbours and has started getting 4 more IBC tanks-in-a-frame ready for delivering next week.
After the jam making I didn't really do much at all.



Up on the top of the next bookshelves are 5 very old books.These were my Mum's but the Toytown Frolics dates from 1946 when Mum would have been 20 so I reckon it was something she bought for  her youngest brother  who died of Leukemia when he was very little.  I think Mum had one book a year for her birthday given her from her Auntie because most of them say To Joyce From Auntie Gladys!

The Bookano on the right includes a few pop up pictures, which fascinated me when I was little. These books have really thick paper and were much read by me many years ago which has made them very tatty.
 I'm glad I've managed to hold onto them as I got rid of all my books from childhood several years ago at a car boot sale when we were a bit hard up.

699 + 5 = 704

Welcome to Tess, Alison, Megan, Caroline, Catherine and Rosie who are new followers by Bloglivin'.

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Sue

The last of the non-fiction - for the moment!

The bottom three shelves of the alcove under the stairs are my next lot of bookshelf photos.

There are all sorts of books here but mainly about living in the country. All were bought from secondhand book sales and charity shops or ex library when we searched out books to sell at shows. I have read some but not many and a lot of these will go to a car boot sale when we move ( sometime).
Angry Parsnip commented that I had hidden the books from the States with the odds and ends, but nothing is hidden . When I said round the corner it is just on one side of the 3 sided alcove. I don't want to upset my USA readers!

There are a few OS maps here, once this whole shelf was full of the Pink covered OS maps but I've put them into the cupboard in the dining room, to make more room for books. I'm so out of focus on this photo!


Many years ago- around the 1950s/ 60s there was a mail order Countryside Book Club, so many interesting books were available through them. The dust jackets were just cream with one other colour - Peacock On The Lawn below and The Field Of Sighing on the first picture. Some of these were quite obscure and have never been reprinted so they are good to look out for.

Below, on the bottom shelf are our Suffolk Books and a few travel books. Before the age of internet we always borrowed books about the places we were visiting on holiday  and once had many more than this, now it's just as easy to read about places online.

There are 4 books the wrong place on this shelf, one is Hall of Flagons a book I picked up from a charity shop last year. It is about the village of Buxhall in Mid Suffolk and mentions a few of my late Dads cousins who live there still. Beside it, and very tatty - The Batsford Book Of English Cottages - an old book with lots of black and white photos of how cottages were built in different periods of history.The Suffolk Street Atlas should be at the other end of the shelf. The book Mapping The Railways should be on the other side of the alcove with other random old tall  books. I have rectified all these out of order books!!

102 + 597 = 699 so far.

It has been so mild today, not like the normal damp February days we are used to. We have been working outside on and off all day and I also made 3 loaves of bread and brought in jars ready for washing to make jam tomorrow

Compost has been wheel barrowed onto 2 beds of the middle poly-tunnel and forked in, right ready for the earliest of the early potatoes and all the cut branches of the Leylandii hedge have been carted up to the bonfire heap. So we are still getting smallholding jobs done albeit more slowly than a few years ago.

Thank you for comments about books on the shelves yesterday. 

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Sue

The 5p morning spend and some more bookshelves.

We had another of those mornings when we cram loads of errands into one trip out.

1st - to the car sales place as Col is looking at something that might be less gas guzzling than the Jeep Cherokee but still 4WD in case we still need to pull a trailer/caravan, if/when we move.

2nd - to deliver a IBC container-in-a-frame to a member of the Suffolk Smallholders Society in Yoxford. ( including fitting a tap and delivery we sold it for £45).

3rd - as we were right next door to the Yoxford Antiques Centre we popped in to have a look. I'm STILL looking for a small shelf for the bathroom. The prices there are silly expensive. An old wooden bread board £38! was one thing I noticed. No shelf and nothing else interesting.

4th - to Framlingham where I had a look in the 3 charity shops ( Nothing bought here either) while he went and got the chicken feed.

5th - to Tescos on the way home for milk and fresh stuff, using the £5 Tesco voucher that came in the post last week my shopping came to 5p!

And home in time for lunch.

It's about time I put some more of the book shelf photos on the blog.
Here we go round the corner in the alcove under the stairs

On top of the shelves the five books in the Cazelet series by Elizabeth Jane Howard are being propped up Beatrix Potter. I didn't see these as a child and never got on well with reading them to our children but I love the paintings and have been collecting them from boot sales for the last few years. I'm just 2 or 3 short of the whole collection. At the bottom of the pile is a biography about Potter.
On the other end are the few old children's books I have.

In the two pictures above are some random odds and ends, including some of the books acquired at Christmas or with Christmas money ( sorry it's out of focus).  At the left on the top picture are two books by Elizabeth West ( Hovel in the Hills etc) that you might not have come across. They are called "Suffer little children" and "Insufferable little children", Both are fiction about a school secretary and the children and parents of a primary school, and both very funny.

