January 25th, 2012
I was recently invited to join a Book Club. It was something new to me, but it sounded fun.
I read on average one or two books a week, and lately I’ve been having difficulty finding something that I want to read that I haven’t read already. So to have a book suggested to me seemed like a good idea.
The first book choice was The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows. I thought it was a very strange title but of course as I read the book, the title made sense. This is what the book is about….
January 1946: writer Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a stranger, a founding member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. And so begins a remarkable tale of the island of Guernsey during the German occupation, and of a society as extraordinary as its name. (Taken from the book’s website)
This was the first novel I had come across that was written entirely in letter form, know as an Epistolary novel. Apparently that’s how novels developed.
I very much enjoyed the book and learnt things about life under German occupation that I didn’t know and hadn’t imagined.
It was fun discussing the book at the Book Club meeting and together we chose the next book to read. I’ve ordered a copy and I’m waiting for the postman to arrive with it. This time I’m going to have a notebook nearby and jot down my thoughts as I read.
Tags: book, Book Club, letters, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
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January 15th, 2012
I was hoping to be able to get a shot of the full Moon this month. We’d had lots of clear skies, so I thought there was a good chance.
I spotted it as soon as it started rising. It looked enormous and very orange, a huge fiery ball sitting on the roof of a house. Guess what! As soon as I got my camera out, it clouded over! I waited and waited hoping that the clouds would clear, but after half an hour, I gave up disappointed.
It was four days later that the temperature dropped and the sky was clear and I was able to take this shot of the waning Moon at 76% illumination. I love the way the craters show up when the sun is no longer shining full on them.
Tags: clear skies, craters, Moon, photo, waning
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December 28th, 2011
I like watching the Moon. I meant to go out around lunchtime today to see if I could see it and forgot. It was tea time when I remembered. I opened the front door, and there it was! I didn’t even have to look for it.
I have a challenge with a friend to see who can see it first each month when it becomes visible a couple of days after the New Moon. As soon as I saw it, I sent him an email. I thought I had ‘won’ this time as I hadn’t heard from him that he’d seen it.
His reply pointed me to his blog where he has added a new page called ‘Moonspotting’. There he had logged seeing it nearly two hours before me!! Nevermind, I might win next month!
Tags: crescent, Moon, photo
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December 20th, 2011
For quite a while I’ve been entering a daily competition on a particular website. I do it at some time during the day when I open all the other sites, forums etc that I look at daily.
In the run up to Christmas, they also have an Advent calendar competition which is fun. There are some shelves filled with presents, and each day the right one is sparkling with stars. You log in, click on the beautifully wrapped gift, and then the ribbon undoes itself, the paper unwraps and there it is – empty! They say, ‘Sorry you haven’t won. Try again tomorrow’
But today was different! When the present unwrapped itself, there was something inside – I’d won!!
How exciting! An early Christmas present! I’ve won a selection of Belvoir fruit cordials. They sound delicious! I like cordials, especially in the summer. They’re lovely and refreshing. I’d noticed these before and thought how nice they looked but have never seen any in the shops. Now I’ll be able to try them!
Tags: Belvoir, competition, cordials, prize, website, win
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December 17th, 2011
This morning I got the bus into my local town. It was very cold, so I was dressed in my long coat, 2 scarves, a furry hat, two pairs of gloves – and my Christmas bauble earrings.
I was meeting a group of people to go Carol singing. I recognised them easily as most of them were wearing Christmas hats or tinsel.
Our first venue was at the Town Hall where a trader’s Christmas market was being held. The organiser had invited us to come along. We went up onto the stage, which seemed very high up, and sang quite a few carols including some special requests. It made me feel very Christmassy.
Then it was out into the cold where we sang in the street. Then on to some old people’s bungalows which was a bit of a walk, but worth it as people came out to listen.
By the time we had finished, my feet were like blocks of ice!
I’d had a quick look round the trader’s Christmas market and had seen some handmade heat packs that you heat in the microwave. These ones were different because they were filled with cherry stones instead of wheat. They can be washed, can be frozen and stay hot longer. I decided that my feet deserved one and I’m looking forward to trying it out.
If you’d like to see my bauble earrings, here they are…….
Tags: bauble, carol singing, Christmas, cold, earrings
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December 10th, 2011
After 17 years of looking after the day to day running of a small Christian Bookshop, I’m being made redundant.
