laptop is dead

laptop is dead, post from phone.  back soon.  Santa may need to help

hope you are all well

Rememberance Sunday 2017

For the Fallen

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

All Veterans and people currently risking their lives, I thank you for your service, because of you, I am free.

Mess

One of the things I didnt count on when moving here was the extra vacuuming.  Everything is sandy.  Floors, my car, some how in the bed.  Getting tense with people who dont wipe their feet well before they come in.  The no shoes beyond this point sign is coming back out.  No outside shoes of paws can go beyond the porch.

urghhh  mess!

No picture, my laptop is struggling, it wasnt registering the solid state hard drive wasnt connecting and it was blue screen of death.  Luckily we had an old hard drive we could fit.  It took 2 days to try and get all of the data off if the old one.  I need to buy another external drive.  Remember people, back it up.  I forgot this and nearly lost everything!  

No picture as it might kill this old drive.  In your minds eye imagine a beach with sand.  there you go...

Circle

I am quite behind here on the blog.  I havent quite finished reading the last book of Little Women.  Everything has been quite the whirlwind lately.  I am thick in the idea stage of my veggie garden.  I have to start sorting it all out as I want to plant garlic.  I want the garden to keep going constantly, no beginning, no end to the veggies coming out of it, hence the snake.  I have been told by a neighbour that there isnt really a hunger gap here if you plan it right, just with a small green house you can have your greens!

I have a membership to the Lost Gardens of Heligan now.  I will be going there for as much inspiration as possible.  I need a lot of help!  I have found some very exotic plants in the garden.  I have taken pictures and hope to stop the gardeners at Heligan to see if they know what they are.  I am a little excited about it.  Can you tell?

I hope you are all well, I will finish the book and be back with the book review!  Promise!  

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! 

Passage to India review

Urgh we lost the internet here, it is really stressful as we need to buy supplies to renovate the house.

Moan over, onwards to the review.

Massive apologies to Ray!  Sorry this has taken forever to be published, blogger wouldnt let me do it on my phone as it thought I was hijacking my own account!

Passage to India.  Wow, this was a long hard slog of a book.  It wasnt even that many pages but I felt like I was really having to push myself to bother reading it.  I was really quite excited to read it as well.  

Some of it I was really quite upset with, they way the British called the Dr to the club and then had gone away themselves.  Rude, plain rude.  It revulsed me in parts.  One part that really stuck in my craw was when asked if he had children, Dr Aziz says he has 2 sons, previous to this he had told Mrs Moore he had a daughter and 2 sons.  I disliked that greatly.

I was actually not wanting to read it after Adela accuses Dr Aziz of assaulting her as was afraid to read of the outcome.  How was he to be treated?  Did he really do it?  The people at the club become the mob and the Indians outside are also the mob and have their own riot.

Adela accuses Dr Aziz about half way through the book and then it rambles for a very long time to come to the conclusion he is innocent.  I know it is about the politics at the time and how the religions mix, I just couldnt get into it as it brought out some emotions I didnt think I would have.  I thought it was going to be a travel book of some description with words that painted the landscape, in some small way it did.  On page 6 there are some lovely *visuals*, the lamps in the sky etc.

Will I read it again?  No, sorry it was a real let down after Howards End.

4/10 at best.

Annoyed with myself.

I typed out a huge review of the read along book and then some how - read *user error*, I deleted it by accident.

Please wait till I get it back together!  

*Everyone sway*

This is my Eden, for this is my Cornwall and this is my home.

Fishermen's Friend

And we are back!

Hooray we have the internet! It didnt come on until late yesterday, I have tried to read as much as I can and will be back to comment as soon as I can.  

The dogs are beside themselves at the moment, firstly because of the garden.  They have found away to escape through the boundary.  And second, because even if I take the bin bag out, they go wild when I come back in as if I have been away for a week.  The new house has some noises that they havent heard before and we now have neighbours that you can see and hear from the house and garden.  Its all new and they will get used to it.  As will I.

I hope you are all well.  

Speak soon.

**********************************************

p.s. Ray I have been reading the book and should finish today, ready for tomorrow.

Cornwall! Ha

Welcome to Cornwall, land of fog, mist and drizzle!

