Update 09/12/19

Posted on 09/12/2019 by The Librain

As I have had a pretty bad migraine this afternoon, with an aura, I cannot write a proper post today. I will try to write an update tomorrow.

Love and best wishes,

Anne

💕💗💖💗💕

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Update 06/12/19

Posted on 06/12/2019 by The Librain

We have had such a difficult time recently and I am trying really hard to develop some Christmas cheer! Now that so many family members have passed on, our present buying is  reduced to just the four of us. I am looking forward to a time when our lads start families of their own and we can all enjoy larger celebrations again.

These last few days have been spent recovering from the difficulties that Eldest Son’s situation put us all through. (Sorry for not explaining in more detail and for posting so cryptically, but I really cannot write more.) To take my mind to a happier place, I have concentrated instead on gift buying and very simple planning for the festive period. We are unable to do very much, but will have a lovely Christmas dinner at the very least!

The lads tend to prefer cash gifts these days, but I usually add in a few items for them to open, plus I have managed to collect a few things for Lovely Husband. My own main present is sorted (I am eagerly anticipating its arrival from Italy – hint 😉).

Decorative touches from Dunelm

So, we now need to clean and tidy up the house before putting up the tree and some decorations. LH and I decided to buy some new additions to our lounge this week – mainly cushions and a throw – so those will help to add to the festive feel. I will take a photo when it is all finished.

I hope that you all have a lovely time over the weekend and don’t do to much! Christmas can add so much stress.

Love and best wishes,

Anne

💕💗💖💗💕

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Reading roundup 04/12/19

Posted on 04/12/2019 by The Librain

I am very tired after over a week of difficult days for the family, so will have to make this post short but, I hope, sweet-ish!

This week’s Reading Roundup is again about one book, but it was a long one and I feel rather pleased that I managed to read it. Reading is difficult when you have memory problems. Trying to remember the beginning chapters of a book when you have got halfway through… well, I hope you can see what I mean! I am having to read as quickly as I can so that the outline of the plot doesn’t fade away. It’s very frustrating indeed!

Darkdawn by Jay Kristoff

I had been waiting for Darkdawn by Jay Kristoff (#03 of The Nevernight Chronicle) for what felt like ages. Finally it became available from the library’s ebook service and I have just finished it this morning. Here is the blurb:

A ruthless young assassin’s journey for revenge comes to a stunning end in the conclusion of this acclaimed epic fantasy trilogy.

The Republic of Itreya is in chaos. Mia Corvere has assassinated Cardinal Duomo and rumors of Consul Scaeva’s death ripple through the street of Godsgrave like wildfire. But buried beneath those same streets, deep in the ancient city’s bones, lies a secret that will change the Republic forever.

Mia and her brother Jonnen must journey through the depths of the ancient metropolis. Their quest will take them through the Godsgrave underdark, across the Sea of Swords, back to the library of the Quiet Mountain and the poisoned blades of Mia’s old mentors, and at last the fabled Crown of the Moon. There, Mia will at last discover the origins of the darkin, and learn the destiny that lies in store for her and her world. But with the three suns now in descent, and Truedark on the horizon, will she survive?

I really loved the first two books in the series, giving them four and five stars respectively. This is what I wrote about Darkdawn:

Darkdawn (The Nevernight Chronicle, #3)Darkdawn by Jay Kristoff
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read the first two books in the trilogy almost exactly two years ago and absolutely adored them so, when I saw that the third was available, I couldn’t wait to read it. Yes, it was exciting, adventurous, violent, gory, etc., etc., just like the others. Sadly, it was also badly flawed and disappointing.

The other books received very mixed reviews and I ignored the negative ones, but this book deserves fewer accolades. The violence and sheer amount of killing and blood is vastly overdone. Mia loses her heroic status for me and simply becomes a crazed murderous figure. Scene after scene involves so much gratuitous violence that it is very near to boring in the repetitive gore-fest. In fact, monsters are repeated, as are ideas. Worst of all – the library!!!!! Ok, that last comment is an attempt at humour.

A small niggle is the poor editing in places where there were several homophones. As for the sex scenes! One went on for more than three pages and it was just boring and unnecessary.

If this book had been shorter it would have, perhaps, been much better. A tighter and less repetitive (yes, I know I am repeating repetitively) plot might have raised this book up to the level of the others. I love so much of this author’s writing and will look out for his next book as I am sure that he has something much better to give us all.

View all my reviews

I am not sure what I am going to read next, but will enjoy browsing through the ebook site.

Until next week: Happy Reading to you all!

Love and best wishes,

Anne

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Update 02/12/19

Posted on 02/12/2019 by The Librain

I hope that all my visitors and friends had really good weekends. Everything seems to be speeding up towards Christmas now, so I expect loads of you are very busy. In our household, we are planning a very quiet (and peaceful, I hope!) holiday period. Both of our sons work in retail, so they won’t get many days off. We will try to make the best of things.

