Welcome to my blog! Today, I have been sorting out my massive load of photos and images on the iPad and came across these two random snaps that I took quite recently. I have a drawer of fairly cheap and cheerful scarves that I have collected over the years. Most of them are silk, but of varying quality, and the designs are in a huge range of colours and patterns.
These are the photos:
Outfits of the day – early April 2023
Well, you can see that the photos were taken before and after the recent visit to my hairdresser! In the image on the left, I was wearing my recently purchased pink jumper from Lands’ End, and on the right, my purple cashmere jumper from Pure Collection.
Colourful silk scarves
I have owned these two pretty scarves for quite a long time, at the very least from before the start of my Hermès obsession. Therefore, I have unfortunately forgotten where I bought them. It probably says so somewhere on my early blog posts and I have been trying to find some mention of them, but I cannot trace them. Never mind, they are lovely and colourful and lift my outfits very well.
Over the weekend, I am planning to put the final finishing touches to a new Scarf of the Moment post for my latest Hermès scarf, Tulipomanie. I hope to be able to upload the final version on Monday evening, 17th April, all being well.
I do hope that you are all enjoying your own reading. Over the last week or so, I have been struggling to concentrate, but I have managed to finish one book…
Dragonfly Falling by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The book was Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Dragonfly Falling (#02 Shadows of the Apt). I read part one a few weeks ago and enjoyed it, so bought the second and third books in the series straight away. This is a very long series, so I am not sure if I will retain my enthusiasm right up to the end, but we shall see!
This is the blurb:
“EVERY HERO MUST BE TESTED
The armies of the Wasp Empire are on the march, and first to feel their might will be the city of Tark, which is even now preparing for siege. Within its walls Salma and Totho must weather the storm, as the Ant-kinden take a stand – against numbers and weaponry such as the Lowlands have never seen.
And after his earlier victory, the Empire’s secret service has decided veteran artificer Stenwold Maker is too dangerous to live. So disgraced Major Thalric is despatched on a desperate mission, not only to eliminate Stenwold himself, but to bring about the destruction of his beloved city of Collegium, and thus end all hope of intelligent resistance to the remorseless imperial advance.
While the Empire’s troops are laying waste to all in their way, the young Emperor himself is treading a different path. His thoughts are on darker things than mere conquest, and if he attains his goal he will precipitate a reign of blood that will last a thousand years.”
So, this is part two of a ten book series and I am wondering if I will reach the end. I am pretty certain that I will do so, if the author can maintain the level of engagement that his best writing brings!
Some parts of the book were a little overlong, but others were very exciting and clever in the twists and turns. The characters continued to interest me, although I did find it a little difficult at times to remember who they all were and where they were situated in the world. I had to check the map quite a lot. Also, perhaps a silly grumble, too many of the names began with “S”, which confused me even more!
In the end, I gave this a generous four star rating and have gone straight on to the next book in the series! As ever, Tchaikovsky’s imagination is phenomenal and his writing absorbing and entertaining.
So, I hope to be able to review the third book, Blood of the Mantis, next week, then I will change tack to a different book or series afterwards. Well, that is the plan at the moment.
Welcome to a new week on my blog. It was Bank Holiday today, so I hope that those of you who had a day off enjoyed the break.
Well, that was not a great weekend for me and my chaps! I wrote about my new hairdo in Friday’s post and mentioned that I was feeling unwell. The illness continued to develop over the weekend with more d&v (sorry!), extreme tiredness and horrible black depressive thoughts. It really was awful and worried Lovely Husband and Elder Son, who were trying to look after me.
I have been feeling slightly better today and am hoping that this mystery illness is coming to an end. Now that I can think a little more clearly, I can remember that I suffered something very similar back in December, just before Christmas. I wonder what it is?
I really need to shake this off and return to my usual levels of managing my health. After all, the Scarf of the Moment post about my latest Hermès scarf, Tulipomanie, needs to be written! I must actually try it on and attempt some lovely scarf ties!
OK, I will cheer myself up by posting some more photos of it in a slideshow…
Hi, and welcome to Friday’s post. At last, I was able to go to my lovely hairdresser yesterday ! I hadn’t had a haircut since December, which seems such a long time ago. Anyway, Lovely Husband drove me there and back and I just about managed to sit and be smartened up.
Here are the before and after photos:
Before haircut 06/04/23After haircut 06/04/23
I feel so much better!
