A Week Off

I have just had a week's holiday. "Where did you go?" I hear you say. Well dear reader I didn't go anywhere, I had a week at home doing nothing - no clubs, no swimming, no hospital volunteering, no church cafe, it was wonderful.

I know that being retired means I can do nothing all the time, but having always been an active person I wanted to continue doing things, and as we age I think it's important to be as active as possible. However much as I enjoy all my activities it was getting to the point where every day I would wake up thinking, "What am I doing today?" or "What time do I have to be out by?" I was permanently on the go, and I felt very tired. So now I feel rested with a fully charged battery, ready to resume my activities.

I think I will have a home stay holiday more often 😊

∼ Be safe and well∼ 

Polly x

A Good Read

The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
     
On a quiet street in Dublin, a lost bookshop is waiting to be found…
   
The Lost Bookshop is a story about three strangers, Opaline, Martha, and Henry. It’s a mixture of historical fiction, mystery, and good old fashioned romance.
   
Martha has escaped an abusive marriage and finds employment working as a housekeeper to the eccentric ex-actress, Madame Bowden.

Henry is a Ph.D. student who is obsessed with an old manuscript, and is ready to do anything to locate it. He is convinced that Charlotte Brontë wrote a second book.

In 1922 Opaline flees her childhood home to escape an arranged marriage to a stranger. She finds refuge in Paris, where her love of rare books earns her an apprenticeship in a bookstore, the perfect training ground for a young woman who is also convinced that Charlotte Brontë wrote a second book, which is waiting to be discovered.

     

It took me a little while to get into the story because of the different timelines but once I did I enjoyed it.

∼ Happy Reading∼ 

Polly x

Rayleigh

Last week my U3a bus pass group had a trip to Rayleigh, a nice market town and civil parish in Essex. The name Rayleigh is Old English in origin deriving from rǣge ('female roe-deer or she-goat') and lēah ('clearing'), meaning "wood or clearing of the wild she-goats or roe-deer". 

First stop was at a pretty little tea room which also sold lots of lovely clothes, jewellery and accessories. I nearly bought a scarf but then decided that I already had more than enough!

The small museum was excellent, documenting the town from Prehistoric and Roman times up to present times

in this little cinema area.

Children's dressing up area

After lunch we visited the church, unfortunately it was closed, we thought it would be open all day.

Then on to the windmill before strolling back to catch the bus home.

∼ Be safe and well∼ 

Polly x 

A Good Read

The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

After a long and eventful life Allan Karlsson ends up in a nursing home, believing it to be his final destination, but he is still enjoying good health and isn’t remotely interested in the big celebration being organised for his 100th birthday, so he decides to escape. He climbs out the window in his slippers and embarks on a hilarious and entirely unexpected journey. It would be the adventure of a lifetime for anyone else, but Allan has led a mercurial existence, with a larger-than-life backstory.    

The first stop as he leaves the home is the railway station, intending to travel as far as his available cash will allow. There he meets an angry young man who asks Allan to look after his case while he goes to the toilet. The train arrives before the man returns so Allan just takes the case with him. He leaves the train at a remote abandoned station and starts walking until he reaches a cabin in the woods lived in by an old man similar to himself. Meanwhile the young man asks the whereabouts of the old man and leaves the train at the same stop. He then guesses where Allan has gone and finds the cabin. He is even more angry by now and demands the return of his case. A fight ensues, the old boys overpower him and lock him in a fridge. They drink a lot of alcohol and forget about him.

He was a bad man anyway.
There then follows an unlikely but very amusing story of Allan getting mixed up with drug dealers, a motley crew of flawed but interesting characters, and an elephant! The story is also interspersed with flashbacks of Allan’s life and how he inadvertently managed to be in the right place at the wrong time and helped influence a number of events that changed the course of twentieth century history.

Quirky and ludicrous, this is a fun read.

∼ Happy Reading∼ 

Polly x

Another Year Older

No one wants to get old, there aren't many consolations associated with old age, but I have stopped bemoaning the passing years and instead I celebrate getting this far intact - 77, yes I know I don't look it 😄 

My daughter treated me to breakfast at a lovely local tea room

followed by a bit of retail therapy

and back home these gorgeous flowers and chocs had arrived from my Aussie daughter. Another lovely birthday.

∼ Be safe and well∼ 

Polly x 

Riverdance

Myself and friends thoroughly enjoyed the 30th anniversary of Riverdance

The performance was fantastic, brilliant dancing, singing, music,

amazing special effects and set design

I was surprised and pleased at how well some of my photos came out

Be safe and well∼ 

Polly x 

A (Fairly) Nice Day Out

It would have been a lovely day out if we had gone a day earlier, but that's life, you can plan a trip to the nth degree BUT you can't plan the weather, it rained, it poured.

M and I had a day trip with our local coach company to Shaftesbury and Lulworth Cove in Dorset. Shaftesbury is a historic hilltop market town in North Dorset, England, famous for Gold Hill, cobbled streets, views of the Blackmore Vale, and its founding by King Alfred the Great in the 9th century.

Gold Hill is a steep, cobbled street lined with picturesque thatched cottages that famously featured in a 1970s Hovis bread commercial directed by Ridley Scott and titled "The Bike Ride" or "Boy on the Bike." It aired in 1973 and featured a young boy pushing a bike loaded with Hovis bread up a steep, cobblestone street. The nostalgic advert, set to the music of Dvořák's New World Symphony, concluded with the boy freewheeling back down the hill, showcasing the brand's traditional, heart-warming image and cementing it as one of Britain's most iconic commercials.

The cat obliged for a photo but sensed what was coming. A few seconds after snapping the scene the rain started pouring down and the cat ran for shelter, and we headed for shelter in a cafe for some lunch, after which the rain had eased off and we strolled around.