Next two pictures below are all my shelf of  books from the States, some very weird and post apocalypse! Mostly are farming and simple living and off grid books. Then in the bottom photo on the right are my Amish books.

That's another 104 books to add to 493 from last week = 597

Three more shelves tomorrow then I'll be round the corner to my fiction books. There's quite a few of those too!

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Sue

More Shelves

Before I forget, welcome to Jill, Lana and Heather who are new followers by Bloglovin'.



I thought I might as well carry on with book shelf pictures as they were already taken.

 The top two shelves of the 3rd narrow bay under the stairs are full of small reference type books including ones with all the information about rhymes and sayings related to the weather.

 Then it's back to more country and natural history books, probably left over from when we took books to shows. When we downsize I think several of these will go as I've only read one or two and I'm not really bothered about reading the others.

My four books from the TV series.  The Wartime Farm book is hundred times better than the series was. Then some books by Katharine Stewart. If you haven't read Croft in the Hills and Garden in the Hills I can recommend them. Then  more Scottish books - I love these by Elizabeth Beckwith, written in the 70s, I first read them when I was working in libraries. I've had the paperbacks for years and then a couple of years ago at the book sale in North Suffolk that's held once a year I found the hard backs for 50p each and by chance the ones I brought home were all different to the ones I had already. I must re-read these again.

More odds and ends. Col likes these " Any fool can be a..........." I've never been able to get into them at all. Perch Hill by Adam Nicholson is about the restoration of a house and garden after a spell of depression. He is the husband of Sarah Raven who is now also well known for her books about food and flower growing.Finally right down in the corner are a few medical books and some more reference books.

Phew, another lot done. That's 102 + 391 = 493.

I popped to Saxmundham this morning,  the road past ours was slippery, so I'm glad I was driving rather than biking. The February shop of things that I can't get at Aldi was done and I found craft or dishcloth cotton in the Factory Shop - much to my surprise so I got another ball. 75p less than the craft shop.  Col meanwhile was ( and this statement deserves capital letters) TIDYING HIS WORKSHOP!!

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Sue

Back to the bookshelves

First a reply to a question.
Christine in Canada asks how I cook Pork belly slices. We usually have them  in a Chinesey type recipe cooked in Hoisin sauce and eaten with stir fry vegetables. The recipe is HERE
They can also be slow cooked in a  stew.

Thank you to Dawn, Simple Living and John W for comments yesterday. It really was a horrible day yesterday but after a freezing start this morning, we have blue sky and sunshine today. Because of the rain/sleet/snow yesterday all sorts of things were frozen this morning - the chicken shed pop-hole - I had to hit it to loosen so I could lift it up. Then the plastic bins that we keep the wheat in had to be prised open and of course the water in their outside drinkers was solid.

I don't know if anyone else measures rainfall, but Col has been making a note of what rain we've had since he got his new rain gauge for Christmas and our total here for January was 65mm.


Here we go with more of the book shelf pictures from the alcove under the stairs

A strange selection on the top shelf of the narrow middle bay, natural history and random old books.
The new books in the middle were bought from The Book People to sell, but they were too good to let go of, so I sold some of my older books instead.

More natural history and a very old bird book that came from where? I have no idea. Just two of the River Cottage collection here. I did sell all the rest of these back in the days when we took books to shows.

Some  favourites on this shelf above - Animal,Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. This American author is more well known for her fiction but this is the story of how her family ate local for a year. Also From Mother To daughter by Vivienne Bolton full of lovely ideas for your home through the year.

I'm not sure why I have 4 books by Peggy Cole. She is a well known local Suffolk lady and her books are often seen in charity shops.  The two on the right No Halt at Sunset and Wheelbarrow Farm are interesting, they are both from the 1950s by Elizabeth Harland who wrote pieces for newspapers in Norfolk and Suffolk. I came across the first in a charity booksale and then looked for Wheelbarrow Farm for years ( this was before internet) and finally found it in Wigtown - Scotland's town of books - a long way from home. On the left is  Giles and Sue live The Good Life this was a sometimes funny TV programme a few years ago with Sue Perkins and Giles Coren trying to do all the things from the original Good Life TV programme. This is another book bought to sell and then kept when it didn't sell. - Hmmm no wonder we have so many books!

More interesting odds and ends ( and I've chopped off half the books too - stupid woman!). The Puddles are Blue by Sheila Howes is an oddity as it was privately published by the author and sold only through The Camping and Caravanning Magazine and some local  shops in Cornwall, it's the story of a family moving there to open a campsite. The books on the right by B. A Steward include Green Lane Farm which is the part fictional part factual story of the authors years in the 1930s on a Suffolk farm - where Cols Sister and husband now live. Our brother in laws father bought the farm from Mr Steward in the late 1940s.

 Several old farming books on the bottom shelf.  The moons our nearest neighbour by Ghillie Basan  is the story of  several years spent on a remote Scottish farm where she began her career as a cookery writer.  ( she now has umpteen books published about middle eastern cookery). I must read it again.
 That's 84 more books plus 307 previously makes 391......so far!

I might have a bit of a break from book shelf pictures, I'm beginning to get embarrassed by just how many books we possess in this so called frugal household! Although they have been collected over 40+ years and very few have been bought new. 

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Sue

Yes, you guessed, more book pictures.

No snow here yet but quite a bit colder, I watched the 1'Oclock news with all the pictures of disruption in the North of England and younger part of me would love some here and the older half of me say's No - too much bother.

We got the big chicken shed cleaned out today, one trailer load into the compost bins and another trailer load spread around the fruit trees. Fresh chicken muck is too hot to use in most places but round well established trees it should be OK. The blackbirds will have a whale of a time sorting through it and the rain will wash all the goodness onto the tree roots.

Later this morning Col took our son to Ipswich to pick up his car that was supposed to have been sorted out, but M later phoned to say that he had lost power, with loads of smoke, he pulled over turned off the engine, re-started and got home with no more problems. This is what the garage should have cured.

I suddenly thought "Tennis"! and managed to catch the final 2 sets of Andy Murray's semi-final in Australia, and he's looking back in form, winning through to be in the final Sunday - on BBC1 just after 8am they said. Must remember.

Now some of my favourite bookshelves - does everyone have favourite bookshelves or is it just me?

I only have 2 books about goats now but it was having a collection of 10 goat keeping books that got us into buying and selling secondhand books at country shows. Something we did very successfully for several years, until it became too difficult and expensive to source country/livestock/smallholding books from charity shops and the price to have a stand everywhere rocketed so that we were forced to give up. I'm not sure why I still have all these livestock  keeping books - nostalgia for the years we kept animals I guess. The majority of these are secondhand except for the lovely collection of Self sufficiency books that came from The Book People. They still have them - 12 books for £9.99 - bargain.

Lots of lovely, favourite books on this shelf above
Why, you might well ask, have I got 2 copies of Hovel in the Hills by Elizabeth West? Well, one is very very old, ex library and the other is a more recent re-print in which she has an update about what happened after the books. Beside them are her other books about her time in the hills - Garden in the Hills and Kitchen in the Hills. Below are more special books about smallholding and growing.
The two with Homesteading in the title are from the States, but they were both found at a car boot sale in Suffolk just after we moved here, when there were still USAF bases close by. I always wonder if the Air force family who sold them ever managed to have a homestead when they were posted back home.

More country books above. In the centre is a book called Living the Good Life by Linda Cockburn. I think she has a blog about there Australian garden somewhere.



Below are more on the same theme. The Family Smallholding by Katie Thear is interesting. She and her husband David started a magazine called Practical Self Sufficiency from a shed on their smallholding in Essex. They had open days and Col and I went to one in 1979, it was so popular the roads got jammed and they couldn't do anymore. This was just after John Seymour wrote his self sufficiency books and the idea of doing your own thing was at it's peak. The Magazine kept going for several years, changing the title until the Thears sold out and it became Country Smallholding. They also had a book publishing company called Broad Leys Publishing and not long ago Home Farmer Magazine bought out all the titles that Broad Leys had, and are editing,updating and reprinting. ( Two of the titles are on the top shelf)
Hugh FWs River Cottage Cookbook was a bargain - an ex library book - because it's falling to pieces - for £1!

All the big self-sufficiency books are on the bottom shelf, I honestly have no idea how I came to own so many beautiful books. None of these are going anywhere except with me when we downsize!!

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Sue

Wild Wednesday and more bookshelves

The day started fine but windy but by 11 the wind was wild with rain and the temperature dropped away.
I had to nip to Saxmundham first thing for a few bits, and because of the weather it was a driving day rather than a biking day. Col needed to go to a hardware shop so he came too and while it was still fine we went round the charity shops and he found a pair of jeans for £3.50. Coming out of the bank I noticed a sign - New opening times - they are going to be closed all day on Thursdays. Is this the beginning of the end? A small town in Mid Suffolk recently lost their only bank, that must make life difficult for all the businesses in the town. Saxmundham still has 2 banks, most of the other small towns nearby only have one. We shall see what happens.

Now more book shelves photos. Here are the bottom 2 shelves of the first bookcase. Lots of random books here that have been collected over 20+ years. Several are ex-library books and from charity shops, secondhand book sales. Nothing new here. My favourites from these shelves?

 2 books about Arthur Ransome and his Swallows and Amazons books. 

The Helene Hanff omnibus including her well known book - 84 Charing Cross Road. 

 Dear Mr Bigalow - by Frances Woodsford

The bird book and the road map book are falling to pieces and where on earth did the giant London Road Atlas come from? There is another recipe book  here because it's too big for anywhere else, it could go really as I've not looked at it for years, and some of Cols Fred Dibnah and railway books are down there too.

If I had to get rid of some books because we were downsizing it would be several of these from the bottom shelves that would go. Maybe I'll sort through them before we do a car boot sale.

Back Soon
Sue