JusJoJan - 3/1/25 - Meander

Today's prompt comes from the great mind of Kaye. Her blog can be found here  Kaye’s blog .

Your prompt for JusJoJan January 3rd, 2025 is “meander.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

Well I took a meander around the lake today.  It was quite cold - we had a hard frost overnight - but it was bright and sunny all day.  It was late afternoon when I went so the sun was already going down so not as bright.

It was good to see this pair of Egyptian Geese are still around.

It was also good to see that some of this year's group of cygnets have already left the lake.  Of the original 8 there only seem to be 3 left to leave.  I couldn't get a photo of all of them together with the parents as one seemed to want to be on its own.  The adult pair are notorious for chasing off their young once they are mature enough to leave to the extent that often the cygnets need rescuing and taking to another lake where there is a large flock of swans.

They were meandering their way to the top of the lake at this point.

Friday's Fave Five - 3/12/25

Well I'm using the snowflake image today because although we haven't had any snow we had a really hard frost overnight and it has been very cold here the last few days.  And I think it's Friday (anyone else still finding it hard to keep track of the days over this festive period?) so it's time to look back on the week and list our blessings.  Susanne kindly reminds us to do this every week and like-minded bloggers link up here to share our posts.

1)  Grateful for family time last weekend with 4 out of our 6 Grandchildren and their parents.  The little ones do love getting together and I love watching them interact with one another.

2)  A second shingles jab on Monday.  Not a pleasant thing - my arm was sore for several days but not as bad as the first jab.  But I am thankful for our health service that provides these preventative measures.  I'm also glad I've had a flu jab as well as a pneumonia jab this season too as our hospitals are currently struggling with the number of flu and pneumonia cases they have.  Some hospitals are even stopping visitors to try and prevent spread.

3)  A get together with a few neighbours on New Year's Day hosted by probably the eldest of those in attendance.  Joan had prepared a nice finger buffet and we passed an enjoyable couple of hours with people we only really know to say hello to so it was good to get to know them a little bit better.

4)  Good news on my eldest son's father-in-law.  He had major surgery on Christmas Eve but is making a good recovery and came home from hospital this week.

5)  Grateful for a quieter week - we have decorators starting work on Monday so Hubby and I have been busy clearing our main living room ready for them.  They'll be doing the hall, stairs and landing first but the living room has units in that we will be replacing so we've had to empty them so that all of the walls can be painted.  It's a work in progress!

And, despite it being cold I did get out for a walk around the lake today.

Happy Weekend all.

JusJoJan 2025 - 2/1/25 - Slingshot.

Hello! And welcome to our second prompt for Just Jot it January 2025. Today’s prompt comes to us courtesy of Liz. Many thanks, Liz! Please be sure to visit Liz’s blog to read her posts and say hello. And follow her while you’re there if you’re not already.

Your prompt for JusJoJan January 2nd, 2025 is “slingshot.” Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!

(To join in the JusJoJan challenge go here.)

Well I'm more used to calling it a catapult but judging by the fancy "slingshots" you can buy these days I'm sure it's more usually known by that name here now.  Although I also discovered that if you carry one around in public with the intent of using it to cause harm you'd actually be breaking the law here in the UK.  

I think I'll stick to jotting and blogging.

Wednesday Hodgepodge - 1/1/25

Joyce is the host of the Wednesday Hodgepodge.  Find out more/join in here.

1. Oxford's Word of the year for 2024 is 'brain rot'. Are you familiar with this term? Do you suffer from the condition? Ha! This is a term used to 'capture concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media'. If you were choosing a word to capture 2024 (for the nation/world, not your own life personally) what word would you choose? 

Well I hadn't heard that term but I do think I could be inflicting it on myself sometimes lol.

As for a word that captures 2024 I think it might be "unsettling".  There is a lot going on in the world right now that is very unsettling.

2. It's National Polar Bear Plunge Day (January 1)...will you be participating in one of these events (or even your own)? How will you spend the first day of this brand new year? Do you have a traditional New Year's Day menu? 

Umm I'm guessing that involves plunging into cold water so definitely not doing that!  We don't have a set menu for the day and it's usually a quiet day for us but today we've spent a couple of hours with some of our neighbours which was nice.  One of them decided to host a small gathering and laid on a finger buffet for us.

3. What's something that brings you joy and how will you do more of it in this new year? 

Spending time with the Grandkids brings me joy but difficult now that 2 of them are so far away.  We'll be doing more Facetiming.

4. Do you struggle with the January blues? What's one thing you can/will do to keep them at bay? 

I can definitely get caught up with the January blues but I'm going to try to be more present in the blogging community, keep up my reading and get back into walking regularly.  The last few weeks I've not exactly been a couch potato but my step count has been very low.

5. Will you choose your own personal word of the year for 2025? What about a goal, resolution, or maybe even a bucket list? Elaborate as much or as little as you like. 

I don't usually choose a word and I've found that resolutions are hard to keep.  But I do want to walk more, meet the reading challenge (52bookchallenge2025) and generally be more productive with my time.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Our Christmas tree etc will be coming down a little early this year - I usually wait until the 6th January but that's the day the decorators are coming!  (Monday) Lots to be sorted out before then.

I did it! Book challenge 2024

This was my first year of taking part in this challenge and I finished it with just a few hours to spare.  My final book was Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver which was quite a tough read as the subject matter is bleak and it's a long book.  

I also managed another 14 books bringing my total for the year to 66 which I'm very happy with.