I was also able to put together a nice outfit:
Outfit of the day 06/04/23 with Hermès’ Zebra Pegasus gavroche
The outfit consisted of a lovely turquoise jumper by M&Co, navy cord trousers by Lands’ End, and silver shoes by Hotter. I carried my navy Africa midi Selene handbag by Massaccesi, wore Halcyon Days’ turquoise enamel bangle and tied my Hermès’ Zebra Pegasus gavroche around my neck. This cute silk square comes in teal, purple, navy and white. Below, is a larger image:
Zebra Pegasus gavroche by Alice Shirley for Hermès
Unfortunately, when we arrived home I started to feel really unwell. As the day moved towards evening, the tiredness became exhaustion and I developed a rather nasty condition (which I will leave to your imagination!). This continued into the night and this morning.
I am now writing at around midday in the UK and, at last, feel quite a lot better. I hope this recovery is sustained!
Let’s hope for a good Easter weekend. LH is planning a sumptuous Easter Sunday dinner with all of the trimmings, so I had better be well enough to enjoy it.
Welcome to this week’s Reading Roundup! I do hope that you have all enjoyed your reading recently and have discovered loads of great books, whatever your taste may be. Over the last week I have not been feeling very well and my concentration has been poor, so, unfortunately, I have only finished one book. Mind you, I did find it absorbing and interesting.
Here it is…
The Secret Midwife by Katy Weitz
The book was The Secret Midwife by Katy Weitz (ghostwriter). Basically, it covers the career and some of the personal life of a midwife during her long career. This is the blurb:
“Strongest supporter, best friend, expert, cheerleader and chief photographer . . . Before, during and after labour the role of a midwife is second to none. The Secret Midwife reveals the highs and lows on the frontline of the maternity unit, from the mother who tries to give herself a DIY caesarean to the baby born into witness protection, and from surprise infants that arrive down toilets to ones that turn up in the lift.
But there is a problem; the system which is supposed to support the midwives and the women they care for is starting to crumble. Short-staffed, over worked and underappreciated – these crippling conditions are taking their toll on the dedicated staff doing their utmost to uphold our National Health Service, and the consequences are very serious indeed.”
It is well worth reading if you are interested in issues such as the pressures on the National Health Service, the experiences of women on both sides of the “story”, the effects on staff and patients of cuts to budgets, etc. Anyway, this was my response on Goodreads:
This was a very interesting, absorbing and also heartbreaking read. I had my two babies back in the 1990s. A long time ago, but I can still clearly remember the highs and lows of both occasions. The midwives were so central to the experience. I was lucky enough to have a fantastic one for the second birth and she was utterly brilliant and made the whole event (through the entire pregnancy, the birth and the home visits afterwards) so much better than the first birth had been.
But enough about me! This book brought me to tears in places with the wonderful births on the one hand and the awful and sad situations on the other. To see such a great NHS service and dedicated staff so battered by political decisions and dreadful management practices is heartbreaking and also depressing. I felt so angry by the end of the book that we, as a nation, allow our politicians to treat people so poorly.
I only hope that we can still turn it all around. I clapped for NHS workers during lockdown, I applaud them again!
The book was definitely worth four stars. After this one, I returned to a series I have been reading. My current book is long and the plot quite complicated with numerous characters, which is why I haven’t finished it in time for this post. Also, I am planning to go straight on to the next book in the series before I forget the plot so far (my memory issues are not improving, sadly).
Back next week for the Reading Roundup. Until then, Happy Reading to you all!
Welcome to my blog at the beginning of a new week. I try to post on Mondays with anything that takes my fancy, on Wednesdays with a roundup of the books I have finished reading, and on Fridays with any outfits that I have worn during the week.
Today, I am struggling. In fact I have been for some time. Regulars will know that I recently had a very nasty battle with shingles on top of my usual list of unpleasant conditions. It lasted at least six weeks and I thought that I had fully recovered from it. Unfortunately, I have been left with feelings of exhaustion. I try to get up to do a small task, such as hanging some washing on the airer, but quickly become very tired, gasping for breath. I then sit or lie down whilst my breathing settles and my heart rhythm recovers, but this seems to take such a long time. I am simply worn out.
To be honest, I am so fed up with my life at the moment! Thank goodness for my three “chaps”, my friends and kind visitors to this blog. So sorry to moan at you, but I sometimes need to use my blog to let my feelings out!
Back to normal service on Wednesday, I hope.
So, I will leave you with this cheerful photo, which I found on Twitter:
Screenshot from @womensart1 on Twitter – accessed 02/04/23
Hello and welcome to Friday’s post. Back in September, I wrote about sorting out my scarves into two piles: Autumn/Winter and Spring/Summer. I did just that and put a heap of boxes together so that I could easily choose a scarf suitable for colder weather.
Today, I have done the reverse: I piled up all of the boxes and went through them to check which designs and colourways would best work with brighter days and warm-weather outfits. There are, of course, always a few weeks when it is far too hot to wear scarves, but I am sure I will find moments between now and late September when I can wear some of them.
This first one is an obvious choice: the glorious Dans un Jardin Anglais, designed by Alice Shirley for Hermès. That lilac background!
