It’s not been a brilliant couple of months for getting the TBR lists down because the library re-opened and although it’s not as big as it used to be, it’s still the library!
The Blade Itself: The First Law Book One – Joe Abercrombie
This was on the Kindle TBR and I enjoyed it but then it kind of stopped. I know it’s part of a trilogy but it set everything up and then stopped, I still have very little idea where it is going, I did try to see if I could get the second book at the library but I’m not sure I want to spent another £14 finding out what happens!
Sarina Bowen, I liked it, the story has been hinted at in the other Brooklyn Bruisers books and it made me happy to be in a world that I know nothing about. I did like that the heroine although was having issues with her career, she was the one with the money and that although she’s loved up and working on her issues she still has them!
Hurrah for a 40 something couple, who have been through the mill. I liked that even though the hero could be bitter, he wasn’t nasty about his ex wife and that his relationship with his daughter was such that she could see where he hurt and adjust, even though Dad wasn’t saying anything. While I understood the heroine, it took me longer to warm to her but I did love the competence porn. She was good at her job and respected for it, even if she was distant from the staff. Overall, it was lovely and once they had overcome their issues a HEA ensued…
The Ingredients of Us – Jennifer Gold
This was a free Kindle book of the month and I’m glad it was free because I didn’t like it at all. I didn’t like the structure of the story, generally jumping back and forward has to have a point and honesty I couldn’t see it. I also didn’t like anyone in the book, so I didn’t care…
Say No to the Duke – Eloisa James
Another Eloisa James, I love the way James’ books always end with lots of children but I also really love that this book has an aunt who is amazing! Because spinster aunts are amazing and one day my nephews will get it!! The only tiny problem I have with this book is the PTSD, did soldiers get in in the Revolutionary War, probably, but I’m not sure that the emotions and feelings about it she ascribes to the upper classes are of the time but it’s a romance not a history book and I did enjoy it.
Gilded Cage (The Dark Gifts Trilogy 1) – Vic James
This was a Kindle free book that’s been sitting in the TBR list for a while. It’s an interesting setting. Basically an alternate Britain where a magic class of people are the aristocracy that deposed Charles I and set up a state where they are the only ones with power and very ungifted person has to do 10 years as a slave. And that is how the world and the economy runs and it’s as horrific as you’d expect. I enjoyed it enough to buy the rest of the trilogy and will probably get around to them next month.
War of the Wolf – Bernard Cornwall
So I was in the library picking up a book I had on hold and there this was in the recently arrived books. I love this series, with the improbably aged Uhtred and you can see how much and how little the world is changing and how the idea of an England is taking shape. Uhtred is going to be the oldest man alive in England by the time the books are done!
The Cruel Prince – Holly Black
This was also on the display shelf in the library, I love Holly Black and I loved this. How do you hold on to yourself in a world where nothing is human and how do you survive? Can you without losing something vital? I really like that Jude decides to win power, not love. I have the second book on hold already..
The Obelisk Gate – N.K. Jemisin
This was the book I had on hold, I loved it. I liked the idea but also the way the story is told. It’s not until you read something that isn’t automatically based in white, western culture that you realise that not everything has to be. I really enjoyed this and have the last one on hold at the library!
Afterwards we had dinner at 
Sunday was a day for allotment and laundry. Awesome and busy. The plot is green after all the heat and then the rain and the shed is tidy!
This week is my last week before a week off and the first week of a new boss, or at least a new person to look after. So make sure everything is handed over, tidy the flat before the family arrive for lunch next Sunday, allotment tidy on Saturday, and pack for going to Newcastle on Monday and having birthday fun!
I recently changed up my skincare, usually I’m very loyal to the products I use (and for the record this picture is how I’d like to look every day but often don’t!) but my skin has always been a reflection of my health generally and my menstrual health in particular. I’m well and truly into peri-menopausal territory nowadays and it was really showing on my face and in the increasing greyness of my hair. (I’ve stopped dying it because I’m hopeful that I’ll end up with the beautiful grey hair that my aunt Jude has and not the salt and pepper that my mum has and loathes! As my dad and my aunt had the same colouring, I have the same colouring that dad had and he wasn’t particularly grey when he died, I live in hope!)
Generally, when people talk about hot cloth cleansers, they give two recommendations, the 
Because all of the products are priced at £5.99 and are so often on either buy one get one free or half price, it’s much easier to buy something to try, recently I’ve started using the 
Some annual weeds come up in the beds but they are easily dealt with and the only real problem we’ve had has been with the old raspberries, which have been sprouting up everywhere, paths and beds. However, we’ve been diligently pulling them up and for the moment, they’ve stopped although I don’t think we’ve seen the last of them. We do have a bit of a patchwork situation with regards to the weed fabric the wood chip covers up, I wouldn’t do it again but under the wood chip paths, we have some biodegradable weed fabric, some plastic weed fabric and some bare earth. Which means we have different types of weeds on the paths depending what’s underneath them. Over the black plastic the wood chip breaks down into a great growing medium, so we get lots of annual weeds and the occasional self-seeded squash (yes I am going to leave it and see what it does!). In the other areas as the woodchip layer decomposes, we have both annual weeds that are harder to remove and the perennial nasties like bindweed.
