Book Talk

  The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah is another excellent well written story from this author. I picked up my copy from a jumble sale, grabbing it quick when I spotted it in a pile of books. 

This is the Amazon blurb

This story is about what it was like to be a woman during World War II, when women’s stories were all too often forgotten or overlooked . . . Vianne and Isabelle Mauriac are two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals and passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path towards survival, love and freedom in war-torn France.

It was an excellent story, well written and researched and especially thought provoking as I was reading it just prior to National Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The library have more Kristin Hannah books than they had a while ago but still none of the earlier novels - pre 2003. The books they do have in stock have good sized waiting lists so she's become a very popular author this side of the pond, with over fifty people still waiting for her 2024 publication - The Women.

I've now read five  of her most recent seven books because for some reason I didn't read Home Front when I had it on loan and have reserved True Colours (2009) and can reserve Another Life, Between Sisters and Wild.

Has anyone read her earlier books? I'm wondering if they are worth looking for on Abe books or Amazon or is she an author who's got better with time?

A few weeks ago I'd got down to only half a dozen books on my library reserved list and went through my 'Book of Books Read' to see if any of my favourite authors had had books published without me knowing! 

I was able to reserve Murder at St Paul's Cathedral, Murder at Whitechapel Road Station and Murder at Lords Station all by Jim Eldridge who seems to write about 3 books a year - pretty good going........that's what I call prolific, although they are not 'classics' they are quite readable. 

Somehow I'd missed hearing about the new series by Elly Griffiths, starting with The Frozen people so I'm 235th on the waiting list, luckily they've got 80 copies so should be a few months rather than years. I also found a new book by Alys Clare - The Chrysanthemum Tiger in her Gabriel Taverner series and Spoilers Prey by Robin Blake the most recent in his Titus Cragg series.

Now there are already  six books on the way for February mobile library visit and another 13 reserved, which looks much more promising.

In the meantime, the book I've been reading this last week is  Arthur Ransome's Winter Holiday - The Swallows and Amazons plus two extra children. Only my 3rd Winter book for the Reading The Seasons not-really-a-challenge which has just 4 weeks left.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

The Week

 Thanks for the messages on Monday. Nothing was wrong but nothing much was happening this week apart from lots of tidying up and reading and I knew I wouldn't be able to conjure up ideas for blog posts.

 I had a few days under the weather last week with no energy, but struggled on as the Surrey family were here for the weekend. They were away in Thailand for Christmas so hadn't had Christmas presents from every one.

 I made Quorn korma curry plus Indian bits for 11 on Saturday evening. The Suffolk families were here too so cousins could spend as much time as possible together, and then we went out for a big family meal at a local pub on Sunday lunchtime before they headed off home.

 I've never complained about a meal out before but as we were booking a table for 12 (BiL came too) son did  a pre-order. Unfortunately they had forgotten we had pre-ordered and we ended up waiting well over an hour for our meal - you can imagine how 'hangry' the 5 grandchildren got! I wasn't impressed at all so negotiated a discount off our bill. The food wasn't the best anyway - cold plates make cold vegetables. We won't go there again! It's BiL's local and he said they never seem to have enough staff even on a normal evening.

So since Sunday I've been resting up and reading between stripping beds, cleaning the bathroom, doing washing, sorting toys back onto the shelves in the small bedroom and generally tidying up after having 4 extra people in the house. Nothing interesting. Nothing to blog about - Oh I see I just have!

Also this week I'm sure I aged as my 70+ driving licence renewal form came through the post, ready for April - it was easy to fill in so that's been done, and then, just to make me remember I'm almost 70 my knees started hurting even when not getting up from a chair!

All Jolly Good Fun!

Back Soon

Sue

Short Break

Just having some quiet time, back in a few days.

Sue

St Mary Magdalene, Thornham Magna

 The church here is all about the Henniker family. They own the huge Thornham Estate all around the church. Much of the land is open to the public with Thornham Walks being a well known part of the estate for over 40 years.

