Reading challenge

This month my local library service has launched a reading challenge for adults that has me intrigued. Now, I've always struggled with reading books because I have to - prize winners and the latest "best-thing-since-... " tend to pass me by until all the hype dies down and unlike many librarians I've never felt comfortable with joining a reading group for personal reading although I've helped launch and pick books for many in my time and know they bring a lot of joy and satisfaction to many people.

It's probably my own control freak tendencies kicking in but I also tend to think - so many books, so little time, why force yourself to finish something just because? Having said that, contrary creature that I am, I do like a recommendation, a "have you tried" or an "I like this and thought it might appeal". In fact some of my favourite reads of the year have come via your blogs, twitter recommendations and the like - so thank you to everyone who takes the time to list what they've read, review it or even just add a picture of their bookshelves to their posts.

So what's intriguing about this challenge? It doesn't give you a list of specific books but of themes or starting points - a book set somewhere you have never been, a book you've lied about reading, a book that starts with a crime and so on for 25 different possibilities including the super-odd, a book the cat would approve of!  As a down-side it looks like a lot of the chatty activity will be going on on Facebook and I don't play with Facebook but they have a blog and twitter too. So, as I seem to be reading a lot anyway at the moment I think I'm going to have a play. I'll keep track on here using the label "Library reading challenge 2019"and post links to anything shared on their site that I think others might like.

Watch this space....

Book Review - Diane Setterfield - Once upon a river

"A dark midwinter’s night. The Swan, an ancient inn on the banks of the Thames. The regulars are entertaining themselves by telling stories when the door bursts open on an injured stranger.

 In his arms is the corpse of a drowned child.

Hours later the dead girl stirs, takes a breath and returns to life. Is it a miracle? Is it magic? Or can it be explained by science?

And who exactly is the little girl? As news spreads of the child who drowned and lived again, three families come to claim her, and the stories of three lost girls (and a missing pig) come to light. In the background is the river itself: powerful, unknowable, lifegiving and lifetaking.

There is talk of a ferryman who appears to those who get into trouble on the river … But at the Swan Inn, is anything ever just a story?"

✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

Yet again I can't remember where I saw this mentioned but I am so glad I added it to the wish-list. Once upon a river is a beautifully-crafted tale that weaves in and out of the lives of people living along the river and the mysterious tale of the girl who died but didn't that emerges over the course of a year. At turns fabulous and ethereal yet it also feels firmly rooted in the everyday lives of farmers, villagers and innkeepers, villains and gentlefolk. Re-counting both the cruelty and kindnesses that ordinary people visit on each other, it has been a wonderful read. There is blackmail, murder and kidnap here but there is also love, redemption and hope. The river is at the heart of everything and the story twists and turns along it, pulling you very willingly with it. It is most definitely set in the past and has that rooted feel of a story that could have been told around all manner of Winter firesides for a very long time. As you may have guessed, Once upon a river has really resonated with me and will be something I'll want to savour for a while before moving on to another story.

Borrowed as an e-book from the library app so no pretty cover pictures to share I'm afraid but a link to the author's website is here and the ISBNs for those that prefer to hunt that way: Ebook: ISBN 9781473555815; Paperback ISBN 9780857525659.

This is the author's third novel and I will definitely be looking at the other two - The thirteenth tale and Bellman & Black - but maybe not straightaway.

Book review - John Lewis-Stempel - The wood - the life and times of Cockshutt Wood

"A wood is different to a forest. A wood is wild, but not so wild it is frightening. You cannot get physically lost in a wood, only spiritually and imaginatively absorbed." from the Preface.

This morning I finished reading John Lewis-Stempel's  - The wood. I've seen his writing recommended in several places and thought it was time to dip my toes. A diary based on his last year living with a mixed woodland as part of his farm in Herefordshire it's peppered with beautiful haunting imagery, practical observations, wry humour, poetry, quotations and even the odd recipe. This is wood managed in the old way - livestock is grazed here, "pests" shot and usually eaten, wood and other crops harvested and room made for nature in a practical part-of-everyday life way. It is not a woodland left to run wild, it's not a playground, it is a core part of his life.
There is joy, sadness, beauty and cruelty - after all nature does it all and this is a diary. I enjoyed the style of the writing and found it really easy to follow which was unexpected as I'm not a huge non-fiction reader by habit. The vegetarian in me wasn't offended by the hunting or husbandry descriptions - the writing is just too matter-of-fact, this is how it is, for that kind of nonsense to creep in. I also learned things in that gentle way you do when the writing is easy and facts generously shared - I didn't realise we call people crabby because of the tartness of the crab apple or that a shrew only lives for a year, I didn't know about tree hay used to supplement animal feed nor that grey squirrels will eat baby birds and eggs.

