~Andrea~

I took Marley and Me away with me for my Easter weekend away and I'm glad I did. It's a wonderful read, absolutely hilarious, and just right for reading in an airport. Just half way through though, so I might go back to Notre Dame and finish it later.

Ooh - I'm not looking forward to the sad bits. I already feel sorry for Quasimodo just 200 pages in. I'm loving the story but I'm really getting annoyed at the diversions from it which just seem waffly observations and opinions about history, architecture, art and stuff. It's like reading a story sandwiched amongst a load of irrelevant essays that I have little to no interest in. Anyway, I started Marley and Me last night because I couldn't sleep and didn't want to wake up OH by faffing about getting Notre Dame out of the drawer.

It's quite common in wales to call it tea too. Tonight we're having pasta in cheese and ham sauce and salad.

If it's any consolation I think it does pick up a bit towards the end. I found the third quarter of the book extremely dull and if that had been removed I think it would have been great. I enjoyed the first half (especially the opening four chapters).

I only caught about half of the dessert bit. I thought the dessert from the guy that lost looked great and the other one looked like a mess on an old slab. (Like someone who'd left stuff out that needed tidying away.) Although I'm sure it tasted wonderful. (And probably fitted the taste of home thing quite well too) I'll have to try and catch more of it next week.

It's quarter past midnight and now I'm craving peanut butter cookies. Do you see what you're doing to me here? btw is that supposed to be 150g of butter? I am definitely going to have to give these a try. There is nothing in the world like home made biscuits.

I caught a snippet of it today. I usually love things like this but normally don't realise when they are on. It's for homecoming troops this year right?

Sold! It's one of those books I've heard of, and somewhere at the back of my mind thought, I really must read that one day. *hurries off to add to the wish list right now* Thanks Sarah

Sounds like one for the wish list.

Welcome back

Ah. I did the same with my great Aunt's books after she passed away. It's a lovely reminder to have them sitting on my bookshelf. I loved the chronicles of Narnia. The first two are my favourite but the whole series is pretty good. I spy Codex by Lev Grossman on your list there. It got some bad reviews on amazon but I thought they were unfair. I think people were expecting it to be some kind of pacey thriller like the da vinci code. I found it to be well written and interesting, and a bit geeky (like me ). Two major factors in the plot are a book and a computer game so if you like books and computer games you can't go far wrong. The pace isn't furious but I didn't find it particularly slow. Enjoy.

Five Little Pigs was the first AC I read and I liked it though I gather it's not her best. I'd definitely like to read more.

High salt content maybe?

We generally go for green salads as a side (as OH doesn't like tomatoes) We use lettuce (usually little gem, round or curly or a bag of mixed rockets, watercress and baby spinach). To that we just add cucumber and sometimes spring onions, then dress with an olive oil and balsamic or flavoured vinegar dressing (or just add lashings of heinz salad cream if we're being lazy - can you guess which one we have most often ) But I used to love my old pasta salad recipe (which I never get to make any more - OH is so fussy) Cooked cooled pasta (spirals are great) cubed cucumber tinned sweetcorn (the sweetened variety) grated carrot sliced raw closed cup mushrooms snipped up spring onions salt pepper a pinch of dried mixed herbs a great dollop of light mayonnaise stir it all up. It was about 40-50% pasta, 50-60% veg with pretty much equal quantities of all veg (except the spring onions which were just a scattering to taste) I loved it with garlic bread and quiche, or even just on its own with some grated cheese stirred in and crunchy croutons on top.

That's why they call me quick draw mcgraw

Oh I'm sure, mass produced cheap chicken is never going to get a great life really We always try and buy free range when we cook at home, but I doubt KFC chicken is anywhere near that.

I thought KFC used standard cuts - chicken breast and thighs etc.

It does sound good. I am going to have to stop reading your log Janet, it holds too many temptations for me

Getting on quite well with Hunchback. I found it a disapointingly slow start after Hanuted which tripped along nicely, but it's become very enjoyable. The opening chapters are a curious mix of vibrant, engaging prose and longwinded waffle but kind of 50 pages onwards it has picked up. The descriptions are great and the style is wonderful: vivid and humorous in a manner reminiscent of Chekhov, what little I've read of him, and of G K Chesterton's The Man who was Thursday. Looking forward to the rest of this reading experience