Horse Chestnut Tree Mid July

Despite our "prolonged dry weather - one step below drought conditions"  here in Mid-Suffolk, the Horse Chestnut tree I've been following through the year is still looking green and not much leaf fall......compared to the Lime trees in the Churchyard near me which have lost so many leaves already, they blow along the road in the wake of the cars and trucks, looking more like Autumn.

The conkers are getting bigger and it looks as if there will be plenty to collect later, although I don't think children play conkers anymore - it's probably too dangerous for the 21st Century!

The blotches of the Guignardia Leaf Blotch fungus disease on the leaves  (luckily not affecting tree health)  don't seem to have increased too much from my June photos, perhaps the dry weather has stopped it spreading. 

The photos from earlier months are HERE for comparison.

Apologies for lack of replies to comments recently. Still not much to write about so I'll be back Monday.

Car Boot Sale - £1 Spend

 Found a few weeks ago = Top Trumps Marvel Heros cards for next visit  of any of the Grandsons and brand new George (Asda) Sunglasses labelled at £5. Both of these were 50p each

The sunglasses are good but when MGS was here he said he'd didn't like Marvel Super Heros anymore! 

 Eldest daughter and the boys stayed  by the coast for a couple of nights and then came here for a night before heading back to Surrey for their hectically busy summer holidays. Neither OGS or YGS were into Super Heroes either - 50p wasted! It's complicated keeping up with changing favourite things!

YGS  is off to proper school in September. That's all five at school between reception and year 6 and all growing up so fast.

 

I've Been Reading

 The July list copied from my Books Read 2026 Page...............

• Dorothy L Sayers - The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club. Crime Fiction (Published 1928) Lord Peter Wimsey finds the body of ancient General Fentiman. How did the General die, who is Mr X why  is he difficult to find and which of the General's heirs, also members of the Bellona Club, is lying.
• Heather Peck - Death on the Norwich Express. Crime Fiction Novella. (Published 2024) A DCI Greg Geldard story. The sudden death of the passenger in the seat opposite seriously disrupts DS Chris Matthew's journey home.
• Carlos Whittaker- Reconnected. Non Fiction (Published 2024) In the summer of 2022, podcaster and author Carlos Whittaker spent 7 weeks entirely screen free splitting his time between a monastery, an Amish Farm, and home with his family. A mix of experiment with guidance ideas.
• Heather Peck - Secret Places. Crime Fiction. (Published 2021) This is the first in the DCI Greg Geldard Series and is set in Yorkshire and then in Norfolk. A chance visit by archaeologists to her smallholding uncovers an old secret bunker and a skeleton. Tristan Smith , goat farmer, cheese maker and weaver knows it is nothing to do with her but tracking down the previous owners takes Greg down to the Norfolk broads.
• Sara Woods - Bloody Instructions. Crime Fiction. (Published 1962) The first in a long series of books about barrister-sleuth Antony Maitland and his Uncle Sir Nicholas Harding. Who stabbed mild mannered solicitor James Winter and why do two accounts of people seen entering the building seem to differ?
• Rhys Bowen - The Rose Arbor. Crime Fiction (Published 2024) It is 1968 and a village, abandoned since the war, seems to hold a memory for Liz Houghton, a journalist who accompanies her police friend Marissa to Dorset in the hopes of finding a missing girl or details of other children missing since wartime evacuations.
• D.E.Stevenson - Kate Hardy. Fiction. (Published 1947) The arrival of writer Kate Hardy to the Dower House in Old Quinings has the whole village talking. Kate bought the house without visiting and is escaping from her selfish sister and niece. She is welcomed by many including Mrs Stack who helps with the cleaning. When Mrs Stack's son Walter returns from the war he finds readjustment to village life very difficult but finds a friend in Kate.
• Jessica Mann - Funeral Sites. Crime Fiction (Published 1981).Phoebe Britton dies in an accident in the Swiss Alps but that doesn't stop her husband, Aiden, on his progress to being Prime Minister. After her funeral her sister Rosamund realises just how far her brother-in-law will go to secure his ambition. Rosamund has to go on the run as she has information about something that happened when Aiden was at university twenty years earlier.