Here is this week’s Reading Roundup post. Yet again I have been caught up with life, I suppose, have not been able to find the time to become immersed in my book. I am enjoying my new selection very much, so I hope to be able to write about it next week.
Until then, I wish you all Happy Reading!
Love and best wishes,
Anne
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Friday has come around again and I am going to update the blog with our progress towards selling our house.
In fact, if I am being honest, we haven’t made a lot of progress to date. I had hoped that we would have the house up on the market by now, but the processes are taking longer then I realised. We have appointed an estate agent to manage the sale and we chose one mainly because she is willing to do just about all of the leg work! Because neither Lovely Husband nor I can drive at the moment, it is great to have someone who is able to visit us and our old home to organise everything in readiness for the sale process and the aftermath. She has come here at least once each week to update us and to deliver or collect documents and is currently sorting out the selling brochure and the photographs. In preparation for the photos, we have paid to have the house thoroughly cleaned, which has made a real difference. There will also be a kind of 3D walk around that will go online as soon as we are ready to go!
So, that’s really all the news on that subject.
I have been struggling with my mental health recently and treated myself to a lovely new top in an attempt at retail therapy. I haven’t bought anything from Boden before, but this gorgeous colour caught my eye and I thought that it might liven me up a bit!
This is what it looks like on me…
OK, I have definitely broken one of my “rules” for the colours in my wardrobe! But, honestly, who cares? Oh, and the eagle eyed among you might notice that my teeth are now a few shades lighter than of late! I have been using some new tooth powder that really has made a difference. I don’t think they will ever be sparkling white, but I am pleased that they look, and feel, so much better.
Well, I think that is all for now, so I wish you a very Happy Weekend!
Love and best wishes,
Anne
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Welcome to this week’s Reading Roundup, my dear friends and fellow readers! Today, I am feeling rather amused about my most recent book. You will find out why that is later on in this post.
Here is the book that I finished yesterday…
I have been really struggling with my reading this year. The stress of moving house has meant that my concentration levels have plummeted and I am unable to immerse myself in a book, no matter how well written. I have had so many false starts that I have lost count. Trying to find just the right balance of gripping plot and excellent writing has been very difficult. So many have brought down my mood because many of my favourite authors write from a dark angle. Anyway, I looked through my ebook collection and chose Green Rider by Kristen Britain. Here is the blurb…
“Young heroine Karigan hardly has time to regret being expelled from school (for duelling) before finding herself committed to the desperate errand of a murdered Green Rider.
The Riders are an elite messenger corps using both horses and magic; the message is a terrible warning. Bad things from bad places are invading this fantasyland, their presence being only part of a devious, sorcery-aided human struggle for the throne. Karigan’s wild ride is beset by a variety of enemies, but aided by her own developing talents plus certain strange allies.”
This book was just what I needed! It has a fast paced plot with interesting characters and a satisfying ending.
And then I went on to the Goodreads site to write my response…
And saw that I had already written one in 2018!!! To be honest, I am not sure whether to laugh or cry that I couldn’t remember that I had read the book before. My memory issues since the stroke don’t seem to follow any rules or pattern, so they can surprise me at times in unexpected ways.
So, here is my response from 2018, together with a footnote from this year…
Note: the Goodreads’ widget doesn’t seem to be working this morning, so I have posted a screenshot of my review above. Thinking about it, the paltry three stars was a bit unfair. The book deserves four and I am going to read the sequel, beginning today I hope!
Happy reading!
Love and best wishes,
Anne
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Apologies. I am struggling with my mental health so am unable to post today. I hope that I can continue with the blog very soon.
Love and best wishes,
Anne
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Welcome to this week’s post. Unfortunately, I have been really struggling to read books. All the stress from our house move has meant that I find it very difficult to concentrate enough to read. My mind keeps flitting from one subject to another, suddenly remembering a task that I need to do, or thinking of an item that I must order. I have tried changing between different ebooks, but that hasn’t really made any difference. Even work by my favourite authors hasn’t been able to grab me! This is totally unprecedented for me and has never happened before to this extent!
In the end, I think I may have found something that I might be able to enjoy, but it will take me until next week to finish it. I won’t jinx it by telling you which book I have chosen!
So, I am wishing all of you the usual “Happy Reading!”
Love and best wishes,
Anne
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So, we have reached Friday once again and it is time to write another post. Things have been pretty quiet and peaceful this week and I wonder why that is??? Hmmm, could it be because Elder Son has been away on holiday?
Seriously, yes he has. From his regular texts and calls he has been having a great time exploring one of his favourite cities and visiting towns nearby. He has also been able to meet up with his brother for an afternoon and they sent me some lovely photos, which was nice.
He is due home tomorrow evening and I expect that I will be given loads of hugs! Our peaceful existence will definitely come to an end. To be honest, I have really missed him but have been so pleased that he is able to travel by himself and sort out any small issues that he might have come across. He always charms the hotel staff. I think that the female staff want to “mother” him!
While he has been away, Lovely Husband and I have continued with the unpacking and trying to get to grips with the selling process for our former home. We have now seen some estate agents and we really must make the decision about which one to choose. It’s a bit heart versus head! One has been very efficient and works for quite a large local company, another has been very attentive and helpful and has her own small business with very few clients! I think that I am going to step back and let LH choose! We have also been able to source a recommended cleaner to absolutely blitz clean the house, so I hope that can be done quickly so we can get the photos taken. I just want to get the house on the market as soon as possible.