Waiting for the keys.

Trying to blog from my phone.  Very hard.

No internet

I am unable to blog much from my phone.

See you in a few weeks.

Read along, Tess of the D'ubervilles

I have read this book many times and every time I get something more from it.  My mind naturally fills in the blanks, I dont know if this is because I have seen 2 of the film adaptations, or if it is clever weaving on the behalf of the author.

Again another book of near misery, mixed with sweet hope that Angel will come back for her.

I could not have lived in the time Tess did, I would have found it very hard and the work they were expected to do would have killed me.

Alec is a master at manipulation, backed by money, this is an evil, toxic mixture.  

Will I read it again?  Yes of course.

7/10 

It's a quick read, I like that.

The next book is A Passage to India, I have already started it.  I love the discription of the stars hanging like lamps.  Its going to be a good one.

Sorry it is a short review, I am very tired.

It maybe that I just drop off the internet for a bit, as we are having a few technical hitches with getting a phone line...  Never easy is it...?

I will sign off here, with a "have a fantastic new month of September!".

I might schedule a few posts of pictures and turn comments off just to keep it ticking over.

Cheerio!, 

and I dont mean the cereal.

Jaws of death

And that is how you save a house sale from the jaws of death!

6 Days of hell, many phone calls, sitting in solicitors offices, ringing everybodies estate agent on multiple phones.  And Shazam. we are back in business.

Cornwall or bust....  hell it was nearly bust.

I am off to lay down in a dark room.  Talk among yourselves.

House sale

Our house sale has just fallen through.  Gutted, we would have been moving next month.  Back on the market it goes.  Better luck next time right!?

Flashback Tuesday

With all of the excitement of yesterday and planning Scotland touring next year.  Below are a few links to out previous times in Scotland.  Enjoy!

The High Road

The Pipes

Hogmanay

Glenfinnan Viaduct/Harry Potter

Inspiration for next year...

Road through Glen Coe

Loch Shiel, Harry Potter fans will recognise these trees.

Feeling really inspired right now and am looking forward to moving and the future.  Time moves forward, we have to plan and keep an eye on where we want to be.

Super inspiration from {Dave} and {Jules} and their trips to Aran Isles and Arran.  (Did you know arran means to start/commence in Scottish Gaelic, but to start in Cornish is dalla....  Just a bit on nonsense there for you). And then with {Yorkshire Pudding}, visiting an area I would live in if I were to move to Scotland.  Beautiful Kirkcudbright.  Every time I read that I think of {Victoria Wood and this part in Dinner Ladies}, (I am exactly like Bren by the way, Oh, shiny, look at bra, back to talking about a toaster, or was it Scotland!... ).  I pronounce it Kirk Kud Bright on purpose, to a guttural low roar of "for gods sake its, kur coo brie!!!!!!!".

We are now planning to take a long holiday in Scotland.  I am thinking, Borders to see some family and a bit more of the lowlands and then on to some Lochs and Munros in the Highlands.  Rounding it off with a bit more family time.  Then weave our way back down south, hopefully through {Coniston Lake} and {Lake Windermere}.  Its going to be a massive trek from Cornwall, we will do it in the car, we've missed out on too much before flying.  It will be at least 8 hours to the border and then add time for toilet breaks and looking at scenary and I think it will be more of an 11 hour trek, then on to family...

I feel like a pot of soup, bubbling with excitement.  I havent felt hopeful for a time now.  Its a really nice change.

Where would you go in Scotland?  Inspire me more.

Heres to a great week!  Cheers

(My Dad is slowly getting better, he is on a normal ward and we are looking forward to having him home.)

Another Great Has Gone

Bruce Forsyth, RIP

'Nice to see you, to see you nice'

Read along 2017-2018

Hello, the voting is over.  Rather than have to go over this again, I took all of the books that had 2 or 3 votes each and adding them to the ones I said I would like to read already.  This gives us 18 books, adding this to the remainder of this year, the book choices will last us till March 2019.  

Yes, I really did just type 2019!

