Towards the End of March

Weird weather week here in Mid Suffolk and Wednesday had a really cold wind. Thursday morning a very thin layer of snow on the car roof. March Many Weathers for sure. 

It's good to have all the new ladies at Keep Moving Group but they all know each other so tend to only talk amongst themselves - difficult to get them to help with things too and to get them to stop talking!! Oh well, it's my fault for putting the group details on the local villages facebook pages! but previously it's just been one or two new people at a time. 11 is a bit overwhelming. The lady who has been leading our exercises for  a year now has been poorly so me and another lady have been sharing the leading. We have all the exercises written down and have been doing them for 3 years now so it's just a case of standing at the front and  working through them.

Being short of blog ideas I've already posted about virtually everything done in the kitchen this week except for making a big pan of pizza topping. It was two tins of plum tomatoes without the juice, onion chopped small and almost all of a red pepper, I saved a piece for my salad. Seasoned the mix with  oregano and divided into 5 portions.

I walked up the road to post a letter and saw this bundle of rhubarb for sale out the front of a house, luckily I had £1 in my pocket. I wiped them all and chopped and popped in the freezer. I shall add to some apple I have in the freezer and make a big crumble for when family are here after Easter.

This book below was a good read, a small girl growing up during the war years on the edge of London. 

In 1939, Valerie Braunston and her family hoped the war would pass them by in the quiet neighbourhood of Bush Hill Park, Enfield. But as the Blitz began, her carefree childhood became a daily fight for survival. Valerie endured air raids, rationing and a fractured education while London was battered for eight relentless months. By 1944, V-1 and V-2 rockets forced her evacuation to a pig farm in Lincolnshire, but she quickly plotted her return to London to pursue her dream of becoming an actress.

Years later, after Valerie moved into care at 88, her son found a manuscript while clearing out her house. Discovered beside a jammed-up typewriter, it captured her memories of that time, infused with her humour and resilience.

I've also finished the book by James Rebanks - The Place of Tides.

One afternoon many years ago, James Rebanks met an old woman on a remote Norwegian island. She lived and worked alone on a tiny rocky outcrop, caring for wild Eider ducks and gathering their down. Hers was a centuries-old trade that had once made men and women rich, but had long been in decline. Still, somehow, she seemed to be hanging on.

Back at home, Rebanks couldn’t stop thinking about the woman on the rocks. She was fierce and otherworldly – and yet strangely familiar. Years passed. Then, one day, he wrote her a letter, asking if he could return. Bring work clothes, she replied, and good boots, and come quickly: her health was failing. And so he travelled to the edge of the Arctic to witness her last season on the island.

This is the story of that season. It is the story of a unique and ancient landscape, and of the woman who brought it back to life. It traces the pattern of her work from the rough, isolated toil of bitter winter, to the elation of the endless summer light, when the birds leave behind their precious down for gathering, like feathered gold.

Another excellent book and the last of my library books until next week- reading from my shelves for the next few days then.

 Clocks Forward this weekend, have to remember how to do the car clock again - it's easy - once I remember. Have a good weekend - I'll be back Monday.