Reading round-up: May 2025

image from Clipart Library

Well, my lovelies, this is rather embarrassing 😳 I have absolutely no books to share with you ~ for the simple reason that I did next-to-no reading during May 😯

I'm still wading through So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, which is the penultimate book in The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Complete Trilogy in Five Parts by Douglas Adams.  Other than a few crochet patterns, that was the sum total of my (unfinished) reading for the whole of May!

Note to self: must do better during June 😏

 

Reading round-up: April 2025

image from Clipart Library

April was a fairly good month for reading:

Sleeping Murder (Miss Marple series): Agatha Christie

Monsieur Pamplemousse Takes the Cure (Monsieur Pamplemousse series book 4: Michael Bond

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Douglas Adams

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: Douglas Adams

Life, the Universe and Everything: Douglas Adams

 I'm really enjoying the Miss Marple books.  As you might expect there is an awful lot more detail in the actual stories themselves than can be fitted into the television series!  My favourite on-screen depiction of "Miss Marple" is Joan Hickson ~ I love the way she plays the character.  I confess that I also have a bit of a soft spot for Margaret Rutherford's version, even though it came across as a tad over-the-top.  Although I did watch the TV series adaptations with Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie, I can't say that I enjoyed them anywhere near as much as either Joan Hickson or even Margaret Rutherford.  I suppose we all have our favourite on-screen depictions of characters.  For me it will always be Joan Hickson as Miss Marple, in the same way that Jeremy Brett is Sherlock Holmes and David Suchet is Poirot 😊

The Monsier Pamplemousse books are old favourites that I first read many years ago, borrowed, I suspect, from the library.  I can't remember now how I came across them again in the Kindle store but I'm glad that I decided to buy the first few books in the series.  I think I just have one more downloaded that I have yet to read, then no doubt I shall be popping back online to get some more, as I'm pretty sure that there are more than 5 books in the series 😏

The Douglas Adams books are in an omnibus edition: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The Complete Trilogy in Five Parts.  I don't recall ever reading any Douglas Adams books, and to be honest I can't say that I remember watching the TV series either.  To be honest I've can't say that I've thoroughly enjoyed the three books I've read so far, but on the other hand I've not struggled with them like I did with Ted 🤷  Despite neither really liking nor disliking them, I will nevertheless finish the last two in this omnibus.

Confession time: the magazines from my various subscriptions have built up over the last year or two so, along with the gazzillions of yet-to-be-read books waiting patiently in my Kindle, I have a fair few mags piling up too 😳  I suspect the coming monthly round-ups will feature both books and a sprinkling of magazines, although with work in the garden now getting into full swing methinks there may well be a downturn in the amount of either that I can stay awake long enough to actually read 😄

Reading round-up: March 2025

image from Clipart Library

March proved to be a "slow" month for reading.  As I mentioned in my February round-up I struggled to finish Ted ~ A Pawtobiography, which ate into my reading time considerably.  I should have put it to one side to try another time way sooner than I actually did 😏  Anyhoo, here's what I read during March:

The Moving Finger (Miss Marple series): 

Agatha Christie

Crochet Makes From Scrap Cakes: Naomi Vincent

Hello Tiny World: Ben Newell

Fitwaffle's Easy Air Fryer: Eloise Head

Corner-to-Corner Blankets to Crochet: Leonie Morgan

Create Your Own Crochet Blankets: Jessica Leggett

Only one fiction book last month, but reading is reading whether that be fiction or non-fiction, so I've actually read more than I was giving myself credit for 😉   Let's see what April brings! 

Reading round-up: February 2025

image from Clipart Library

I completely forgot to share with you what I read during February 😏  I only managed three books, one of which I'd started back in January:

High Island Blues (George & Molly Palmer-Jones series book 8): Ann Cleeves

(started in January)

The Murder at the Vicarage (Miss Marple series): Agatha Christie

The Body in the Library (Miss Marple series): Agatha Christie

 I also tried to get through a book that I got Adrian for Christmas (after he'd finished reading it of course LOL): Ted ~ A Pawtobiography: My Adventures on Gone Fishing by Ted the Dog.  Adrian is a big fan of Gone Fishing, in which Ted features alongside Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse.  He thoroughly enjoyed the book but I confess that I found it pretty hard going to be honest, and in the end decided to put it to one side to perhaps try again sometime in the future.  It's not that there was anything particularly "wrong" with the book, and as I say, Adrian found it a great read.  Just not my "thing" I guess 🤷

So, only three books in February and March is looking pretty sparse as well!  Let's see what I can manage over the last few days of the month 😉

Reading round-up: January 2025

image from Clipart Library

I managed to read three new books, and finish one I had started in December, during January.  I'm really pleased to have got my fiction-reading mojo back!

Another Man's Poison (George & Molly Palmer-Jones series book 5): Ann Cleeves

(started in December 2024)

Sea Fever (George & Molly Palmer-Jones series book 6): Ann Cleeves

Murder at the Brightwell: Ashley Weaver

The Mill on the Shore (George & Molly Palmer-Jones series book 7): Ann Cleeves

 I'm off to a fairly good start this month.  I finished the last in the George and Molly Palmer-Jones series that I started last month and I'm now on my second book from the first collection of Agatha Christie's Miss Marple boxed sets I treated myself to with Christmas money.

Here's to a lovely year full of books 😊

The joy of books

image from Clipart Library

Back in the day I was a voracious reader of fiction, but when I had the kids I sort of got out of the habit.  I would have the odd bout of reading, but the habit has never really returned like it was when I was young and for a long time I just couldn't be bothered to even pick a book to read.  A bit ironic, then, that my Kindle has 485 titles on it 😳  It's not entirely filled with fiction but I soon discovered that, for me, craft books are nowhere near as easy to use in a digital format as they are in a hard/softback edition!  I haven't purchased everything that's on there, I hasten to add ~ some were free downloads and a lot were very cheap, with some as little as 99p.

During the latter half of last year, though, I rediscovered my love of reading fiction and that enjoyment has stayed with me.  I've always been a fast reader so I got through quite a few books in those last few months of 2024, but it's still only made a little dent in my collection 😄  I did have a brief hiatus during the second half of December as there was lots to do to get the house half-decent for the family coming up and I found myself a wee bit too tired to concentrate on reading to be honest, but I got my nose stuck back into the 'ole Kindle after they went home.

I follow a few bloggers and had noticed that a number share what books they have been reading.  Every time I come across the latest book-sharing it always strikes me as a lovely idea, not least because it perhaps brings to the blog readers' attention books they might not have come across before.  When I got back into the familiar routine of reading fiction last year, it crossed my mind that I could share with you what I currently had my nose stuck into ~ of course, as you might have guessed my lovelies, I kept forgetting to do any such thing 😏

  Today, though, I was reading Ann's blog ~ Polyester Princess ~ and her post gave me a reminder to finally get myself organised!  I have now set up a page (in the list running across the top just below the blog header) to catalogue the books that I read during 2025.  It will just be a book list, although I may post occasionally about a book that I've particularly enjoyed ~ or not, as the case may be 😉

As you can see I've managed to read four books this month, although Another Man's Poison was started in December.  The three Ann Cleeves books are all on my Kindle, with the Ashley Weaver being a book that Adrian picked up when he was in the library recently as he thought I might enjoy it ~ it was okay but not as enjoyable as I thought it might be.  I'm about to start on what I think is the last in the George and Molly Palmer-Jones series, High Island Blues, on my Kindle then I shall move onto some "real" books I splurged on with Christmas money:

 Excuse the photo quality ~ I took them in the evening, and the plastic wrapping didn't help either!  I wouldn't normally buy "real" books as I don't have a lot of shelf space, but these were too tempting as they were considerably reduced 😄

Houseplant inventory August 2020: the rest of the house

Ta-daa! ~ the remaining few of my houseplant inventory for August 2020.....What's that I hear?? Surely not sighs of relief, eh 😄

Anyhoo, we're starting off in the downstairs bathroom with this kalanchoe blossfeldiana ~ aka Flaming Katy.  My word she was in a bit of a state, leggy and bending in all directions.  Despite her being in bloom, I decided that she really needed to be cut back and re-potted sooner rather than later.  I'm glad I went ahead as she hasn't missed a beat and is looking much happier.  The window is west-facing and Katy seems to really like it here.  I trimmed off enough to make seven little plants, each with a small amount of root.  I kept two of the larger cuttings for myself (they are now sharing a space on the coffee table with my schlumbegera) and gave the others away. 

