Madeleine

Grey all round down here!

I use LT more than GoodReads, I only add books to GR as I read them, I'm not moving the whole lot over (2,000+) from LT, which can also be very slow to load.

The weekend was lovely, nice and sunny and quite mild, planted some more bulbs, have crocuses and daffs coming up now, plus one snowdrop! Typically though, today, which I have off work, it's raining. Had hoped to meet a friend for a walk in the park but looking unlikely now.

Which would mean getting up an hour earlier! I am trying to avoid really long books at the mo, one of my plans before all this was to finally read the first 2 books in the Wolf Hall trilogy, however I don't think I'd be able to concentrate on them without having something a bit lighter to read in between.

The White Princess - Philippa Gregory

This Ole Heart of Mine - Isley Brothers

Same here Tracy, as I'm not commuting my reading has basically halved, so far I've only read 3 books this year. Normally it would be 5 or 6 by now.

Fantastic Day - Haircut 100

The Devil's Garden by Aline Templeton - this is the third book in the Kelso Strang series, but the first I've read, and Kelso is a detective based In Edinburgh, but who works for the Serious Rural Crimes Squad, and in this book he's called to a small town in the Borders, supposedly to investigate a so-called County Lines drugs ring, but unofficially to look at possible police corruption in the small force there, to which he's been alerted by a former colleague. In the meantime local author Anne Harper is convinced that he son's drug overdose was not fatal, and when her daughter goes missing she is convinced that a secret from long ago is behind it all. Trouble is, the author is incredibly reclusive, only emerging to take a session at the writers' retreat which she runs every year, and as this is the week of the retreat, there are several possible new suspects too, including at least one prospective author with a grudge. However she is so secretive that not even the police know the full extent of the secrets she is trying to keep, until inevitably her past finally catches up with her. I did eventually enjoy this, although it took a long time - about 2/3rds of the book, before the action finally got going, and after that it was quite gripping. The arrival of the massive storm we had 3 years ago, the Beast from the East, also hampers the investigation somewhat when the residents find themselves snowed in. So after a slow start a good read, and I would probably read more by her (I do in fact have another of her books, but from a different series). 7/10

There are over 30 Shakespeare plays!

I get that sometimes too, but if I click on the Ok and then try again it seems to work OK.

Paint me Down - Spandau Ballet

the Little Drummer Girl - John le Carre

I've read 23 of them, although if you count the series - Game of Thrones, LotR, Narnia, Potter - it's a lot more, I agree counting a whole series as one book is a bit of a cheat. And the Orwell books weren't my choice (set books at school).

Back to Black - Amy Winehouse

We have lots of local libraries, luckily, except at the moment they're all closed of course.

Apparently Steven Spielberg has bought the film rights to Thursday Murder Club.

House of the Rising Sun - The Animals

yes that story was in the paper t oday, some people are so self righteous.

Sunny here but meant to be very cold, I'm off to the optician soon so I'll find out!

Our House - Madness

Mine sometimes takes a long time to load as well.

It did stop for a while last night but started again in the early hours at some point, it's quite heavy now, the main road outside is still clear but I imagine the side roads aren't too good.

I'm quite introvert and have been wfh all the time, we have work Zoom meetings which are nice to catch up but not the same as the general chitchat you have in the office. I don't like large gatherings either, but like Brian miss the smaller social things, like going out for a meal, or meeting up with a small group of friends to go somewhere like an exhibition or a small museum with lunch and then tea, and as I belong to a walking group it's been really frustrating not being able to do proper walks, in the summer we managed a few under the rule of 6 but they were fairly local, so it would be nicer to go a bit further afield and do some nice river walks, in better weather obviously!

It did stop snowing yesterday evening for a while and we had a light dusting on roofs, cars, walls etc, it must have started overnight at some point and we have more of a covering now, still not too much, traffic is still running etc, it's that fine snow but if it suddenly changes and gets heavy then it will probably cause problems. I was thinking of going for a walk yesterday but it did turn to wet snow and was horribly windy so I changed my mind!