I'd also never heard this beautiful poem of Rudyard Kipling's set to music before but was inspired to see if it had on reading it in the midsummer entries:

This is a thoroughly recommended read and I think I might be heading off to find others of his soon.


There are no pictures of the book itself as I borrowed this one from my local library using their free Ebook service and as it is Libraries Week this week I thought they deserved a plug. Warwickshire use Borrow Box for Ebooks and Eaudio and I've found it really easy to use, wherever you are I'm sure  your local libraries will have similar services to supplement the traditional print ones as well as so much else going on so why not check it out?

(Disclaimer: I worked for Warwickshire Libraries until my diagnosis but that's by the by!)

Want to find a copy of the book?
Ebook ISBN:9781473542532
Print ISBN:9780857524584

Good day

For a chemo day it has been a good one. It all started with a lovely author on Twitter called Tom Cox pronouncing that I'd won a copy of his beautiful book  just because I'd retweeted his tweet - watch this space for photos and review!! It's been on my wish-list for a while and I nearly ordered it this week - I hardly ever enter these draws and have never ever won anything like that before - to say I am excited is an understatement.

Chemo went as well as these things can - the staff are wonderful and kind, J kept me company (after a very quick and soggy trip to the shops nearby to pick up weekend snacks), there was a rainbow to be seen in the sky and I now know all my appointments for the next month so we can make a plan - the treatment itself just happens whilst you sit there - I'll be really tired again for the next few days but that's ok.

The weather kindly decided to give us about half an hour of dry after dinner so J helped me have a potter around the back garden just to say hello to the plants and see all the jobs he did yesterday - shuffling tomato plants to try and encourage the last few beefy ones to ripen before blight hits, finally putting the sweet-pea plant out of its misery which meant a last few blooms to add to the living room vase and transplanting some old grape hyacinth bulbs out of a pot and into the pond bank so they will be little dots of amongst the ferns in the spring.

This week's rain has refreshed everything and the starry asters are now blooming too, the dahlias and roses are a bit bedraggled but nonetheless beautiful, the rudbeckia, monarda, verbena, fuschias and scabious continue to flourish and provide colour and all in all it's looking lovely out there out there at the moment. I could hear lots of buzzing and our wanders disturbed a few moths and other critters plus the odd cheeky slug and snail making the most of the damp and then time to wander back in and put our feet up.

Ivy round the back door flourishing

Verbena going strong and wafting beautifully

Gran's Rose still so very pretty and more blooms to follow

Go on you know you really want to ripen!

Starry asters blooming at last

Sneaky but rather pretty snail hiding in the bird feeder!

Little apples ripening

Bulbs added to the fern bank

Night all!

Indulgence is a box of books

In a moment of weakness I went through my book wish-list this week and ordered several titles that I'd been looking at for a while and splurged. At the moment reading paper seems to be a bit easier than screen so real books have come home and they are very beautiful too!

Susanna Kearsley, Charles de Lint and Juliet Marillier are all authors I have read in the past and thoroughly enjoyed so I will be interested to see whether I still enjoy them in the same way.

The Julie Christine Johnson is new to me and one I picked up as a recommendation on another blog or twitter I think but can't remember quite where - apologies if you were the recommender!

  

There may also be a copy of Barbara Erskine's The Ghost Tree on the way too...

I'm working my way through Undercurrents the new Nora Roberts at the moment (not that it requires much work!) - resting the book on my new little chair table and cushion makes it easier than holding a heavy hardback mind and I haven't got to worry about tingly fingertips not able to swipe the electronic pages!

Dancing with Bees - a journey back to nature by Brigit Strawbridge Howard

Please note this is not an unbiased review but it is an honest one!