Dans un Jardin Anglais by Alice Shirley for Hermès
These are a selection from my pile of scarves, mainly by Hermès, but also Liberty and Ferragamo. Most are 90cm silk twill, but there are a couple of smaller scarves, 45cm gavroches and 70cm silks, too. These images are all labelled because the sizing is often not accurate. I have also included scarves that can be worn throughout the year, like the Plumes en Fête 90cm in gorgeous blues…
Cranes by Ferragamo (90cm)
Tulipomanie by Hermès (90cm)
Bibliothèque by Hermès (45cm)
Robe Légère by Hermès (90cm)
Savanna Dance by Hermès (45cm)
Chiffon scarf by Liberty
A L’Ombre des Pivoines by Hermès (90cm)
De la Mer au Ciel by Hermès (90cm)
Plumes en Fête by Hermès (90cm)
Regina by Hermès (90cm)
Escales Mediterranéenes by Hermès (90cm)
Hermès Tea Time by Hermès (70cm)
Le Premier Chant by Hermès (90cm)
Jaguar Quetzal by Hermès (90cm)
Mythiques Phoenix Coloriage by Hermès (90cm)
Under the Waves by Hermès (90cm)
Small scarf by Liberty (45cm)
Grand Manège Love Bandana by Hermès (70cm)
Parures de Samouraïs by Hermès (90cm)
Bateaux Fleuri by Hermès (45cm)
Au Pays des Oiseaux Fleurs by Hermès (90cm)
Depending on the weather, I am sure that I will be wearing my heavier jumpers for a while longer, but I will start the process of checking my clothes meant for warmer, brighter Spring days. I will also have to force myself to get out of bed and put on a nice outfit on more days than I have managed lately. I must try.
Anyway, I am really looking forward to wearing these amazing designs over the next weeks and months.
Welcome to this week’s Reading Roundup post! Every Wednesday I check my Goodreads account, where I log all of my books, and post the covers, blurbs and my short reviews on this blog. I like to use Goodreads as it allows me to keep track of my reading and is a great way of checking whether I have read the latest books by my favourite authors. I can also make sure that I haven’t missed anything from a good series and keep an eye out for a great book recommended by one of my friends.
Here is the first book of the week…
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
I have been intending to read this book for ages! The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller was on my wishlist for ages, so I was really pleased when it became available from our Library’s ebook service.
This is the blurb:
“Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. Despite their differences, Achilles befriends the shamed prince, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine, their bond blossoms into something deeper – despite the displeasure of Achilles’s mother Thetis, a cruel sea goddess. But when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, Achilles must go to war in distant Troy and fulfill his destiny. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus goes with him, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they hold dear.”
I am so in awe that I am struggling to find the words that I need. As someone who has read parts of the Iliad in Ancient Greek, I really appreciate how Miller uses some of the same or similar language and structure found in that masterpiece. Those words sang like beautiful chords in my head as I read them and I wish this particular e-reader enabled me to quote these passages.
So much of the original story is well-known, but Miller brings a new angle and freshness to the grim tale and famous characters. The gods and goddesses are still there, so are many mythical creatures, but the result is somehow believable. The actions of heroes and villains feel human and plausible.
Even though I knew the tragic aspects of the story, I was gripped from beginning to end. Most of the books that I borrow from the library, even the good ones, begin to fade in my memory after a while, but I am sure that this one will stay. Even if it does begin to dim a little, I am determined to remind myself of its glittering brilliance. So, yes, I will now go and buy my own copy!
Thank you, Madeline Miller, for writing this amazing book.
How to follow that? Well, I decided to read a wide range of genres and so turned to a very different book for my second book of the week:
Vanished by Lynda La Plante
I have read some of Lynda La Plante’s books before and watched the TV series based on her work. This time, I chose Vanished, #03 DC Jack Warr, just to see what it would be like. Anyway, here is the blurb:
“When an eccentric elderly widow claims she is being stalked, Detective Jack Warr is the only person willing to dig into the truth behind her wild claims.
Jack soon finds himself embroiled in an international drugs operation, art theft – and a murder investigation. On the back foot throughout, he is forced to play second fiddle to the Drug Squad, confront an old adversary, and even fight off accusations of assault.
But Jack believes that every aspect of this multi-faceted case is simply a distraction from the one person who lies at the heart of it all – the widow’s elusive stalker. Find him, and the truth will come out…”
This is the third book in a series and I haven’t read the first two books. So, there were a few issues, although the book worked quite well without the back story. I am pretty certain that I will read the first books at some point.
The plot was very exciting in places and quite complex. La Plante’s writing is easy to read, although a bit clunky in places and there were a few errors, which should have been picked up by her editor. The main character was a complex mixture of mostly good with a sprinkling of bad, which made him more interesting than the usual type. I also liked the insight into his domestic arrangements.
