Shots on Sunday - 18/10/26

Well this week I have taken even less photos than last week!  

I did take the obligatory screen shots when I was organising the pick ups for the supermarket donations on Wednesday which are incredibly boring.  I also took a photo of the pub quiz in the newspaper yesterday (and the answers) because we do that as a family but I won't put that on here because it's bound to be subject to copyright.  Oops.

Anyway we were out and about today so I snapped these:

This is the site of the former cinema that I've written about before.  Work was delayed during the summer because of the heat but now they have poured the concrete in for the foundations and this crane has appeared on site so hopefully we will begin to see progress on its transformation - it's going to be a new 2 screen cinema with flats behind.  

This was my Sunday lunch at one of the pubs near us - we decided to eat out for a change and give Hubby a break from cooking.

My dessert, there's a chocolate brownie under all that chocolate sauce and ice cream!

Hubby's sticky toffee pudding.The puddings were great but the meal was probably just on the right side of ok.  Definitely nothing special.  But it was nice not to have to cook (or wash up) at home and although it was chilly we avoided any rain.

Trouble is, when you've been trying to cut down on your portion size and don't usually have desserts at home, when we eat out now I end up feeling over full.  

We walked up to the pub and we probably should have walked home too to work off some of the calories but we compromised by walking half way and then getting the bus!

And, as always, we commented that we should do this more often!

#SoCS - 17/10/26 - Pitch

Linda provides the prompts for this and today's link up is here.

Your prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “pitch.” Use it as a noun, use it as a verb, use it way you’d like. Have fun!

Back in September our community held a "Picnic in the Park".  This is an annual event and will include a variety of attractions plus various local organisations, charities etc will have a space to pitch their stall in our local park.

The food bank that I volunteer at has a stall each year.  I volunteered to help transport tables, gazebo, goods etc to the pitch in the morning and help set up and then to do the packing up at the end of the day.  Consequently I was there for most of the day.  

I did take a break around lunch time to go home, have something to eat and a sit down before heading back.

However, at just after 3 pm Transport for London seemed to think I had taken my car through one of the tunnels under the river Thames.  I haven't yet mastered the ability to be in two places at once, a skill that would be very useful at times.

Anyway, I have an account set up with them to automatically pay the fee should I use either tunnel and as the fee is quite small, and I rarely use the tunnels, I don't always check the monthly statement I get.  This month I did check it and realised their error.  Naturally I emailed them to advise them of this.

A week later I got a reply saying that "having reviewed the evidence" they agreed it was a mistake and I would be refunded.  Of course the sensible thing to do would be to refund my account.  But apparently they can't do that.  Oh no.  They said they would send me a cheque!

Who uses cheques these days? I certainly don't.  Can't remember the last time I wrote one.  Anyway the cheque duly arrived in the grand sum of £1.50.  I'd love to know how much it actually cost to carry out this procedure, not to mention the postage.  A costly error on their part and they didn't answer my question of whether they had misread another car's registration plate or if my registration plate was actually on a different car, i.e. it had been cloned.  Hopefully not but I will be checking these statements more carefully in future just in case.

Thankfully I can pay the cheque into my bank via the banking app which I've already done.  It's a bit fiddly but I don't even know where my nearest bank branch is anymore to deposit it in person.  So many of them have been closed.  I know I could probably also do it at an ATM machine but that would require remembering my PIN.  

Does anyone else have trouble remembering PIN numbers now that we make so many payments using contactless?  On my credit card app I can view my pin if I need to but not the banking app.  Maybe I'll pitch that as an idea for them to develop.  The staff no longer working in branches need something to do!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend all.

Friday's Fave Five - 16/10/26

Each Friday a group of us look back on the week and find the blessings. We're reminded to do this by Susanne and then we link up on her blog here.  Why not join us?

1)  This week I'm grateful that our garden waste collections are included in our council tax and we don't have to pay extra for them.  Some councils only collect during Spring and Summer and you have to pay for them.  Our garden waste is collected year round with no extra cost.  We have two trees on the street in front of our house and because we have off street parking the leaves collect on our driveway.  My garden waste bin will be full of leaves when the next collection comes around. (It's fortnightly.)