The next job will be to try and work out where I can fit the books on my TBR teetering pile into the 2025 challenge list which contains some quite tricky prompts.

Thankfully I have a jump start because my daughter and my very bookish daughter-in-law (her total for the year was 200 books!) both gave me books at Christmas which will fit several prompts on the list.

This is a full list of the books I read:

Demon Copperhead	Barbara Kingsolver	5*
Mad Honey	Jodi Picoult	5*
My Other Husband	Dorothy Koomson	5*
Revelation	CJ Sansom	5*
Tell Me Everything	Elizabeth Strout	5*
The Banker’s Wife	Cristina Alger	5*
The Secret Garden	Frances Hodgson Burnett	5*
The Storyteller	Jodi Picoult	5*
The Stranger	Harlan Coben	5*
The Stranger Diaries	Elly Griffiths	5*
Wrong Place Wrong Time	Gillian McAllister	5*
A Spark of Light	Jodi Picoult	4*
Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt	Lucinda Riley	4*
Bleeding Heart Yard	Elly Griffiths	4*
Die Trying (Jack Reacher #2)	Lee Child	4*
Grace after Henry	Eithne Shortall	4*
How to Disappear	Gillian McAllister	4*
Killers of the Flower Moon	David Grann	4*
Life of Pi	Yann Martel	4*
Long Shadows	David Baldacci	4*
Lucy by the Sea	Elizabeth Strout	4*
Oh William!	Elizabeth Strout	4*
One Day with You	Shari Low	4*
Sing you Home	Jodi Picoult	4*
The Girl in the Spider’s Web	David Lagercrantz	4*
The Midwife’s Confession	Diane Chamberlain	4*
The Mother-in-law	Sally Hepworth	4*
The Murders at Fleat House	Lucinda Riley	4*
The Only Suspect	Louise Candlish	4*
The Paris Apartment	Lucy Foley	4*
The Postscript Murders	Elly Griffiths	4*
The Women	Kristen Hannah	4*
Wish You Were Here	Jodi Picoult	4*
A Vintage Wedding	Katie Fforde	3*
All Good People Here	Ashley Flowers	3*
Becoming	Michelle Obama	3*
David Copperfield	Charles Dickens	3*
Even Dogs in the Wild	Ian Rankin	3*
Friends with Secrets	Christine Gunderson	3*
Headstrong: 52 Women who changed Science and the World	Rachel Swaby	3*
Life Begins at 50	Celia Anderson	3*
Nine Perfect Strangers	Liane Moriarty	3*
One Italian Summer	Rebecca Serle	3*
Pieces of my Heart	Sinead Moriarty	3*
Reasons to Stay Alive	Matt Haig	3*
Silent Voices	Ann Cleeves	3*
Sleep	CL Taylor	3*
Sweet Caress	William Boyd	3*
The Dream House	TM Logan	3*
The Exchange	John Grisham	3*
The Paris Secret	Karen Swan	3*
The Perfect Couple	Elin Hilderbrand	3*
The Phoenix Crown	Kate Quinn	3*
The Prisoner	BA Paris	3*
The Queue	Alexandra Heminsley	3*
The Serial Killer’s Daughter	Alice Hunter	3*
Twice Shy	Sarah Hogle	3*
Weyward	Emilia Hart	3*
Woman in Cabin 10	Ruth Ware	3*
Anxious People	Fredrik Backman	2*
It Ends with Us	Colleen Hoover	2*
Normal People	Sally Rooney	2*
Spectacles	Sue Perkins	2*
The Kite Runner	Khaled Hosseini	2*
The Last Word	Elly Griffiths	2*
The Slap	Christos Tsiolkas	1*

One Liner Wednesday/Just Jot it January 2025 1/1/25

Happy New Year!

There you go a nice easy start to the New Year and the Just Jot it January challenge hosted by Linda here. 

Shame the view from my window isn't as good as the picture above.  Windy and rainy here today, good excuse to stay home!

Christmas period recap 31/12/24

It feels an age since I posted a blog.  The few days leading up to Christmas were busy trying to get the last bits of shopping done and the house ready.  

I also participated in the Food Bank Christmas Hamper project which involved helping set out the church hall on the Saturday, packing hampers on the Sunday and then delivering them on the Monday before Christmas.  People had been incredibly generous and all the users of the Food Bank had lots of nice treats as well as the makings of a Christmas dinner.

On Christmas Day we had our daughter and her family here so it was fairly quiet for us, although of course a 7 year old Grandson and 4 year old Granddaughter can make a lot of noise between them!

Cooking the dinner was a bit of a military operation to try and make sure everything came together on time.  Turkey and beef plus all the trimmings.  And of course pudding to follow - after quite a break as we were so full.

They stayed over and spent most of Boxing Day with us too.

The day after (27th) our eldest son and his family came down from Nottingham and stayed until yesterday.  Of course we all got together a couple of times and I did remember to take some photos.

(Well I remembered to get my daughter to take some!)

The children love seeing one another but of course we missed Rory and Vinny (and their parents) although we did Facetime them and they were having a lovely time with their American cousins.

The weather wasn't great over Christmas but yesterday it was dry so we got the kids out for a walk.

And of course Ness.

Ella joined us back at our house after the walk as she'd been to have some routine jabs in the morning.

Today has been a much quieter day with no family here but it was nice to just relax and enjoy some leftovers!  As usual I bought too much food.

And now I'm watching Jools Holland's Annual Hootenanny show on TV and it's already past midnight so.....

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU!