This Week...

Life

On Sunday we went to a cafe in the inner city suburbs where they were advertising Parisian Hot Chocolate, and I have to say it was worth  the drive. What is that, you may ask? Well, it was a very thick drinking chocolate that comes with a big serving of cream. We had a ham and cheese croissant and then shared a banoffee cream croissant which was oh my goodness good. The cafe only does the Parisian Hot Chocolate during winter, but all the food looks so good, we can see ourselves going back again.

It did make me reminisce on all the delicious hot chocolates we had when we were travelling through Europe, which I posted about here.

This follows our visit to a German Christmas Market on Saturday which I am counting as our Christmas in July for this year. It was a bit cold and rainy (it is winter after all) but we got to enjoy some mulled wine and there was a nice vibe. We intended to grab some dinner there but the queue for the Bratwurst sausages was at least an hour long, so we ended up going to the local pub for their Christmas in July menu. We do try to do something for Christmas in July most years!

I also had a work offsite this week which was in a gorgeous location and with great food! It was an enjoyable couple of days but quite full on!

I'm reading

After a slow reading week last week, this was a much better week in terms of the number of books read. I read both Secrets in Pelican Crossing by Maggie Christensen, which I reviewed last week here), and The One That I Want by Sandy Barker which I will review this week. I also started reading Poppy's Parisian Patisserie by Daisy James

I finished listening to Sidelines by Karen Viggers, which was an interesting read. It's not my normal type of read but I did enjoy it in the end. It covered a number of issues. I then wanted a change of pace and so I started listening to Funny Story by Emily Henry.


I'm watching

It was the finale of Masterchef Australia this week. Whilst I am not going to spoil the results, I can say that I wasn't the biggest fan of the winner. Never mind. Bring on Dessert Masters!

I did  start watching a British show called Extraordinary Extensions. The show is basically a home renovation show. It is hosted by rapper Tinie Tempah, which gives the home renovation genre a bit of a twist. The renovations they are featuring are amazing, featuring people who make very brave design decisions and do something different with their houses. Oops...apparently the host just goes by the name Tinie now.

Other than that, I did watch a couple of movies. I watched the new Harry Connick Jr movie set in Cyprus - Finding Me Falling. It was pretty standard rom com and it was ... you know...fine. Harry Connick Jnr stars as a faded rock star who buys a house on a clifftop in Cyprus. When he runs into an old flame, things change more than he could ever imagine.

After our fancy brunch, we went to see Arctic Convoy (Konvoi) which is showing as part of the Scandinavian Film Festival. This is a Norwegian film which tells the story of an Arctic convoy which plied the seas from Norway to the USSR, providing much needed provisions in the depths of WWII. It was a pretty good movie, although it did lose it's way a little bit at times. It was certainly dramatic. Here's the trailer.

Posts from the last week


Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Things I Love About Books Set in France

Blog Tour: Secrets in Pelican Crossing by Maggie Christensen
Weekend Cooking/Paris in July: The Taste of Things

Paris in July: Paris: Impressions of Life 1880-1925




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

This week.....

I'm reading

I mentioned last week that I started to read Welcome to the Hyanum-Dong Bookstore by Hwang Bo-Reum. I am still reading this book. I am not really sure why it hasn't really grabbed my attention as there is a lot to like, but it is a slow read for me.

I also started reading my next review book, Daughters of Tuscany by Siobhan Daiko. I like it, but it does feel a bit like other books I have read.

I am feeling a bit unsettled when it comes to books. I also started The Readers Room by Antoine Laurain. This is probably the one that has caught my attention the most but if I do have some due dates that I need to be conscious of.

When I finished my last audiobook I declared that I would be listening to something fluffier next. Whilst that was my intention, I am not sure I was completely successful. It might just be a different version of intense. I started listening to Sidelines by Karen Viggers which is the next Rachael Johns' Book Club choice. I must confess it wouldn't normally be something that I would choose to read but that's book clubs for you, right?

Speaking of book clubs we had our face-to-face,  read-on-a-theme book club meeting on Saturday. I was called an overachiever because I read 3 and a half books that met the theme, which was translated books. Whilst I am sure that I will have no issue finding a book to meet the next theme which is Scotland, I doubt I will be reading that many books next month.


I'm watching


This week I started watching Series 2 of Stuff the British Stole. I watched all of series 1 a couple of weeks ago and found it fascinating. I will definitely finish this series in the upcoming week.

I also started watching the TV series adaptation of Women in Black. I have a few episodes to catch up on now.

I will also be spending some time over the coming weeks watching Tour de France!

On Saturday night we went to the movies to see The Movie Teller, which is being shown as part of the Spanish Film Festival. It's actually a Chilean movie, which tells the story of a family who live in a remote part of the country where the father worked in the saltpetre mines. The family loves the cinema and each week they go together. When the father has an accident they can no longer attend and so they send just one of the kids to the cinema and they have to come home and recount the movie. In addition, the movie tells the story of what happened in Chilean history from the 1960s to the 1980s. It is really in the movie part that this story shines. I am definitely glad that we got to see it.

Here's the trailer:

Life

Last week, Bree from All the Books I Can Read went to see Rebecca Yarros at Melbourne Town Hall where she talked about all things Fourth Wing and Iron Flame . When we arrived the queue to get in went half way around the block which means that there were several thousand people in the crowd! As you would expect this was a younger audience than there was when I went to see Bonnie Garmus but we certainly weren't the oldest in the crowd by a long way.

Rebecca Yarros was a lot of fun to listen to. I suspect she is asked very similar questions at each event as her answers did seem well practiced. There were also lots of things that she couldn't talk about, especially in relation to the TV adaptation which is being done by Amazon. Having said that, I left the event having smiled and laughed, so you can't ask for much more than that! And of course, I am definitely looking forward to the next book

Posts from the last week

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated Books Being Released During the Second Half of 2024.

Weekend Cooking: 5 Ingredient Mediterranean by Jamie Oliver

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