I'm waiting for my mojo to return to get out of this flat feeling.
My get up and go has got up and gone, don't know where and why.
I'm sure I'll be back to normal soon.
Bit wet for the Olympics opening ceremony in Paris - I was reminded of the Queen and Prince Phillip for a Jubilee thing on the Thames when it poured with rain and the Duke was very ill afterwards. Hope all the sports men and women don't catch a chill.
Sue
Another good heap of books collected from the mobile library, all books I had reserved. In Suffolk we can have up to 25 books reserved or waiting to be collected at any one time - and I usually do have that many and always have another list of books that I'm waiting to have room to reserve and all for free. No chance of having nothing to read here!
There are three more here with Summer in their titles for my summer reading 'challenge', including The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden that I read many years ago. Also here are two British Library Crime Classics; a collection of short stories by Elly Griffiths; Another in the Isobel Dalhousie series (even though I said I wouldn't read anymore- so just in case I'm desperate); Foster by Clare Keegan and a historical novel by Jacqueline Winspear that isn't in her Maisie Dobbs series. Two non fiction - I'm not sure why I reserved them, I'll probably just flick through to see what they are. Finally The High House by Jessie Greengrass - a new to me author that someone must have mentioned.
In June I collected these below and read four of them. 'Green Batch Cooking' didn't live up to expectations, nothing I wanted to make. 'One Hot Summer' was much too wordy for summer reading. and 'Reasons to Stay Alive' didn't appeal after flicking through it.
Thank you to everyone for comments on Saturday.
I'm short of ideas for blog posts and feeling flat and sad at the moment. Taking a few days off the blog.
I've had a really quiet week, no long list to remind me of what needs doing, no exciting excursions, no visitors, no coffee and cakes out and I couldn't even be bothered to go right into town so called at Tesco for my shopping - my least favourite supermarket but on the right side of town. They are one of the few places to buy a single lemon, so I did, and made a lemon drizzle cake while the bread-machine made me a 50/50 granary loaf.
We had some sunny days - extra hot on Friday - which were very welcome and a bit of gardening got done - dead heading roses, pulling up and cutting back things that have finished, one failed cucumber hauled out of the greenhouse already. Had my first 'summer breakfast' which is just tomatoes on toast and I only have this when I've got my own tomatoes fresh picked from the greenhouse. I slice them and shove in the microwave for a few seconds while the bread is toasting - works well and a change from marmalade.
No sport this week, Le Tour didn't get me interested so I ended up watching something I didn't see when it was originally on TV back in 2013 - 2016. Hinterland was a police series of about 20 programmes set in Wales around Aberystwyth and it seemed to be shot mainly in the dark! Either dark at night or inside old dark Welsh cottages, where everyone kept their coats and boots on. It was usually raining and I reckon the series was made to put people off wanting to move there! It was made for S4C - the Welsh language channel and filmed in English and Welsh, with the scenes in English then being reshot in Welsh, while the scenes in Welsh has subtitles - must have taken an age to film and it kept me out of mischief for most of the week.
I've also finished watching all 8 in the series of 'The Turkish Detective', which I noticed are based on books by Barbara Nadel. I've read some of her books which are set during WWII but haven't read any of these Inspector Ikmen series. I looked them up on Fantastic Fiction and I reckon they are completely different to the TV series so reading them now would be a bit odd, which is a shame as there are 26 in the series. Might have to give one a try but on the library website the first in the series, from 1999, now has 9 people waiting for it - so I'm not the only person who wants to look at the book after watching the series on TV!
Still on the TV theme I treated myself to a copy of the Radio Times which has a complete 16 day guide to the Olympics - " Every Sport - Every Day - Every Medal". I feel so sorry for people who don't enjoy any sports although I can't understand them! It's on BBC 1 all day, everyday, from 8a.m except for news bulletins.
That was my List Less week - too much TV. Not good for mental health at all. Must do better.
The Women by Kristin Hannah. Published 2024
It is 1965, the middle of the Vietnam War and twenty year old Frances 'Frankie' McGrath is a nursing student, the only daughter of traditional parents. She has grown up on the idyllic Californian Island of Coronado. At a party held to send off her brother to Vietnam to be a Hero for his father a friend tells her that Girls can be Heroes too.
1945 and the Second World War is over, but for many of the people in London things have got worse rather than better. When Investigator and psychologist Maisie Dobbs is drawn in to find out about the group of youngsters squatting in an empty mansion along with a seriously ill demobbed soldier, she needs help from all her friends and family to get to the truth. Mysteries hidden from her in the past about the life and death of her first husband in an aircraft accident also need to be resolved so that Maisie can retire to look after her American husband and adopted daughter.
All these were read and finished while I had the other eye on tennis on TV! - Multi tasking!
Thank you to everyone for comments yesterday about the very poor growing season it's been for some things but I've eaten raspberries everyday for a month so it's not all bad.
