Wednesday's Hodgepodge - 19/2/25

Wednesdays mean Hodgepodge - provided by our lovely host Joyce who you can find here.

1. Many of our earliest presidents created words or expressions widely used today. Teddy Roosevelt is credited with mollycoddle, pack rat, frazzle, and loose cannon...which of those words/phrases currently relates to your life in some way? 

Possibly frazzle.  My house is still upside down from our recent decorating, and will be until the new units are fitted which won't be for a few more weeks.  A lot of stuff is not where it should be, plus we have extra stuff from when the kids moved to the US which I still have to sort and deal with.  (And shhh there's also stuff of my daughter's that we need to deal with too.)  I'm putting it off for now - once the units are in and all our stuff is dealt with then I can focus on all the other things plus there is a yard sale planned for our local area in May.  But I do not like the chaos.

2. Have you visited many (or any) of the US Presidents homes, monuments, libraries or related sites? If so what's been your favorite? Are there any you particularly want to see? Here's a link to presidential sites listed by state which is kind of fun to read-Presidential Places by State. And since several bloggers who participate in the HP each week live outside the US, here's a link to Presidential Places Outside the US. Have you seen any of those? 

Well we've visited Washington and seen many of the monuments there and I've also seen the Presidential Statues that are in London's Trafalgar Square but looks like I should take a trip to Grosvenor Square to see more.

3. February 20th is National Cherry Pie Day...will you celebrate? Given your choice of cherry pie, cherry cobbler, cheesecake with a cherry topping, or black forest cake which would you choose? 

I will absolutely not be celebrating - still trying to lose the extra pounds that went on over Christmas lol.

If I had to choose it would be cheesecake with a cherry topping thank you.

4. Last time you worked a puzzle of some kind? Something that had you puzzled recently? 

I am always doing puzzles - I have a subscription to the NYT puzzle section so I Wordle, Crossword, spell etc most days.  I'm also a great fan of Japanese style puzzles - Sudoku, Kakuro etc.

I'm also doing this one each day:

I blogged about it here.

The Puzzle I find most annoying though is the missing .......(insert any item of clothing as appropriate.)  You know it has to be in the house somewhere.........

5. Of the early blooming flowers (January-early March depending on your zone) which one's your favourite? 

snowdrops, lenten roses, pansies, violets, snapdragons, reticulated iris, crocus, winter jasmine

I'd have to say snowdrops from that list and maybe crocus, too early for the others

Do you have any of these in your own yard/garden? 

No I don't but once daffodils and tulips are in the shops I will buy some to have in the house.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

I should have put this for #4.  

I love the fact that I can buy postage online and then arrange for a package to be collected.  I found a couple of "Where's Wally?" style books that I wanted to send over to the Grandsons so I packaged them up, sorted out the postage and arranged for collection on Monday.

There were 3 of us in the house ALL Day!  Yet not one of us heard the postman call at 12.49 pm.  How? 

Hopefully he'll come today.  There's a note by the doorbell!

Book Review - The Judge's List - John Grisham

The Judge's List by John Grisham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In The Whistler, Lacy Stoltz investigated a corrupt judge who was taking millions in bribes from a crime syndicate. She put the criminals away, but only after being attacked and nearly killed. Three years later, and approaching forty, she is tired of her work for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct and ready for a change.

Then she meets a mysterious woman who is so frightened she uses a number of aliases. Jeri Crosby's father was murdered twenty years earlier in a case that remains unsolved and that has grown stone cold. But Jeri has a suspect whom she has become obsessed with and has stalked for two decades. Along the way, she has discovered other victims.

Suspicions are easy enough, but proof seems impossible. The man is brilliant, patient, and always one step ahead of law enforcement. He is the most cunning of all serial killers. He knows forensics, police procedure, and most important: he knows the law.

He is a judge, in Florida - under Lacy's jurisdiction.

He has a list, with the names of his victims and targets, all unsuspecting people unlucky enough to have crossed his path and wronged him in some way. How can Lacy pursue him, without becoming the next name on his list?

Another fast paced book from Grisham that follows Lacy Stoltz of the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct as she tries to build a case against a sitting Judge for murder. Evidence against him has been provided by the daughter of one of the victims but it's very circumstantial.

As they work together they become caught up in a game of cat and mouse. Who will win?

This is a typical Grisham novel, using legal procedures to provide a fast moving but detailed story. I really enjoyed it.

View all my reviews

Book Review - Everyone on this train is a Suspect - Benjamin Stevenson

Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second book. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn’t pan out.

The program is a who’s who of crime writing royalty:

the debut writer (me!)
the forensic science writer
the blockbuster writer
the legal thriller writer
the literary writer
the psychological suspense writer

But when one of us is murdered, the remaining authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, we should know how to solve a crime.

Of course, we should also know how to commit one.

How can you find a killer when all the suspects know how to get away with murder?

Sometimes sequels can be a disappointment but not this one. It's written in a similar way as "Everyone in my family has killed someone" but different characters and settings give it a fresh feel.

Don't think of it as a "Whodunnit?" though. Although the narrator continuously breaks the 4th wall and gives out snippets of information along the way, lots of the details given in the denouement are not in the book.

Still an enjoyable read though.

View all my reviews

Friday's Fave Five - 14/2/25

Time to look back on the week and show our gratitude for the good things.  We link up here at Susanne's site to share them.

1)  Well we're not big on Valentine's day in our house.  Both Hubby and I find it all very commercialised but we had an impromptu invitation to join our local grandkids for dinner tonight.  Our DIL had made a nice stew - just what you need when the temperature is only just above freezing.  Nathan and Ella were on good form - they'd both been given notebooks for Valentine's day and we had a lot of fun drawing pictures and guessing what they were.  It was nice to spend time with them, especially as we hadn't expected to.  And no dinner to cook or washing up to do.

Playing guess what the picture is!

2)  Grateful for the volunteers from our local Swan rescue team again this week - I was able to help rescue a swan that had been chased off our lake by the resident pair.  Click here for the full story.  Thankfully the rescued swan was taken to a nearby body of water that has a flock of swans and she seems to be settling in ok.

3)  Also grateful for our NHS service and routine checks this week - had my routine mammogram done at one of the mobile units nearby on Tuesday.  The radiographer was lovely and it was all very efficient.  Results usually come back in about 2-3 weeks.

4)  Bright sunny weather today - still only about 4 degrees C but I was able to get out and refill the bird feeders - they were soon attracting the birds and the squirrel!  I also managed to plant out the mini Christmas tree I'd bought at Christmas.  Hopefully it will survive.  I also managed a walk to deposit some of my books in the local Little Libraries.

5)  Talking of Little Libraries - this was what I brought home yesterday:

These 3 books by C J Sansom are the final 3 in the Matthew Shardlake series - Heartstone, Lamentation and Tombland.  The Little Library actually had all 7 books but I've already read the first 4.

They are tomes (664, 656 and 865 pages respectively) and I need to see if I can fit them to any of the prompts of the 52 book challenge but at least now they are on my TBR pile and I'm sure I'll get through them eventually!

Have a good weekend all.