Lilywhite

Just read that Season 2 will air on Channel 5 (UK) in 2014. I wasn't sure if we were going to get the second season as TV channels have a habit of cancelling series if they aren't popular enough. No set date yet but at lease we know it's coming!

I'm getting over yet another cold. In the four months since I started my new job I've had three and I'm beginning to think I may be allergic to work! At least I didn't lose my voice this time, which was a tad irritating for me (and a blessing for everyone else!) I've got a couple of 12 hour shifts coming up at the end of the month so I need to build up my resistance or I'm never going to make it through to the end.

Whispers Underground Ben Aaronovitch Peter Grant is learning magic fast. And its just as well - he's already had run ins with the deadly supernatural children of the Thames and a terrifying killer in Soho. Progression in the Police Force is less easy. Especially when you work in a department of two. A department that doesn't even officially exist. A department that if you did describe it to most people would get you laughed at. And then there's his love life. The last person he fell for ended up seriously dead. It wasn't his fault, but still. Now something horrible is happening in the labyrinth of tunnels that make up the tube system that honeycombs the ancient foundations of London. And delays on the Northern line is the very least of it. Time to call in the Met's Economic and Specialist Crime Unit 9, aka 'The Folly'. Time to call in PC Peter Grant, Britains Last Wizard. Started: 15/11/13 Finished: 28/12/13 Rated: 4/5 Comments:

I've had a few days off work just to use up annual leave and I had intended to spend several days doing various DIY jobs around the house. I'm now well into day 4 and I've only just made a start. I had all the best intentions but I just can't be bothered with it. In it's place I have done lots of TV watching; extended periods of reading; several trips to the shops/markets and watched the horrid weather through the window. This will just have to do.

I've loved watching this. I kind of remember the original but not enough to recognise the characters. This time around I've been eagerly anticipating a new episode each week.

I've got about 60 so far and I've being doing it on and off all day. I hold you responsible Janet! It's all your fault and I won't rest until it's complete

Wow! November already. It seems that every time I take a moment to look around, another month has flown by. With the changing of the clocks here in the UK it's really starting to feel autumnal with the nights drawing in and the mornings getting colder. I do love this time of year and I'm looking forward to a few long evenings in with a book and hot chocolate What are your plans this month?

It was absolutely tipping it down here so there were no trick or treat-ers at all. (There may have been one but by the time I'd figured out the noise could have been a knock at the door there was nobody there!) So, I have lots of sweets left and I'll have to work my way through them myself....

What a beauty! Congratulations

I agree with Chrissy as I love Prachett! A lot of his books have me sniggering behind the pages and trying not to laugh out loud in public! (I still call cows "Coos" and sheep "Ships" after reading these books)

I would probably recommend Celia Rees. I read one of her books a few years ago and hadn't even realised it was a YA book. She writes historical fiction but not the usual Tudor/Elizabethan kind. The one that really sticks in my mind is Witch Child about a young girl who's grandmother is accused of Witchcraft. Such a brilliant story.

For me, it has to be the Bartimeaus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud. These books have something for everyone, no matter your age, from magic and mystery to a fantastic sense of humour running throughout. I love these books so much that it didn't even occur to me that the were meant for a younger audience. At no point did I feel like I was reading a children's book or that I wasn't getting as much out of it as I should be. I devoured each one of them and enjoyed them all immensely!

Completely understand Kay, I hate the blighters too and we've had several enormous ones turn up as well. They just wander right in to the living room like they live here, not a care in the world and I end up stood on the sofa shouting for help! Last Friday I encountered a hand size one at work and had to really control myself in front of my new colleagues. Normally there would have been screams and tears as I ran away but I had to be grown up about it and walk past it like I wasn't bothered! I then spent the rest of the day scrutinising the walls and ceiling to make sure it didn't come and get me!

Moon Over Soho Ben Aaronovitch I was my dad's vinyl-wallah: I changed his recordswhile he lounged around drinking tea, and that's how I know my Argo from my Tempo. And it's why, when Dr Walid called me to the morgue to listen to a corpse, I recognised the tune it was playing. Something violently supernatural had happened to the victim, strong enough to leave its imprint like a wax cylinder recording. Cyrus Wilkinson, part-time jazz saxophonist and full-time accountant, had apparently dropped dead of a heart attack just after finishing a gig in a Soho jazz club. He wasn't the first. No one was going to let me exhume corpses to see if they were playing my tune, so it was back to old-fashioned legwork, starting in Soho, the heart of the scene. I didn't trust the lovely Simone, Cyrus' ex-lover, professional jazz kitten and as inviting as a Rubens' portrait, but I needed her help: there were monsters stalking Soho, creatures feeding off that special gift that separates the great musician from someone who can raise a decent tune. What they take is beauty. What they leave behind is sickness, failure and broken lives. And as I hunted them, my investigation got tangled up in another story: a brilliant trumpet player, Richard 'Lord' Grant - my father - who managed to destroy his own career, twice. That's the thing about policing: most of the time you're doing it to maintain public order. Occasionally you're doing it for justice. And maybe once in a career, you're doing it for revenge. Started: 21/09/13 Finished: 15/11/13 Rated: 4/5 Comments:

