Murder is Binding - Lorna Barrett

Another book challenge review. I finally understood what 'Cosy Mystery' meant. This was ok...I gave it three stars. It was a bit tame and slow moving for my liking but I guess that's the genre. It only took me 3 or 4 days to plough through it and parts of it I really liked. The book is part of a series and centres around a street containing different book shops. A murder took place in the cookery book shop and the owner of the mystery book shop was the prime suspect. Obviously she goes on to solve the crime but I won't spoil it any further for you. I have the next 2 in the series to read but they can wait for another day!

Happy reading.

Hello....long time no see

Its been ages! So much to tell you.

My last post was apparently the 18th March...I've done loads since then. 

I have:

Finished stitching the Kiss kit by Emily Peacock (better photos will follow when I make it into a cushion)

Plodded on with the front room, there is actually progress there but you can't see it...honest.

Not sure I ever showed you the fireplace that's going to go back in there though...

Its all original, and would have been what was in the house when it was build. The only reproduction parts are the tiles.

Started a new ripple blanket (have given up with trying to keep open projects to a minimum...its just not me)

Started Tae Kwon Do (Yes really...I love it almost as much as knitting). I will tell you more another day.

The most recent project is the garden. Its annoyed me for 3 years, and little progress has taken place but the annoyance level must have tipped the point of no return and yesterday was a back break day (almost literally) for which I am now suffering and I'm also sunburnt!

Remember this...

Well it looked worse than that more recently, but last week I tidied up that border and put some plants in...

Then yesterday we dug...and shovelled...

This is about half of what was removed. The rest is in skip bags.

So on Tuesday a tonne of hardcore arrives, and then I need to make the final decision on what is going on top...paving or pebbles. Time will tell.

Oh and the other day I made one of these. They may move to the garden at some point but for now it can hang here and grow some mint. Great for using up random bits of yarn...I may knock up a few more.

New Stairs!

Short and sweet post today just to show you something.

After months and months of these being sat behind my sofa and tv cabinet they finally made it to the landing!...

We now have so much more space on the landing too. Obviously the bannister and spindles still need adding but they already feel far safer than the old ones. Remember them? Here's a reminder...

The even better thing is that I can now continue with the Landing....if I knew what I wanted! We will get there eventually.

Harvest - Tess Gerritsen

Definitely the best book I've read in the past 12 months. It got me from the first few pages and I then took every opportunity I could to read it. This book also proved that the reading challenge is definitely worth completing as I doubt I would have read this otherwise. I picked it purely because it was one of the best rated medical thrillers. 

The main character, Abbey, is a doctor training to be a surgeon who gets mixed up in a heart transplant battle between a young boy and another wealthy, older, patient. The boy gets the heart but this then leads Abbey to uncover some very sinister and illegal arrangements. The book is fast paced and keeps you interested until the very last page. It got 5 stars from me on Goodreads and I still felt that wasn't enough. I will be reading more of Tess Gerritsen's books this year, without a doubt.

The Sunny Day Blanket

You may remember that back in July last year I started making, as commissioned by Child #1, another blanket. This was the beginnings.

Well I am pleased to say, along with wishing you all a very happy St David's Day again, that it is now finished! As she is away in Scotland this week and it was half term so I had a lovely week off, I decided to work as hard as I could and complete it before she got home.

I think it was in the summer that it was named the 'Sunny Day Blanket' as that is what it reminds me of and I also hooked a lot of it sat in the garden last year on sunny days...

Legoland Discovery Centre - Manchester

Yesterday Child #3 and I went on a day out on our own to Legoland. I didn't realise this place existed quite so close to home (Manchester is just under an hours drive away from us) - I thought there was only the Windsor one!. It was pitched at 3-10 year olds so I figured that the girls wouldn't really want to go and it gave me and my boy some quality time together (especially in the queues - both in Legoland and on the motorway!). We had an ace time and although bits were a bit young for him I think he enjoyed most of it.

This was him outside in the lego car...

Inside the lego lion...

You get a quick talk on how Lego is made and then you pop out from that into the model village which was my favourite part (I went around it a few times while he was on other things). They are all replicas of real places in the UK. There are working bits and sections that light up etc by pressing buttons - which you never have to do yourself as there are always little people around that can't resist pressing them for you!

There is another section for building cars with loads of different ramps for racing them on...

Sight modifications needed apparently...

There is also the vibrating tower table....you build as big as you can, press a button and see if it will stay upright when you vibrate the table...ours did but it wasn't too high to be fair.

There were other bits I didn't take pictures of. There was a pretty good 4D cinema too which he enjoyed immensely!

All in all, a good day out but I wish I had taken him about 2 or 3 years ago too...I reckon 5 or 6 is the perfect age.

Slummy Mummy - Fiona Neill

This is the third book I've read for the reading challenge. This one is the Romantic Comedy and is another that has been sat on the shelf for years (not quite as long as googlewhack though!) I think this one's been ignored because I used to read books like this all the time and then I made a conscious effort to not read 'Chick Lit', this one was obviously purchased around that time. Well there is no danger of me slipping back to old ways here. This took me 3 weeks to read (I usually read books in a week at most). It wasn't that I didn't enjoy it when I was reading it but I couldn't ever describe it as 'un-put-down-able'.

Its about the usual...women, friendship, love, affairs, marriage, attraction, kids, and sex. It was quite amusing in places. It seems to get compared to Bridget Jones quite a bit and I can see why. It did make me laugh out loud on occasion too. It was predictable, easy to read, and a nice story. Everything you would expect from a romantic comedy. If they made a film I might watch it whilst multi-tasking.

The best thing about this book was finishing it on the day that Amazon delivered 'Harvest' by Tess Gerritsen, the Medical Thriller selection for the challenge, which I cannot stop reading. Expect a review of that one quite soon!