Elder Son’s issues have not been sorted yet and, although he is coping reasonably well, we feel on a knife edge waiting for some kind of resolution. I really hope that we have an answer this week!

I did try to get up today for a while and I put on a lovely mauve cashmere v-neck from Marks and Spencer, with navy cords from Lands’ End. The earrings are old ones that I made nearly forty years ago but the small scarf is an Hermès’ gavroche called Baobab Cat – an interesting juxtaposition! Sorry about the hair – I don’t have the energy to get it properly cut and styled.

Outfit of the day 02/12/19 with Hermès’ Baobab Cat gavroche

All of the stress is making me very tired. I have managed to sort out some Christmas things – thank goodness for online shopping!

Love and best wishes to you all,

Anne

💕💗💖💗💕

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Update 29/11/19

Posted on 29/11/2019 by The Librain

Apologies to anyone visiting who expected a proper post today. Our household is still very tense and difficult so I do not have the head-space to blog. I hope the major issue of the moment is resolved early next week then things can return to our “normal”.

Best wishes to you all,

Anne

💕💗💖💗💕

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Reading roundup 27/11/19

Posted on 27/11/2019 by The Librain

This will be a short post today. Firstly, because I have only managed to finish one book this week. And secondly,  because we are living with a huge amount of stress on top of the usual level so I don’t have the strength to write very much!

The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh

I finished this book: Sophie Mackintosh’s The Water Cure. Here is the blurb…

The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Virgin Suicides in this dystopic feminist revenge fantasy about three sisters on an isolated island, raised to fear men

King has tenderly staked out a territory for his wife and three daughters, Grace, Lia, and Sky. He has laid the barbed wire; he has anchored the buoys in the water; he has marked out a clear message: Do not enter. Or viewed from another angle: Not safe to leave. Here women are protected from the chaos and violence of men on the mainland. The cult-like rituals and therapies they endure fortify them from the spreading toxicity of a degrading world.

But when their father, the only man they’ve ever seen, disappears, they retreat further inward until the day three strange men wash ashore. Over the span of one blistering hot week, a psychological cat-and-mouse game plays out. Sexual tensions and sibling rivalries flare as the sisters confront the amorphous threat the strangers represent. Can they survive the men?

A haunting, riveting debut about the capacity for violence and the potency of female desire, The Water Cure both devastates and astonishes as it reflects our own world back at us.

And this was my response to the book on the Goodreads website…

The Water CureThe Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

It irritates me that this book is described as a “feminist dystopia” and compared with excellent books like The Handmaid’s Tale. It simply doesn’t compare at all! I don’t think that it ranks as a feminist book either, as there is nothing feminist about it, as far as I can see.

I struggled with the first half of the book, but persevered and managed to finish with the story becoming more compelling in the second half. It is certainly an odd book and difficult to write about without spoilers. I am not sure why it was long-listed for a prize as it just does not seem to be of such a standard, but again there are very mixed views here so what do I know?

View all my reviews

I don’t seem to have had much luck with my recent choices from the Library’s ebook catalogue and this one was no exception. I am very pleased, however, that I am currently reading a far better book and will be able to write a much more positive review next week. Well, that’s assuming that this book carries on developing from a great beginning! I hope so.

Until next week: Happy Reading to you all!

Love and best wishes,

Anne

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Update 25/11/19: with some painful thoughts

Posted on 25/11/2019 by The Librain

I didn’t really know how to title this post as I decided to write out some truthful and painful thoughts today. I started this blog, back in January 2017, as a way of getting myself back into writing again and, since then, I have written about quite a wide variety subjects. Some posts have been fairly frivolous: about fashion, my daily outfits and my love of scarves etc. Others have been much more serious: about my health issues, hospital visits and difficult family circumstances. Today’s post will be about the latter and I urge those of you who prefer to read about scarves to skim over this and return later in the week!

Cracking under Stress by Bernard Goldbach on Flickr

To be honest, I’m using today’s post as a way of getting my feelings out and recording them for myself. My memory is still so poor that I struggle to remember things from an hour ago, never mind a day or a week. Events from decades past are, in contrast, very clear! Also, I apologise if this post is muddled and confusing – my thoughts are too.

