Smaller Happenings

There has been one BIG happening this week - A brand new granddaughter  of course

But there have been small happenings  too....................

 I spotted a Redwing in the garden, had to look in the bird book to check as we never saw them out in the country. Then we saw a skein of geese in a V shape flying over one evening, it's good to catch glimpses of nature in the middle of a housing estate.

The 2 x £5 Amazon vouchers - because of filling in an Ipsos Mori Poll - arrived via email and have been used to buy Col some thick long socks.

I've successfully kitted myself out to be Mother of The Groom in December for less than £70. The navy  dress new from Yours £45, cream jacket looking like new from eBay £7 inc. postage, hat £5 charity shop and a navy clutch bag eBay will be less than £5. I wonder if there is an average spend for mother of the groom and does it make me look mean? I would have spent less if I could!

 Asda had lots of clothes on a sale rail and I found 2 tunic tops reduced to £5 each, that's no more than some charity shops charge and I've been searching all summer without luck.

Had a lovely long letter from one of our Penny Pincher letter group and then a late letter from the person who should have written in September. Plenty to read.

The How To Be A Tudor book by Ruth Goodman has gone back to the library unfinished as has The Past is Myself by Christabel Beilenberg.Not because they're unreadable but because more interesting books have turned up to be read first. New to my pile are Anne Perry - Murder on the Serpentine; Alys Clare - A Rustle of Silk which is the first in a new series of historical crime by a favourite author and another of the British Library Crime Classic reprints - The Methods of Sergeant Cluff by Gil North.
 Perhaps I ought to stop requesting library books for a while.

We've waited all week to hear when my late uncle's funeral will be, but it must be next week. Then we heard that our very elderly friend the ex-game keeper from Knodishall had died. So two funerals coming up.

That's about it, a quiet week apart from the arrival of Florence who finally got the hang of breast feeding and was allowed home on Thursday afternoon. we hope to pop over for another quick cuddle at the weekend.

Just to tease you, there might be some unexpected but interesting house move news next week.......................

Back Soon
Sue

Welcome to the world...............

Florence May...............our first granddaughter.
A teeny weeny 5lb 13oz and all is well

Back in a day or so
Sue

Right, I have the scrapbook, now what?

A few weeks ago I picked up a huge bag of  Craft paper at a car boot sale and among them were lots of 12 x 12 scrapbook papers, a shame to cut them up for card making so I decided that after nearly 50 years I would go back to a hobby that I loved as a child.............cutting out and sticking in.
So all round Ipswich I trailed looking for a 12 x 12 scrapbook .........nothing except a kit with book and a few bits for £14.99...............but only 10 pages in the book, very expensive pages.

So good old eBay to the rescue and spotted Hobbycraft (oh if only we had a Hobbycraft here in Suffolk) had a nice scrapbook  lots of pages for £6.......a much better price.

It's arrived

I think I shall title it " My favourite things"

Shall I start with a Jacob page?

Or shall I start with the cover?

Oh this is exciting. :-)

I'm so easily excited...........




(Apologies for that last post where I accidentally lost about 8 of your comments when I was trying to add a picture of Jacob, got confused and deleted the wrong page. I'm so easily confused............)

Back Soon
Sue
PS More excitement ...........Colin is home again, picked him up at 6pm.

Book Review etc

First the book review...........


I've finished reading Trio by Sue Gee, an author who I hadn't read before so must have come across details of this one on a blog.
 I don't really enjoy sobbing my way through a book so probably ought to have abandoned this after the first few pages as it begins with the traumatic death of a young married woman from  TB.

Set in Northumberland the story starts in late 1936 with Steven Coulter, a young enthusiastic history teacher and his wife living in a remote moorland cottage. He has been caring for his sick wife Margaret and teaching at the boys school  in town but comes home one snowy day to find her dead.
Months later Frank Embleton, head of history at the school reaches through Stevens grief to invite him to a concert given by his sister, Diana, a cellist and two friends - the trio of the title. Frank, Diana, Margot the pianist and Phillip a college trained violinist, have been friends since childhood and have been giving concerts for many years in the local area. Steven has no musical knowledge at all but finds in Margot someone who is also lonely - her mother died when Margot was a child and she has lived with her father in the "Big House" ever since.
They are both shy and from completely different backgrounds but eventually  music brings them together. War is creeping ever nearer and each person in the group also has a back story which affects them now. This part of the book finishes in early 1939.
Then suddenly it's 2015 and the rest of the story is told by Geoff who is Steven and Margot's now elderly son whose  beloved wife Becky has just died. This last part of the book moves back and forward so that the missing 66 years are gradually explained.

