The January Library Book Photo

Here are the books that I'd ordered and were available to  collect from the library van this week. Jack Munroe's Cooking on a Bootstrap should have been there but it's still in transit - hopefully not lost - so that and several others I've ordered in the last week will be ready for me in February.

There are two more crime books by Joy Ellis who I've recently discovered. I've not read any Donna Leon but Rachel said I would probably like them and this was on the library van shelves so I'll give it a go. The Elly Griffiths book isn't in either of her previous series but sounds a bit ghostly and chilling so might not be my cup of tea and at the bottom of the pile is a new book "The Creative Kitchen" which is subtitled "Seasonal plant based recipes for meals,drinks, garden and self-care". Sounds interesting.

I have kept several still to read from this lot that were collected in December (Tombland, The Kate Ellis book, Murder by Matchlight and A Handful of Ash).

December's Library Book Photo

and even a  book collected in November ( The 3 in 1  Ngaio Marsh book) is still waiting for time for me to read it.

November's Library Book photo

Books read are always added to the separate pages and anything else has gone back unread - usually because I just couldn't get into them. The Stately Home Murder by Catherine Aird went back because it did one of those name change things and I'd already read it under it's original name which I now can't remember. I've not added 'How to Give Up Plastic' to the Books Read pages because I just flicked through and decided it was too dull to read properly.


Not sure what I'm doing this weekend I might head to a garden centre and a jumble sale or stay at home and keep warm. One thing I won't be doing is the jigsaw puzzle of Staithes, much too annoying. I started with the horizon and it was easy to find the pieces  but then very difficult to get them in the right order and even though I had the right number of sky bits to fit in the space I couldn't get them in the right places. I tried each piece each way in every space several times but then thought Blow This! and put the whole thing back in its box and into the Car Boot box.

Then I started the other puzzle of the Summer Garden, which didn't seem quite right for a cold, windy winter day but will be much easier to do as it's a House of Puzzles jigsaw like the Corner Shop and the Lifeboat Rescue puzzles that I did without hassles in November.  You can tell I'm a bit fussy about jigsaws just like I am with books! No point spending time on something that's annoying when there is a whole world of other stuff out there to try!

Many thanks for comments about the cheese plate yesterday, it's a keeper at the moment unless I change my mind at Christmas.
Have a good weekend whatever you are doing.
Back Monday
Sue

It might be a Christmas Present..................

..........or I could keep it.

 This was on the shelf in the charity shop when I went in to do my stint last week.  I picked it up, dusted underneath and then decided not to put it back on the shelf and it came home with me. With volunteers 20% discount it was 80p so didn't break the bank.
I was thinking that with some cheese or biscuits it could make a present but maybe I'll keep it. I was very good and moved two rarely used items from the dining room cupboard into the car-boot box under the stairs..........one in and two out is supposed to be my plan this year.


Back Tomorrow
Sue

Old Twelfth Night

It's Old Twelfth Night..................Old Twelfth Night?
All due to the change of calendar in 1752..
I read quite a lot about calendars in a book that I found at the Giant charity book sale in Colchester last October. I shelved the book and forgot I had it until last week.

This is my Very Short History of calendars..............

Around 4,000BC the Egyptians were the first to calculate the solar year of 365 days dividing it into 12 months of 30 days each plus 5 days. Later they calculated it should be 365¼ days
The Romans had originally used a 10 month lunar year of about 304 days but around 700BC they added 2 more months making a year 355 days. By Julius Caeser's time the calendar was way out and in 45BC he introduced the Julian Calendar, based on a 365 day year with an extra day every 4 years. The only thing they didn't work out back then was 7 day weeks, instead they reckoned the days before and after set points.  Things should have been OK from then onward except that  sometime before AD 377 Emperor Constantine introduced the 7 day week but put the organising of the calendar back in the hands of religious groups who wanted the calendar to link to the moon for their major festival of Easter.
After the collapse of the Roman Empire the Christian church was the only organisation able to control the calendar and because they regarded any scientific enquiry into dates as heresy things got very confusing.
The errors became obvious and annoying and in 1582 Pope Gregory   announced changes to correct the faults including the problem with the ¼ day over. (The Gregorian Calendar) Easter was still being calculated by the moon. BUT newly Protestant countries such as Britain thought the whole thing a Popish plot and refused to change, so for more than a century half of Europe was 10 days ahead of the other half.
(So disagreeing with Europe isn't a new thing!)
But it all got sorted in  1752.


Didn't do the wassailing of my Apple trees on the 6th as I had no cider or apple juice in the house so I'm out there tonight with my cider soaked toast....... and have a bottle in store for using with Rosemary for that cold cure. Just in case.

Back Tomorrow
Sue