Watching and Reading

 The rain started here on Sunday evening at the same time as the 3rd series of  Van de Valk. Set in Amsterdam but with everyone being English actors and talking English - just like the original series umpteen years ago.  I'm not sure how long the rain lasted as I went to bed at 10 but it didn't do much to add to the water butts. No thunder or lightning here - despite the Met. office giving us a yellow warning.

 Earlier in the evening more crime watching as I caught up on iplayer with the 6th and last of the series of Annika with Nicola Walker in the title roll- which for reasons known only to the beeb was on after the news after the penultimate in the series. I wasn't sure about Annika to start with - much quoting of literature to camera - that's what they call breaking the 4th wall - all very odd but by the end I'd got used to it and she will will be back in another series solving murders in the water around Glasgow next year.

There has been a lot of trailing of a new quiz for Channel 5  called Puzzling with the historian Lucy Worsley as host - not sure about her hosting a game show - might watch as it looks like something that will be good for the brain - which is why I enjoy Countdown, although I'm no good at the letters which frustrates me. And I've seen mention of Ken Bruce ( x Radio 2) bringing his Pop Master quiz to TV. I've not bothered to follow him to his new home on a commercial radio station. I was sad to see him go but when I read that one of his reasons for leaving was because he was 'forced' to play new releases. Well, personally I quite like hearing what's new in the pop world as opposed to stuff from the 70's and 80's that have been played a million times before.

I'm also making a point of watching the 1st  Ashes Test Match catch up programme each evening. The new exciting 'Bazball' way of playing should make things much more interesting. I love cricket and so did Colin, wish there was more of it on TV. 

Then there is the best thing of all -Tennis- Queens Club this week and Wimbledon starting soon after. I kept forgetting to watch the week of tennis from Nottingham which was on Prime - and  Andy Murray won - still playing 5 years after his hip operation. His second grass court win in a couple of weeks and seven years after his last one - amazing. Lesser players would have given up years ago.

Then reading...........I've run out of library books already as I wasn't in the right mood for any of the non-fiction so from my shelves I quickly got through the 3 stories in this book which I've had around for years. Dorothy Simpson wrote 15 books about Inspector Thanet between 1981 and 1999 and I read some of the later ones at the time the library had them in stock but the earlier books had long gone from the library so I got the first 9 in three omnibus editions for pence from Amazon a long time ago.

This has now gone into the charity shop bag and I've started reading the book I got myself for Mothering Sunday -  'Wanderers in the New Forest' by herbalist Juliette de Bairacli Levy.

Back Tomorrow

Sue