I almost didn’t post today! We have had a difficult couple of days and I am now exhausted and in pain from pulling a muscle in my side. I won’t go into the background story very much, but will simply say that it involved an unpleasant medical procedure for Lovely Husband, a bad reaction from Elder Son and some unnecessary and painful physical work for me. LH is now recovering well, ES has calmed down and I am sitting up in bed feeling a bit better and trying to write something coherent for today’s post.
This week, I decided to kind of travel from one end to the other through my scarf collection. I rummaged through my cheaper scarves and selected some pretty ones and then went to the other extreme, for contrast. It was a fun exercise to do and really reminded me that all kinds of scarves can lift a basic outfit.
Here they are…
Outfit of the day 09/01/23Outfit of the day 11/01/23Outfit of the day 12/01/23
Once again, I wore them with navy clothing, but selected different earrings that toned with each scarf. I don’t have close up photos of the first two, but this is a larger modelling photo and a large image of the third scarf, Liberty of London’s cashmere/silk, 140cm, Hera in a range of blues, pink and mauve:
Outfit of the day 12/01/23 with Liberty of London’s Hera shawl
And this is the shawl in all its glory!
Hera cashmere/silk shawl by Liberty of London
On Monday, I have some sale purchases to show you with some unexpected good luck! Until then, I wish you all a very Happy Weekend.
Welcome to the first books of the new year! I have set my Reading Challenge goal for 2024 on Goodreads and have finished two books this week…
2023 Reading Challenge on Goodreads
I decided to stick with 60 books, even though I exceeded this number last year. It’s only for fun and I don’t want to feel any pressure to meet the target.
Here’s the first book of 2023:
Girl, Forgotten by Karin Slaughter
The first book was Girl, Forgotten by Karin Slaughter, #02 Andrea Oliver series. Here is the blurb:
A small town hides a big secret…
Who killed Emily Vaughn?
“A girl with a secret…
Longbill Beach, 1982. Emily Vaughn gets ready for the prom. For an athlete, who is smart, pretty and well-liked, this night that should be the highlight of her high school career. But Emily has a secret. And by the end of the evening, that secret will be silenced forever.
An unsolved murder…
Forty years later, Emily’s murder remains a mystery. Her tight-knit group of friends closed ranks; her respected, wealthy family retreated inwards; the small town moved on from her grisly attack. But all that’s about to change.
One final chance to uncover a killer…
US Marshal Andrea Oliver arrives in Longbill Beach on her first assignment: to protect a judge receiving death threats. But, in reality, Andrea is there to find justice for Emily. The killer is still out there – and Andrea must discover the truth before she gets silenced, too…”
I read the first book in this series back in 2018, so I must admit that I had virtually totally forgotten the plot, which was a bit of a problem as I began to read this book. Anyway, this is my response on Goodreads:
This is a sequel, unfortunately I couldn’t remember much about the first book and I was quite grateful that Slaughter signposted some of the plot! I did enjoy this book, although I didn’t feel that it was one of her best. The book improved as I read on and became quite exciting in the second half. The chapters set in the 80s were very sad and upsetting, reminding me of how much things have improved.
I will certainly read Slaughter’s next book and am glad to see that she is returning to the world of Will Trent!
I was excited to see that a television series based on Slaughter’s Will Trent books is now airing, but despite having several streaming platforms, it is not available on any that I subscribe to! What a shame.
Now, let’s turn to the second book of the week…
The Heron’s Cry by Ann Cleeves
I was quite excited when this book came up in our library’s ebook listing: The Heron’s Cry by Ann Cleeves, #02 Two Rivers. I had read the first book in the series, The Long Call, back in 2020 and enjoyed it immensely, as I have Cleeves’ other books. Anyway, let’s look first at the blurb:
“North Devon is enjoying a rare hot summer with tourists flocking to its coastline. Detective Matthew Venn is called out to a rural crime scene at the home of a group of artists. What he finds is an elaborately staged murder–Dr Nigel Yeo has been fatally stabbed with a shard of one of his glassblower daughter’s broken vases.
