Friday's Fave Fives - 13/2/26

It's Friday so time to look back on the week and find the blessings.  Susanne hosts this blog hop here and keeps us on our toes each week.  Thank you Susanne. 

1)  Lots of family time last weekend with my daughter and her family.  They all ended up here for lunch on Saturday and then we went to them for a Sunday roast.  

2)  A few spells of sunshine this week.  We still didn't get a rain free day but just a glimpse of the sun always makes the day feel better.  On Wednesday the rain held off long enough for me to walk down to the library and walk back through the park.

3)  A good meet up on  of the evening book club I'm in.  7 people attended and we'd all read the book so there was a good discussion on that.

(Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris.)

4) Progress on the crochet bag for granddaughter Ella.  All the pieces are done.  I just need to put it all together.

5)  Appreciation at the Foodbank.  As volunteers we help out because we want to and we get satisfaction from knowing we're helping a lot of people in the local community.  But it's always nice when someone makes a point of saying thanks for doing a good job.

Have a good weekend all.

Read then Write - 12/2/26

Not a bad week for reading.  I finished The Names by Florence Knapp:

The Names by Florence Knapp
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I found the premise of this book interesting - how does the choice of a name affect our lives going forward? The book follows Cora's baby son who is named either Bear, his 9 year old sister's choice, Julian (Jules) his Mother's choice, or Gordon after his Father and Grandfather.

The story is told from those 3 POVs and moves forward in leaps of 7 years starting in 1987 and ending in 2022. It is beautifully written - the author definitely has a way with words. However it felt a little bit disjointed to me and although some things were covered in detail, others were not.

The name choice also isn't what really affects the life of the baby but rather the effect Cora's decision has on her marriage and the events that follow. It should be noted that the marriage is an abusive one for anyone who likes to steer clear of domestic violence.

Overall it's a good debut but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's great.

I also attended a Book Club meeting on Tuesday evening where we discussed The Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris.  It was a good evening as we had seven people there who had all read the book.  Most people liked it.  I was on the fence.  There were things in it I felt didn't quite gel together.  It was a bit slow too.

This week I've also managed to finish this book:

The Guardians by John Grisham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don't think I've ever been disappointed by a John Grisham book. Of course there are lots of similarities in many of them - based around the American legal system, often involving injustice and frequently drug cartels and conspiracies.

This one was a bit slow initially and there are several storylines to get your head around as we follow Cullen Post, an innocence lawyer and minister as he tries to prove the innocence of convicted criminals and get them exonerated.  The pace picked up and I really enjoyed it.

I now have 2 books to read for the book clubs:

 and 

I have the Cotterill one on my Kindle App and I have a physical copy of The Muse.  There's a few weeks before the clubs meet again so I have plenty of time to read them.  Hopefully I'll like The Muse more than I did The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton.  I found that quite hard going.  I haven't read anything by Cotterill so that may or may not be interesting.

Of course I'm trying to match these Book Club reads to the 52 Book Club Challenge list of prompts wherever possible but I'm not sure where these will fit yet.  I'm sure I can fit them in somewhere but it may be at the expense of books from my TBR pile! Thankfully I've managed to not add any more books to that pile so far this year.  For anyone who missed it these are just some of those books:

I'm not going to check how many unread books there are on the Kindle App lol.

Wednesday Hodgepodge - 11/2/26

Joyce provides the questions, we provide our answers and link up here.

1. What's something recent that had you 'tickled pink'? 

I actually can't think of anything.

2. A bed of roses, everything's coming up roses, every rose has it's thorn, stop and smell the roses, rose-colored glasses, a rose among thorns...which rosy expression might currently be applied to your life in some way? 

Well I'm retired so I definitely have time to stop and smell the roses.

3. What makes you feel loved and appreciated? 

Little gestures.  A thank you, an acknowledgement.  An offer of help.

4. A box of chocolates or a bouquet of fresh flowers-what's your pleasure? Any special plans for Valentine's Day? 

Could I have both please?  Oh, only one then it would be the flowers - they'd last longer lol. No plans for Valentine's Day.

5. Share a favourite quote, scripture, or song lyric relating to love. 

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

I managed a trip to the library today and a walk back through the park without getting wet!  The threat of rain is always there though as you can see in the pictures I took.  It's fun to photograph the trees without their leaves so you can the structure of the tree.

In the News this Week - 10/2/26

Locally it seems that Kier Starmer's days as Prime Minister may be numbered, particularly given that he appointed Peter Mandelson as Ambassador to the USA, but Starmer's Chief of Staff seems to have taken the fall for that one.  However with Mandelson's homes being searched at the weekend that may not be enough to keep Starmer in office despite his Cabinet members rallying behind him.  

I know I've been guilty of moaning about the amount of rain we've had - it's miserable again today - but at least we don't face the prospect of the flooding that's happened in some areas.  Please say Spring is on the way.

It's difficult to find an International news story that isn't likely to upset someone.  I did manage to find this uplifting story of how a 13 year old Australian managed to swim to shore and raise the alarm after his family were swept out to sea.

In Sport of course the big story is the Winter Olympics.  I've enjoyed watching the Ice Skating and the Curling has been worth a watch as our mixed pair started off well but lost in the semi finals so now they are competing for Bronze.  One of the big upsets though was Lindsey Vonn crashing out of the Downhill Skiing events.  Personally I can't imagine why she even wanted to attempt the downhill run with ruptured ligaments but competing in the Olympics means so much to some athletes that they are prepared to take big risks.  The fall Lindsey sustained has led to a really bad injury to her leg which will require multiple surgeries and a long recovery period.  But she has no regrets as stated in this article.

In Entertainment news the release of the film adaptation of Wuthering Heights has received mixed reviews. I've struggled to read the book - I've started it twice but have yet to finish it.  I do prefer to read before I watch so I won't be rushing to watch this version.

And for Miscellaneous I have worked out why the Foodbank is getting such huge donations of potatoes from the charity Felix.  (Felix takes surplus food that would be destined for waste and either makes meals from it or passes it on to Foodbanks.)  Anyway according to an article I read in the paper at the weekend, farmers estimate that demand for potatoes is down by as much as 10% and they blame this on the rapid increase in people taking weight loss drugs who are eating less and avoiding snacks which include potatoes as well as frozen chips and starchy foods.  It's estimated that between 1.5 and 1.6 million people in the UK have used weight loss jabs in the past year.  Well their weight loss is our gain as we are being given crates of potatoes each week.  The trouble is we're finding it hard to pass them on - our demand seems to have dropped too.  Beneficiaries are still enjoying the jacket potatoes we provide each week though.

And finally, Glasgow's Tree of the Year will now be competing against trees from Europe to be named best in Europe.  Personally I wouldn't want it right outside my window!