Books

I finished reading Veronica Heley - False Step the other day and very good it was too. This is a new series which started with False Charity and features widow Bea Abbot who runs a domestic agency. This one involved a suicide which turned out to be murder and a corpse who isn't what he seems. I thought it was the best one so far.

I've also just finished Alison Joseph - A Violent Act which is the latest in the Sister Agnes series. She is a very unconventional nun with a penchant for fast cars, good food and wine. In this story she has to face unfinished business to do with her father who died some years ago. Her friend, Father Julius, wants her to visit a lady who is dying of cancer and an inmate of the hostel for homeless young people which she helps to run dies of an overdose. An excellent complex plot with more serious issues than the average who done it.

Paul Gallico's Flowers for Mrs Harris is a charming short novel - Ada 'Arris - London char falls in love with the idea of owning a Dior dress. So she saves up until she has enough money to fly to Paris to buy one. What happens to her and the people she meets is a gorgeous heart warming story. I had read this author's Too Many Ghosts and The Hand of Mary Constable so this was another one to add to the list.

I am currently reading Trisha Ashley - A Winter's Tale. This is sort of chick lit but also almost an historical novel in modern dress. Sophy inherits Winter's End a rambling manor house, estate and a garden which is in the process of restoration. There are two eccentric great aunts who live on the premises and a cousin who expected to inherit and who is trying to persuade Sophy to marry him so that he can get his greedy paws on the property. Excellent light reading.

Back to work tomorrow and books

No I'm not looking forward to it! I'm sure I'll feel different when I get there. The trouble is I have really enjoyed these last few weeks of liberty. I think I would feel differently if there was no possible way out until retirement age - but there is. I could apply for early retirement and would probably get it. Being an adult and having responsibilities I have to consider things from that stand point. If I only had myself to consider I would be applying for it as soon as I get in to work tomorrow - but I don't just have myself to consider.

No more reading books for a large part of the day - ho hum! I've read over 50 since the end of August. The latest is Kate Muir's West Coast about Fergus a photographer who leaves his childhood home on the west coast of Scotland in unfortunate circumstances and makes his fortune in London. Having done so he realises that happiness was probably back in Scotland. In a sense a boring story line but the writing lifts it above the banal. The start of his time in London with its ambiguous sexuality is well done as is his gradual disillusion with the art world. This is a far better book than the same author's Left Bank in my opinion.

Currently reading - Alison Joseph - The Quick and the Dead, Kath Kelly - How I lived a Year on Just a Pound a Day, Paul Gallico - Flowers for Mrs Harris.

Enjoy your Sundays everyone.

The week so far

It's Wednesday already - amazing how time flies when you're having fun! Obviously I missed the fun. What is getting me down at the moment is the heat. I like hot weather - say a gentle 22deg C - that would suit me all year round. This is too much. They keep promising us rain - but no signs of it in this neck of the woods. A good night's sleep would help.

Work is as ever somewhat fraught with various people who should know better spreading doom gloom and misinformation. Our employer does not insist we have a driving licence as part of our contract. They do not dictate how we get to work. Yet one poor woman had been scared half out of her wits and into the bankruptcy court by someone saying she'd have to buy a second car to get to work as her husband uses the family car. They tried this on me 3 years ago - and failed - so I knew the answer. If you normally travel by public transport etc then that is how they assess your journey to the office they want you to go to. If people don't know the answer they should not make it up rather than admit they don't know!

Books - a somewhat neglected subject of late. I have finished Judy Astley's latest - 'Other People's Husbands'. This is the aga saga - can't call it chick lit as it's mainly older women - at its best. The story revolves round Conrad and Sara, and their two adult daughters - Cassandra and Pandora. Conrad is going through an existential crisis as he approaches his 70th birthday and Sara - in her 4os is going through a mid life crisis. Can their relationship cope? What happens if Sara's artistic career takes off when Conrad's is fading? Lots of sub plots and warm and lovable characters.

I've also started Ken Follett's 'The Pillars of the Earth' - a huge saga about the building a medieval cathedral. So far so good - but it's about 1000 pages and too heavy to carry around. I'm also reading one of Alison Joseph's Sister Agnes crime novels - 'A Dark and Sinful Death'. with Agnes being just as disobedient and iconoclastic as ever. A lady after my own heart.

Off to catch up on the internet and then a cold shower for me.