Here is the list

October 2017 - Daphne du Maurier's 'Rebecca

November 2017 - The Chimes, Charles Dickens

December  2017 - Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

January 2018 - Jude The Obscure, by Thomas Hardy

February 2018 - The Old Wives Tale, by Arnold Bennett

March 2018 - 1984 George Orwell

April 2018 - Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

May 2018 - Farenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

June 2018 - The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien

July 2018 - The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver

August 2018 - A Death in the Family, by Karl Ove Knausgaard

September 2018 - Chocolat, by Joanne Harris

October 2018 - The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

November 2018 - Catch 22, by Joseph Heller

December 2018 - The Great Santini, by Pat Conroy

January 2019 - The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

February 2019 - Animal Farm, by George Orwell

March 2019 - Anthony Trollope The Way We Live Now

This gives us all time to get the new books, hopefully cheaply.

Have a good weekend!

Voting is now open

Voting is now open in the side bar for the read along.

*Very important, please choose 8 all at once, before pressing vote.  It will not allow you to vote again.  Sorry I have no idea how to change this.*

p.s. the above book case is a house goal of mine!

Shall we vote?

Good morning!

Thank you to everyone for their book recommendations. I have marked in red the books that I would like to include, these will not be voted on.  We will be voting on the others.  We can decide if we would like to read all of them.  Or just pick 8 to make the 12 books.  this is what the list looks like.  

Jude The Obscure: Thomas Hardy

The Old Wives Tale by Arnold Bennett

Therese Raquin by Emile Zola

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Karl Ove Knausgaard A Death in the Family

Joanne Harris  Chocolat

John Steinbeck - 'The Grapes of Wrath

Joseph Heller - Catch 22

Michael Cunningham - The Hours

Daphne du Maurier's 'Rebecca

End of the world running club

The Great Santini by Pat Conroy

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad

Lord Jim both by Joseph Conrad 

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Becket

Animal Farm George Orwell

1984 George Orwell

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Anthony Trollope The Way We Live Now

I am going to read Freaky Green Eyes and Night by Elie Wiesel separately on my own…  Join in if you wish with those, leave me a comment and I will do a post about them once I have read them.

We also need a Christmas book to read in November finishing 21^st December, the solstice.  Recommendations for this would be good.  I am wondering if anyone is interested in The Snow Child which is  448 pages long or to go with Dickens Chimes which is 175 pages?  What are your thoughts on this?

I will make a voting button and add it to the side bar later.

Read along The Colour Purple

The Colour Purple was a good quick read.  I love how each 'chapter' was small, as they are written in letter form, either to God or to Celie's sister. Nettie.  As they were written in this way, it meant that I could read it is really short bursts, kind of like reading a blog post.  I really liked how the it flowed due to this.

A quick version of the book goes something like this...

Celie's life is hard, her mother dies when she is still young.  Her Pa, who she finds out later is not her abuses her and she is then shunned at church as she has 2 babies by him.  The father either gives the babies away or sells them to a local couple who are quite wealthy.  

A man approaches her Pa to ask if he can marry Nettie.  He puts him off her and marries Celie off to him.  Her husband already has children, so she is off to keep house for him.  Her sister Nettie is clever and Celie doesnt want her Pa to abuse her like she was so they hatch a plan for her to get away.

Without knowing Celie gets her to go and seek help from the couple that she sees in the street who are wealthy (without knowing it, these are the people that had taken her children in).  Nettie becomes a missionary with the couple and travels to Africa with them and stays there for 30 something years.  In this time Celie never hears from her.  But she writes her and God letters.

Celie's husband is actually in love with Sugar Avery and had children with her before he met Celie.  Sugar is a singer.  Celie falls in love with her, when the husband brings her home as she is very ill.  Celie nurses her and whilst she is there, the husband never beats Celie.  Sugar makes Celie believe that she is worth something.

Celie's husband, Albert, hides all the letters that Nettie has been writing to Celie, years and years worth.  Sugar and Celie, go through his things and find them.  Celie is broken by this.  After a while Celie begins to break loose and and one point tells Albert what she thinks.  Everyone is astonished that she has found her voice.  

Celie goes to live with Sugar. leaving Albert and starts a business of making trousers for everyone and anyone that wants them.    Something changes here and it is like she steps into the light and some how has some peace.  For one reason or another she starts to see Albert again and he is a changed man.  At one point he even says he would like to live like man and wife again.  Celie denies him.

