We are well into week 5 of lockdown (week 6 if you’re us and had a week of self isolation first…) so this will look a bit different to usual.
What I have read
- What Could Possibly Go Wrong (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #6) – Jodi Taylor
- Ships, Stings and Wedding Rings (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #6.5) – Jodi Taylor
- Dead and Loving it – MaryJanice Davidson
- Dead Over Heels – MaryJanice Davidson
- Undead and Unworthy (Undead #7) – MaryJanice Davidson
- Lies, Damned Lies and History (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #7) – Jodi Taylor
- The Great St Mary’s Day Out (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #7.5) – Jodi Taylor
- My Name is Markham (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #7.6) – Jodi Taylor
- Dessicated Water (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #7.7) – Jodi Taylor
- Undead and Unwelcome (Undead #8) – MaryJanice Davidson
- Five on a Hike Together – reviewed here and here
- And the Rest is History (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #8) – Jodi Taylor
- Markham and the Anal Probing* (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #8.1) – Jodi Taylor
- The Very First Damned Thing (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #0.5) – Jodi Taylor
- The Making of Outlander: The Official Guide to Seasons 3 & 4 – Tara Bennett
- A Perfect Storm (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #8.5) – Jodi Taylor
- Christmas Past (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #8.6) – Jodi Taylor
- An Argumentation of Historians (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #9) – Jodi Taylor
- The Battersea Barricades (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #9.5) – Jodi Taylor
- The Steam Pump Jump (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #9.6) – Jodi Taylor
- And Now for Something Completely Different (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #9.7) – Jodi Taylor
As always I’ve got some on the go that I haven’t finished
- Oz: Into the Wild – Christopher Golden
- Hope for the Best (The Chronicles of St Mary’s #10) – Jodi Taylor
I thought I hadn’t found much extra time for reading but it seems I was wrong. Lots are short stories but there are still ten full books there as well!
There are also a LOT of St Mary’s books! Mostly on Audible but some of the short stories on Kindle as I already had them and didn’t want to pay £6 for a two hour or under listen. The new one came out on April 16 and I’ve now only got to finish #10, and then two more short stories before I can read it!
*NB contains no actual probing.
The Oz book is one of the Buffy series. A few years ago I started reading my whole collection in order of when they’re set in relation to the TV series. I couldn’t get into this one and so I stalled. This is now the third time I’ve tried to read this one and thankfully I got past the opening chapters and may actually finish it.
What I have watched
- One Man, Two Guvnors starring Jemima Rooper who made an excellent girl acting as a boy, as always!
- The live-action Lion King
- Hollyoaks though it’s down to two episodes a week at the moment
- Buffy seasons 2, 3 and some of 4 as we’ve been sticking it on just about every night
- A few more episodes of Outlander season 5
What I have done
- A fair bit of gardening. We haven’t so much as cut the grass in our private bit of garden in the past 5 years as we never use it – it doesn’t get much sun and there’s a much larger communal area. But I thought Brodie would enjoy playing with mud so I dug out a bit of the flower bed and then decided to carry on. I have some wildflower seed bombs ready to go in when it’s all cleared and I will leave him a space for playing too.
- Other ways I have tried to amuse Brodie; an ‘assault course‘ of planks and bricks to balance on, made bubble bath foam (total disaster – he hated it), made gloop with cornflour and water (he loved this at least), dug out his play tent and tunnel, had an indoor picnic and a garden one too.
- Gone on a daily walk for at least an hour
- Started some workouts that have been put online (so far Boxfit, Pilates, BodyBalance and Tabata). Brodie joins in sometimes and other times used me as a tunnel to crawl under or a surface to drive cars on.
- I started last month but have continued with daily book displays using what I can find around the house.
- Started a cross stitch I got free from someone who was clearing out – it’s of Tigger so I can put it in Brodie’s room when it’s done.
- Weekly Zoom and Whatsapp quizzes with my family and Ewan’s, and some scavenger hunts too.
What has your month looked like?
Fiona
pippastef
worldofblyton
World of Blyton 
As my husband worked now for 7 weeks from home on his work laptop, I have less spare time than before when he still drove to the company. But I managed to finish reading “The Shell Seekers” and “September” (today starting my favorite Pilcher novel “Coming Home”), I’ve read two of Mary Higgins Clark’s last crime novels (she died in January) “I’ve got my Eyes on you” and “All by myself alone”. I also read one of my all-time favorites “Class Reunion” by Rona Jaffe, and a biography on actress Beverly Garland. There might have been more books. I usually mention them on GoodReads. So that was my literature in April.
As for movies I rewatched my favorite road movie of all times, “Les Passagers” (The Intruder) with Jean-Louis Trintignant, “Texas Across The River” and “Comme un Boomerang” with Alain Delon and several other Delon movies of which “Le jour et la nuit” was the worst (even though Lauren Bacall was in the cast). Now I’ll watch both versions of “The Shell Seekers” (one with Angela Lansbury, the other with Vanessa Redgrave) and “September” (Jacqueline Bisset).
With my husband we watched the new season of “Bosch” and reached the 6th season of the US TV series “Cold Case”. It will be hard to find something as compelling afterwards. There are not too many good TV series that we are interested in, so most of the time we decide to watch another classic TV series on DVD like “The Detectives” or “Sea Hunt”.
We walked our Cody on those April mornings when it was not raining (it rained a lot this year!) and I watch WW II documentaries which I’ve recorded on DVR while I ride the recumbent bike in our living room and do weight exercises.
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I absolutely love Jodi Taylor’s Chronicles of St Mary’s books, I download them free through our public library. Recently I read her spin-off book “Doing Time” and was not too impressed.
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It’s always great to find another St Mary’s fan! I don’t know if you are on Facebook but there are a few groups for ‘disaster magnets’.
Fun group for chat and jokes:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/JodiTaylorFans/?ref=share
Virtual St Mary’s, similar to the first but with vague roll play
https://www.facebook.com/groups/186302695452646/?ref=share
Discussion group for plot serious book discussions:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/578223792697100/?ref=share
Spoiler group for talking about the latest book:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/andtherestishistory/?ref=share
I’ve not read Doing Time as I’m not sure I can even like the time police. What didn’t you like about it?
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Thank you for that fabulous list! Recently I dropped out of social media due to the incessant Covid-19 bombardment but may have to reinstate myself 🙂 I like the sound of the plot serious book discussions.
On my blog I often write a post called Three Things and in one I wrote a review of “Doing Time” and the main hook is that Max’s son Matthew joins the Time Police. My review says more but overall I feel it has been aimed at young adult readers and the characters were not unconventional enough for me.
https://thoughtsbecomewords.com/2020/02/01/three-things-9/
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