Beautifully written account of grief and love, but in a way almost too sad to enjoy.


Thank you for all the comments on the last post.
Do doctors/people really think that overweight people don't know they ought to lose weight? Of course we B***** well do and I have several times since I was 16 and weighed and 9 a half stone and was told I was overweight by "friends" .
Unfortunately knowing  and doing are two different things.

Things then got worse as Colin had to go back into hospital on Friday evening as he started shivering and running a high temperature and low BP. So once again he is on antibiotics.They soon had him on a drip..... saline then platelets and blood. It's not unusual for patients who've had lots of chemo and stem cell transplant to have to go back in but this Cancer thing is just NOT fun.


Just adding in this latest photo of Jacob to cheer me up!

But lost the original post with your comments - Whoops - Sorry




Back soon-ish. Sue

A slow, painful and worrying week

Monday
I've been extremely brave and  had a check over at the dentists. I haven't been since we moved here and actually haven't had a check up since May last year. Horrified to find how much the cost has gone up in 18 months and I have to go back to the hygienist and for a filling too. Terrified!

Col had looked at the forecast and said Monday was the only day good enough to get down to the beach hut so after my morning of fear we hopped in the car and picked up fish and chips in Felixstowe town and took them down to the hut to eat. Had to use the wheelchair for Colin. Wind turned East and got very cold as we came home. 

Tuesday
The auction finished of some items of clothes I sold on eBay - including my dress, jacket and hat from last years wedding. Very pleased with the amount we sold for. Easy to take things to the post office and the Hermes courier collection point is just round the corner at the pharmacy.
Something seems to have aggravated my back, which is always dodgy. Not too bad during the day but laying down at night very painful. Tried all sorts of remedies but very little sleep.

Wednesday
Youngest to have C section next Tuesday as Dot-the-bump hasn't turned round.
Back/hips still awful, pains down legs too.
Finished re-reading Barbara Pym  - Excellent Women - which according to my book-of-books-read I've read before but absolutely no recollection of it at all, so it was an enjoyable read.

Thursday
Col's weekly blood test at the hospital. Oh heck platelets down further, they should be climbing not falling.
So worrying . Still no sleep so read Jill Paton Walsh - The Wyndham Case, have ordered the other 3 in this crime series from the library.
Watching too much TV, as too tired to do anything else.

Friday
Very chilly and grey, you know Autumn is here when the cat stays in and sleeps most of the time.
Colin to hospital to have a bag of platelets. Me to a doctor who told me to lose weight, refer myself to physio and double night time pain killers.
A huge book arrived from Persephone Books after I noticed on their forum that they were offering a copy of any of their October re-prints for people to review. I thought I was probably too late but they've sent me a copy of Long Live Great Bardfield ( which I mentioned on my last post). This autobiography of Tirzah Garwood who died in 1951 was first published in 2012 in a limited edition and now Persephone are bringing it to a wider readership.
The endpapers and bookmark are from a decorative paper design by Tirzah .

 Started reading Trio by Sue Gee, this seems to be a 'dozens of tissues'  tearjerker.


Back when there is something to say
Sue

Coincidences and books........both reviewing and selling

We watch several quizzes on TV and often the same question will pop up  on different programmes within a day or two. If I've remembered the answer then I can look really clever!
The same thing happens with books. A mention of something in one book can lead onto reading of the same thing again very soon after.
 This month Persephone Books are republishing "Long Live Great Bardfield; The autobiography of Tirzah Garwood". The title jumped out at me because Great Bardfield is a village in Essex and we've been there for their Garage Sale Day with our friends who live in the neighbouring village of Finchingfield. Hadn't a clue who Tirzah Garwood was but turns out she was the wife of Eric Ravilious,.............. hadn't a clue who Eric Ravilious was either but apparently he was an artist. Anyway I put the book on my wish list just out of curiosity. Then Dean Street Press sent me a copy of "Bewildering Cares" by Winifred Peck which they are republishing, also this month, and who is the painting on the cover by? Yep, you guessed.......Eric Ravilious.