Celie's Pa, marries a young girl and they live in a house built on Celie's biological fathers land and has been taking all of the money from the store as if he owned it himself.  When Pa dies, Celie finds out that the land and store along with all the buildings belong to her and Nettie.

After many years Nettie returns home and is reunited with Celie.

The end

I really liked this book.  I liked how it flowed and that it wasnt hard to read.  I didnt have to re-read anything and will definitely read it again.  Maybe even next year.  At the end of the book, I felt happy that Celie had Nettie again.  I dont think I would have liked it if it had ended with Nettie dying abroad.

8/10

Sorry it is a bit all over the place with this review.  Lifes a little busy right now.

Seperated at birth?

When I first started watching Outlander, I was sure from the voice and face that {Christopher Timothy} was the father of {Tobias Menzies}  I was obviously wrong, but I think they look and sound uncannily alike.

Christopher Timothy above

Tobias Menzies above

And I have to say, my love of {Seany Sean's} voice mixed with {Ben Fogle} the other celebrity love of mine.  If you mixed them in a jug and I think you would get something quite close to {Sam Heughan}.  I am finding the programme Outlander a compelling watch.  (although there are some scenes I have had to fast forward through as they have been a bit too violent.  You have been warned if you havent seen it before)

What are your thoughts, seperated at birth?  Are you loving Outlander?  It got violent and sexual very quick in the series.  It is a really good period drama, extremely interesting, as I was never taught about this at school, neither would it seem, that most Scots were either.  

Dare I say it, better than Poldark?  Or is it because the Mr is a Scot?

Answers on a post card please, or at the very least a little comment!

Have a good weekend.

(Read a long, The Colour Purple tomorrow)

Urghhhhh

I went to a spin class last night to try and build my leg strength.

I hurt everywhere.

Even worse, my friend from down the road said come in for a drink, to celebrate that we both didnt die in the class. 

urghhhhh

I had 3 of those little cans of gin and elderflower tonic.  I feel like death still and it is 1pm!  I either need to stop getting older or start drinking on a regular occassion rather than once a year.  I am sick as a pig.  

Back tomorrow with something better!

Borehole water, advise of filters please

Do you have private water from a well or a borehole?  Do you have a an in-line filter?  Is it ultra violet? I never thought much about it at my grandparents farm we just drank it and cooked with it.  Now looking at houses in Cornwall a lot have their own water source and I am keen to really learn as much as I can, not only on the great internet, but straight from people who actually use them everyday.

We are purchasing a berkey stainless filter, it has been on my must buy for a long time (come on, the filters do 23000 litres of water - about 11 years!  its a steal for crying out loud.  Plus Kymber and Jam are wax lyrical about it and they have used theirs since moving to {Framboise manor}).

I would greatly appreciate any advise you could give on this and I am still looking for book recommendation!

Many thank in advance for your lovely thoughts on this...

Book Recommendations Please

Well hello there...

After I have posted about The Colour Purple, we will only have 3 books left to read from this years read a long!  Wow, it's gone fast hasn't it.

I would therefore love it, if you could give me some book ideas, preferably classics that we could read.  And maybe some contemporary reading that I could like.  Heck, am I missing out on the new next big thing in Young Adult (YA) fiction that I really love, with a touch of dystopian fantasy that I like?  Recommend away....

And just for some eye candy here is Jensen Ackles reading.  I know, you can thank me another time...

I love a good gif!

Read a long book - Wurthering Heights

Wurthering Heights.

Apologies to Ray, I am so sorry this is so late in coming to the blog.  

Revenge is a dish best served cold, should have been the title of Wurthering Heights. 

Heathcliff is filled with vengeance and wrath.  A few thoughts popped into my mind when reading this, (I always feel the need to think about this if it were set in modern times).  His fixation with Catherine has made him mentally ill.  At some points I felt that she played him and enjoyed his out bursts and jealousy.  She has clear narcissistic tendencies.  If this was now a days and someone described these two, to me I would think there was bound to be problems and tell them he needs to seek counselling.