2)  Sunny weather.  And it's still been quite mild during the day.  We have had some rain but it hasn't lasted long.

3)  Dinner with my daughter and her family last Sunday.  Good to get together and not have to cook.

4)  An alternative venue for our Knit and Natter session this week.  We have been meeting in the upstairs room of one of the local pubs but the room was double booked this week.  Thankfully we were able to meet up in the outside area of another pub nearby.  The outside area is roofed and it also has heaters so the weather wasn't a problem.  It probably wouldn't work in the middle of winter but it was a good alternative this week.  We did have to put up with being able to hear the bingo number calling though - it was Bingo Night in the pub itself.  But that wasn't continuous so it didn't really bother us.

5)  Another Great Niece - born yesterday. She hasn't been named yet as the couple were convinced they were having a boy!  Although they didn't actually know what they were having, choosing to be surprised.

Have a good weekend all.

Read then Write - 15/10/26

This was the one I was about to start last week and it didn't take me long to read.

The blurb reads:

A nerve-tingling and atmospheric thriller from master of suspense Nicci French about two families shattered by tragedy and the secrets that have been waiting decades to be revealed.

On the day of Alec Salter’s fiftieth birthday party, just before Christmas 1990, his wife Charlotte vanishes. Most of the small English village of Glensted is at the party for hours before anyone realizes Charlotte is missing. While Alec brushes off her disappearance, their four children—especially fifteen-year-old Etty—grow increasingly anxious as the cold winter hours become days and she doesn’t return. When Charlotte’s coat is found by the river, they fear the worst. Then the body of the Salters’ neighbor, Duncan Ackerley, is found floating in the river by his son Morgan and Etty. The police investigate and conclude that Duncan and Charlotte were having an affair before he killed her and committed suicide.

Thirty years later, Morgan Ackerley, a successful documentarian, has returned to Glensted with his older brother Greg to make podcast based on their shared tragedy with the Salters. Alec, stricken with dementia, is entering an elder care facility while Etty helps put his affairs in order. But as the Ackerleys ask to interview the Salters, the entire town gets caught up in the unresolved cases. Allegations are made, secrets are revealed, and a suspicious fire leads to a murder. 

With the podcast making national news, London sends Detective Inspector Maud O’Connor to Glensted to take over the investigation. Resented by her mostly male colleagues, she has no tolerance for either their sexism or their incompetence. And she will stop at nothing to uncover the truth as a new and terrifying picture of what really happened to Charlotte Salter and Duncan Ackerley emerges.

This was definitely a slow burner but I thought it was well written and it led to a satisfying end.  There was good coverage of the way the police investigations were handled but also the way the families involved reacted to the circumstances.

I'd be more than happy to look out for other books featuring DI Maud O'Connor. 4 stars for me.

I also managed to fit this one in this week:

 

Annie is nine months pregnant and shopping for a crib at IKEA when a massive earthquake hits Portland, Oregon. With no way to reach her husband, no phone or money, and a city left in chaos, she realizes there’s nothing to do but walk.

Making her way across the wreckage of Portland, Annie experiences human desperation and kindness: strangers offering help, a riot at a grocery store, and an unlikely friendship with a young mother. As she walks, Annie reflects on her struggling marriage, her disappointing career, and her anxiety about having a baby. She’s determined to change her life if she can just make it home.

This was quite a good debut novel.  It takes place on one day with Annie looking back on previous events while she walks.  It kept me engaged and I liked the style of writing.  In some ways though it didn't have enough depth and I didn't feel it was always very realistic.  The ending was also a bit predictable and left a lot of unanswered questions.

I'm still 4 books behind on my challenge of 52 books over the year and my next planned read is not going to improve that situation.  It's this one:

This is the Library book club choice.  I tried to start it yesterday and although I've only read a little I'm finding it really hard going.  I don't think I'm going to like it at all and am seriously considering abandoning it and reading something else.  Which is of course not what I'd normally do - I hate giving up on books but this one is nearly 500 pages and I know I won't read it quickly.  We're not meeting until next month so I might leave it for now and try and come back to it.

Anyone here read it?  Was it worth it?