Dr. Yeo seems an unlikely murder victim. He’s a good man, a public servant, beloved by his daughter. Matthew is unnerved, though, to find that she is a close friend of Jonathan, his husband.
Then another body is found–killed in a similar way. Matthew soon finds himself treading carefully through the lies that fester at the heart of his community and a case that is dangerously close to home…”
This is more of a 3.5 really. Whilst I did enjoy the book, the characters were well written and the locations and plot were interesting, I found the whole thing far too long. I have read a lot of Cleeves’ other books and found them far better. If a further book is written in the series, I will almost definitely read it, but I hope that she can be a little more succinct!
Once again, I must apologise for the brevity of my responses to each book. I don’t suppose they deserve to be called reviews really. However, whilst I am really pleased that I get visitors to these Reading Roundup posts, I write them for my own amusement and to have a record of what I am reading. Also, I don’t want to put any pressure on myself to write at length or to achieve a certain quality in my writing. I compile this blog now to try to exercise my brain since I retired and particularly since I had the stroke in 2019. So, thank you to those of you who do respond – it is really appreciated and I hope that you do get something useful or entertaining from these posts!
Welcome to the first post of a new week. I have something lovely for you today. You may remember that I bought one scarf from the Hermès Autumn/Winter 2022 season, at the beginning: Sous Le Charme d’Orphée, designed by Alice Shirley. To be honest, I really didn’t like anything else at all. But then one design started to work its way into my consciousness…
OK, I succumbed at the very end of the season, just before January’s huge price increase, and here is the reveal:
Hermès’ packaging…Special scarf box for 2022…The iconic Hermès orange box…The box is open!A small peek at the scarf…Robe Légère by Hermès
Isn’t this gorgeous? And this was the special scarf box for the Christmas market. Below is the image from the Hermès website and then a very quick modelling photo (I hadn’t even removed the label!):
Robe Légère by Théo de Gueltzl for Hermès
Robe Légère by Hermès in an asymmetric wrap
The scarf is called Robe Légère, in 90cm silk twill, designed by Théo de Gueltzl for Hermès. The colourway is Rose Hortensia/Bleu/Vert and the shopping code is H003904S 05. I will try to take some proper modelling photos as soon as I am able. Then I will post a couple on tPF and on here, and also compile a Scarf of the Moment post.
Now, about the price increase. Please bear in mind that I am only writing about H scarves and shawls. I have no knowledge of the company’s policies for other items, such as handbags or jewellery, etc.
Every year, at some time in January, Hermès adjusts their prices. Some years, many of the new Spring/Summer designs become available in the UK just before the increase and I have been able to purchase my early choices at the old price. The adjustment is made across all of the scarves in stock online, whether or not they are the most recent or older designs. Very rarely the price actually drops!
Anyway, something “spoke” to me on the 30th of December and I decided to order the scarf I had been thinking about for a few weeks. It’s just as well because the price increase arrived on January 1st and was huge! Hermès is already really expensive and I can only afford to buy scarves because I don’t have many other calls on my “pocket” money. I can’t socialise with friends or go to the cinema, for example, or take yoga classes or go to the gym, as I used to. Instead, I invest in these beautiful, wearable, works of art that lift my spirits.
So, this year I will be working my way through my gorgeous collection of Hermès, Ferragamo, Liberty of London, Fetolia and other scarves – “shopping my wardrobe”, as they say. In fact, today I am wearing an incredibly cheap and cheerful scarf and it looks lovely! I will show it to you in Friday’s post.
I do hope you have enjoyed reading this post as much as I have enjoyed writing it.
Love and best wishes,
Anne
💕💗💖💗💕
P.S. Just a reminder that you can find more information about the amazing Sous Le Charme d’Orphée double-face scarf in the Scarf of the Moment profile.