Although Heathcliff goes away and comes back educated and with pots of money, from who knows where.  The rest of the book is purely set in one village.  No one seems to go anywhere but to church, everything else must be grown and produced on the properties.  That is pretty isolating, where as other books written at this time, the characters are more worldly and venture to London or to the sea.  This insular environment would suffocate me.  And Cathy having never left the grounds of the estate, although it may have been vast, means that other than her father and the few servants she will have come into contact with, she would have had a very very small world.

Was Heathcliff in love with Catherine, or did he see her as his possession?  Was he really a misogynist or a love sick puppy who went a little la la?

The book is filled with sadness on nearly every page.  And after years of plotting and scheming and then is plan coming together to get both estates by marrying is invalid son to Cathy.  He has a contract drawn up so that she would not inherit her fathers property on the death of Linton.  That is pure evil genius.  Along with what he does to Hareton is beyond despicable.

Towards the end, Heathcliff seems to lose his mind.  Its as if he no longer has a reason to live, he just gives up.  Maybe he is hallucinating through lack of food, or maybe he really is seeing Catherine, come to take him with her.  

I also found it a little ghoulish that he digs next to Catherine's coffin, breaks the side of it down so that they touch when he is buried.

Nelly to me is the real subject of the book, being the person who is telling the story to Lockwood.  Lockwood being a some what nosy bystander.  

And at some points in the book I would have liked to have slapped Joseph.

My friend absolutely loves this book and has waxed lyrical about it.  "Oh, and when you get to this bit, text me.  I want to see what you think!", she said.  She also said, "maybe you should read it again, you might get more from it".

I didnt like it.  I cant see myself reading it again, if I did, I think I would watch one of the film adaptations of it.  That way getting me into reading it again.

4/10

I would love to read your comments on this.  Especially if you love it.  I am trying to love all the classics and am looking for other people points of view.  Maybe one of your reviews will make me read the book again.

p.s I have blogged this on my phone which is super hard.  I apologise if there are spelling mistakes I cant find the icon to check.

p.p.s I realise that the picture is of another area of Yorkshire, but when I typed in Yorkshire moors, that beautiful picture came up.  Isn't it stunning?

Getting quotes...

Part of moving house for us is getting someone to pack our house up and transport it all for us.

The man came with his tablet wandered around, I told him what comes apart and what doesnt.  Then we went to the shelves.  He started counting shelves.  And you can see his head turning to the side to read the titles.  A little nod of the head every so often told me he had read a book on that shelf.  

When I look at peoples houses on the internet, I always look to see what books they have on their shelve.  Same as magazines, a picture of a person in front of book shelves, forget they are wearing some new fashion, I am the person who turns the magazine and brings the picture closer so I can squint at the titles of the books (I know the shelves will have been styled, it doesnt matter to me, I will still look).  To see if that person is a 'me' person or not.

With tablets and kindles and other e-readers I wonder if we will be able to tell what people read in the future?

I saw {THIS}.  I liked it.

Have good day.

Короп

I spoke about carp in the comments the other day and then saw Rachel's comment on Cro's blog, about Russian Salad. My family recently all cleared the local Lidl out of frozen carp.  Its in a white bag with flowery bits on it and the make is called Polish Taste.  

Now a lot of people have an adverse reaction to the thought of eating carp.  "Ew, its tastes like dirt and pond water".  Well, yes it can, but people who catch it to eat it regularly know you have to purge it.  Like they do with snails.  They give them only leaves and no dirt to travel over and voila, no dirt taste.  

Big business has taken away the need to spend all day at a lake or pond, we can drive to Lidl park and then calmly hustle in as fast as can be to get them into the trolley as fast as you can.  

Serve with butter and sumac.  Or if you are fancy you can have carp and Russian salad for your meal on Christmas eve.  (yes I really just used the word Christmas, get used to it, its less than 6 months away).

I Googled it to see if I could find it, but then I found {THIS} and saw the below youtube.  lol  

Run dont walk!  Enjoy!!!

And the bonus, a 5 minute trolley dash in Lidl, because everyone needs to buy a wardrobe in a supermarket!

If it was me I would have stayed with the electronics and the coffee aisle and gone in earlier in the day to choose what I needed to get and memorised where to go.  But that is just me.  5 minutes isnt long!