I have a variety of emotions about it. I won’t be sorry to say goodbye to the stress caused by my part time hours being cut in half to 16 hours a week 2 years ago, without any of the workload being cut.
I will miss the people I work with and the fun and joking in the office. I’ll miss the customers and the feeling of satisfaction when someone comes in wanting to buy something but hasn’t a clue what. With gentle questioning and my knowledge of what’s available, I can send them out of the shop happy with a parcel under their arm or an order waiting to come in.
I’ll miss seeing publisher’s reps and choosing the right product for our customers from what they show me.
I’ll miss putting new stock in to the shop and making it look attractive and inviting, and the excitement of seeing someone buy something that I’ve chosen, ordered, priced and displayed.
I’ll miss our designated customer service advisor from our main wholesaler who is so helpful and knowledgeable and always willing to share that knowledge, which has really helped me in my job.
Thank you Michael.
I’ll miss being part of a team who work well together and usually manage to achieve the impossible in the hours we have.
Oh yes, and I’ll miss having an income too!
So I’m sure that there will be a time of grieving for what I’m losing and I’ll have to readjust my life.
It suddenly struck me in the last few days that redundancy is like a funeral. All sorts of people at work, where we have lots of volunteers who work in the coffee house, and even people in the street who know me have stopped me. They say how sorry they are to hear that I’m leaving and then go on to say how much I’m appreciated and valued and tell me a little anecdote of how they remember my kindness or patience. It reminds me of my father’s funeral where people I didn’t know came up and told me little stories about him.
It’s lovely that people are telling me that they appreciate me and will miss me, but I wonder why they’ve waited 17 years to do it?
Tags: Bookshop, office, redundancy
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November 2nd, 2011
It’s 75 years ago today since the BBC began transmitting the world’s first regular public television service from London’s Alexandra Palace on 2nd November 1936.
I was on television once. Just local, not national. It was quite a while ago when I used to work as a volunteer in the local Oxfam shop. I did an afternoon shift, and not long after I’d come on duty, a well known local presenter, a camera man and a sound man came in to the shop and started telling us what they wanted us to do.
We didn’t know what was going on, but they assured us they’d checked it all out. But they’d agreed it with the people on the morning shift, and we knew nothing about it!
I can’t remember why they wanted to film now. It was some sort of special promotion, I think. So we agreed to let them film us as we served customers.
It was quite exciting seeing myself on the local news that evening!
Tags: BBC television, happy birthday
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July 15th, 2011
I love growing things in the garden. It’s wonderful to step out of the kitchen, walk across the lawn and pick something fresh to eat.
The runner beans have got lots of flowers on them and some little beans are starting to form. I’m looking forward to being able to pick them.
I was given a nice healthy pot of tomatoes and have enjoyed watching them grow. Yesterday I decided that the first few were ready to pick. I cooked a meal, and then when it was ready, I went out to harvest the tomatoes, fresh and warm straight from the plant. They were delicious!
Tags: beans, fresh, garden, homegrown, photo, tomatoes
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June 26th, 2011
I love the beautiful bell shaped flowers of foxgloves and the way they have patterns inside them to lead bees deep inside to pollinate them.
It’s been a good year for them this year. I’ve seen them on roadsides, in gardens, in people’s drives and I was really pleased to see some growing in my garden.
Every morning I could come downstairs, put the kettle on, make a cup of tea, and while it was brewing, go out into the garden to take photos of the foxgloves and the bees buzzing round them. They lasted for ages, because as one flower dies, another one opens further up the stem.
They’ve gone over now, but I’ll spread their seeds round the garden hoping that they’ll come up again next year. In the meantime, I have some lovely photos to remember them by.
Tags: bees, flowers, foxgloves, garden, photo
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June 9th, 2011
A friend gave me some lovely bright yellow marigolds to plant in the garden. They look really good especially next to the red and yellow Red Hot Pokers, but an extra bonus is the lovely butterflies they attract.
I try to remember to take my camera with me when I go out into the garden, because if I see a bee or a butterfly and run back in to get it, guess what! When I get back outside they’ve gone! I find butterflies quite difficult to take, as they flit around so much. If they do sit still for a few seconds, it’s often with their wings closed so that I can’t see their beautiful patterning.
So I was really pleased to find this one sitting still with it’s wings open when I had my camera with me! It’s a Small Tortoiseshell and now I know that they like marigolds, I’ll plant them again.
Tags: butterfly, garden, marigold, photo, small tortoiseshell
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