Welcome to Friday’s post. Today, I am going to catch up with a range of outfits that I have worn during the last couple of weeks. Over the Christmas period, I chose two lovely velour tops that I have owned for a few years. They were from Lands’ End…
Velour tops in purple and teal – Lands’ End
And here they are again!
Velour tops in purple and teal – Lands’ End
As you can see, I wore the teal top with my gorgeous Johnstons of Elgin cashmere stole in navy, grey, turquoise, green and white…
Cashmere stole – Johnstons of Elgin
I have also worn some gorgeous Hermès scarves during the break. The clothes were a grey cashmere v-neck, a navy cotton jumper, with grey and navy cord trousers. These are by John Lewis and Lands’ End. I decided to continue with the same jewellery throughout: blue resin and silver earrings with silver bracelets and a lovely scarf ring.
Let’s look at the clothing collage first, then the scarf photos:
Clothing choices for Christmas holiday period
Outfits of the day – Christmas and New Year 2022/23
I need to show you the images of the scarves in full…
Le Jardin de la Maharani by Hermès
Hermès Story by Hermès
Les Secrets de Minos by Hermès
Three very different scarves lift simple, fairly plain, outfits to another level. They also create interest and raise my spirits!
Well, that’s all for this week! Happy weekend to everyone ❤️❤️❤️.
Love and best wishes,
Anne
💕💗💖💗💕
P.S. If you are interested in these lovely scarves, I have written detailed Scarf of the Moment posts for each of them:
Welcome to the first Reading Roundup post of the new year! Regular visitors to the blog will know that I record all of my books on Goodreads and use links from there to show you my reviews and progress throughout the year. I had a goal on there of reading 60 books in the year and this is what I achieved…
Now, of course there is a lot more to reading than counting raw numbers! There are also things like quality, genre, book length etc. to consider. After all, if I was just interested in achieving a huge number of reads, I could simply devour 100s of toddler picture books!
Anyway, I am pretty chuffed that, even with my post-stroke vision and memory issues, I read a lot of excellent and wonderful books. They helped to keep me going through very difficult times and uplifted my heart.
Thank you to all of the fine authors out there!
Over the break, I read three excellent books to round off the year. Here is the first one:
Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky is #03 in his Children of Time trilogy. Regular readers of this blog will already know that I am a massive fan of Tchaikovsky’s writing and imagination. This trilogy is superb and truly “out of this world”!
This is the blurb:
“Earth is failing. In a desperate bid to escape, the spaceship Enkidu and its captain, Heorest Holt, carry its precious human cargo to a potential new Eden. Generations later, this fragile colony has managed to survive, eking out a hardy existence. Yet life is tough, and much technological knowledge has been lost.
Then Liff, Holt’s granddaughter, hears whispers that the strangers in town aren’t from neighbouring farmland. That they possess unparalleled technology – and that they’ve arrived from another world. But not all questions are so easily answered, and their price may be the colony itself.
Children of Memory by Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author Adrian Tchaikovsky is a far-reaching space opera spanning generations, species and galaxies.”
The book demanded a lot of concentration, but was totally worth the effort! Here is my review from Goodreads:
Mind blown! That’s how I feel having just finished this amazing book. Reading this pushed me to the brink of my intelligence. It began, easily enough. Then, I started to question what was going on. At first I wondered if my non-scientific brain was simply misunderstanding the plot. I soon realised that it hadn’t! Something strange was happening. Something very strange indeed!
The last few chapters shattered all of my perceptions whilst, at the same time, confusing me as I tried hard to make sense of it all and keep up. Amazing!
I can’t wait to read another book by Tchaikovsky. He has written a fantasy series, quite a while ago I believe, so I may look for that.
Right, on to the next book…
Outback by Patricia Wolf
My second book was a random choice from Amazon. Outback by Patricia Wolf (D S Walker #01) looked intriguing, and so it proved to be. Here is the blurb:
“Two missing backpackers. One vast outback.