I cannot explain the overwhelming joy I felt when receiving our copy of this through the post - Brigit is a long time friend who has known she wanted to write a book for all the years I've known her and I know that to finally have completed and published it will have created untold joy and excitement after one of the toughest times anyone can go through. Anyone who has had the privilege of hearing Brigit talk about bees will know of her infectious enthusiasm for her subjects and for the whole of the natural world and it is this voice that keeps you turning the pages getting more and more immersed in the world being conjured from the pages. Be warned though this immersion includes one of the most poignant chapters I have ever read - do not approach "The upside-down bird" without a hanky to hand, it is both a beautifully gentle and heart-rendingly sad recounting of the love for and loss of a parent that left me with tears streaming down my face but so very glad Brigit found the courage to leave it in the book.

Recounting her explorations of the natural world without pretension Brigit enables you to learn things without being preached at or feeling like you are somehow lacking. As a witness Brigit highlights the dangers of disconnection, of pesticides, of viewing nature as a purely human-centric economic resource and provides plenty of references to organisations, resources and papers for those who wish to pursue the research and follow the science as well as the emotion. As Brigit rediscovers her connection to the natural world you will find stories of close encounters with Gannets, Curlew and Corncrakes as well as elusive Moss Carder Bees and Great Yellow Bumblebees in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Further south you'll meet the delightfully named Hairy-footed Flower Bees and the elusive and artisanal Potter Wasps and join in close encounters with Hawthorn hedgerows, dandelions and a growing connection and re-connection with place and self that has left me feeling so very proud of my friend and so very happy to recommend "Dancing with bees" as an uplifting book of discovery for anyone who already loves nature or feels as if they could with just a little bit of help....

Ivy in the hedgerow - such a valuable plant for so many critters

Dancing with bees - a journey back to nature by Brigit Strawbridge Howard is published by Chelsea Green Publishers. ISBN 978-1-60358-848-5

September books

I've just finished the wonderful The stranger diaries by Elly Griffiths. It's a good old fashioned whodunnit that keeps you guessing right to the end. This is a standalone novel but is well-written and full of atmosphere and with the great characterisations that we've come to expect from the Ruth Galloway archaeological mystery series that Elly has become renowned for. I really enjoyed this one and look forward to the next Galloway mystery, although there's a while to wait yet.


Next on this month's list is my friend Brigit's beautiful book Dancing with bees - J's already read and reviewed this but I'm just about to start chapter 2 and already really enjoying it so watch this space.

And quietly waiting in the wings I have the latest Nora Roberts - Undercurrents and Lucinda Riley's The butterfly room so I've plenty to keep me occupied as the night's draw in.

Summer Photographic Scavenger Hunt #4

Today is the fourth picture posting in the new Scavenger Hunt which launched on 1st May, it's hosted by Mary-Lou over at Patio Postcards and will run until September so there is still a bit of time left if you want to join in. Today is the second link up day so pop on over to Mary-Lou's blog to see how everyone else is faring.

My previous posts all carry the label "Summer photo scavenger hunt" so you can check them out by clicking on the link.

I'm lagging behind this month and have only come up with a couple of new ones, best get cracking if I want to find the rest before the end of September.


Number 5. The word Summer - harder than I expected but these are two books on the to-be-read pile better get on and read them before the season gets away from us!

Number 14 - A handwritten sign - this one marks our Happy Place and has to be re-drawn each year.

The Gift of Beauty

Back in autumn/winter 2017 I came across a book, not unusual for a librarian and book-addict admittedly, but this wasn't just any book, this was a gift to the soul, a true work of imagination and sublime art, it arrived at a truly traumatic time in my life and over the last 2 years I'm not the only one it has spoken to and I certainly can't be the only one to draw comfort from it's pages, to revisit the words, the pictures and the whole feeling of peace that the work creates and I know I have mentioned it here previously.



Created by illustrator and artist Jackie Morris and writer Robert Macfarlane The Lost Words was a reaction to the removal of certain nature words from the 2007 Oxford children's dictionary and the effect it had on me and countless others has been palpable. It's pages conjure the fleeting beauty of bluebells, the delicate joy of wren, the majesty of raven and even the glimmer of starling and the sheer joy it gives is testament to the magic of the spells written and creatures conjured from its pages.

