November's gratitude log, Days 1 & 2.

Well this is an idea I've copied from Linda who blogs here.

I'm a day late but here goes:

Yesterday I was grateful to be able to collect my son and his family from the airport after their holiday.  It was lovely to see the grandkids and they had all had a great time away.

Today I'm grateful for pushing myself to get out for a walk.  It's wellington boot time again for walking around the lake as we've had a lot of rain this past week.  I think I might need to invest in some ear muffs too.  It didn't feel cold enough for a hat but my ears were really cold!

I'm also grateful that we can afford to buy things like bird food.  There were a lot of birds on the lake today - we seem to have gained a flock of Canada Geese since I was last there.  All the birds were hungry so it was good to be able to give them food.

Friday's Fave Five 31/10/25

Thanks to Susanne who reminds us each week to look back and find the things we need to be thankful for.  Join in here.

1)  Dinner at our daughter's last Sunday.  It was the first time we'd seen all of them since they got back from their holiday so it was good to catch up with them and spend time with the Grandkids.

2)  1:1 time with Grandson Nathan on Monday and thankfully the weather was dry so a lot of time was spent playing football in the garden which he loves.  Certainly got a good step count that day!

3)  A long overdue catch up with a couple of friends on Wednesday.  We met up for lunch and spent several hours catching up on each others' lives. 

4)  1:1 time with Granddaughter Ella today.  We played a lot of games - according to the rules of Ella.  Who knew that the object of Kerplunk was to get as many balls as possible?  Or that the Junior version of UNO was more like Snap?  And thankfully I managed to wangle a game of Snakes and Ladders so that Ella won.  It's hard to lose games when you're 4, especially when you're a bit of a collector so don't like giving things up.

5)  Support for our Foodbank.  The local wine bar is hosting a quiz for us next week and it's sold out so hopefully that will be a nice cash injection for it.  Plus our local Waitrose supermarket has the Foodbank as one of their 3 local causes up for a reward.  We might not gain anything from that but it will be nice if we do.

Also grateful for a Hubby that agreed to go Trick or Treating with our Grandson - something out of my comfort zone and the great photo log my DIL has done on Instagram of their trip to Norway, Denmark and Germany this week - the Grandkids have clearly had a great time!

And meals in the freezer when we haven't been shopping!

Have a good weekend all.

Friday's Fave Five - 24/10/25

It's Friday so time to take a pause and look back on the good things from the past week.  Susanne reminds us to do this each week and we link up here.

1)  Sunshine today!  We've had a lot of wind and rain over this past week but today the sun was shining.  Always a lift to the spirits.

2)  An evening out with Hubby last Saturday - we went to a concert with The John Ongom Big Band at the local church which was really good and it was to raise funds for our Foodbank.

3)  My daughter and her family are safely back from their holiday in the United Arab Emirates.  A good friend of theirs and his wife are currently living and working in Abu Dhabi so they visited them and also Dubai.  Not the best place for a gay couple with children to visit but they were celebrating with their friends who recently got married.  Judging by the photos they all had a great time.

4)  I've finally read Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.  It's been on my TBR list for a while and now it's done!  It took me a while as I have a hardback copy of the complete works of Austen so it's a big heavy book with very small print - difficult to read in bed.

5)  A brief visit with my son and his family tonight - they are driving to us and staying overnight as they're off on holiday tomorrow.  They're leaving their car here and I will be driving them to Stansted airport in the morning.  

And a bonus - we get an extra hour of sleep on Saturday night as our clocks go back.  Sadly it will be mean it gets dark even earlier! 

Have a good weekend all.

Start here

A Challenge too Far? 23/10/25

I've blogged in the past about how I'm trying to do the 52 Book Club Challenge again this year.

Well this week I sat down and worked out what I needed to read before the end of the year:

Prompt 5 Plot includes a Heist - Woman on Fire by Lisa Barr currently reserved at the library.

Prompt 18 A Character who can fly - The Flight Girls by Noelle Salazar currently in transit to my library

Prompt 20 A Fairy Tale retelling - The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey currently in transit to my library

Prompt 27 Features a Magician - The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern currently in transit to my library

Prompt 30 In the Public Domain - Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen I'm currently about half way through this

Prompt 31 Audiobook has multiple narrators - Mansfield Park by Jane Austen - I have the complete works so I'll be reading this one.

Prompt 31 Includes a Diary entry - Homecoming by Kate Morton I picked this up from the library yesterday.

6 and 1/2 books by the end of the year sounds doable right?

But there's also:

The Beginner's Goodbye by Anne Tyler and

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid 

to be read for the book clubs!  Wish me luck!

(And another library loan to pick up just for fun.)

I'm off to read a bit more of Sense and Sensibility.  I'd forgotten how flowery Austen's writing was.  And it's hard to read in bed as I have the complete works of Austen so it's a big heavy book and the print is small.