I was pleased to see the little Church Open sign hanging on the side of the new Lych gate

 

Large and ornate porch

The  church has many stained glass windows, even in the porch - the one below

The text over the door

I liked the intricate door handle

The view down the nave, with the Christmas tree and nativity set still out

Many memorial stained glass windows for various members of the Henniker families in the past

The church seems to have two pulpits - I don't think this one below is used

This pulpit is the one that's in use

Several corbels of faces in the chancel roof

The church still has it's rood screen, with Christmas decorations

This ornate memorial to one of the Henniker family

Memorials go from pre Victorian right up to C20

A very Victorian church - more information here on the Suffolk Churches Website


Back in a few days

Sue

The Corvid Family

 Crows or Rooks?

Crows are usually seen on their own whereas rooks are nearly always in large groups. I confused people a while ago when I quoted the old saying " A rook on it's own is a crow and a crow in a group is a rook". That's just a saying to help decide which bird you are looking at and doesn't mean the same bird has two different names.  

But  what about when there are two birds over the road in the graveyard? Rooks or Crows?

Here's the illustrations and descriptions from the book "An Illustrated Country Year" by Celia Lewis

They are definitely not Ravens, Jackdaws or Jays. I decided that they are two crows...........probably. 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

The Lake in Winter

Thanks to everyone for comments yesterday, I'm glad most people didn't take me too seriously!

On Sunday morning I decided to go and look at the nearest body of water in the hope that the reflection of light on water would improve a dull day.

This is Needham Lake, next door to where the big boot-sale is held on Saturdays later in the year. I wasn't the only person to have the idea and there were families everywhere with children on scooters and in pushchairs walking the circular path round the lake. There's a bit about the lake HERE.

Most of the birds on the lake were mallard ducks, and various gulls, moorhens and a couple of swans.

The only other interesting bird was a little egret - below cleaning his feathers- a poor photo  - who flew off when I got a bit closer.

It was 3℃, damp and chilly and I didn't hang around long.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Bad Blogger

 Comments go into spam and I don't notice until hours/days later

I'm not constantly checking for comments

People comment on old posts and I don't look back or reply

I don't leave comments on all the blogs I read, sometimes I'm so bad I don't leave a comment on any

Sometimes I don't even look at the lap top later in the day so don't see comments or new posts

I don't have anything set up on my phone to tell me when someone has commented like some folk have

I don't let blogging take over my life - that way madness lies.................

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Two Coffee Mornings and A Jumble Sale

 Two coffee mornings and a Jumble Sale................. all on the same day ........all before lunch .................I really know how to live the high life!!

I walked to the first coffee morning in the (very small) Old Schoolroom, it should have been in the URC church but they've got ceiling issues - which will be a problem for all the organisations that use it. I've mentioned before that we don't have a proper village hall and the community centre large hall, which is part of the primary school, so not available most of the time, is too expensive to hire for many groups. 

It was so crowded I didn't stay longer than the time it took to have some tombola tickets - won nothing - and buy a small pack of chocolate brownies.

This was a fundraiser for the village Over 60's Meal in March,  which I've never been to -  might get there this year although it's a cooked meal in the late evening which I'm not keen on. There's entertainment too so it's several hours on a hard chair - not good for my back at all.

The second coffee morning was the regular monthly one in the next village - where BiL lives, he'd said he was going so I went over to treat him to a coffee........ hope he'll cut the grass for me with his motor mower sometime so have to treat him when I can! 

Full house for coffee

Then it was drive on through two villages to the Jumble Sale, which was being held in a tiny village hall, with an equally tiny car park. Last time I went to a jumble sale here (blimey it was 4 years ago!) it was chaos on the roads around, not so bad this year but there was a good queue to get in, and it was a case of squeezing through the crowds to get to the tables and jumping into a space when someone moved.