DS Lucas Walker is on leave in his hometown, Caloodie, looking after his dying grandmother. When two young German backpackers vanish from the area on their way to a ranch, he finds himself unofficially on the case. But why all the interest from the Federal Police, when they have probably just ditched the heat and dust of the outback for the coast?
As the number of days the couple are missing climbs, DS Walker is joined by the girl’s sister. A detective herself from Berlin, she is desperate to find her before it’s too late.
Walker remains convinced there is more at play. Working in the organised crime unit has opened his eyes to the growing drug trade in Australia’s remote interior. Could this be connected?
As temperatures soar, the search intensifies to a thrilling crescendo against the unforgiving backdrop of the scorching Australian summer.”
The book’s setting was an unusual choice for me, but it was both interesting and enjoyable and worth four stars.
Interesting thriller set in the Australian Outback. I have never read a book quite like this before. The scenery and climate are almost extra characters in the story and are very well described by the author. I’m feeling terribly thirsty now that I have reached the end!
The mystery and police elements of the book held my attention, although some of the middle sections could have been better. The ending was good and am looking forward to another book in the series.
One small point. The page arrangements could have been better. Sometimes, a new point of view was introduced without any warning. Perhaps a line could have been left to show the break?
Now we have reached the third and final book of the holidays:
Red Snow by Will Dean
This final book is the second in the Tuva Moodyson series by Will Dean: Red Snow. I really enjoyed the first book, so was looking forward to reading this. First we have the blurb:
“TWO BODIES
One suicide. One cold-blooded murder. Are they connected? And who’s really pulling the strings in the small Swedish town of Gavrik?
TWO COINS
Black Grimberg liquorice coins cover the murdered man’s eyes. The hashtag #Ferryman starts to trend as local people stock up on ammunition.
TWO WEEKS
Tuva Moodyson, deaf reporter at the local paper, has a fortnight to investigate the deaths before she starts her new job in the south. A blizzard moves in. Residents, already terrified, feel increasingly cut-off. Tuva must go deep inside the Grimberg factory to stop the killer before she leaves town for good. But who’s to say the Ferryman will let her go?”
Once again, I think that this book deserved four stars. Here is my review (apologies for the short length!):
I really enjoyed this second book in the series. The book is long, but the daily life of a deaf person managing her condition whilst investigating incidents and people for her journalism becomes endearing as well as, eventually, gripping. Many very intriguing and interesting characters in this one.
Happy New Year 2023 to all of my friends and visitors!
May you have a great year!
We have had a pleasant and relatively peaceful time over the holiday period. It was so lovely to see and hug Younger Son. He brought with him a sense of fun, calm and wisdom which benefited us all. Presents were exchanged, good food was consumed and pleasant conversations were had.
I am looking forward to a year where we try to pull together to help our family.
Blog news: I am so pleased to be able to say that last year’s statistics were the best yet! I must admit that I am amazed that the interest in the blog increased so much in its sixth year! The usual format of three posts per week will continue, with breaks for illness or special holidays. Also, I will carry on the pattern of posts from last year: Monday for random musings, Wednesday for Reading Roundup, and Friday to show you outfits that I have worn during the week. And I promise to try to reply to your comments much more promptly than in past years – I really value your feedback.
I am still trying to decide on the day of my last post before Christmas! Anyway, just in case I am unable to write more this week, I am taking the opportunity to wish you all a:
Ooh, those poinsettias are lovely. Here are some more:
I do hope that all you lovely friends and visitors have a tremendous festive season!
Hi! Welcome to my blog. On Fridays I usually write about the outfits I have worn during the week, with an emphasis on scarves. This week it has been very cold and frosty around here and my body has reacted by suffering multiple coughing fits. This has meant staying in bed most of the time. I did, however, manage to wear some of my larger and warmer shawls and scarves, so that was a plus point!
