It’s July already (and it has rained pretty much every day so far) so let’s look back at June.

What I read

I continued with the Val McDermids at the start of June, then finally took a break once I had been to her talk. I’m now 11 books ahead of schedule, though, which is only a couple more than the number of Val McDermids I read over four weeks.

As I was seeing Sara Sheridan talk too I finally read the book of hers that I bought last February – better late than never, right?

My whole read-what-I-already-own campaign floundered as I borrowed all those Val McDermid books and one for another reading challenge, but I only read two BABALS (and one about publishing.)

So I read:

• Beneath the Bleeding (Tony Hill & Carol Jordan #5) – Val McDermid
• The Dictionary of Lost Words – Pip Williams
• My Scotland – McDermid, Val
• Fever of the Bone (Tony Hill & Carol Jordan #6) – Val McDermid
• 1979 (Allie Burns #1) – Val McDermid
• A Place of Execution – Val McDermid
• The Queen Elizabeth Family
• The Retribution (Tony Hill & Carol Jordan #7) – Val McDermid
• The Secrets of Blythswood Square – Sara Sheridan
• Bad Moon (Elizabeth Cage #4) – Jodi Taylor
• The Lamplighter’s Bookshop – Sophie Austin
• Slayers Every One of Us – Jenny Owen Youngs & Kristin Russo,
• Prose and Cons (Nevermore Bookshop #5) – Steffanie Holmes
• Wrong Witch to Hex With – Molly Harper
• Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop – Bo-Reum Hwang
• Dead Head (Sweetpea #3) CJ Skuse

I ended the month still working through:

• Everyone on This Train is a Suspect – Benjamin Stevenson
• The Adventurous Four
• The Distant Echo (Karen Pirie #1) – Val McDermid
• Love Theoretically – Ali Hazelwood

What I watched

• Given that Supernatural is 15 seasons long, unsurprisingly we are still watching it and have just started season 5. We’ve also been watching Taskmaster.
• I watched a couple of episodes of Charmed but still haven’t picked my next watch.
• My sister and I watched some Ten Years Younger and then started on season two of And Just Like That.
• Ewan and I also watched Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which we agreed that although nowhere near as bad as Crystal Skull, was nowhere near as good as the original trilogy. Our ranking of the films – if you’re interested is Last Crusade, Raiders, Temple of Doom, Dial of Destiny, Crystal Skull.

What I did

• Tried to protect our strawberries from slugs and managed to harvest a handful of non-eaten ones, plus we staked our peas up as they were a tangled mess in the wind.
• I saw Val McDermid and Sara Sheridan (and Flora Johnson) talk at a book event.
• We did the scarecrow trail again – this year’s theme was The Muppets.
• We built Lego in the garden and had a picnic then had to rush everything inside again as the rain came on.
• We had a family games afternoon where we played (amongst other things) Marvel Monopoly because the weather forecast was so bad.
• Ewan and I have been playing Blue Prince – a puzzle game on the Playstation (and other platforms) and sometimes Brodie “helps” too. The basic premise is that you have inherited a house but the house “resets” at the end of each day. Every morning you enter and have to choose which rooms to draft. You have to collect keys to unlock doors, and gems to buy rooms and there are tons of puzzles to solve. Every time we play we have some sort of goal – like “draft the pool so we can draft the pump room and then drain the reservoir” or “get the tomb so we can pick up the diary key AND her ladyship’s chamber for the diary” but inevitably get sidetracked as we discover something else. Anyway, lots of fun and you don’t need to be a gamer to play. It mostly involves walking around the house and grounds and picking up items – no running or shooting or anything complicated (other than the puzzles!)

How was your June?