This week has in some ways been even harder than the previous one. I felt more energised but spent much of the week feeling stressed, and the working week ended with some extremely sad news about a much loved colleague which started to put the feeling stressed into perspective. I'm glad that it is now the weekend and I have some time to reflect and to get caught up with myself.
This week in reading
I haven't done as much reading as I would have liked one way and another, but I still read some books which I enjoyed.
Scarlet Feather by Maeve Binchy - another reread, but I think one of my favourite of her books. Lovely story.
Scarlet Feather by Maeve Binchy - another reread, but I think one of my favourite of her books. Lovely story.
Drowning Rose by Marikka Cobbold was an extremely engrossing novel. it took me a little while to get into it, mainly because the narrative was split between several periods and narrators. But I didn't have a clue how it would work out. Because it needs more writing about it than I can manage right now - look at Fleur Fisher's post about it which was what inspired me to pick it up.
Stealing Stacey by Lynne Reid Banks was a riveting story of a girl who is effectively kidnapped by her grandmother to outback Australia after her family situation in England breaks down. It was an unpredicatable plot that nearly had me back to work late from lunch as I was desperate to finish it.
The Yorkshire pudding club by Milly Johnson was an entertaining chick lit read about three women with very different circumstances as they go through pregnancy together. Nothing terribly memorable but enjoyable nonetheless if one is in the mood for something light.
A dancers world by Deborah Bull featured in the books that I had recently acquired What a lovely book! Written by a former principal with the Royal Ballet it gives a fascinating insight into a life spent dancing both by relating Bull's career path and also by describing a dancer's day and how it all works. Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in the ballet; it's quite simply written so I shall be passing it on to Mr W's eldest niece who is ten or eleven.
I am looking forward to reading some more things over the weekend as I have picked up a lot more books this library including two Libby Purves novels that I haven't read, another Marian Keyes novel and a Richmal Crompton.
This week in cooking
Along with the earl grey cupcakes that I made for Emily, I made some date and walnut biscuits for Mr W's lunchboxes which turned out to have the shape and consistency of bullets. I'm not sure why as I have made them before and they were absolutely fine. But he said that they tasted nice. I have made another new bake which I will share on my weekly baking post next Tuesday, several batches of soup, a batch of hippy spag bol (lentils instead of meat) and am going to attempt to make vegan burgers for supper!
This week in the house
The big event of this week has been The Turning On Of The Heating. I feel that we should have had a special ceremony like when the Christmas lights are turned on. I tried very very hard to hold out for the arrival of our sitting room curtains which we ordered at John Lewis at the weekend but when I got home from my evening duty at 7.30pm on Thursday night and the thermostat read 13.5C I thought it was probably time to give in. I had spent much of the previous evening shivering under 3 jumpers and a blanket. Unfortunately we had omitted to clean the radiators at any point so there is a dreadful smell of hot dust. We will have to try to clean the radiators out as soon as possible...
This week in training
I felt a bit more energised this week which has helped. I did 3 Couch to 5k runs, although I repeated Week 5: run 2 (walk for 5 minutes, run for 8, walk for 5, run for 8) as I wasn't sure I could face Week 5: run 3 (walk for 5, run for 20, walk for 5). My knees are starting to hurt so I might take a break before I attempt that - can you tell I'm a little nervous? I did another Tenerife Training session on Sunday as well as a fast 5km swim on Thursday am which with my other weekday am sessions meant that I covered 18.2km this week - not as far as in the summer when I was training for the 10k but I am doing other sport now too! I cycled 46 miles this week as Mr W kindly picked me up again after my evening duty and I didn't swim last Saturday.
No especial plans for this weekend - it's only a short one as I am back to work tomorrow. Oh how I wish that I had a copy of the new Persephone books to console me... I have read Greenbanks before but I am looking forward to rereading it in due course.
Haha! I have been shivering all week until 2 days ago. I refused to put fire/heating on, then realised my hands were just so stiff and unworkable and husband was sniffing his little nose off.
ReplyDeleteThe next night I put fire on very low. It really made such a difference from being Arctic to North Sweden. Am not putting heating on yet though and am only putting on hot water once a day, to try to stop these Utility companies from grabbing too much of my money.
I gave my future D-in-L The Lollipop Shoes today, she's recently read Chocolat. She couldn't wait to start reading, and was going to finish it on the train from up here in the NW to visiting her Mum in Hampshire. If you haven't read it, do read Chocolat first as the characters carry on, although they are independent books.
You're doing so well with your training. I have only been on the bike once since my Cycletta ride, and am feeling lazy but it has poured down, and my roof has been leaking a lot and have had the roofer down three times. Hopefully now it will be fine. I need a rainy day to test I hate to say.
Kudos to you on your training. I made the mistake of trying to run this week (for the first time in 27 years!). My knees and back were not quite ready for the shock, so for now I am back to walking. Walking is my friend! :) We also had our first cold snap this week, but not long-lasting enough to be thinking about heat. Your heat and quilts sound rather cozy, though.
ReplyDeleteHi Susan - it's hard to run if you haven't for ages - you definitely need to build it up. Mind you a brisk walk can do wonders for the circulation and metabolism too.
ReplyDeleteHi Campfire - I hope your roof will hold - eek! I have read chocolat but not any more of Joanne Harris' books. I think the analogy of Arctic to North Sweden was good - our sitting room is now balmy 17.5C but it's still not exactly warm...
From Erika ;
ReplyDeleteI am really enjoying your week's round ups also. Some years ago I went through my favorite cookbooks and jotted down the names and page numbers of my favorite recipes in pencil, at the beginning of the books. This is a tremendous help in locating them as many of them are generic e.g. favorite cheese souffle and so on. I have around 70-8o cookbooks and after a lifetime of cooking and finding what I wanted could be an enormous chore.
My pet hate is books which index by recipe number not by page number ugh...
Erika - I know exactly what you mean! It's the same with songs in song books when I am playing the piano -grrr!! I wish I could be organised to do something similar with my recipes - I have so many recipe books and can never remember where the things I want to make are!
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