Weekly Photos 15th - 21st March 2026

Afternoon tea on Sunday for Mother's Day

The completed plastic logging sheet which I submitted online on Monday.

The flowers that I brought home from the Foodbank looking pretty on Tuesday.  Look closely and you'll spot the penny in the bottom of the vase which is supposed to keep them looking good for longer.  They're still looking okay today.

Wednesday: The jumper is growing.

Thursday: My next knitting project?  Maybe.  I brought one of these home from the Foodbank last week but it didn't have the label on it.  This one had the label on it and I discovered on the reverse is the pattern for making the hat!

Friday it was nice enough to hang washing out!

Saturday - this is the audio book I listened to.

Funny how colours can look so different in photos.  That jumper looks purple in that photo but I can assure you it's pink!

Hope you're having a relaxing Sunday.

#SoCS - 21/3/26 - Easy/Hard

Linda provides the prompts for #SoCS and the link up is here.

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “easy/hard.” Use one, use both, use ’em any way you’d like. Bonus points if you get both words into your post. Enjoy!

Well I'm going to use both by asking is it easy/hard to listen to an audio book?

I have never really settled to listening to audio books.  Some years ago my daughter gifted me a six month subscription to audible but I was still working at the time so the only time I really had for reading was when I went to bed.

Well I'm sure you can guess what happened.  I would often fall asleep listening to the book so I consequently found myself having to backtrack, trying to work out at what point I was up to when I fell asleep and often reading the same chapter over and over.

Needless to say I did not renew the subscription when the gift period expired.

Fast forward to now and I read a lot.  I'm retired so I can really read as much as I want and when I want.  I do love a physical book but I also like the convenience of reading on my Kindle App, especially when on holiday.  But I've kept away from audio books.

Until today.  I mistakenly ordered an audio version of a book from the library rather than the physical copy.  I decided to give it a go.

Straight off I had to speed it up.  The narrator's voice was boring and slow.  I worked out how to speed it up and I actually managed to listen to the whole book during the course of this afternoon and evening.

It was Wednesday's Child by Peter Robinson which is a DCI Banks story. (Actually #6 in the series.)  This is a very English crime series that has been televised.  I enjoyed the TV series and the books have been ok so far. (I'm trying to read them in order.)  They're not 5 star material but they're quite gritty at times.  This one was a bit more graphic than some and the crime centred around a child abduction.

My main problems with the audio version were that:

1)  I found the narrator annoying - and it was the same one for all the characters, men and women; and

2)  I noticed how much detail there was in all the descriptions.  Of everything.

Perhaps when I've been reading the books I've skimmed over that or maybe this book was just more descriptive than previous ones.

Anyway I finished it. 

But it hasn't persuaded me that audio books are my thing.  I was knitting while listening so it was productive in that way but I'm not sure I would necessarily keep all the plot details in my head if I was doing something that required a bit more concentration.  Chick lit might work I suppose but I'm not convinced.

I'll definitely be more careful when ordering books from the library in future though!

Are you an audio book fan? 

Friday's Fave Five - 20/3/26

Susanne reminds us each week to look back on our blessings and then we link up here.  Thank you Susanne.

1) Last Sunday was Mother's Day here in the UK.  We had a lovely afternoon with my daughter and her family.  We were supposed to go to them but we ended up here.  They brought the ingredients for an English style cream tea which we all enjoyed.

2)  We found out this week that one of our nieces is expecting her first baby later this year.  A baby is always something to be thankful for.

3)  Hubby and I sat through a TV series together this week. We don't often want to watch the same thing so it was nice to sit down together and we did binge watch it a bit over a couple of days.  (Series was "Gone" aired by ITV one of the main UK channels.)

4)  Flowers from the Foodbank - we had so many donated to us on Monday evening we didn't have enough buckets to put them in so we all brought some home.

 5) Our eldest son celebrated his birthday yesterday - he was working during the day but he and his family had dinner out at their local Nandos.

And for a bonus - I was able to hang some washing to dry outside today!  Spring is definitely here.

Have a good weekend all.

Read then Write - 19/3/26

Well I only managed to finish one book since my last book post - The Killing Stones by Ann Cleeves.

The blurb reads:

"It's been several years since Detective Jimmy Perez left Shetland. He has settled into his new home in Orkney, the group of islands, off the northern coast of Scotland, with his partner Willow Reeve and their growing family. One stormy winter night, his oldest and closest friend, Archie Stout, goes missing. Ever the detective, Perez catches a boat to the island of Westray, where Archie worked as a farmer and lived with his wife and children.

But when he arrives he finds a shocking Archie's body, on an archaeological dig site and an ancient Westray story stone with precise spirals carved into it beside him, the clear murder weapon. The artifact, taken from a nearby museum, seems to suggest a premediated murder.

But Perez is so close to the case that he struggles to maintain an objective distance from the potential suspects. He finds it difficult to question Archie's wife, whom he's known for years. Rumours swirl about the dead man's relationship with a young woman new to the island, an artist. With each new lead, the case becomes more twisted and Perez wonders if he will ever find out what happened in his friend's final days."

I've enjoyed quite a few books by Ann Cleeves and I've watched the "Shetland" series which featured DI Perez on the TV.  This book finds Perez now settled in Orkney with partner Willow, a young son and another baby on the way.  Yet there didn't seem to be any explanation of how we got from Shetland to Orkney.  According to Google we've jumped 7 years but that wasn't accounted for in this book.

Having said that this book could easily be a stand alone and I do love Cleeves' way of describing things in detail and giving depth to her characters.  It was a little bit too neatly wrapped up for me at the end so no 5 stars but it definitely makes you want to visit Orkey for its scenery.

According to Goodreads I'm 2 books ahead of schedule to complete this year's reading challenge but my reading pile is not going down.

I have 3 books out from the library at the moment:

 


The Trouble with Goats and Sheep is the afternoon book club choice.

People Person is for the evening book group and

The Betrayal is for one of the 52 book club prompts:

"Inspired by the top grossing movie, in the year you were born"

The film?  Ben Hur.  My first thoughts were I'd have to find something on ancient Rome.  Definitely not my sort of thing.  Having looked at what the film is about Betrayal seemed a good fit.  My challenge my rules!

I've actually read The Trouble with Goats and Sheep before so that should be an easy one to get through and I'm starting with that one next.  Then I'll do the other book club one so that I'm ready for the next meet ups before moving on to Betrayal.