Life in this household is becoming increasingly difficult:

  • Lovely Husband is disabled with severe back problems that he has had for almost 30 years, diabetes, depression and other serious issues. He can still drive and go out shopping and he cooks, cleans as well as he can, and organises everything for us all. However, he is beginning to slow down and is under a huge amount of stress.
  • I am so ill now, both mentally and physically, with a pile of meds which I have to take daily. I can only get up and go downstairs for a couple of hours before I have to return to bed. As I said above, my memory is poor, I cannot do housework or cook because of my chronic cough and dizziness, but I do help with some of the household organisation (via my iPad) and can put a load of washing on. I am afraid to leave the house except in a dire emergency or a medical appointment. I am terrified of having another, even worse, stroke.
  • Elder Son is becoming more difficult to cope with as we get older. His autism means that his moods are very changeable. One minute he is cheerful, helpful and lovely to be with; the next he is angry, violent and unreasonable. LH and I are now struggling to manage the fallout from his condition and an event (which I cannot write about in detail) happened yesterday that sent him over the edge and us to the brink too. We now have to wait for a resolution to the event in order to move forward. In the meantime, we also have to manage ES’s reaction to it all as he always turns his worries against us, as his parents!
  • Younger Son now lives and works away from home. We try to support him from afar when he needs us (and he does his best to offer support for us), and he does not add any stress on a daily basis. Of course, as his parents, we worry about him, but that is only normal, I think!
  • All of LH’s and my parents, and their generation of relatives, have now passed on and we have very little support from wider family. In addition, we have no close friends locally. Of course we really appreciate the online support from friends who live further away.
  • Our house is causing us a lot of stress too. It is basically sound, but we have been so overwhelmed with other issues that we have allowed regular maintenance to slide for a quite a few years. We don’t have money worries, thank goodness, but we cannot find the headspace to sort everything out: windows need replacing, the loft cleaning out and boarding, carpets cleaning or replacing, the rendering removing, many rooms decorating, loads of basic maintenance jobs doing, masses of general clutter removing… We feel helpless in the face of mess and just “stuff”. LH has suggested that I move out to a hotel whilst he sorts it all out, but I am struggling with the idea of leaving my safe space.
  • The future frightens us all. We really need to move to a house with a downstairs bedroom and bathroom for me and LH to stave off having to use residential care. ES worries about how he will manage without us. We worry about how long we can cope with him at home, but would it be even worse if he didn’t live with us? I suppose that this is the major cause of stress for us – what will the future bring?

So, now that I have got all of that off my chest, I will try to be more cheerful and hope that ES’s issue is sorted out favourably as quickly as possible. I have an appointment with my Consultant tomorrow, so will probably write about that later in the week.

Love and best wishes,

Anne

💕💗💖💗💕

Image credits

Cracking under stress by Bernard Goldbach on Twitter

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Outfit of the day 22/11/19

Posted on 22/11/2019 by The Librain

OK, so it is really yesterday’s outfit as I have spent today, so far, in bed feeling a bit sorry for myself! Elder Son had to go for his flu vaccination yesterday and he was so nervous that he asked me to go in with him. Of course, as it turned out, the nurse was brilliant with him and he hardly notice the actual “jab”, but my presence did seem to calm him down.

I’ve already had mine, so we are all set for the Winter. Now, I “only”have to think about Christmas! Actually, I think that present circumstances will mean that the festive season will be very low key for us. Lovely Husband always enjoys buying the food and doing the cooking, the “boys” (if they are both here) do loads to help, and I usually do the decorations and organise the presents. As present giving seems to have shrunk down to very little (LH doesn’t want anything and ES and YS always want cash) I don’t have much to buy, although I will look out for the stocking filler type of thing – any ideas? Oh, and LH will get something anyway! (I have something lovely planned for myself that the others will contribute towards – he, he!)

So, here is the outfit:

Outfit of the day 22/11/19 with Richard Allan’s houndstooth scarf

Today’s (sort of) outfit:

  • Navy cotton v-neck long sleeved t-shirt – Sainsbury’s Tu.
  • Navy wool-mix long cable cardigan – LL Bean. You may be getting tired of seeing this, but I am loving it in this cold and miserable weather. Will probably have a change of colours next week!
  • Navy cord leggings – Lands’ End.
  • Silver Celtic style earrings.
  • Blue, navy, black and white enamel and rose gold Ianthe bangle – Liberty of London.
  • Navy suede ankle boots – Duo Boots.
  • Small silk scarf in navy and cream houndstooth pattern by Richard Allan. Tied using a MaiTai Mother-of-Pearl scarf ring.

I have realised that I wore a very similar outfit about a year ago and wrote more about the scarf. If you are interested, it may be worth a look here. I definitely need to change my colours!

I wish you all a very happy weekend.

Love and best wishes,

Anne

💕💗💖💗💕

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Reading roundup 20/11/19

Posted on 20/11/2019 by The Librain

I am still reliant on ebooks for my reading “fix” and am so grateful that our local library service subscribes to an ebook system that is free for us members. The main issue with it is that there are usually long waiting lists for the better books and there are a lot of “fillers”. Unfortunately, I seemed to have borrowed the latter this week!

