Another Good Story...........

  ................from this author.

Rachel Hore's books are always so well researched. This is her latest and is the fictional account based on two real women who showed courage and resilience in World War II.

This is the story of one of the secret organisations working in occupied France. Much has been written about the French Resistance , working directly against the Nazis but another organisation - The Alliance- secretly gathered valuable  information using agents all around the country and passed this to MI6 in England.

Details from the Fantastic Fiction website............

In Occupied France

Marie-Louise, a headstrong, single woman with two young children, is recruited into a secret intelligence network. She must collect privileged information about German military activities to help the Allies liberate her country. Her skill and daring will propel her to the top of the organization - and along a path of hidden passion and extreme danger.

Deep in the English countryside

Sarah, a Sussex wife and mother, looks after evacuees and keeps the home fires burning while her husband is away on secret war work. When she’s suddenly plucked from this life of humdrum duty to run a safe house for foreign agents, she is forced to make sacrifices that threaten her health, her family and her personal happiness.

As Marie-Louise and Sarah’s lives collide, the danger mounts in this exciting and moving story about the resilience of the human spirit.

The real life women were Marie-Madeline Meric - who published her own memoir in 1968 Noah's Ark and Barbara Bertram wrote French Resistance in Sussex. Her son Jerome later wrote a book about his mother and father's war work The Secret of Bignor Manor.

Rachel Hore says in her Authors note

"In my novel I have simplified historical events and the large cast of characters for dramatic reasons and to avoid writing a multi-volume work!"

and the book really does race through the 6 years of war but as she says it was the best way to do it or the book would have been huge. 

I've enjoyed many of this authors books and this is another really good read.

Saturday Round-up. Wordy With No Photos!

Is the blog reading list updating hitch resolved? - on Wednesday it seemed to be........and on Thursday...........yes and Friday...........still OK - this looks very hopeful but where have some of the regular bloggers gone? especially Janice at Jabblog, who  used to post almost everyday. It's worrying.

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Hearing the story unfold about the men arrested near an RAF airbase used by the USAF was very odd if you'd been watching the recent series of the drama Trigger Point on TV a couple of weeks ago. The story there was bombers supposedly being from Iran - but actually they weren't. They were just trying to start a world war. Their bomb was nuclear  (thank God just fiction). 

There seems more to the story of the men here in Fairford, Gloucestershire. A 999 phone call from one of the men to the police(?) very odd.  No explosives found - just petrol (which they would have needed if they were stealing quad bikes - which is the more usual reason that men in balaclavas and white vans are sneaking round the countryside) And they were released on bail - which terrorists surely would NOT have been. Politicians from other countries chipped in with their tuppence worth - could have done without hearing from them......... Then someone in London arrested. I guess we will find out eventually.

What I want to know is............ have they stepped up security on the two bases used by the USAF in Suffolk? One has the huge KC135 Stratotankers used to refuel  USAF planes. Not a mention has been made of them.....as far as I've heard.

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The grass was cut again, it's amazing that even without much rain it's growing like crazy. I'm waiting for a heavy rainfall to see how well the gutter clearing has worked, but there was only a light drizzle, that didn't last on Wednesday. I also finished clearing out the greenhouse bringing in the last few tomatoes to finish ripening indoors. Have to say that pulling grow bags out of the greenhouse and tipping out onto the veg beds is much easier than hauling out big pots.

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I'm now reading the 2nd Louise Penny Chief Inspector Gamache series and wondering why I've never got into them before. Just like the Donna Leon Brunetti series that I didn't try until a few years ago but then loved and read them all (and I've just discovered that there is another due in 2027 after a 3 year gap - she's 84 now so no wonder she's slowing down!) Maybe years ago I was put off by crime fiction set in other countries and now I'm more adventurous?  Anyway, I went onto the library website to reserve the 3rd and 4th and found that for many of the early books in the series - from the early 2,000s - the library has just one copy or none and the more recently published have very long waiting lists. Then I hopped over to amazon and discovered I could buy a huge set of the first 15 for less than £2.50 each. As I'd not bought hardly any books from anywhere recently I went mad and ordered - these will be my Christmas present - instead of my usual Chocolate liqueurs- and will be for the just-in-case emergency/winter book store! 

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To watch or not to watch - that is the question. Strictly Come Dancing - yes I'll watch as it's good for Saturday Night glitter from now until Christmas. I know nothing about most of the celebs so have no favourites. I'll just watch for the skill of the professional dancers, choreographers and band  and the brilliant people who do the costumes and sets.

The much hyped Celebrity Traitors. The jury's out. I did watch part one just to see who was on it, some people I've never heard of but lots of well known comedians. Maybe it's for half-watching -with reading at the same time.

The only thing in the diary for the weekend is too far away, given the huge increase in diesel prices, so I won't be going far.

 Hope you all have a good weekend, I'll be back Monday.

Oven Gloves

 Filling regular blog posts means sometimes they are very boring! and this one comes with a warning as this is the first of three posts about car-boot sale finds.........sorry.

I found a pair of brand new heavy duty oven gloves at the Sunday boot sale for £2. They looked just like the ones I like to use that come from the Lakeland company but the packaging wasn't  the usual  Lakeland labelling, although that little tag looked vaguely familiar.

I couldn't remember if I had a spare  in the cupboard already - they are something I've found at boot sales before, but at £2 I knew they were a good money saver. When I got home I put my glasses on and found a tiny note on the back saying they were made for Lakeland.

They'll last ages because they are good quality and are now £9.99 new. 

On the Lakeland website there are all sorts of oven gloves, some like mittens, one for each hand, some shaped like a glove puppet with an opening 'mouth', some made of silicon, and some coloured to match your kitchen. They range in price from £7.99 to £14.99. Or on Amazon there are over 1,000 different sorts listed! 

What sort of oven gloves do you prefer, or do you just grab a handy tea-towel?