#WBOYC in May

 

The months are galloping along aren't they? I can't believe it's time to join in with the other Deb's World in Australia and do a brief recap on the last four weeks.

Watching and Reading

The Essex Millionaire Murders caught my interest as we live about 45 miles away from where it happened.  I can't believe I hadn't heard about it at the time but oh my goodness, what an evil mind their killer had.

The series Malpractice was really good, as was The Game which changed my opinion of the actor Robson Green! We just started watching The Chelsea Detective which I think is going to be good.  

Code of Silence with Rose Ayling-Ellis is very good and makes you really appreciate how difficult life must be to be deaf, and how useful it is to have good lip reading skills.

Still watching Race Across the World and still in awe of how they find their way around with no internet access and absolutely no knowledge of the language.

Following the election of the new pope we were inspired to watch Conclave!

I started the month reading the third in the series of books by Richard Osman, The Bullet that Missed.  They are very easy reads. I also enjoyed Philly Barker Investigates by Joanne Tracey and will be downloading the second book in the series for my holiday in Italy next month.

Eating

We have a kind of tradition that at the beginning of summer we go to our friends who live around the corner to us and they cook a paella.  So after a week of wall to wall sunshine, it was decided that the time had come!

We had friends come to us for dinner. I decided to make a tried and tested chilli con carne because I knew I could make that in advance and have a more relaxed evening with me slaving away in the kitchen while everyone else sat outside with a pre dinner glass of wine.

I met up with friends for lunch a few times, it's good to keep in touch with people I used to work with and on one occasion I met up with someone I was at school with and that was a very long time ago!

Fish and chips at the beach, it always tastes so much nicer doesn't it?

Self Care

Still keeping moving with my pilates and zumba, some weeks easier than others to find the motivation first thing on a Monday morning! My bottom also made an appearance on the teacher’s instagram page 😳

I took a break from the blanket I'm crocheting and started a new, quick project for my 'knit and natter' get together. It was nice to relax and work on something smaller using springlike colours.

Days out

We had four days in Norfolk, which was glorious.

Now to condense all that down to 1 Second Everyday

My book list for May

 I'm not sure that I can call this a 'list' when there is only one title to include!  I don't know why I haven't read so much this month but here is the one book I finished

I downloaded this book as I wanted something nice and easy to read when we went away to Norfolk.  In the end I didn't get as much reading done as I expected as that Norfolk sea air made me so tired in the evenings I barely read a chapter a night.

This is the third in the Thursday Murder Club series and you do really need to have read the previous books to know the ins and outs of the characters who live Coopers Chase retirement home.  Although I had read the earlier books, it took me a couple of chapters to remember all the characteristics and personalities!  

The Thursday Murder Club are a group of elderly residents who try to solve cold cases and they are about to investigate the disappearance of a local news reporter who is assumed to have died after her car drove off the edge of a cliff ten years ago.  She was on the cusp of discovering the whereabouts of a large quantity of money involved in a fraud case and there were several suspects who may have wanted to stop her enquiries.  Although there are many clues to suggest she was murdered, her body has never been found and neither has the money.

Then, out of the blue, Elizabeth is contacted by someone from her past with the demand that either she kills someone on their behalf, or she will be killed herself.  

You do, of course, need to suspend belief that such things could happen to someone living in a retirement home but once the story becomes more intricate (and bearing in mind Elizabeth's past life of espionage!) you become caught up in the twists and turns of the story.  

I enjoyed reading this, and will definitely be reading the next in the series to see what crime they get involved in next. 

📚📚📚

My next book was a little different.  There is a series of Philly Barker books and I downloaded the first book in the hope that if I enjoyed it, there were more to come in the future!

Philly Barker is an antique dealer and has bought a 'lot' at a local auction mainly due to her eye being drawn to an old painting of Whitby.  Along with the painting was a box of odds and ends which she does not look at properly until she returns home.  Little does she know that her successful bid has included some items that have caught the attention of someone else who is desperate to obtain them.  Upon closer investigation into the painting and wooden box she finds documents which lead her to believe that these items should never have been taken to auction and that someone will be desperate to have them back.