During the week I have been selecting some more items for our new bungalow and trying to understand how the central heating works in preparation for colder weather. The boiler is quite new, which is great, and is controlled by the Hive system. I struggled to work it out at first, but soon got the hang of it and we put the radiators on for a short while to make sure that they are all working.
The purchases were two table lamps for the lounge, a small lamp for the hallway to make sure we can easily get to the bathroom at night, and speaker stands for LH’s sound system. The existing ceiling lights in the lounge have a barely twist central piece, so I decided to buy lamps with a similar shape. I am really pleased with them and also relieved because there was only one review of these particular ones on Amazon! I usually choose items on that site that have large numbers of positive reviews, so I took a gamble this time. Luckily it seems to have paid off!
Anyway, for what it’s worth, here are the lamps that arrived today. The one on the left is for the lounge and on the right there is the one I chose for the hall…
By the way, in real life the lamp on the right is about half the height of the one on the left!
Well, I think that I had better draw this post to a close now. I will be spending the afternoon trying to attach the speakers from LH’s Bose system to the new stands. Please wish me luck!
Happy weekend!
Love and best wishes,
Anne
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Hello and welcome to my first reading post for September. I have recently finished a book that consisted of two novellas, one fantasy and the other science fiction…
The book was Andre Norton’s Ice and Shadow. Here is the blurb…
“Two bestselling novels of science fiction adventure set in the Forerunner universe from legendary storyteller Andre Norton together for the first time.
Ice
Roane, a young archaeologist, makes planetfall on a previously off-limits world where the inhabitants have been implanted with false memories and conditioned to obey their oligarchic masters. Now Roane must fight to save the enslaved populace and her own inner essence by locating a powerful artifact that could bring new freedom to a planet locked in slavery.
Brother to
Jofre, a young initiate to the assassin’s guild in a far future world, is betrayed and cast out by a corrupt nemesis. To save himself, Jofre must team with a crafty reptilian alien ally to find the hidden hoard of Forerunner technology and go forth and to find his destiny beyond the stars.”
And here is my response on Goodreads…
Ice and Shadow by Andre NortonTo be honest, I am really struggling to choose my next book. The house move has exhausted me and I am trying to find enough concentration to enjoy reading, without much success. Even though Elder Son is away on holiday this week and the house is peaceful, I can’t seem to really settle in with a book and have been flitting from one to another! Well, you will find out next week whether I do manage to recover my ability to concentrate!
Happy Reading!
Love and best wishes,
Anne
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Welcome to my blog! Today I am starting to log the steps we are taking to sell our old home. I have already written loads about moving into our new one and we are still in the middle of unpacking our stuff. There are still quite a few boxes that we need to open, but the most important things are sorted. Unfortunately, now that we have moved in, my health seems to have collapsed and I am unable to do very much on most days.
Oh, I should add a note for those of you who haven’t been following our house moving saga. We are very fortunate that we had enough savings to be able to switch around the usual method of selling and buying a home. At the end of January, we found this bungalow and went through the buying process without having to sell our existing house at the same time. We moved in at the end of July and have spent the last few weeks unpacking before starting the selling process for our former home. I hope that makes sense!
This afternoon we went over to our old house to meet with an estate agent who was there to give a valuation and talk us through the process. We also had lots of questions for him about how best to prepare the house for sale. We had lived there for over 24 years and had spent a considerable amount on improvements to the whole house. Sadly, both of us became disabled in recent years and some important repairs were neglected. We did have a new roof installed at the end of last year, so at least that is a bonus. Anyway, we will organise for another couple of estate agents and then make our decision. I just hope we can get the house on the market in the next week or so.
Now that we are back home again I feel very tired, so I will sign off.
Happy Weekend!
Love and best wishes,
Anne
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Well, I had hoped that I would be able to finish my current book in time to write about it today. Unfortunately, I am still quite a few pages from the end and I don’t want to skim read it! So, I will apologise for this short post today and hold the reveal over to next week.
Happy Reading!
Love and best wishes,
Anne
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So, Friday has come around again and it’s time to write another blog post. We have now been living in our new home for just over four weeks. There are still quite a few boxes to unpack and we have to find good places for all of our stuff. I don’t feel as if this is “home” yet, but that will soon come, I am sure.
The main focus of our thoughts has to be on getting our old house ready to go on sale. It is now empty of most of our belongings (we had to get the removing company back to bring over some things that had been missed). Some furniture was left because we don’t need it here, so we must make some decisions about that too. We now need to hire a cleaner to absolutely blitz the place, a gardener to sort out the large garden, and also talk to estate agents about marketing the house. Lovely Husband is going to do most of the work to deal with all of this.
As for me, now that we have moved, I am really going to try to improve my fitness levels. LH was a Physical Education teacher and sportsman and has a great knowledge that I can use to help me with this. I know that I need to begin this process very carefully and slowly so that I don’t injure myself. So, yesterday you could have seen us outside in the street with me walking short distances under his supervision. The road outside our house is nice and flat, which is helpful. I must admit that my mood really improved afterwards, which was great!
Another thing that I must sort out is the state of my teeth! I drink a lot of tea and they have become very stained in recent years. Looking through my selfies on here has horrified me and I feel quite ashamed. Unfortunately, my health issues mean that I cannot cope with the cleaning system offered by my dentist: it brings on a dreadful coughing/choking attack. Instead, I am trying some special toothpaste to see if that might help. I do hope that it does because I cannot bear to take selfies for this site in my present condition.
I think that is all of my news for now, so I wish you all a Happy Weekend!
Love and best wishes,
Anne
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