A good queue waiting to get into very small village hall

I spent £2.50 on these things - an advent calendar, two small lock and lock plastic boxes, a puzzle-a-day pad, Kristin Hannah book that I've not read for my shelves and one of those chocolate 'bomb' things that makes a hot chocolate drink. I've bought these a few times for presents but rarely for myself.

On reflection I think the puzzle-a-day thing will be given as a gift - I didn't get far with the colouring-a-day book - gave up on about the 5th - I'd rather be reading. I'm already attempting 4 puzzles a day on the NYT Wordle website and have a Puzzler book on the go, that'll do.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Through Another Week, Dull with No Photos

 Nowhere near so cold this week just gone, but milder means damper and grey at this time of year. It was often gloomy by 4pm even if sunset was gradually getting later by a minute or two each day. When you can't see the sun for thick cloud those minutes are really meaningless. 

The week hasn't been very exciting ...Dentist, Keep Moving Group, prescription review, bit of gardening, bit of shopping, swimming and snooker on TV. 

The trip to the dentist was OK, yet another filling needed so that's another tooth rescued for a while and it didn't take too long. I pondered on going into the town centre or to one of the out of town big supermarkets or Dunelm etc but couldn't be bothered, there's nothing I need so just went home.

Years ago the annual Prescription Review meant actually going into the health centre and speaking with the doctor, then it changed to a phone call with the doctor from the health centre and now it's a phone call with some random person who knows nothing about you or the health centre that you go to. Usually it's quite quick - but this week a doctor(?)pharmacist (?) grilled me for what seemed like ages - but mostly she wanted to know what I would do if I had suicidal thoughts!! I said I'd no idea as that was unlikely to happen but she said I  should turn to friends or family or call  someone so I had to assure her that I would but as Norfolk and Suffolk Mental Health service is struggling......

30 Oct 2024 — The region's troubled mental health trust is still not meeting the needs of its patients, according to a damning new report.

...................I'm not sure much help is actually available.

Then she got onto the "taking Statins" talk, but I said no thank you and then the "increasing the dose of blood pressure tablets" talk so I had to agree to go and get a check up again.

The call finished eventually but not before she'd told me that statistics show that I have a 15% chance of some sort of trauma (heart attack or similar) in the next 10 years. Well, that's good to know as it means I have an 85% change of NOT having a heart attack or stroke. In 10 years time I'll be almost 80 anyway. If I get to that milestone I'll have done well I reckon, considering the amount of cancer in the family history and anyway I don't want to live forever!

One of the two new people at Keep Moving Group returned for a second week and several others who'd not been regularly for a while turned up so we were 13 in total which is good. I've put a note on the Facebook pages of local villages again as there is still room for more.

Gardening was just cutting down another of the huge Buddleias - only half of what I'd cut fitted into the garden waste bin. They put on 6 foot of new growth in a year whatever the weather!

Swimming wasn't the best experience as there were two women walking (?) up and down the middle of the pool talking non stop and not looking where they were going, and it's not a big pool, and three girls with very severe learning difficulties who were in the pool each with a helper plus another helper too. Good to see them enjoying the water but one of the girls shrieks at the top of her voice - and by golly she's loud! 

That's it. An unexciting week, quite boring to write and very boring to read!!

Back Monday

Sue

Racing Through Books

 I've already read more books in January than I did in the whole of December and by coincidence there are 3 books of short stories.

Edited by Martin Edwards - Lessons in Crime. These 15 short stories are all set in schools or university and range from Arthur Conan Doyle to a surprise modern story from Jacqueline Wilson.

Sylvia Townsend Warner - Winter in the Air. Some of these short stories are so short and very weird. I read this for my 'Reading the Seasons' Thing.

Elizabeth Anthony - Dramatic Murder. This was originally published in 1948 and lost until the BLCC reprint in 2024. Playwright Dimpsie McCabe has invited all his friends from the theatre world to join him at his castle in Scotland for Christmas. However, the festivities haven't even started when two latecomers find Dimpsie dead amongst the branches of his Christmas tree that he had been decorating. The death seems to be accidental caused by faulty electrics but when another member of the party dies a few weeks later the police and some of Dimpsie's friends become suspicious.