Here is my most precious shawl: Plumes en Fête by Hermès:
Outfit of the day 11/12/22 with Hermès’ Plumes en Fête shawl
I wore the shawl with a lovely pale grey cashmere v-neck jumper and pretty silver earrings. The shawl is so soft and warm and it drapes beautifully. These Hermès shawls are eye wateringly expensive and I saved up for ages to buy this one. If none of next season’s silk scarves appeal, I might just save up again for another one, even if it takes me all year! But the design would have to be perfect. This is a larger image of my shawl (taken from the Hermès website, so not completely accurate as to the colours):
Plumes en Fête shawl (H243433S 04)
The shawl is very large at 140×140 cms and I have another shawl of the same size by Liberty of London that I will wear next week if the weather continues to be so cold. Here is an image:
Liberty of London – Hera cashmere/silk shawl
This also really beautiful, but I am a bit nervous about the fringed edges!
Well, I think that it is now time to sign off now! Happy Weekend to you all.
This might turn out to be the final Reading Roundup post of the year. I haven’t decided yet when I will start my break from the blog for the Christmas holidays, so I may fit another one in. Or not…
Sorry to be so indecisive!
The Kingdom of the Gods by N K Jemisin
This week’s book is the final part of N K Jemisin’s The Inheritance Trilogy: The Kingdom of the Gods. As usual, this was such a complex book that I really had to concentrate to read and understand it fully. Therefore, I didn’t have the time to read anything else. Anyway, this is the blurb:
“For two thousand years the Arameri family has ruled the world by enslaving the very gods that created mortalkind. Now the gods are free, and the Arameri’s ruthless grip is slipping. Yet they are all that stands between peace and world-spanning, unending war.
Shahar, last scion of the family, must choose her loyalties. She yearns to trust Sieh, the godling she loves. Yet her duty as Arameri heir is to uphold the family’s interests, even if that means using and destroying everyone she cares for.
As long-suppressed rage and terrible new magics consume the world, the Maelstrom — which even gods fear — is summoned forth. Shahar and Sieh: mortal and god, lovers and enemies. Can they stand together against the chaos that threatens?”
I am in step with many other readers’ responses on here. This was a great ending to the trilogy, but the book had quite a few flaws. To be honest, I thought that my feelings of unease were due to my memory issues. In several places, I had to go back to earlier books or earlier in this book to check plot points or characters. By the time I arrived at the final chapters, everything seemed to come together, thankfully. All was rounded off nicely, which was great.
This is now the second trilogy of Jemisin’s that I have completed and I am certain that I will hunt out her other work. If she can write like this, absolute treasures must be in store for her readers!
I am currently reading a very complex science fiction book – also the final part of a trilogy. Also a book that takes a lot of concentration to understand it fully! I will write about it in the next Reading Roundup post, all being well.
Well, I think it’s lovely – thanks to my great hairdresser!
So, hello and welcome to my blog. If you read last Friday’s post, you may remember that I was supposed to write this on that day, but felt too unwell. Today’s post will, therefore, not be in the usual Monday style – not that this matters at all.
It is so unusual for me to actually leave the house that I take the opportunity to wear some of my nicer clothes and accessories when I do go out. On Friday, I chose my Hermès men’s wool scarf, Sweet Dreams, in a range of blue shades with touches of grey and white. With this I wore grey clothing and silver accessories, including the scarf ring. Here are the before and after photos:
Before (top row) and after (bottom row) haircut on 09/12/22
I am so pleased with this ensemble! The dark grey jumper is from WoolOvers, the leopard print coat from Masai Clothing Company and the scarf ring and earrings were presents. Here are some of my accessories (yes, I know that I have showed you some of these recently!) and a full image of the scarf:
Tanya coat in grey by Masai Clothing CompanyDiane handbag by Marco Massaccesi Pewter leather shoes by HotterSweet Dreams shawl by Hermès
At the moment, a large triangle version, in cashmere/silk, of this Sweet Dreams design is available from Hermès and I must admit that I am very tempted! You can see all of the colourways of this, and the original wool square like mine, on my Scarf of the Day post.
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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