This Week....

I'm reading....

I have done something this week which I don't normally do...ever. I DNF'd not one book, but two. The first was the audiobook that I have been trying to listen to for weeks. I just didn't have the mental space to be working and listening to that book. The other one is book that I have been trying to read on my phone through the library app. It just didn't work for me. Maybe if I had been reading a book I was loving it would have been different.

I did decide that I was going to start reading Turn of the Screw by Henry James. Normally I don't read the starting book for Six Degrees of Separation, which I will be posting this weekend, but it is also the perfect read for the RIP XV challenge (that might be a clue to what my Six Degrees theme is going to be!). It is a bonus that the intro was read by Richard Armitage (which equates to aural bliss) and the main story is being read by Emma Thompson, which is very comforting!

I also started reading Letters from Berlin by Tania Blanchard. I have not read this author before although I always intended to! So far, I am enjoying it, and I do find the idea that all of her books are based on her family history fascinating!

I'm watching...

We finished watching the first season of Warrior Nun this weekend which is another option for RIV XV.

Now we are thinking about what to start next. There are so many options, it's almost too hard to choose.

Life

You know that we have been in lockdown too long when you suddenly have to become the husband's hairdresser.  I was very, very nervous! I am not sure it's even but he's happy! AS for me...it's at least another month before I will get to the hairdresser.

I mentioned last week that we are starting doing some study. One hour in to a two year course and I was already saying I couldn't do this. It wasn't helped by technological difficulties. Hopefully they are sorted now and I can get on with it, although the first subject is quite introspective which I am not sure I was expecting, or ready for.

As I have mentioned we have been under strict lockdown for the last 6 weeks in the hopes that our COVID numbers would reduce, and they have. Our restrictions are being reduced a bit, but we are still supposed to stay within 5kms of our home, so we still aren't really free to do what we want to do, but hopefully we will get some more freedoms soon. In the mean time,  I am creating a mental list of the places that I want to go when we can go for a drive.

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Spring TBR 
Why I Love: MItchell James Kaplan on Why I Love Dreaming
The Second Wife by Gill Paul
Weekend Cooking: What I Baked in September
Bestsellers Around the World - South Africa and Australia

I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date

This Week...

I'm reading...

I've had a great reading week over the last week, finishing The Tolstoy Estate by Steven Conte which I gave a grading of 5/5 (review here) and also The Wreck by Meg Keneally which I graded as 4.5/5. My review for The Wreck will be up later in the week and my review for the third book I finished this week, Paris Time Capsule, will be up in couple of weeks.

I somehow seem to have a gap in my reading schedule which means I can take the opportunity to actually read whatever I want. Today I therefore started reading Serenity's Song by Cathryn Hein which is part of the Outback Brides Return to Wirralong series. This is 100% a comfort read for me and so far I am enjoying it.

I am also contemplating reading The Turning of the Screw by Henry James because it is the starting point of the October Six Degrees of Separation. Originally I had no intention of reading it, but I had a look and realised that it is actually a short story, I think that I could definitely fit that in!

Over the weekend I also watched a book talk featuring the authors from The Deadly Hours (which I reviewed last week). One of the silver linings of COVID is that there are so many online events that are accessible that never would have been back in "normal days". One of those authors is Susanna Kearsley who I would love to meet for real one day, but I do think that it probably unlikely. 

I'm watching

This week was more a week of finishing things rather than watching anything new. 

We finished watching Great Canadian Baking Show which we enjoyed and also Singapore Sling, which was... interesting. Singapore Sling was about life in Singapore on the eve of the Japanese invasion during. That aspect was interesting but there were moments that just descended into buffoonery. The other thing was that the episodes just ended. It didn't really feel like the end a few times, including in the final episode. I was expecting them to come back after the ad break.

We are also enjoying watching the Tour de France,mainly for the scenery. It's an easy option when it's heading towards bedtime and we don't want to start a new show for the evening.

Life

This weekend we were supposed to go to Uluru for the weekend. We booked the trip back in February and we were hopeful that things might have settled down a bit so we could still go, but it wasn't to be. Not all was lost though. We needed to create a new car parking space at home so we have been working on clearing out a garden bed for the last few weeks, including chopping down trees, What we learnt early on during our projects is that our garden is full of very big rocks, It just so happens that my street name kind of rhymes with Uluru! I therefore bring you the big rock that we saw this weekend!

I also made the switch to the new Blogger this weekend. I have been resisting it, but for the most part I think that it's okay. In the end of got sick of having to swap it back to the legacy version. I haven't had too many issues with images, and labels are okay now too. Really, the only thing I am not 100% on is that I have a lot of posts in draft, and I can't tell what the scheduled date is just looking in the list. Instead it shows you the date that you saved it which isn't ideal but it is a minor thing!

Don't forget you can now follow my blog on Facebook here.

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Childhood Favourites
The Deadly Hours
Alphabet 2020: S is for Social Media
Weekend Cooking: You Say Tomato...

The Tolstoy Estate by Steven Conte

I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date