After her dealership is broken into, Philly decides that there is more to this than meets the eye and that there must be something of value in her possession.  She joins forces with a local policeman to see if she can solve the mystery before anyone else is hurt.

This is a nice, cosy mystery.  Likeable characters and an intriguing storyline. I shall definitely be downloading the next book in the series!

A weekend away

 Our planned weekend away coincided beautifully with the weather turning gorgeous here - it makes such a difference!  It was still a bit breezy on the coast but if you found a sheltered spot is was 'scorchio'

We headed up the Norfolk coastline to a town called Wells Next The Sea.  The photo above shows a sculpture of The Lifeboat Horse which is on a sandbank in the harbour when the tide is out, and submerged up to his head at high tide.  It's made from steel and whisky barrels and is a tribute to the horse that used to pull the town's lifeboat to the sea.  Wells is such a lovely place and so well positioned for going out and about.  Not that we planned to go far!  One of the nicest things about that area is that there are no chains of coffee shops or burger bars.  Every shop is independently owned and oh boy, the bakeries are amazing.

The beach at Wells is such a long, wide bay with literally hundreds of beach huts in between the trees and the sand.  Coco absolutely loved it there and was constantly rolling over and over in the sand.  Just a little further along is Holkham beach which is famed for its sand which seems to go on for miles and miles.

We also went to Walsingham which is a destination for pilgrims and has been called 'England's Nazareth'. It is also home to a tea shop which sells the most amazing lunches!  

All in all, we had a wonderfully relaxing weekend, Coco rolled in every bit of beach she could and behaved herself impeccably when we took her to the pub for a meal. It's definitely an area we will return to in the future.

My book list for April

 The first book I read this month was our online book club’s choice

Beth lives on a family farm owned by her husband Frank's family. Their lives are pretty settled until one day a dog runs into their field and savagely attacks their sheep.  The dog is out of control and Beth's brother in law, Jimmy, instinctively shoots it to save their flock.  This act will cause unimaginable devastation to the family as the owner of the dog is Gabriel, Beth's first love who has moved back into the area with his young son.  

The chapters are split between the 1950s and 1960s and we become aware that there has been a death and one of the brothers is accused of murdering the other.  

The characters are well written and one can sense the dilemma that Beth finds herself in, loving her kind and honest husband but still feeling the attraction of first love.  She arranges to help look after Gabriel's son, Leo, and feels a deep affinity to him as he reminds her so much of the son she and Frank lost in a tragic farming accident a few years earlier.  While you cannot condone how this storyline unfolds, you can feel how she is torn between the two loves of her life.  Her brother in law Jimmy is unhappy at how much time Beth spends at Gabriel's home and suspects there is more to the relationship than everyone believes.  Although Jimmy comes across as a man on the verge of alcoholism and the unpredictability that it involves, the author invites you to sympathise with him and you can sense his loyalty to the family is behind much of his behaviour.

So, was it murder or just a terrible accident?  Whose finger was on the trigger before the fatal shot?  Can the family survive however the trial ends? 

My second book was The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

Harold Fry receives a letter from someone he used to work with, telling him that they were in a hospice and did not have long to live.  Harold immediately writes a reply and sets off to send it, leaving his wife upstairs doing her normal housework.

Somewhere between home and the post box Harold makes a decision to personally deliver the letter and sets off on a walk.  The 'slight' problem is that Harold lives on the south coast of England and the hospice is in Berwick on Tweed, not far from the Scottish border.  Over 500 miles away.  Harold is not wearing any appropriate clothing or footwear for such a huge journey. Nor has he taken his mobile phone.   He has set out on a whim with the belief that if he can keep walking, Queenie will stay alive until he reaches her.

Harold meets many different people along the way, obtaining help in unlikely places, meanwhile his wife is left at home waiting for a call from phone boxes along the way to let her know that he is safe.  Both of them have time to reflect on their family life in ways they would never have done before, stuck in the rut of routine.

Whilst the story is a little unbelievable as I don't think someone in their 60s could suddenly walk that distance with no proper walking shoes or equipment, and at times a little drawn out, I did enjoy reading it and I understand it has now been made into a film.