Weird.


Cover illustration detail from "Village Street" (1936) by Eric Ravilious


I've now read Bewildering Cares and enjoyed it, although not as much as House-Bound or maybe I'm just mis-remembering.
 As the grandaughter of  bishops - on both sides of the family, and daughter of a vicar, Winifred Peck is able to write with some knowledge about the life of a vicars wife in 1940.

It starts with a letter from a old acquaintance asking what she does as the wife of a vicar "and as I am trying to do without a library subscription in Lent", Camilla Lacely tells her husband Arthur "and there are no evening meetings owing to the blessed blackout, I shall write down for her what the life of a parsons wife is like. Just one week to show her everything happens and nothing happens"
Most of the happenings during the week are the effect of the curate's sermon " I wish I'd been there instead of at the Mission" Arthur says when told of the upset Mr Strangs sermon has caused "What did he say?". Camilla casts her mind back and realizes she can remember nothing and must have nodded off!
There are quite a lot of small happenings during  Camilla's week " It's a storm in a teacup of course,but then we live in a teacup".  Two romances, an illness,  a "Quiet Day", a death, anxieties about their son in the RAF ,an inheritance and  of course Camillas attendance on many committees, which, as all the young parishioners have joined the services, are mainly attended by  the same elderly spinsters.
Some of the sentences in this book are a bit long which necessitates going back to read them again but there are many humourous and witty lines. "It was an opening for Mrs Pratt, of course, but she would find an opening in a steel wall anyhow"...............made me smile
And this observation struck a chord with me "As with so many girls who have lived in shops and offices, her values are all wrong. She looks on so many things for show as necessities which seem to me merely luxuries."

Overall a good read  ( Many thanks to Dean Street Press for sending me a copy of this book, books and magazines are the only things I will receive and review on this blog!!) and now I've ordered House-Bound from the library to re-read, thought I had a copy but haven't.


Thank you to someone for the mention on their blog of Ziffit.com. As you know we moved here with well over 1000 books, most of which are still boxed under the bed and we, sorry that should be I, seem to have acquired 30 or 40..... er 50? more in the 6 months since we arrived.

 The time has come the old woman said 

to sell  some books from under the bed.

 Ziffit.com buy books, not all books - they are quite particular on what they want -  and two of mine have been sold to them for just over £6 each! I boxed up 7 books and await a cheque for £23!

Still waiting for the Amazon voucher from the survey thing .......within 2 days the email said. It's now 5 days. Thought it was too easy to be true.
 
Welcome to Mandy, taking followers to 387 and thank you for Halloween comments, what a grumpy lot we all are!!

Back Shortly .............why can we say shortly but not longly?

Sue

October - Season of mists and mellow whats'its............ but not in town

The seasons really do disappear in town. Due to roadworks we came home from hospital last Thursday via a back road that took us out to the edge of Ipswich ( and even further out because there was a diversion and more road works!). It's only when we saw the fields ploughed  and the trees changing colour that we realised it was Autumn already.
So  I made a start clearing the dead stuff from the back garden, we've no colour out there now except for the orange berries on the Pyracantha. I'm cutting down lots of Golden Rod and if we were staying I'd dig it out because it's horrible, in fact the only thing nastier than live Golden rod is dead Golden rod -  all dusty and full of mildew!
 Picked up the newest Aldi leaflet......... full of stuff for Halloween, we haven't lived in town on October the 31st since the American tradition was imported by the shops, will we get trick or treaters in our quiet road? It seems strange now that back in 1975 when I worked on a mobile library van we used to go to a USAF housing complex in a village in West Suffolk and I had to ask the ladies who came to the van why on earth they had pumpkins and witches all over their houses.
So from no All Hallows-eve traditions to shops full of junky rubbish in 40 years. If we do get any ghosts/witches knocking on the door we will be out! Bah Humbug to Halloween!
( Although we did do well selling pumpkins at Fareacre, remember this from 2014)

Back Soon
Sue