Madeleine

Yes I'm still finding it slow as well, although it's a bit better through chrome. Thanks for all your hard work!

It was lively wasn't it, we had lots of wind and rain which kept me awake last night. Quiet today and bright, we lost the lid of one of our recycling boxes despite it having a brick on top, the brick must have flipped onto the other box, and away went the lid! I did put a few small things like watering cans in the shed, just as well probably. And our heating broke down last night....fixed now but need new radiators.

Cold and bright on Xmas Day, back to grey drizzle again today, but not so chilly.

Merry Xmas everyone

Finally stopped raining, bright now but very cold!

I'm the opposite, normally would be well in the 40s (maybe even early 50s) but only in the early/mid 30s.

Same here.

It's very clever, wonder how long it took to make it.

I've read the first 3 Mortal Instruments books and enjoyed them, I also have the Infernal Devices and Dark Artifices trilogies to read. She's started a new trilogy, the first book is Chains of Gold, I'm waiting for the paperback though as the books are so big! Glad you enjoy them.

Did anyone watch the second series of His Dark Materials? Overall I found it disappointing, it was sluggish with some awful dialogue. It just about redeemed itself with the last two episodes, especially the final one last night, but the book was much better. On a lighter note, I really enjoyed Strictly Come Dancing this year, and was really pleased with the winner!

Together by Christmas by Karen Swan - I've enjoyed the last couple of Christmas books by this author, they've been undemanding, slightly predictable but with a nice setting, this one however seriously hit the buffers for me. It starts with a flashback to Syria in 2014, then comes to the present day, literally as it's November 2020 and in a parallel universe where COVID never happened. Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Lee is in Amsterdam, and the city is preparing for it's Christmas celebrations and other festivities, and her little boy is hugely looking forward to Sinter Klaas's visit. Lee is now working as a photographer for celebrity magazines and apart from the occasional one night stand is determinedly single. Then one day whilst doing a charity shoot for the local children's ward she gets chatting to Sinter afterwards, who turns out to be a writer called Sam who is naturally very attractive etc. In a sweet scene he agrees to play Sinter for her son, who is thrilled to get a personal visit, but draws the line when Lee wants to take things further ie for one night only. But Sam bless him wants more than that and bows out, however the pair continue to bump into each other - Amsterdam is small and Sam does have a book to plug, and by another coincidence Lee's friend Liam is working on the marketing for Sam's book which involves planting copies of the book around the city for people to pick up and presumably pass on, either literally or by word of mouth. No surprises for guessing that one such copy turns up in Lee's bike basket, but this on has a message "Help Me" scrawled inside, so she then tries to find out who left the message. Nothing wrong with any of this but halfway through the book and still not much has happened - her previous life has started to intrude as her friend and mentor also lives in Amsterdam but is now married with a baby on the way, and suddenly decides to go back to Syria, but unofficially. In between an occasional flashback to Syria we get endless celebrity parties where Lee and Sam bump into each other, but again not much else happens. I started to struggle around page 150 and gave up altogether at just over the 200 mark, which was roughly halfway through. I did read in the author's note that she had problems with this one and had a block, I'm not surprised, it shows, I don't know what the problem was - too many storylines maybe? Whatever, the book felt very disjointed, barely resembled the blurb on the back, but worst of all it was boring. Sorry but a disappointment, and it was very difficult to care about any of the characters. DNF

Sounds gorgeous - post a pic!

Sunday turned out to be a really nice day, sunny and quite mild - I had planned to meet up in the local park with 2 or 3 friends under the rule of 6, until Boris Cromwell cancelled it all on Saturday! Did manage to do a bit of cutting back in the garden though. Horribly wet today, it's the shortest day which means the mornings will get even darker for a while now.

We went to our local large Sainsbury's on Saturday and surprisingly it was fine - around 3.00 in the afternoon, no queue to get in and only a brief wait at the checkout. That was, of course, before the big announcement. Hopefully we can get any other stuff locally in smaller shops or the Co op round the corner.

Another 4 digit, multiple TBR holder here!

I've enjoyed Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie books (haven't read the last 2 though) but hated emotionally Weird, which sounds a bit similar to the book you describe. Her fans seem to either like one set of books ie the Brodie, but not the others, and vice versa. I haven't read her other stand alone books but they do seem to be Marmite books from what friends have said.

I wish it could be Christmas every day - Wizzard

The Infirmary by L J Ross - although this is the 11th book in order of publication, it's actually a prequel and the events of the official 1st book - Holy Island - follow on directly from the end of this one. So it felt a bit odd to be reading it after 10 books, which often refer to events in this book which meant there was no suspense as I knew how it ended. Having said that, it was still hugely enjoyable and it was interesting meeting DCI Ryan and his team in early days, although I think there is still a lot of back story which is hinted at in the other books (Ryan's time with the Metropolitan Police in London for example) which could be explored further perhaps? Anyway it was a fairly gripping read, a standard serial killer police procedural which also carries on into the main series for several books, and the ending in particular was a rollercoaster, with a foot chase through an underground tunnel system (not a spoiler as it's on the cover!) and the inevitable, shattering finale. One of the best books in the series so far. 8/10

Berries

I Believe in Father Christmas - Greg Lake

Totally agree with Wuthering Heights, I still can't see how anyone would find Heathcliff attractive, but each to their own!

Trees all up, most cards written and posted, couple of presents to parcel up and go to the Post Office, not looking forward to that!

Well done Athena!

Yes I found CoK a bit clunky but it does build up to a great finish. Book 3 is much more fast paced and readable. I haven't read The Guest List yet but have read her first book The Hunting Party which follows pretty much the same structure that you describe and is also very readable.

Yes messages can cross over. I do have a genuine problem with this computer, in that it can suddenly pull something across from another screen and insert it (happens at work too, it's already been sent back twice for repair and is still doing the same thing) - in fact it seems to have happened on my book list thread as another list suddenly appeared so if that could be deleted (it's the one that only goes up to July or August rather than the up to date one).