Since these two magicians came together their work has taken on a life of it's own spawning crowd-funder campaigns right across the country to ensure schools, hospices and care-homes have copies to share with their pupils, patients and residents and leading to new spells being created on hospital walls by Jackie and another magician of the natural world - Alison O'Toole. Jackie herself explains how that came about on her own beautiful blog but the magic hasn't stopped there. Now, new joy has been born in the form of The Spell Songs a glorious combination of musicians, wordsmiths, art and love for the natural world - they've toured and will even be doing a Prom later this month and just this week my own copy of their wonder-filled CD arrived on my doorstep. The haunting Blessing and strident Heartwood resonate around the house as I write this and will be played again and again in the weeks to come. But fret not if buying the book or CD is beyond your means right now, because they've also posted the beauty onto the 'Net - allowing it to run free for everyone to hear, watch and benefit from. Jackie has even allowed us to take a walk with her on a recent podcast from Folk on Foot, to share in the surroundings that help produce those glorious illustrations and to listen in to a bit of the magic that has sprouted from the seeds she and Robert planted. I'm not sure if their creation is what they hoped it would be but I hope they realise just how much it has meant to so many people. I hope that wherever they go and wherever they read, conjure and perform, the words "Thank You" are uttered over and over again and if you haven't yet come across the magic then click on one of the video links below and enjoy!

Bookshelf May 2019

The last few weeks have been stick-my-head-in-books-and-it-will-all-be-ok weeks. Some of them have been great books, some of them have been good books and some have been ok to pass the time books but all have been helping shake off the meh days. All will appear on the Books Read 2019 page

One of the best left me immersed in the world of Dr Ruth Galloway for a couple of days. The Stone Circle is the latest in the wonderful series of archaeological/murder detective stories by Elly Griffiths. Following Ruth and Nelson as they uncover the truth behind an old murder and stumble across new villains and new mysteries whilst starting to (possibly) forge new futures made for a truly engrossing read. Be aware though that this installment, more than any of the others, is very much part of a whole and you really need to have read the earlier books to fully understand both the main story arc and all the sub plots. I can't wait for the next in the series.

The next physical book on the reading pile is a non-fiction one and is likely to take me longer as I dip in and out and meander my way through a few fiction e-books as the mood, and hospital waiting rooms dictate.

February Reads

I've just updated the books read page so you can see what I've been reading this month - mostly quick and easy romantic e-books with a brief foray into a couple of murder mysteries so no pretty covers to share. Unfortunately I just couldn't settle into the Kim Edwards' novel so I've set it aside again - there are too many on the want to read pile to keep plugging away at something that doesn't grab me. So, now I'm ready to return to the wonderful Katherine Arden series that I started in December with the beautifully written The bear and the nightingale. I thoroughly enjoyed that one so have high hopes for the next.

So here it is The girl in the tower - number 2 in the series of 3 - I may be gone some time!

Meaningful Books

This week I was tagged into a twitter meme to post the covers of seven books that mean something to me. No explanations and no reviews. One a day for 7 days and pick someone else to carry out the challenge too. My problem was limiting it to just 7 but given the thought it required I thought I'd share them here too.

Frederick by Leo Lionni

Wild flowers of Britain by Roger Phillips

Folk-tales of the British Isles Edited by Kevin Crossley-Holland

Food from your Garden 

The lost words by Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris

The enchanted Isle by C W R Winter

Spiritwalk by Charles de Lint

It was fun hunting up just seven books and has given me more than a few for my "time to re-read" pile and a lot more for my "I forgot I had that" pile. Could you limit your list to just seven?

January's Bookshelf

Oops where has the month gone? It has taken me a while to read just one book so far this month. I have been distracted by company, by music, by tv box-sets, by the garden birds and piles of sorting so my poor book kept being set to one side and then in the last few days an urge came upon me to finish it. Amy Snow by Tracy Rees. So finish it I have. An historical saga with a mysterious twist, it proved to be an enjoyable read once I settled to it. There's definitely something about chilly days and curling up with a book!

So what next?

Despite my best intentions I still can't quite get set into any of the non-fiction so I'm setting those aside for now and heading towards another fiction book that has been on the shelf a while - Kim Edwards' The Lake of Dreams. Published in 2011, it's another tale of mysteries buried in a family's past just waiting for someone to open a box and discover them... Are people really so careless with their secrets? or do we just assume people with secrets always want them to be discovered after they have gone?