All in all, a good crime novel, worth the time to read!
For my third book, I decided to return to a favourite series: Black River by Will Dean, #03 Tuva Moodyson Mysteries. I had already read books 1, 2 and 4 so was very pleased when this one became available…
Black River by Will Dean
I have rated the other books quite highly and this one was no exception. This is my Goodreads review:
I am really enjoying this series and am quite sad that I only have one more to read (I have read them out of order). This instalment was very good. I love the writing of female characters and, once again, I am really surprised that a male author manages this so well. The setting is very atmospheric and, now that I have read several books, I really would not like to visit this part of Sweden either in the winter (freezing) or the summer (nasty flying and biting creatures)!
The characters are all really quirky and interesting with weird and creepy undertones to many of them. I certainly wouldn’t like to meet some of them in the dark, or in daylight either! The local town is singularly unattractive too, but there is something in the writing of these books that draws me to them again and again.
Looking forward to reading number five when I get to the head of the library queue!
I have almost finished a fourth book. In fact, I will probably get to the end this afternoon, but will carry it over for next week’s post. I hope you have found this Reading Roundup interesting and, perhaps, useful and I will be back next week to tell you about the next batch of books.
Hello to you all and welcome to a new week on The Librain…… retired!
Regular readers may remember that I made quite a strong declaration at the beginning of the year. The gist of it was that, because the Hermès annual price increase had been so “huge”, I was not going to purchase any new scarves this year and would, instead, “shop my wardrobe”.
Oh dear…
OK, I have to admit that this resolution didn’t last very long. I made the mistake of following the Purse Forum’s thread on the Spring/Summer 2023 scarves and shawls and fell for one design. I simply couldn’t get it out of my mind!
So, here it is…
First we have the orange box with the ribbon for 2023:
Next, the first peek inside – ooh, those tulips! The colours! The details…
Then, I lifted the scarf out of the box and unfolded it a little:
Now, the other way – this gets better and better:
Here is a quick photo of the whole scarf, then a detail, followed by the image from the Hermès website.
Tulipomanie by Aline Honoré for Hermès
This breathtaking scarf was designed by Aline Honoré for Hermès. The scarf is silk twill, 90x90cms, and the colourway is Argent/Violet/Bleu. The shopping code is H003964S 02.
The real life colours of this scarf are stunning and beautiful against the light silver background. I chose this colourway because the blue and purple shades will look lovely with my navy, blue, purple and grey clothing and accessories. I will take some modelling shots and write a full Scarf of the Moment post with all of the colourways, but I desperately need to do something first…
Wow, it’s Friday again! The weeks seem to whizz past so quickly these days. Anyway, for once I have some lovely ensembles to show you. I decided to go from one extreme to the other – a small 45cm gavroche, then a large 145cm shawl – both by Hermès.
Let’s start with the gavroche: Alice Shirley’s Zebra Pegasus…
Outfit of the day 20/03/23 with Hermès’ Zebra Pegasus gavroche
The gavroche size, 45x45cm, is neat and cute. It just adds some colour and interest to a navy cotton jumper from Lands’ End.
Here is the full scarf:
Zebra Pegasus gavroche by Alice Shirley for Hermès
The colours of the scarf are among my favourites: teal, navy, purple and blue. Perfect for my wardrobe!
The large 140cm Hermès shawl is, of course, the incredible Plumes en Fête. I have shown this on here many times. As the weather is now beginning to warm up, I decided to wear it a couple of times. It will soon be put away for colder days.
These are the two outfits, based around my lovely purple cashmere jumper from Pure Collection…
Outfits of the week with Hermès’ Plumes en Fête shawl
The photo on the left was taken last Sunday, Mothers’ Day in the UK, and the one on the right was taken yesterday. I actually went out yesterday and, even though it was only for a blood test, I decided to dress up a little. It made me feel a bit more confident and Lovely Husband definitely appreciated the effort. The scarf was tied in a loose cowboy knot and I wore navy cord trousers, navy shoes, purple jewellery and my gorgeous purple Africa leather Selene handbag by Massaccesi.
I have shown the shawl dozens of times, but I shall do it again!
Plumes en Fête shawl (H243433S 04)
And I will also insert a picture of the lovely handbag!
Midi Selene in purple Africa leather by Massaccesi
I am really looking forward to lovely Spring days ahead. It is my favourite time of the year with daffodils, tulips and the gorgeous blossom. I also have some scrumptious scarves that are just perfect for Spring.
Former professional school librarian, now retired through chronic illness. Trying to keep cheerful by reading, drinking lots of tea, blogging my new life, and my love of bling!
The Librain
The Librain......retired 
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