That sounds wonderful Chrissy! And very invigorating too if you feel you have been away for months

O's and I have been down in the front garden this morning. As we haven't really done anything with it since we moved in it's more like a jungle so we thought it would be best to try and cut some of it back before the horrid weather sets in. The garden is quite odd as it's across the road from the house and it's very long, dropping down to a brook at the bottom. I managed to get quite a way down, further than I've ever been since we bought it, although I think it was still only about half way! So we've done a few hours of hacking down/cutting back/scraping away and most of it is back to a manageable height again. There's still a lot more to cut away and various small trees to uproot, courtesy of the enormous Ash tree our neighbour has, which has been dropping seeds. After all that, I'm looking forward to a nice long soak in the bath and curling up on the sofa with my book.

I have missed Sharon. She always provides some good entertainment

So, love it or hate it, X Factor is back on our screens tonight for it's 10th year! (Yep, 10!) I'm an absolute sucker for this and I've watched it every year. It's an essential part of my festive build up Who else will be tuning in tonight?

The bread sticks where really interesting this week. I've never attempted to make them before but I got a few ideas and may give them a go. This is the problem with cookery programmes! I get all these crazy ideas and actually think I can make them.

Where has this month gone? It's flown by so fast I've barely registered it. First month in my new job is complete although I'm still very, very new at it. It's so mentally demanding that I'm exhausted at the end of the day and I practically live for the weekends when I can have a rest! We've booked ourselves a holiday to Rome for next year, which I'm silly excited for. It's been years since I've been on holiday and in 10 years together, we've only been away once. I'm just going to spend the coming months researching all the awesome things we can do whilst we are there.

Thanks VK! I'm consistent in my inconsistency Definitely in a fantasy/magic kind of mood lately and this latest book is perfect.

Amongst Others Jo Walton 'It doesn't matter. I have books, new books, and I can bear anything as long as there are books.'Fifteen-year-old Morwenna lives in Wales with her twin sister and a mother who spins dark magic for ill. One day, Mori and her mother fight a powerful, magical battle that kills her sister and leaves Mori crippled. Devastated, Mori flees to her long-lost father in England. Adrift, outcast at boarding school, Mori retreats into the worlds she knows best: her magic and her books. She works a spell to meet kindred souls and continues to devour every fantasy and science fiction novel she can lay her hands on. But danger lurks... She knows her mother is looking for her and that when she finds her, there will be no escape. Started: 25/08/13 Finished: 16/09/13 Rated: 4/5 Comments: The best description of this book is a quote on the back cover from Patrick Rothfuss “Funny, touching and gently magical”. I couldn’t have summed it up any better. Whilst the synopsis tells us of a great tale of good versus evil, of magic and spells and of a long standing magical battle; the book is much more understated. It is written as a diary from Mori’s point of view where the magic almost takes a back seat to the everyday, general goings on of a teenage girl. There is a very fine balance between Mori’s coming of age story and the magic and mystery of the world she has grown up with and Jo Walton has achieved it perfectly. We are with Mori through her struggles with family and school life as well as attempting to negotiate the minefield which is the opposite sex, whilst at the same time and almost as casually, she is attempting to understand the murky and tangled world of magic and spells that has been with her all her life and led to the loss of her sister. Jo Walton has managed to take a magical story and bring it right back to an everyday setting to which we can all relate. This book is not a rip-roaring adventure of magical hijinks and escapism. It is more an everyday world with a magical undercurrent. The pace is slow but continuous and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish.

Good luck Kell! Hope it all goes smoothly for you I've completed my first week at work which has been fun. On Tuesday I got to go out with a couple of the Ambulance transport crews to see how they work and also put some names to the voices I was hearing on the radio. The rest of the week I've spent learning the ropes and I've been so tired from learning that I've fallen asleep on the sofa nearly every night, at an embarrassingly early time.

I finally managed to get everything sorted for my new job and I start on Monday. I really hope that it is as good as I think it is as I've put 3 months into applying for it.