One just finished and one to be started

Bahhhh! Bothersome Book Bungle

Just started to read the much anticipated Sleeper's Castle by Barbara Erskine only to get two pages in and realise that this is one I must have borrowed from the library when it first came out, back before I became really poorly, before the pain, before the diagnosis, before bleeping chemo, before I stopped reading, before I started reading again, just bloody before! Slap!, a reminder that I could have done without but blow that, I'll just have to resume keeping a book list won't I? I used to do it and I'd pondered about adding a page here so I'll just do it. And it's not the end of the world, her books are wonderful and deserve a re-read so I'll just save it until I've worked my way through the un-reads or want the familiar. But bahhh!

December Bookshelf

So what did I make of last month's pile? The Talent for murder continued to prove an interesting read and whilst I may well dip into the author's other books at some time in the future it did take me a while to get into. As anticipated the Nora Robert's Shelter in place was a brilliantly enjoyable read that got devoured over just a few days but unfortunately I just couldn't get into the Adriana Trigiani so took it back to the hospice book exchange shelf and started Katherine Arden's The bear and the nightingale instead. This beautifully written book is the first in her Winternight trilogy and I'm already hooked - I've a feeling the other 2 will soon be featuring on my bookshelf. It's rooted in Russian fairy-tales and is wonderfully atmospheric and thoroughly suited to a Midwinter read - all I'm missing is the log fire to curl up in front of!

As for the rest of December's reads - I still really want to make a start on the non-fiction pile so will pick up the Wendell Berry once I have finished The bear and the nightingale and then I think it will time to turn to the spooky mystery of Barbara Erskine's Sleeper's Castle. I've loved her books ever since I first read The lady of Hay many many years ago so this will be a real treat.

I've feeling that might well be it for books this month what with Christmas company, troublesome jigsaws and new crafty projects to try but we shall see.

December's Bookshelf...

November bookshelf

As predicted it didn't take me very long at all to read the two Lucinda Riley books in my e-pile and now I'm holding myself back from buying the next one which was published on 1st November - I want to make a bit of headway on the pile in the house before buying or borrowing any new ones and I just know that as soon as The Moon sister comes into the house I'm going to have to read it!

First up in this month's reading pile is A talent for murder by Andrew Wilson. This crime story is an imagining of the events that led up to Agatha Christie's famous disappearance in 1926 and I'm currently just about to start Chapter 5. A new author for me, this is one of the Mr B's subscription books I mentioned in a previous post and so far it is proving an intriguing read. 

Next up will be the wonderful and amazingly prolific Nora Roberts' Shelter in place - this is one of her stand-alone novels and I'm assuming it's going to be the same treat to read as all her books are. She has another due out next month and I'm a few behind in the series she writes under the pseudonym J.D Robb so will not be short of treats over the coming months! 

Adriana Trigiani is an author I have dabbled with on the past and this one is her 2005 novel Rococo from the Hospice's book exchange - I need to read this, pop a little review in it and pop it back on the shelf for someone else to find. Several years ago I read and enjoyed her Big Stone Gap series so it will be interesting to try this one and see if my tastes have changed at all. 

My non-fiction book for this month is also from Mr B's list and is by Wendell Berry - The world-ending fire is a collection of essays published just last year. According to the incredibly useful website Fantastic Fiction "With grace and conviction, Wendell Berry shows that we simply cannot afford to succumb to the mass-produced madness that drives our global economy - the natural world will not survive it." I'm looking forward to trying this but have a feeling my brain will need to be fully awake before I try and expect to need to read it more than once!

November Bookpile

Week's End

J's been very busy this weekend spending Friday all day trying to put the allotment in some kind of order, helping a friend re-fettle their shed on Saturday and then catching up with various jobs here today so I've had a quiet couple of days preparing food and pottering around doing domestics, reading my book and playing with another jigsaw. I get frustrated that it now takes me all day to prepare a meal that would have taken me just an hour or so before but then remember that just a few months ago I wouldn't have been able to do it at all, so back to taking each day as it comes and making the most of the good ones.

French & Runner beans 

ready for drying

On the menu this weekend was homemade feta and mushroom pizza - we have a bread-maker that works magic with the dough so we've given up buying ready-made pizzas in favour of any topping we fancy whenever we fancy at a fraction of the cost of shop-bought and with the added bonus of knowing exactly what is in our dinner. Saturday I made a lentil and mushroom pie which proved a really tasty, filling way to use up some of the store cupboard supplies and gave us enough leftovers for a quick & easy lunch today. I made enough of the lentil mixture to do a few extra meals too so am back to having homemade food in the freezer for the not so good days. J brought home some more beans from the lotty on Friday so whilst he was out on Saturday I shucked them and set them to drying ready for soups and stews in the next few months. It's great to be able to top-up our own supplies again even if the crop is much smaller than previous years.

