Friday's Fave Five - 22/5/26

Friday means taking a pause and finding the good things in the previous week and then linking up here on our host Susanne's site.

1)  Firstly I'm extremely thankful that our car didn't get stolen last night as Hubby had left the keys in the car!  He was obviously in the process of locking the steering lock because that's where the keys were and he must have got distracted.  Anyway thankfully no harm done.

2) A couple of get togethers this week - Knit and Natter on Tuesday and the evening book group on Wednesday.  Always nice to get out and socialise with other people.

3)  Dry weather last Sunday for the Highams Park Spring Festival.  It clouded over at one point and was quite blustery but the rain held off until the early evening and it was a good day for the local community.  We also raised over £400 for the Foodbank.

4)  For the last few weeks we've had 3 or 4 students helping out at the Foodbank from a nearby Special Ed school.  They are all between 16-18 and each one has a member of staff with them and I think they've all enjoyed their time with us.  I'm grateful that we can give schools the opportunity to visit and help out at the Foodbank.  Also grateful for a local group that stepped in with a donation to replace one of our freezers that had stopped working last week.  The new one arrived on Tuesday and we were up and running with it by Thursday.

5) Dry, sunny and very hot weather forecast for this weekend which is a bank holiday weekend (no work on Monday for most people).  In fact they're forecasting that the temperature may be record breaking - it will be over 30 degrees.  (The record is 32.8° C.)  The washing is on the line and the garden furniture uncovered and ready to use.  My son and his family are arriving tonight for a few days.  All good here.

Have a good weekend all.

Read then Write - 21/5/26

Well I think I need to speed up my reading - I'm still ahead of schedule but I don't think I've been reading as much and the books are piling up!

I finished this last week and I was impressed with it as a debut novel. 

"When teenager Nora Sheehan fatally shoots her brother Nico in their family home one evening, her parents’ lives are left shattered. Nico had been diagnosed with a terminal illness – was what Nora did an act of mercy, or something far darker? And what will happen to her now, alone in a juvenile detention centre awaiting trial, unable or unwilling to speak?"

The book follows Nora and her family as they navigate the US legal system and deal with their grief.  Angie and David feel like they have lost both their children as Nora is facing the prospect of a long jail term.  Initially they rely on a local lawyer, Martine Dumont but she calls on her son Julian to take on the case as he is a high powered defence lawyer working in New York.  He is also the ex-partner of Angie and their parting was far from amicable.

Additionally, there are lots of secrets between the characters, some which are revealed early on, others later.

The story is well told and the focus is definitely more on the aftermath of the shooting, and the history between Angie and Julian rather than why Nora shot her brother.  Personally I would have liked to have had more insight into what was going on inside Nora's head leading up to the shooting.  But the lack of that didn't spoil it for me. 4 stars for me.

I'm currently reading:

This was the choice of the afternoon book club and it's a re-read for me, although it was a long time ago so I don't remember it that well, other than that I liked it first time around.

On my bedside table I also have this one:

which I picked because it was a magazine recommendation and it ticked the "published in 2026" prompt on the 52 Book Club challenge but Penitence ticks that box too so I might have to get a bit creative.

I also need to pick up this one from the library as it's the next pick for the evening book group:

I'm not sure I can fit this one to a prompt but maybe when I've read it I'll be able to work it in somewhere.

After this one we're going to read Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell which feels fairly recent to be on the library list but then I checked and found it was first published in 2020.  Time is going too fast!

Wednesday Hodgepodge - 20/5/26

It's Hodgepodge time again.  Joyce provides the questions, we give our answers and then we join up here.  Thanks Joyce.

1. What do you make more complicated than it needs to be? 

I'm not sure that I do make things complicated although when planning any journeys I'm always factoring in toilet stops, even if that means on public transport we might not take the most direct route.

2. What impresses you? 

Acts of kindness, people going the extra mile.  Natural beauty - e.g. sunsets.

3. On a scale of 1-10 how picky of an eater are you?  (1=extremely and 10=not at all) If you had to eat a meal made entirely of one colour what colour would you choose? 