Edited by Vaseem Khan - Murder in Harrogate; Stories inspired by the Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival. All these stories are by modern crime writers and are set in Harrogate in Yorkshire. Some are set in the early part of the twentieth century and others are up to date.

Evie Woods - The Story Collector. A two time-line book although the 1911 part is read from a diary. In 1911 Ireland, Anna, a young farm girl, volunteers to help an intriguing American visitor translate the old stories of the fairy world for his university studies. In 2011 USA Sarah Harper boards a plane for the west coast of Ireland, she was supposed to be heading to her parents home in Boston  and is running away from sadness and a failed marriage.

That's 5 library books read and returned.

Before Christmas I changed my pick up point for library books to Stowmarket as there was a book almost on it's way that I wanted to get before the January library van visit. Then I forgot to change it back when I reserved some other books so these were picked up from town yesterday.

I was reminded about the book about the shipping forecast when Deb in West Wales wrote about some radio programmes/ podcasts about the shipping forecast and thought I'd take another look at this book.

The other two are both crime fiction, one old republished and the other not quite so old from 2019  by an author who's been writing this Sloan and Crosby police series since 1966.

Plenty to read now.

Back Tomorrow 

Sue

That Spot the Difference Jigsaw Again

 If you had the patience or could be bothered to go back and forward over the two pictures on Tuesday's post then you might have spotted the 15 differences in the puzzle that's now - very handily in Just-Stay-In-January - filled two blog posts!!

The Differences that I found

1. The puzzle has 3 extra rosehips
2. Different Inn Sign
3. Girl holding spade instead of bucket
4. Boy has different coloured trousers
5. The gate has changed colour
6. The chimney on the main house is shorter
7. The white dog is different
8. The Great Tit changed to a Long Tailed Tit
9. Man on sledge has different hat
10. Wheelbarrow facing opposite way
11. Door on house closed instead of open
12. Different church steeple and cross
13. Bus radiator and grill and lights different
14. Pot by house porch different colourway
15. Snowman's scarf is striped

Back Tomorrow if I can think of something to write!

Sue

The Plane that Goes Round and Round

 We don't have any airports in Suffolk and Norwich Airport in Norfolk isn't anything like Gatwick, Heathrow and Stanstead so we don't get dozens of low flying aircraft passing overhead like so many people live with in much of the UK.

But most Mondays this giant machine flies low overhead circling round and round before disappearing into the skies above West Suffolk.

The Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker provides the core aerial refuelling capability for the United States Air Force and has excelled in this role for more than 50 years. This unique asset enhances the Air Force's capability to accomplish its primary mission of global reach. It also provides aerial refuelling support to Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and allied nation aircraft.

The ones in the UK are part of the 351st Air Refuelling Squadron, they are based at  RAF Mildenhall - which is one of the USAF bases in this country and are some of the 400 that the USAF possess. From Suffolk they head out into Europe, and when they come back often circle several times before finally going back to base in West Suffolk

If you've not come across the website - Globe Airplanes Live it's interesting to know what's happening overhead -the number of aircraft in the skies at anyone time is enough to put a person off flying ever again!

Back Soon

Sue

Spot The Difference Jigsaw

 The January Jigsaw is finished. There are 15 difference between the box lid and the actual jigsaw, how many can you spot?

Most are spot-able despite the size of the finished puzzle picture

Box Lid Picture

The actual puzzle completed.

A couple of close-ups to help

 I'll do a list on Thursday.

Now I can get the puzzle away and table empty because I need it for sorting out the 2024 paperwork folder, filing the things to keep and chucking what isn't needed. I won't be starting another puzzle until the end of January when the Surrey family have been and gone.

Back Tomorrow

Sue.