Thank goodness the raspberries have been so good
The plan was to walk up the lane to photograph the oak trees at the end of each month but I didn't get there in June for some reason - it was probably raining.
Here they are in the middle of July, the leaves are darker than at the end of May and acorns are beginning to form, critters have moved in leaving their mark. Oak trees are host to so many insects.
In the fields each side of the lane the crops are growing and ripening - despite the awful weather.
Won't be long before the barley is ready for harvest
The Longlist for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing was released on Friday. It's the only book prize I like to look at and most years I've already read some of them.
This year I've not read a single one - but I have got Bothy on order from the library and will get around to the Garden Against Time by Olivia Laing sometime as she lives in Suffolk.
More information about the 2024 Longlist is HERE . If you like different sorts of nature writing this is a good place to find out more about some that have been popular this year.
The only way I could get past the sadness of Friday's post was to delete it without looking at, or having to read it again -in 11 years of blogging I've never felt the need to do that before.
The weather last week was mainly cloudy, heavy and humid (although yesterday was just plain chilly) and very headache inducing - at least I Hope that's the reason for the headaches I've been having. Just recently a neighbour and friend of BiL went to bed early with a headache and was fast asleep when her husband went to bed but when he woke in the morning he found her laying dead beside him - what an awful shock - since hearing that it feels worrying to go to sleep with a headache.
I had a very surreal experience last week when I spent an hour having a coffee in the church café with my x husband who I had not really seen since we split in 1978. We'd been together for 7 years from aged 16 and got engaged and married young as many people who didn't go to Uni did back then. I think he married 3 more times after me but I'm not sure he really knew how many! he's in the process of the current divorce! I don't regret our meeting and marrying all those years ago as otherwise I wouldn't have got involved in Scouting so wouldn't have met Colin, so wouldn't have had 38 wonderful years, three children and five grandchildren and all the smallholding life - plus getting on the housing ladder in 1975 turned out to be a very good thing from a purely material point of view. House prices started shooting up after that and Col and I might never have afforded anything!
It reminded me of the Grammar School Reunion in 1988 or was it 89?, 17 years after we had all left school, that was a very surreal evening too.
Yesterday was nearly the end of Wimbledon, I didn't watch the Women's final but the men's doubles was a really good match. It ends properly today with the Men's finals and then later the probable pain of watching England play football in the Euro finals. I'm not a fan of women's football so won't be watching their Euros qualifying and can't get cricket or golf for free so I reckon it's just the last week of the Tour de France to follow next week. Then a blank week before the Olympics.
I spotted information about an open day at Thelnetham windmill, on the Suffolk/Norfolk border not too far from home. Somewhere to visit that I'd not been before.
I bought a coffee and sandwich for my lunch in the other building on the site and picked up this interesting card below, showing some of the few remaining Suffolk windmills......there were once 500 around the county and would have been one in almost every village.
I've previously visited two others that are/were open to the public at Saxtead and Thorpeness (this isn't open either at the moment), but not for many years and most of these below are in private ownership, not open and no longer working. Saxtead is owned by English Heritage and the only windmill open regularly.
We lived not far from Friston mill when we were in the smallholding. Tim Whiting - who is the only Millwright in Suffolk and was at school with Son hopes to restore it ........one day!
First of all have to say thank you for all the comments yesterday about Redgrave Church - it's quite a special church. I keep being surprised at all I'm finding out about bits of history of Suffolk with my church adventures - I'm glad I started.
The 5th book with Summer in the title for Reading The Seasons was this.
Sweet Remnants of Summer by Alexander McCall Smith. In the Isobel Dalhousie Philosopher series set in Edinburgh.
I did say I wouldn't read anymore of these are they are all a bit 'same-y' and Isobel and Jamie are so perfect it's quite annoying!
But as it was a Summer titled book and I knew it would be quick and readable I gave it a go and it was similar to all the others with Isobel getting involved in other people's problems, editing her Philosophy newsletter and dealing with her Housekeeper and her children while the beautiful and perfect Jamie cooks up wonderful meals!
This church is now looked after by the Historic Churches Conservation Trust. When I visited the Chapel of Ease to this church in nearby Botesdale HERE. I wrote about the way the village walked away from St Marys Redgrave in 2004 when it became too expensive to maintain. They hoped the Trust would take it on and thankfully they did.
Here is what Simon Knott from The Suffolk Churches Index says about the recent history of the church
The cost and effort of maintaining this vast barn full of priceless treasures had become too great a burden for the small congregation, so they locked the doors and decamped to the village hall, declaring that St Mary was now no longer their responsibility. As you may imagine, this caused a certain amount of consternation. While Redgrave church is a building of national significance, there is a certain protocol required if you want to declare a building redundant and have it conveyed into the stewardship of the Churches Conservation Trust. Not being able to pay the repair bills is not considered a good enough reason to declare redundancy. Even so, the parish persisted, which rather placed the Diocese in a quandary. While their first responsibility was to the parishioners, they clearly did not have the resources needed to look after St Mary, and yet the church commissioners would have looked with some doubt on any attempt to declare the building redundant.
