Last month I predicted that the weather would turn sunny just as we were allowed to meet indoors again. I was wrong. Not only was it not sunny, it rained. And hailstoned. And rained some more.
What I have read
This has been a bit of a slow month, reading wise. I can’t even think of a good excuse! I’m still 15 books ahead of my target, though, so I can afford a few slow months.
- The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon #2) – Dan Brown
- Around the World in 80 Puzzles – Aleksandra Artymowska
- Enid Blyton the Untold Story – Brian Carter (review coming soon)
- What Abigail Did That Summer (Rivers of London #5.3) – Ben Aaronovitch
- Five on a Secret Trail – Reviewed here, here and here.
- Dilly’s Sacrifice (Dilly’s Story #1) – Rosie Goodwin
- Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race – Reni Eddo-Lodge
- The Island of Adventure (TV tie in novel) – Hugh Morgan (review coming soon)
And I’m currently reading:
- Dark Light (Elizabeth Cage #2) – Jodi Taylor
- Soulless (The Parasol Protectorate #1) – Gail Carriger
- Confessions of a Curious Bookseller – Elizabeth Green
What I have watched
- Hollyoaks, as usual.
- Richard Osmond’s House of Games and the new series of Taskmaster.
- A whole lot of the Vampire Diaries, I’m on the last season now and trying to decide what I’ll watch next.
- Bring It On: All Or Nothing – I resumed my re-watch of the Bring It On series with my sister now that we’re allowed in each others’ houses again. This is the third film, with Solange Knowles and Hayden Panettierre.
- Olympus Has Fallen and the sequel London Has Fallen
What I have done
- Despite the rain we’ve managed to visit a few different beaches, and new parks.
- We’ve started geocaching – looking for little containers hidden in parks, woods, on paths and streets using a GPS app.
- Been out for lunch for the first time this year, and out for cake too!
- Visited the local zoo for the first time this year
- Visited the Beatrix Potter garden in Birnam, and a 500 year old hollow tree that reminded me of the tree in Hollow Tree House.
- Completed another jigsaw (apart from the two missing pieces!)
- Enjoyed the sunshine that finally arrived at the end of the month and have had some al fresco meals – much more comfortably and warmly than the ones we had around Christmas and New Year!
- And perhaps most importantly I’ve had my first Covid vaccination!
What has your month looked like?
Fiona
pippastef
worldofblyton
World of Blyton 
May in Massachusetts was rather rainy this year, with some hot spells in-between.
Our garden was revitalized by our snow removal man Patrick who also happens to be a gardener. He and his team came on five consecutive days two weeks ago working from 8:30 a.m. until 7 p.m. and that really made a big difference.
Because we both have back problems, we cannot do any garden work other than my husband mowing the lawn.
André retired on 29th of May and now plays golf 4 days a week. 🙂
Massachusetts no longer requires the public to wear masks, but some nurses said on TV in the news that it’s way too early (70% of MA has been vaccinated), so we both keep wearing masks in public.
We went to Boston on one Friday in May very early in the morning to beat the traffic on the highways, so I could take new pics of the famous historical Acorn Street on Beacon Hill behind the capitol which is next to the Boston Common. My old photos from 2007 disappeared somehow when we transferred documents from my old computer to my new computer way back then.
I finished reading “Angels and Demons” by Dan Brown which was indeed a very thrilling read. Now I’m reading the illustrated version of “The Da Vinci Code” (2nd time) and love it.
On Goodreads.com I’m now 2 or 3 books behind in the Reading Challenge, but as long as I’m reading Dan Brown’s five novels on Robert Langdon (each book has about 700 pages which takes me 5 to 6 days) and then the 7 John Corey novels by Nelson DeMille (also 600+ pages per novel), I won’t have much time for other books.
Before falling asleep I keep reading all 8 Famous Five books centered around Kirrin Bay and Kirrin Island. Those have always been my favorites and I wanted to re-read them for quite a while. Especially “Five on Kirrin Island again” was very very good!
Now I read “Five get into Trouble” (most people’s favorite) and I hope it will pick up at some point. It reminds me of “Five on a Hike together”.
I’m looking forward to the next two books which are “Five Fall into Adventure” and “Five have plenty of Fun”.
We are now watching season 6 of “All Creatures Great and Small”. I finally got used to Lynda Bellingham playing Helen Herriot (I still think Carol Drinkwater was much more lovely and had more charisma and great chemistry with Christopher Timothy) and we both enjoy the trials and tribulations of James Herriot and Siegfried Farnon tremendously, but we wish that Tristan would return. Callum left which is a pity (I never cared for his wife though). He was such an endearing character and so different compared with Siegfried and James. I liked the fact that he had all kinds of wild animals like an owl, a weasel and some others.
When do you ever get a chance to see an owl on TV?
We plan to drive to Connecticut to the coast next Monday to take photos of 5 or 6 lighthouses.
Hopefully some interesting movies will be released soon. TCM brings 12 old movies to the movie theaters every year and we watched “The Maltese Falcon” (80th anniversary) in February and before that we watched “Psycho” (60th anniversary) last year in the fall. Social distancing was handled much better at the movie theater than in any super market.
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That turtle with Brodie looks huge!
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