Our method for both types is the same. Pull them out put more wood chip down. Fortunately, there had been two wood chip deliveries in the past couple of weeks and a downpour on Friday. So first job on Friday night was to clear Joe’s space, which includes the courgette corridor. There is a big area of unplanted soil which we cleared of weeds so I’m going to ask Joe if I can plant the bunch (40) of cabbages, calabrese and cauliflowers that came with my kale, I don’t have room for them and don’t like seeing empty space, it also gives me reason for keeping up with the weeds at that end under control and Joe likes cabbages and cauliflowers so it’s a win/win.
On Saturday we did a lot of work on our plot. Harvesting, obvs.
Out total courgette count is at 36, (since the 3rd July) and one crookneck but this does include the pick I did while watering on Tuesday. The yellow ones are currently doing better than the green ones and some of the fruits developing aren’t germinating or are and then dying off, which on absolutely no evidence, I’m blaming the bitey ants…
We only have a couple of more weeks of beetroot yet and we’re not going to get around to a second sowing this year because there’s no room! There is currently lots of lettuce but again I need to sow some more because in the mini heat wave we’re having this week, I think it’s going to bolt!
We also have calendula flowering
We’re a couple of weeks away from french beans, the autumn raspberries are beginning to set fruit and I took the first plums yesterday, I forgot to put a grease band around the tree in spring (again) and we’re in an off year for the tree but there are certainly enough for plum gin. 
The squashes are all doing well, the butternuts are way behind and just starting to flower but the Georgia candy roaster, the ukichi kuri and the burgess butternut have all set some fruit and by some I mean we have about 20 squash, so it’s all good. We’ve hit the time of year where spring and early summer veg has slowed down but we’re a bit away from all the late summer harvests, which is fine.
Then we weeded and woodchipped most of the plot. We didn’t get to all of it, I went back on Sunday morning and did a bit more but still didn’t get it all done but I did get all the fruit beds (raspberries, blackcurrant and boysenberry) and reserved some for the gooseberries too. If there is more there at the weekend, I’ll finish it off.
Other than weeding, I got all the kale planted out. We have 10 cavolo nero, plants and 5 curly kale plants (the only ones that survived my neglect in the spring!) 
While I was doing that Ma sowed the borlotti beans in the three sisters bed, yes it’s late but that does seem to be the theme of my years.
I also picked some flowers which made me really happy, although I think the time for sweet peas to come up has come, there were bugs all over them, some greenfly and some pollen beetles. I love sweetpeas but I’m pretty ruthless about them, we took one set down already and it’s time to take down the others. 
Ma also sowed some dill in amongst the baby cukes (this is dill that we allowed to go to seed last year – one of the few places I managed to save seed!).
I need to find homes for the leeks, the ammi visnaga, the brassicas which I’m hoping we can put in on Joe’s empty space. I also need to take out the sweet peas and pull out the spinach that hasn’t grown enough to harvest any. I want to sow some fennel there and see if it does any better. I also need to get to sowing the chard (really, really need to do it now). I’d like to finish with the wood chip if we can.
It wasn’t just actual books although she did and I still have them but she taught me the value of reading. Like most kids I don’t remember the bedtime stories, I do remember that when we did the school library trip, I was the only kid that already had a library membership and was familiar with the children’s library at Fulham library.I was given books for Christmas and birthdays and they all had a message from Ma. This was huge for me as I also had Ma’s books from her mother (and others) which for me were a link to people that I would never meet and to Ma’s childhood. It’s one thing to know that your mum spent time convalescing in Broadstairs when she was a child, it’s another thing entirely to see the message that the grandmother that you never met wrote for your mum at the time. Also please note that in the same year when she was 9 and just 10 Ma was given Good Wives and Great Expectations!
So actual books are one thing, my love of Jane Austen, the Chalet School and Georgette Heyer are all because they were things Ma liked to read. What she gave me was more than that. It was the love of reading, the permission to read and lose myself in a story and that it was ok to do that. All of that comes from Mum, who would often say “I was going to hoover/wash up/change the beds but I had a book” because who wouldn’t read instead of doing housework.
I remember Ma removing lamps and lightbulbs from my room to stop me reading at night. And while I know that it was more than awkward to have a kid that had her nose in a book at very given opportunity, she never made me feel that reading and wanting to read was a problem. There were lots of other people in my life who did but in that I always felt Ma got it.
Nic Dempsey 