St Peter's Church

Nice little park area

with lovely views over the Blackmore Vale

Shaftesbury Abbey museum and gardens.

The Abbey was founded as a Benedictine Nunnery by Alfred the Great in AD888. Unfortunately we didn't have time to visit the abbey or the museum.

Alfred the Great

Next stop Lulworth Cove

Formed by the combined forces of the sea and a river swollen by melting ice at the end of the last Ice Age, Lulworth Cove is world famous for its unique geology and landforms including the Lulworth Crumple and Stair Hole.

Lulworth is considered one of the best places in the world to study geology with its amazing landforms and five types of rock.

We were considering walking round to that headland until a woman fell over after slipping on some wet seaweed!

So I walked up there instead

I was disappointed that we weren't taken closer to the famous Durdle Door rock. It was within walking distance, but we didn't have time to get there and back before the coach was due to leave

It was an enjoyable day but having spent more time on the coach than at our destinations we both agreed that we wouldn't do any more long trips

Be safe and well∼ 

Polly x 

Cream Teas

Every year from June to September, on the first Sunday of the month we have cream teas on our church lawn. On offer are scones, with jam and clotted cream, a plethora of home made cakes, and very nice cups of tea or coffee. 

It's always well attended but today saw a bumper crop of  customers. I think it was a combination of it being the last one and lovely warm weather.

oOo

Here in the UK at 3pm we received an emergency alert test on our mobile phones. I think it's the first time we've had one of these. It's an important step in keeping people safe during national emergencies. I think it's a good idea.

∼ Be safe and well∼ 

Polly x 

A Good Read

I, Mona Lisa by Natasha Solomons 

It is widely thought that Lisa del Giocondo was the inspiration for Leonardo da Vinci's most famous painting The Mona Lisa. She was the wife of wealthy Florentine silk merchant Francesco del Giocondo. The painting is thought to have been commissioned for their new home, and to celebrate the birth of their second son, Andrea.

Imagine da Vinci's studio, bursting with genius imagination, towering commissions and demanding patrons, as well as discontented muses, friends and rivals, and in the midst of all this sits the painting of Mona Lisa. For five hundred tumultuous years, amid a whirlwind of power, money and intrigue, the portrait of Lisa del Giocondo was sought after and stolen.

Weaving through the years, the story takes us from the dazzling world of Florentine studios, via rivalry, murder and heartbreak, to the French courts at Fontainebleau and Versailles, and into the Twentieth Century.

This is the story of the painting narrated by the painting.

The majority of my book club friends didn’t like this, they thought a talking painting was silly, but I liked it. I thought the journey of the painting that Solomons created was quite clever.

∼ Happy Reading∼ 

Polly x

Addiction, Time Wasting or

Excercise For The Little Grey Cells?

I never understood Sudoku, I couldn't see the point of it but last March when I visited my darling daughter in Australia she explained how it worked. I bought a puzzle book and became hooked, and now I have installed it on my phone!

Oh dear, whilst I'm sure there has to be a certain amount of brain activity playing any games, I know without a shadow of a doubt that it is addictive and time wasting! But also fun and challenging!

∼ Be safe and well∼ 

Polly x 

A Good Read

Be Careful What You Wish For by Jeffrey Archer is the fourth book in the Clifton Chronicles series.

     

This is the one I was meant to request instead of the other Be Careful What You Wish For! 

When Ross Buchanan is forced to resign as chairman of the Barrington Shipping Company, Emma Clifton wants to replace him. But Don Pedro Martinez intends to install his puppet, the egregious Major Alex Fisher, in order to destroy the Barrington family firm just as the company plans to build its new luxury liner, the MV Buckingham.

Back in London, Harry and Emma's adopted daughter wins a scholarship to the Slade Academy of Art where she falls in love with a fellow student, Clive Bingham, who asks her to marry him. Both families are delighted until Priscilla Bingham, Jessica's future mother-in-law, has a visit from an old friend, Lady Virginia Fenwick, who drops her particular brand of poison into the wedding chalice.

Then, without warning, Cedric Hardcastle, a bluff Yorkshireman who no one has come across before, takes his place on the board of Barringtons. This causes an upheaval that none of them could have anticipated, and will change the lives of every member of the Clifton and Barrington families. Hardcastle's first decision is who to support to become the next chairman of the board: Emma Clifton or Major Alex Fisher? And with that decision, the story takes yet another twist.

∼ Happy Reading∼ 

Polly x

A Fairly Good Read

Be Careful What You Wish For by Vivien Brown
Two women swap homes for a month, each wanting a bit of time away from their normal everyday lives and problems.
Former actress Madi is recovering from cancer and wants to escape from her lonely London life. She has started to forget things and has a feeling that she is being watched.
Prue feels suffocated by her claustrophobic village life and has suffered a devastating public humiliation. All she wants now is anonymity in London.
Two strangers, a chance to escape …. Or is it?

I thought I had requested Be Careful What You Wish for by Jeffrey Archer, but it wasn't until I got home and actually looked at the book that I realised my mistake!! So I thought I might as well read it. It was ok. I liked the main characters and it was interesting, if a bit predictable, reading how they each settled into their new habitats. There were hints that something was afoot but halfway through nothing significant had happened, it did pick up a bit though.

∼ Happy Reading∼ 

Polly x

Afternoon Tea

My WI's annual summer outing was to Ongar garden centre 

where we enjoyed a delicious afternoon tea.

Mini quiches, sandwiches, scones with cream and jam, and cakes. Most of us couldn't manage it all, we took the cakes home for later! 

And afterwards we browsed around the shop

It was a lovely day with glorious weather

∼ Be safe and well∼ 

Polly x