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? 

October Days

 Here are the October events from my little Almanac book and the way the months rush by it'll soon be Halloween, and of course the shops have been full of Halloween things for weeks already. 

Looking back at previous October 1st posts and I've already written about so many weather sayings. There were several HERE in the October 1st post from 2024.

So instead I looked in the Illustrated Country Year book by Celia Lewis and found these lovely Thrush illustrations in the October section.

And in the Miranda Mills Country Commonplace Book I found a poem by Robert Bridges

North Wind in October

In the golden glade the chestnuts are fallen all;

From the seared boughs of the oak the acorns fall:

The beech scatters her ruddy fire;

The lime hath stripped to the cold,

And standeth naked above her yellow attire:

The larch thinneth her spire

To lay the ways of the wood with cloth of gold.

Out of the golden-green and white

Of the brake the fir-trees stand upright

In the forest of flame, and wave aloft

To the blue of heaven their blue-green tuftings soft

But swiftly in shuddering gloom the splendours fail,

As the harrying North-wind beareth

A cloud of skirmishing hail

The grieved woodland to smite:

In a hurricane through the trees he teareth,

Raking the bough and the leaves rending,

And whistleth to the descending

Blows of his icy flail.

Gold and snow he mixeth in spite,

And whirleth afar; as away on his winnowing flight

He passeth, and all again for awhile is bright.

Robert Bridges (1844 -1930)

(Photo from internet thanks to Biały Ług, Kędzierzyn-Koźle, Poland)