The Coldest Day?

 There are mentions in British folklore books that January 13th is always the coldest day of the year. I don't know how someone came up with this date back in history (except that it was the first day of The Great Frost of 1205) as surely it must depend on where you live. 

Saturday was the coldest day here for a while, with a hard frost overnight and then fog in the morning and the frost and bits of fog hung around all day - not a lot of sun as on previous days. I'd already decided I wasn't going anywhere so didn't put the windscreen cover on the car. It's annoying that the garage isn't big enough to get my car into when the weather is so cold but the windscreen cover works well for when I know I'm going out early after a frosty night. 

In some books today is St Hilary's Day, but in others it's the 14th, I wrote about him last year so won't repeat myself,  last year the 13th wasn't at all cold and we'd not had many frosts, this year there have been frosts every night for a week.

Tonight is the first Full Moon of 2024 - The Stay at Home Moon. I've not been staying at home as much as I thought because as well as Keep Moving Group and shopping, I booked a swim, picked up DiL and the two grandchildren from school one afternoon when Son had the car, visited YD and EGD yesterday and today have an unexpected trip to the dentist after a filling or a tooth - not quite sure which yet- broke just after Christmas. Thankfully the one benefit of having to go private due to there being no NHS dentists is getting into see someone quickly - although it'll cost me a chunk of money. 

Thank you to everyone for comments on Saturday. It's amusing that my post about seeing someone they recognise on TV seemed to morph into comments about  meeting someone famous. I've never met anyone famous - I feel I'm missing out.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Saturday Notes

I've seen two people I 'sort of' know on TV recently. One was on the special Festive editions of University Challenge. Diamaid (pronounced Dermot) McCullough was the son of the Vicar in Wetherden when I was at primary school there although he went to a private prep school. He went onto Stowmarket Grammar School but was three years older  than me. He's now an Emeritus Professor of the History of the Church of England and has written several books.

The other person I saw that I recognised was on the Digging For Britain programme this week where they were at the archaeology site at Leiston where the company that Son works for as an archaeologist and YD works as a site administrator, are working, in preparation for Sizewell C  power station. It wasn't either of them on the programme but the guy who'd been the lucky person to find a hoard of coins is the husband of one of ED's high school friends. 

Considering the number of people who take part in TV programmes and the number of people we know or meet in a lifetime seems it's rare to actually see anyone we know on TV - the only other I can remember was about 15 years ago when someone I knew in the 70s was on Bargain Hunt. Or it might just be me I guess, maybe everyone else sees people they know all the time!

As well as Digging for Britain on TV this week. Both Silent Witness and The Good Ship Murder were back for new series and something new, another police thing, called Patience which is about an Autistic woman helping the police. It was a bit odd and contrived I thought. When I googled it to see how many episodes there were (6) I found it had been completely slated by some of the critics for the depiction of someone with Autism.

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I was on a really good run with Wordle, with 60+ correct in a row and then this Wednesday for some unknown reason I completely forgot to do it - Very Annoyed with myself! So now there's a long way to go to overtake my best run of 86 - Grrrrr! I do the mini crossword too and attempt the connections - but usually fail.

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Hello to penfriend Peggy! 👋 in Canada.  Had a lovely Christmas card from her this week,

 they've had postal strikes there so it took a while to get here. We used to write often but now I'm a bad penfriend who writes rarely but Peggy reads the blog. I used to have several penfriends but with the cost of postage and blogging being so easy I'm now the lazy and hopeless penfriend!

The card has a painting by Thomas Kinkade whose pictures can also be found on very difficult jigsaw puzzles - I'm glad my House of Puzzles January jigsaw was easier and is now finished so will be a Spot the Difference post next week.

Peggy said in her card that they didn't have forest fires close to where she is during the summer last year, thankfully, sometimes they get frighteningly close. The devastation of the Los Angeles fires in the US have been on TV news here, so many people have lost everything, it's heart-breaking to see and still goes on, even houses right down on the beaches have gone. Several people have died, looting has started and someone was  illegally flying a drone that hit one of the planes spraying fire retardant - what a crazy world.