Trust No One by Anthony Mosawi

My first book was Trust No One by Anthony Mosawi. Here is the blurb:

“My name is Sara Eden. I was born in Scotland in 1980. My mother died at birth. My father was a tourist.”

This is all Sara Eden knows about herself. She has few links to the past: the cassette player, a cheap gold necklace, a few scraps of paper. And a Polaroid of a stranger with one line: ‘Don’t trust this man’.

As she begins to unravel her past, Sara discovers that she was imprisoned by a group of agents now moving heaven and earth to find her. She knows that she is important to them. She knows they consider her a threat. But the highly trained forces on her heels are only part of the danger she faces. There’s something in Sara’s background that is more dangerous, more deadly than her pursuers can even imagine. And the only thing Sara knows for certain is that she must Trust No One.

I did finish this book, even though I found it quite a struggle. My own issues may have had something to do with this (my memory is still poor), but I am not sure. As usual, the reviews on Goodreads are very mixed. Here is mine:

Trust No OneTrust No One by Anthony Mosawi
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

A very confusing and poorly written book. I’m not sure why I bothered to finish it, really. Others here seem to like it, but I can’t recommend this book at all.

View all my reviews

Ghost Virus by Graham Masterton

Well, that wasn’t very successful! Sadly, my second attempt was even worse: Ghost Virus by Graham Masterton. This is the blurb:

“The girl had been staring into her mirror all morning before she picked up the small bottle of sulphuric acid and poured it over her forehead.”

Samira was a young woman with her whole life ahead of her. What could have brought her to this? DC Jerry Pardoe and DS Jamila Patel of Tooting Police suspect it’s suicide. But then a meek husband kills his wife, and the headteacher of the local school throws her pupils out of a window. It’s no longer a random outbreak of horrific crimes. It’s a deadly virus. And it’s spreading. Somehow, ordinary Londoners are being infected with an insatiable lust to murder. All of the killers were wearing second-hand clothes. Could these garments be possessed by some supernatural force?

The death count is multiplying. Now Jerry and Jamila must defeat the ghost virus, before they are all infected…

Sorry, but it wasn’t worth writing a longer response! Here it is:

Ghost VirusGhost Virus by Graham Masterton
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I gave up on this when what was supposed to be an horrific scene made me laugh out loud! Totally over the top, preposterous plot. Simply gave up as there are other, far better, books to read and I have too little time left in which to read them.

View all my reviews

I have read other books by Masterton and found them perfectly acceptable, so I am not sure what was going on with this one! At first I thought that perhaps the problem was with me, but other readers have responded in similar ways on Goodreads.

Now I am left in confusion. I don’t think the problem is mine, but that these really are poorly written books. I do hope that I can find better choices for the coming weeks!

Happy Reading to you all!

Love and best wishes,

Anne

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PS. For those of you who are fans of the fabulous Ursula K Le Guin, there is a wonderful TV programme available to view on BBC iPlayer, BBC 4, called The Worlds of Ursula K Le Guin. It is really worth watching, if you are able to access BBC iPlayer where you are.

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Outfit of the day 18/11/19

Posted on 18/11/2019 by The Librain

Looking out of my bedroom window, I can see blue sky and fluffy clouds. At least this is better than the slate grey and heavy rain that we have had recently. No, I still haven’t managed to go out – Elder Son is quite ill with a horrible stabbing headache and he seems to need (want) a lot of TLC. Perhaps I can pluck up my courage and strength later in the week.

I have become so lazy since the stroke, staying in pyjamas all day. So, today I decided to get properly dressed. After all, I have so many lovely outfits and accessories and I really should make the most of them!

This is today’s outfit…

Oitfit of the day 18/11/19 with Hermès’ Cosmographia Universalis scarf

Today’s outfit:

  • Navy cotton v-neck long sleeved t-shirt – Sainsbury’s Tu.
  • Navy wool-mix long cable cardigan – LL Bean. I am really enjoying this new purchase as it is so snuggly and warm.
  • Navy cord leggings – Lands’ End.
  • Multicolour earrings – present from my sister.
  • Cream enamel and gold Byzantine bangle – Halcyon Days.
  • Silk scarf, 90cm, in bright pink, sky blue, white and navy – Cosmographia Universalis – Hermès. Tied in a criss-cross knot using a MaiTai mother-of-pearl scarf ring.

Yes, I know that my hair is in an awful mess, although it’s not really as bad in real life. For some reason, it doesn’t photograph well with my iPad. It is thin and fine, but the grey and silver seem to fade away on screen. I really need to book a haircut, but my health is so precarious at the moment that I don’t think I can be reliable. I must try soon, though.

Now, I shall return to my book because I want to be able to write a reasonable Reading Roundup post on Wednesday. So goodbye for now!

Love and best wishes,

Anne

💕💗💖💗💕

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