It was, in modern political parlance, uncharted territory. Nevertheless, it was obvious that the ultimate destination must be to ensure the future security and upkeep of the building, and so after eighteen months or so of what one imagines must have been fairly tense meetings, the church was conveyed into the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.
And in the meantime, something else had happened. The shock of the incident had galvanised some local people, including a few of the former congregation, to get together and form a group to look after St Mary. With the support of the Churches Conservation Trust this has become one of the most successful support groups in the county, putting on exhibitions and concerts for which the church is eminently suitable. Before the end of the decade, the Daily Telegraph newspaper awarded Redgrave church the prize of English Village Church of the Year.
The church stands on a small rise over a mile out of the village. From outside it's large but quite ordinary, except for the unusual white brick tower.
.........................by someone for a taste test. I'd not even thought about Aldi having any Artisan cheeses so it was a good bit of information...thank you to whoever.
Beacon Blue is on their Specially Selected bit of the cheese shelves, along with a couple of others.
Beacon Blue, our award-winning blue goat's cheese is silvery like the moon, silky smooth, creamy and fresh on the tongue, yet a good helping of peppery tang quickly develops leaving you craving more and more!
One of the reasons that our blue goat's cheese tastes so delicious is the freshness of our milk. The freshest goat's milk makes the best goat's cheese and ours comes every day from Nicola Butler’s herd on our family farm, just down the lane from our dairy.
There is no escaping it, we are a family business est. 1932. That’s what makes things exciting, and these family values are the bedrock of our culture. Richard and Annie started it, Jean and Tom nurtured it. Gill and Colin opened it, and the history page is just turning for Matthew and Daniel
Seven foot tall and appearing where no Hollyhocks have appeared before. These are out in the front border.
I've frequently tried to invite them into various gardens without much luck, although maybe one might have appeared in the back garden in my first year here? - never to be seen again.
BiL has lots growing every year right by his path to the back door. I never remember to collect seed pods to bring home - I'll try to remember this year.
It's been a mostly chilly week because Summer went away around midday on Tuesday. It came back briefly for a few hours on Thursday so people didn't get wet while going out to vote but Wednesday and Friday were horribly cold and grey and the wind on several days has had a real bite to it.
I raced around Monday morning getting loads of jobs done so I could watch the tennis and have been watching as much as possible all week. Thursday was the best day with so many Brits playing - all at once sometimes. Did you know there are 46 courts at Wimbledon if you include the practice courts and the 8 clay courts, I didn't, until it was a question on the Radio 2 Zoe Ball show mini quiz. Play on 18 main courts are often all on TV - difficult to choose.
I'd planned a swim again Friday but woke up feeling rough so cancelled that until next week, my own fault for getting cold when shopping.
This week I've been grateful for
Not sure what I'm doing this weekend.
So which of the bits of paper through the door earlier in the week was right? A new constituency so nothing to compare with last time.
I shall stroll up the road today to cast my vote in the General Election for a political party that have promised much but probably won't be able to achieve anything!
And as all of them have done that it's no help to you guessing who I'll vote for!
I finally got information through the letter box from all the other Parties standing, but the Green Party have certainly outdone the rest for pieces of paper - how very ironic.
So, will our new Waveney Valley constituency really put a Green Party MP into the Houses of Parliament or will tradition win out and the area remain blue Conservative? Or will we be one of the 'Huge swings to Labour' seats?
The two bits of 'propaganda' through the letter box yesterday completely contradict each other so we will have to wait and see.........
I hope everyone will go and vote, everyone should vote - it's your right and we don't have many rights left, and if you don't, you can't moan about the result.
Summer of Sport yesterday was cold and chilly and wet but Emma won through - well done that girl. Lots more Brits playing at Wimbledon today including several pairs in the Men's Doubles - much more interesting than election results! (can't believe that once, when I was very much younger, I stayed awake half the night listening to results coming in - mad)
Back Tomorrow........... when we'll know who we are to be governed by for the next 5 years.
Sue
Allowed into my 'not really a challenge' due to it's subtitle was this.....
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| Illustration by Eugene Grasset from the Illuminated Book Of Days edited by K and M Lee |
Julius Caesar the Roman Dictator who reformed the calendar in 46 BC named the month after himself, he was killed in the Ides Of March so that he couldn't proclaim himself Emperor. July often contains some good hot days sometimes referred to as Dog Days. At this time of year Sirius, the dog star, rises at the same time as the sun and was thought by the Romans to give the sun extra heat. The Dog Days are from July 3rd until August 11th .