From this 

to this in just a week!

On the chilling out front I finished the Lucinda Riley Shadow Sister and am rattling through the brilliant Pearl Sister - both are really enjoyable reads and I thoroughly recommend the series. We also completed another jigsaw this weekend; this time one a friend gave me to try and it's a beautiful medley of British Wildlife that was a real pleasure to put together and gave my brain a bit of a workout as I tried to recognise the species portrayed. I think I might leave this one made up for a few days as it's so pretty.

New week tomorrow and we have our solar thermal system and boiler being serviced on Monday and I have a consultant's appointment on Wednesday, so let's hope that brings some good news and the antibiotics have finally seen off the infection.

October Bookshelf

My hospital stay meant the first half of the month was spent with e-books - I'm reacquainting myself with Nevada Barr's Anna Pigeon series at the moment so read her Burn and The Rope this month. Not as involving as I remember the earlier ones being, although that could easily be down to circumstances rather than the series going off the boil, but The Rope provided an interesting insight into the back story of her heroine and I look forward to returning to other stories in the series at a later date. Once out I returned to the wonderful "The Dark Angel" by Elly Griffiths - this proved to be one of those books where I was both desperate to know what happened next and at the same time really didn't want to finish but I eventually succumbed and finished this just yesterday. It's complex ending has made me eager for the next one.

Next on the list and , due to flaky wi-fi today, already well on the way to being finished is The Shadow Sister the third in Lucinda Riley's wonderful Seven Sisters series. An unashamedly romantic series about 6 adopted daughters searching for their birth identities following the death of their enigmatic but much loved Pa. The Pearl Sister - Number 4 in the series is already lined up on my e-book account!

I'm noticing that fiction featuring strong female leads seem to be drawing me in at the moment which is probably not that surprising really but means the non-fiction on the book pile is being a bit neglected - maybe I'll set that to rights next month.

September Bookshelf

Books and stories have always been a core part of my life, so one of the hard things to deal with whilst I was having chemotherapy was the effect it had on my ability to hold a thread and keep a story in my head. For months I'd pick a book up and have to put it down again because it just wouldn't stick - "chemo brain" really is a thing folks and a very frustrating thing too. Luckily that has now changed as the treatments have changed and so I can begin again with the mountain of books that have accumulated on the "to be read" pile, just waiting patiently in the wings for me to pick them up and return to them. Some of them I have bought and some have been gifts. Some are in paper and print form - I do love the look and feel of a "real" book; others are in electronic form waiting for me on my phone or tablet - very handy for hospital waiting rooms, and others are stories on CD waiting for me to listen to them - whatever the format the waiting has at last come to end.

I have recently finished "In the midst of winter" by Isabel Allende, a Chilean author that I came across many moons ago whilst studying Spanish - her books are mix of gentle observations about life, love and the nature of humanity, fantastical myths and the cold hard realism brought about by being caught up in the politics and violence of late 20th century South America. I thoroughly recommend her!

My current read is the beautifully produced "A pocketful of crows" written by Joanne M. Harris and illustrated by Bonnie Helen Hawkins. Inspired by folk and faerie this book contains wonderful illustrations as well as magical prose. You may already be familiar with the novels "Chocolat" or "Blackberry Wine" but she has written so much more and I can't wait to get back to it later this evening. I daresay I will return to the others too as winter approaches.



Next up will be "The dark angel" by the wonderful Elly Griffiths. Dr Ruth Galloway is one of my favourite literary characters, up there with Phil Rickman's marvellous Merrily Watkins for keeping me enthralled throughout a story. This is the tenth outing for Dr. Ruth and I'm thoroughly looking forward to it.

Then I will probably dabble with one of the many intriguing and definitely new-to-me books that I have received through a gift subscription to Mr B's Emporium in Bath. My very kind colleagues bought the subscription for me when I first fell ill and each month a beautifully packaged parcel has arrived and the contents have been patiently waiting for me to begin.

And then... well that will be October's bookshelf won't it.