I'm not that picky but there are some things I will not eat so probably a 7.  Don't think I'll ever get to 10 lol.

A meal of one colour?  Urgh.  It would probably have to be a chicken and rice dish of some sort but I think I'd be cheating with the sauce!

4. What does balance in life mean to you? Does your life currently feel 'balanced'? 

Well for working people that would mean having balance between your work and home life.  Being retired that's no longer such an issue.  But there still needs to be balance between the things I need to do, the things I want to do and the demands of the family.  I think we're pretty balanced.

5. If you could travel the world for a year what would be your first destination? 

Well my first destination would be Vermont where my son is currently living with his family and I might not travel anywhere else.   Of course his in-laws who are our hosts when we visit might have other ideas lol.  I'd like to visit New Zealand and Japan but I'm not sure I'm up for too much long haul travel any more and I've definitely been put off cruises with the various issues some of those have had.  I could probably spend a year travelling around the UK with its various islands if I put my mind to it.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Some heavy plant vehicles for road resurfacing went past our house this afternoon.  Felt like we were in an earthquake.  Goodness only knows what it's been like in the road they're actually resurfacing!

A load of Waffle! 20/5/26

Well the last few days have just whizzed past!  And yes I know that Wednesday is Hodgepodge day but hopefully I'll get to that later.  First there's some catching up to do as I haven't posted since Friday!

Saturday started off busy as I was at the Foodbank all morning, taking in a delivery, unpacking it, dating it and trying to put it away.  That's tricky on Saturdays as the stock room also houses the mobile shelving units we use on Foodbank days.  I was on my own for most of the morning too. 

I was glad of a restful afternoon because on Sunday it was the Highams Park Spring Festival. (There are some great photos from the day here: (4) Highams Parklife | Facebook) 

Thankfully the rain held off and it was a lovely day.  I was there at 8 am to help the management group get things set up for all the various entertainment and stall holders but from about 10.00 am until the event finished at 4.30pm I was helping in the Foodbank stall.  I did get a break at lunchtime and joined Hubby to watch friends of his performing on the music stage.

Lots of people attended.  In addition to the various stalls either selling food or promoting local businesses/charities etc there was a display of classic cars, a shire horse display and also a small funfair.

But, by the time I'd helped pack down the Foodbank stall and brought a carload of stuff home to take back to the Foodbank on Monday I was exhausted!

Needless to say Monday was a quiet day although we did take the things back to the Foodbank and I did do my usual Monday evening shift there.

As usual my photo taking was sketchy.

This was the scoreboard from one of the games we had going on the Foodbank stall.  I think the adult winner probably spent as much on having lots of turns as the value of the prize!  He was determined to get the highest score.

Laura and Richard who Hubby knows through his open mics and band events.

Shire horses

Lots of cereal donated to the Foodbank.

I didn't get around to doing a News post yesterday - I was at keep fit in the morning, we did the school pick up of grandchildren Nathan and Ella in the afternoon and then there was a Knit and Natter session last night.  We're aiming to make that a weekly thing now rather than fortnightly and although we couldn't use the pub last night we will be able to in future - apart from when the World Cup is taking place!  We met in the local Costa which is inside our big Tesco store and it worked fine.  It was very quiet in there and will probably be a suitable alternative when we can't use the pub although it closes at 9 pm so we won't get as much time.

And the only news worth reporting yesterday was that the BBC has finally announced who the new presenters of Strictly Come Dancing will be.

You can click on the link there if you're interested.  I am slightly underwhelmed.  The two presenters who left (Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman) have been replaced by 3 (yes 3!) new presenters:  Emma Willis who is a well known presenter, Johannes Radebe a former strictly professional dancer and Josh Widdecombe a comedian who also took part in one of the Christmas specials - dressed as a penguin!  It will be interesting though to see how their roles will be defined and how the dynamics work.  I do love watching Strictly.

Phew that's me caught up.  Off to check out the Hodgepodge now.