An advantage of retirement

One of the perks of not going out to work is that you have more time to do the things you like doing.  Working full-time and having work to bring home most evenings meant that the pleasure of losing myself in a book was mainly confined to holiday times. 

I enjoy reading a variety of genres and often my choice of reading is dictated by the books I find for sale in charity shops or those that friends share.  Once I find an author I particularly enjoy reading, I try to find other books by the same author. If the author has written a series based around a character, then there is the challenge of finding the other titles in the correct order.    

About nine months ago I joined the reading group at the local library. Meetings are held once a month and a group of about ten of us discuss the months chosen read.  It is lead by one of the librarians, who chooses a book for the group – or asks a group member to select the book.  The variety of books selected is wide and I am now reading books that I would not necessarily have picked – so far, most have been to my taste. 

The group is all female – perhaps it is like this for most reading groups.  The discussions around the books show a variety of views – justifying what you think about a character or scenario keeps the mind alive.  We exchange opinions, challenge views and laugh a lot – an hour soon goes.  Meeting new people is a bonus.

At the beginning of this week the group met and our new book is a historical novel, the first one since I joined the group.  It is set in Tudor England, ‘The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory’, and I don’t think it will last me until our next meeting.  To me, it is a page-turner!  The author knows how to keep her readers engaged with the long and complicated plot.

Things I should have posted in 2012.

The first week of the New Year has already gone and I have not made the time to post.

In spite of RM setting a good example and the thoughts that I should at least be able to manage one post a week … so much for good intentions.

Well in 2012 I should have posted my elder sister’s special birthday – we held a surprise party.

For Christmas we went to Wallasey – it was busy – but good to spend time with the family- sorry no pictures.

After Christmas we travelled to Haughton near Stafford  to view the Christmas lights – every year a lot of the residents in the village decorate the outside of their houses and attract lots of visitors who are invited to donate towards a variety of charities.

 

The New Year has brought more rain – note the fields on the way to the town look more like a lake.

 Well – first post of 2013 – I shall continue to have good intentions.

The Saga Continues

Holiday Snaps - Day 2 - Sunday 

The men went to Silverstone to watch the Superbikes Grand Prix.  They said they had a good time but there is no photographic evidence to share.  They brought back flags, supplied by one of the sponsors of the races and autographed posters of some of the riders and bikes.

The ladies went to Oxford, by car to an out-of-town Park and Ride car park, then by bus to the town centre.  We ate at a small café.  We wandered round the Botanic Gardens.  We spent some time in the Ashmolean Museum ..... attached to the University of Oxford, antiquities collections range from Paleolithic to Victorian, from Egypt to Britain .....  www.ashmolean.org

Looking at the autumn border - it was quite sunny for a while.

Ducks resting on the edge of one of the water features.

Even Botanic Gardens have weeds!

Where else but Oxford?

The return journey - back at the Park and Ride car park.

A holiday in pictures

Just a few of the hundreds of photos taken during the recent visit of the Goertzens to the UK. 

Holiday Snaps - Day 1 - Saturday 

Our visitors arrived at Heathrow and after we had travelled back to Mollington near to Banbury we went for a meal at the National Herb Centre - then we walked around the fields that are part of the Centre.

A view from the top of the hill.

                                        

 A good day for taking photographs - Bernice at the ready. 

We started at the top of the hill.

                                                            It was a long way down.                    

      Time to rest in the summerhouse at the bottom of the hill before the return journey.

 And the Sun shone all day.....

The National Herb Centre

Life is returning to normal after the much anticipated visit of our son and his wife and her parents to the UK, on their way to a holiday in Spain.

After they had flown out from Gatwick  to Madrid we still had two days of holiday left so we decided to make the most of it by travelling around the Cotswolds.

During the last day we visited the National Herb Centre which was only a couple of miles from the house we stayed in and we enjoyed scones and a pot of tea.  We’d visited twice with our visitors, on the first and last day of their stay. 

Although it was almost time for their café to close we were not hurried and we chatted with the waitress as she cleared away from our meal.  Round the walls of the café are watercolours and photographs (for sale) and we had admired the paintings since our first visit when we viewing the holiday house to see if it suited our purposes.

We told the waitress how much I had liked the painting of the periwinkles which was no longer on the wall, and wished we had bought it when we first saw it a few weeks ago. 

It turns out that she was the artist and that the painting had not been sold but taken down to make room for another of her watercolours.  She was able to fetch the painting from another part of the building and we bought it straight away.  I told her that I specially liked the painting because the same flowers were growing in my garden and that I had grown them from a cutting from my  mother’s garden many years ago – she likewise had them in her garden from her mother’s garden.  Periwinkles are very much a cottage garden plant and a favourite in such gardens.

I don’t know who was more pleased – the waitress-artist for making a sale – or us for obtaining the painting that we thought was no longer available.  It will bring back happy memories of the holiday.

Upgrading the Homestead.

Our front door has a very small letterbox – for years postmen have battled with delivering our mail and many ignore the ‘do not bend’ pleas on the envelopes, so we end up with creased and crumpled mail.  We’ve trained our regular postman.  He rings the doorbell to deliver the mail that won’t easily fit – but for this to be successful, we have to be at home!

At last we have solved the problem.  We’ve bought a metal post-box that can be fitted to the outside of the house and the opening is big enough to take most of our letters without them being folded.  It will even take the free newspapers that are delivered on a weekly basis.

Frank has fitted the box level with the door letterbox by the side of the front door. 

                                                       

 

It looks smart and works well – no damaged post so far – but we miss the sound of the letters dropping on the doormat in the hall.

A tale of woe.

The Potato Harvest

Since the inauguration of the veg patch I have planted potatoes and had a good return at harvest time.  This year ‘proper’ seed potatoes were purchased from a reputable garden centre and were planted in the correct season so I had high hopes.

Now potatoes love water but this season’s rainy spells have been too much, even for potatoes.  The tops of the plant die down when the crop is ready for lifting but the tops started to die down too early.  On close examination it looked like there was a problem and I thought they were suffering from blight – the sort that devastated the potato harvests in Ireland during the Great Famine in the 1840s.  

Looking to the internet for advice the recommendation was to cut off the foliage before the spores could get into the soil and then into the tubers.  The tops were removed and leaving the crop alone for three weeks (to allow the blight spores on the surface to die) the tubers were dug out. 

 








Oh dear – the quantity was fine but the quality was not good. The potatoes were not mushy like I expected but were covered with scab to varying degrees – perhaps it wasn’t blight after all. Back to the internet – the potatoes don’t look pretty but they are edible!