May is upon us, but spring seems to be dragging its heels. It feels like it’s getting colder instead of warmer… 

What I have read

I mostly stuck to the theme of bookshops and libraries with my reading in April, with a few other things thrown in for variety!

What I have read:

• The Library of Lost and Found – Phaedra Patrick
• Elodie’s Library of Second Chances – Rebecca Raisin 
• Tilly and the Bookwanderers (Pages & Co #1) – Anna James
• The Bookshop that Floated Away – Sarah Henshaw
• The Cornish Cream Tea Bookshop – Cressida McLaughlin
• A Spring Surprise for the Cornish Midwife – Jo Bartlett
• The Holiday at Ardmhor (Ardmhor #1) – Lea Booth
• The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus #2) – Christopher Morley
• Murder by the Book (Beyond the Page Bookstore Mystery #1) – Lauren Elliott
• Always, Ardmhor (Ardmhor #2) – Lea Booth
• Prologue to Murder (Beyond the Page Bookstore Mystery #2) – Lauren Elliott

And I’m still working on:

• All Creatures Great and Small – James Herriot
• Boy – Roald Dahl
• The Sinister Booksellers of Bath (Left-Handed Booksellers of London #2) – Garth Nix

Fun fact – the red book held by the woman on the cover of The Holiday at Ardmhor is the author’s hardback copy of Five Get Into Trouble!

What I have watched

• I’ve carried on with Richard Osman’s House of Games, including the Christmas Specials despite it being the wrong time of year!
• I watched some more of The Good Witch but my interest waned a bit and I moved onto Lego Masters Australia instead!
• We watched a couple of episodes of iZombie but have discovered it’s about to leave Netflix, it’s not all on DVD and it will likely go to HBO Max which isn’t even available in the UK. So that’s very annoying! We haven’t settled on anything new yet so we returned to old episodes of Mythbusters.
• Tuesday nights films were Miss Congeniality 1 and 2, plus Cool Runnings. 

What I have done

• I’ve sorted out all my Lego, while watching Lego Masters. It was all in two very large boxes but is now in a four drawer unit, and all the fiddly little pieces that are hard-to-find are sorted into little boxes. It makes building things much easier! Brodie’s really into Lego now so we have already built a house and garden, some shops, and he’s always making little vehicles as well.
• I’ve been doing a load of 3D printing for an event at work – a local castle and multiple pin badges in different colours.
• Despite it being the school holidays we had relatively few days out as the weather has been so bad but we did go up to Arbroath where we had a very cold and windy picnic at the park, then headed to their indoor funfair/amusement arcade. After that we braved a walk along the waterfront where we looked at the Signal Tower Museum, just from outside though as it was closed.
• We went to the Transport Museum for the first time this year (it’s closed over winter) and saw their new vehicles, then we went back again for a Terrific Tractors event. Sadly there were only three tractors at it though. 
• We also visited the Deer Centre where we fed the deer and saw their elusive haggis in its enclosure.
• And we managed one walk on the beach, hopefully we will get back to more of that soon.
• I held April’s online book group for a friend’s Facebook group – my book choice was The Library of Lost and Found.
• I was called for jury service one week as well, but thankfully did not have to attend. It’s all done by phone now so I didn’t even have to go hang around the court buildings waiting to see if I was needed.

What I have bought

I treated myself to the first Holiday Book as it was the only one of the 12 I didn’t have. I didn’t need it for anything I was working on, but I saw a copy for sale and it reminded me I didn’t have it. It can be quite tricky to make sure you’re buying the genuine first Holiday Book as a mix of stories from the first and second holiday books were later reprinted and titled The Holiday Book. The best clue is if the seller has listed or photographed the contents which you can then match up to the ones listed in the Cave.

What did your March look like?