Hope you have a good weekend, keep warm, especially if you are 'up north' in the snowy bits of the UK, down here in Suffolk it's just been frosty but with sunshine so hasn't felt too bad.

Back Monday

Sue

The January Library Book Photo

 Brought home from the library van yesterday were these few. I've only got nine others reserved  so at this rate I'll be running out of reading matter. I'd better do a search to find some others to reserve.

I know I'll like the crime by Ann Granger and Candice Robb and the book by Claire Keegan will be another quick read. The other two are an  unknown quantity so I'll see how they go.

These were the books brought home last month. I didn't read the Ann Cleeves book as it was one of the series with Vera's finale on TV over Christmas. I also didn't read the two by Louise Scarr. I still have two of these below to read.

Right, I'm off to check my book of books read and Fantastic Fiction to see if any of my favourite authors have written anything new that I can reserve.

Back Soon

Sue

Crinkle Crankle Walls

Many of the Crinkle Crankle, Serpentine or Wavy walls in the country are in Suffolk.

This one isn't far from home, it's in the small town of Eye . A few  others I know are in the villages of Bramfield, Bacton, and Easton and in Saxmundham town centre.

In Eye it is around Chandos Lodge

I was parked right by this one when I visited Bramfield church months ago. (The spots are rain on the lens)

There are now over 100 in Suffolk as they are still being built but  many of the older ones have been Grade II Listed, so can't be altered. 

 These walls are actually cheaper to build than a long straight wall as they needed no pillars, buttresses or bracing and were better at reducing wind damage, some were built around kitchen gardens and those south facing used as protection for fruit trees grown against them

It's thought the idea may have been brought here by Dutch Engineers who arrived in the mid 1600's to sort out the drainage of the Fens, the Dutch called them slangenmuur or snake walls. At that time the word crink meant 'twisty'. Some references say that Crinkle Crankle are Suffolk Dialect words that have spread across the country.

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 The words Crinkle Crankle are an example of Ablaut Reduplications!! 

(....Ablaut reduplication, or ablaut-motivated compounding, is a type of word formation of "expressives" (such as onomatopoeia or ideophones), in which words are formed by reduplication of a base and alternation of the internal vowel.)

There's lots more about the walls and the words on wiki of course and as usual someone in Suffolk with plenty of time has compiled a list!

Back Tomorrow

Sue

A Winter Book, a Snow Jigsaw, Keep Moving and Apple Crumble

 The short stories in this book were weird but I got to the end. It's only the second book with winter in the title so I thought I'd better finish it and it needs to go back to the library anyway.

The jigsaw puzzle is coming along and I'm way past how far I got with the other snow jigsaw before I gave up, this one has more colour and less snow and sky. This is a 'Spot the Difference' puzzle but I won't tell you what they are as I'll make it into a blog post when it's done.

I put a note on some of the local face book groups to tell people about the Keep Moving Group and we had 2 new ladies come along, which is good. Numbers have dropped from a high of 16 down to eight or nine due to illness, being busy elsewhere and winter colds and flu. We only had two weeks off over Christmas and New Year but we all felt so unfit! (or maybe that was just me!) Personally I feel Fat! need to get moving more so I came home and booked a swim. It's a pain going swimming in winter with so many layers to take off and put on but needs must. I'm hopeful that the Stradbroke pool will be quieter as the next nearest pool along the Norfolk/Suffolk border at Diss is reopening after being shut for a nearly two year re-build.

This apple crumble will do nothing for the weight but was delicious and next year I'd like to find more free cooking apples to put in the freezer. I don't keep ice cream in the freezer all the time  but got some in as a just-in-case thing at Christmas and didn't use it but I'll save most for the end of the month when the Surrey boys are here

Back Tomorrow

Sue