The 1st April Library Book Photo

Brought home these library books yesterday from the Mobile Library, and they will be round again in four weeks and it will still be April - so that's why it's the 1st April Library Book Photo. Almost all the books were reserved online and as usual there are some authors I know and others I wonder where the information came from to give me the idea for reserving.

The two crime by Jim Kelly I know will be good and 'The Double Turn ' by Carol Carnac, who is one of British Library Crime Classics best authors. The other BLCC, 'Sky High' is by Michael Gilbert. 'Murder at the Castle' is by an author I don't know and the same with Claire Anders. I did say I wouldn't read any more Devon crimes by Stephanie Austin as they are a bit light , but I seem to have reserved another. I know I saw 'The Eights' by Joanna Miller on a book blog. The one with a T on the spine is teenage fiction by Laura Wood that I read about somewhere and the Persephone is one of their recent re-prints "Crooked Cross" by Sally Carson. On the right are two non-fiction 'The English Path' a reprint by Little Toller books that I've had before but didn't read and 'On Gallow's Down' by Nicola Chester is a memoir of countryside life , she wrote 'Ghosts of the Farm' which I read and enjoyed  earlier this year.

Below - In March there were eight brought home. I was just a few pages into The Potting Shed Murder before deciding it was rubbish!. I enjoyed Moonfleet, The Place of Tides, London Can Take it, and especially Appointment in Paris by Jane Thynne. I didn't like the book by Mick Herron and the very old crime story "The Abominable Snowman "was very dated. The small book in the centre was "The Serviceberry" a book about plants and indigenous Americans, I think. I flicked through but didn't finish it.

Details of books read are on the separate Books Read 2026 Page and I'll let you know how I get on with my early April  assortment.

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Up the Lane

 I walked up the lane close to home last Saturday morning, the wind was freezing, blowing across the open fields from the West.

I saw three people walking, one dog, three people cycling - two normal and one in lycra!  and ......... 

Dandelions

Jack -by -the -hedge

                                                                    White dead nettle

                                                                       Red Dead Nettle

An animal track across the field - maybe fox but probably deer

Pink blossom in the distance

Hawthorn just coming into leaf

Blackthorn blossom finishing

 

That dot is a Buzzard circling- need a better camera for something so high. There were skylarks too - no chance of taking their photographs at all

And all the time the sprayer was going up and down the field - probably with weedkiller- luckily the wind was taking the spray away from where I was walking or I would have needed  a mask. The fields  have wheat or possibly barley growing well, no sugar beet or oil seed rape this year.

View over the village. There will soon be 70 more homes in the area that's cleared, in front of the other houses. Who will buy them is the question. 50% of the houses built two years ago at the other end of the village are still empty. You just need £500,000+ to buy one!

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What's Happening in April?

                                                         The first of April, some might say,

                                                              Is set apart for All Fool's Day,

But why people call it so

Nor I nor they themselves do know

                                                      From Poor Richard's Almanack (1760)

April flowers from the 'Illustrated Country Year" by Celia Lewis. From left to right they are Bluebell, Yellow Archangel, Bugle, Forget-me-not, Petty Spurge, Wood Spurge, Ramsons, Cuckoo Flower or Ladys Smock and White Dead Nettle.

April was Aprilis in Roman times derived from aperio to open. Giblean in Scots Gaelic. Apryle in Scots, Aibrean in Irish Gaelic, Averil in Manx and Ebrill in Welsh.

April weather, rain and sunshine both together

April wet, good wheat

April has 30 days, and if it rained on 31 no harm would be done

A dry April is not the farmer's will

April wet is what we should get

Till April's dead, change not a thread.

April full moon tomorrow in the UK - it has many names in the past, the Pink Moon,  Budding Moon, Seed Moon, New Shoots Moon.

The mobile library will be bringing me a nice lot of books - fingers crossed,  then Easter weekend coming up, a very quiet one for me. Easter Events are almost all for families, no fun if alone. The nearest car boot starts as long as we don't get inches of rain, then ED and the two grandsons are coming up from Surrey for a few days as long as they can get fuel for their car OK. One garage here had no diesel at the weekend.

Once they've gone I'll be able to get the windowsill electric propagator out and get seeds started.

Mid month I'll be another year older - all downhill towards 80 then!

On the financial side of things it's always an expensive month with TV Licence, House insurance, birthdays and this year a bill for the boiler repair too.

And before we know it May will be on the horizon.

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