I don't know which variety this ctenanthe is but I've had it a long time.  It lived in the bathroom before we had it altered, where it was away from the window.  I tried it in the same position that the kalanchoe is now in but it didn't like it very much when the sun shone through the window!  Now it sits on the cupboard in the utility room, where it gets indirect light, and is thriving.

The monstera obliqua "Monkey Mask" seems to have settled well in the kitchen.  There are some new little buds appearing on the stems 😊

Another ctenanthe, in fact it was part of the same one in the utility room that I split way before we moved up here.  This one lives on the half-landing, in the "shade" of two of the walls.

I put the anthurium back on the upstairs bathroom windowsill as it was already doing much better there than in its previous position.  The "flower" has grown considerably over the last week or so! 

And finally the last of my houseplant family, the aspidistra that lives in a corner of our bedroom.  I think I must have used the flash function when I took this photo as the area seems somewhat brighter than it actually is.  It's a slow-growing plant that sits quietly in the corner exuding an air of calmness and tranquillity ~ one of my favourites, if I'm honest 😊

So there we are, that's all my houseplants now photographed and recorded: 9 in the dining room, 12 in the living room, and 6 elsewhere in the house, making a grand total of 27 altogether.  Oh, I tell a lie ~ I've also got two out in my craft room!  I guess 29 plants sort of sounds like a lot but compared to some folk in the couple of Facebook houseplant groups I'm in, it's a mere drop in the ocean LOL  

Before we leave my houseplant world for the time being, I thought I'd share with you my go-to houseplant books.  I have a few other books on houseplants too, but these three are my favourites and the ones I refer to the most 😊 

Books...

Not quite true, actually ~ I've spent years taking very large overdoses of books and am still in the process of weaning myself off them!

If only that were possible LOL  Trouble is, as you already know, our new home in Orkney is smaller than where we are at present so there is no hope of a bigger library!  Like my craft materials stash, I've let myself be seduced by craft books too.  I find crochet and dolls' house books particularly hard to resist, but other craft books have also crept into my not-so-little hoard over the years.  I have already had a ruthless clear-out of the "miscellaneous" craft books, which I suspect is why I found it easier than I thought it was going to be when I was sorting out the materials stash.  After all, no point in having the raw materials if there are no instruction books to hand to refer to 😉

Anyhoo, I confess that I was getting a tad craft-materials-sorting-out overloaded, so I decided to have a break and take a second look at my crochet books.  And yes, I do mean "a second look" because I've already tried weeding some of them out, with spectacular non-existent results LOL  Boy oh boy, did I have a way-more-than-I-could-ever-use collection of 'em!

I must be on something of a roll at the moment, though, because this time around I found it a breeze to let a good third of them go off to MusicMagpie.  I'm also going to trot over to amazon later and drastically cull the craft books on my wishlist.

Years ago I used to read lots of novels, especially detective and crime, but once the craft book "drug" hit I just stopped reading anything else.  Oh, except self-help/improvement and diet books that is!  I weaned myself off those successfully, though, thank goodness.  Adrian bought me a Kindle some time ago and I quickly discovered that it really isn't a decent substitute for an actual craft book ~ so an excuse to still buy the dratted things.  Still, I have rekindled (ha ha ha 😄 ) the joy of reading novels again and the Kindle is perfect for them ~ with the added bonus of no worries about filling up my shelves with masses of books that will only be read once!

Now that I've had a purge of the craft books I'm going to get back to the craft materials-sorting ~ including my yarn stash.  Hopefully now that I've let so many crochet books go I'll be able to downsize the yarn pile too 😊