Currently…June 2017

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currently 2017

June has been a lovely month for our little family. We have fit in two mini-breaks and have made the most of the sunny weather. Here is a snapshot of this month.

Currently I am…

Treasuring the memories we made on Orla’s first visit to Ireland. We spent a perfect weekend with Rob’s side of the family. It was our first time taking Orla on a plane, and she slept through the entire flight there and back! We played on the beach, visited gardens and spent lots of time eating with family. We loved every minute!

Nitpicking Orla’s reading material. This buggy version of the very hungry caterpillar has irked the pedantic in me by labeling a plum as ‘blue’ when it clearly purple, or indeed plum! What is the world coming to?

Jumping on the Unicorn trend and ordering a Unicorn Hot Chocolate at a Hipster Chic Coffee bar in Clitheroe, Escape Coffee and Cocktails. Orla was more interested in Rob’s banana milkshake, which was good as I certainly did not want to share!

Drinking in the view from a cocktail bar looking over the river in Bristol. Last week we took another small holiday to Bristol and met up with our friends who also have kids. We took it in turns to go out, and one of my best moments was sitting on a terrace, eating chocolate torte looking out over the river at a very late sunset.

Stopping to smell the roses. On our way back from Bristol we stopped at the Trentham Estate, just off the M6 near Stoke on Trent. It broke up the journey back home and gave us a really fun day out exploring some stunning gardens. These roses gave off such a lovely scent it was hard to leave them behind.

Book Bag: Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery

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Jenny Colgan, Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery

I know in my last post I said how much I was looking forward to picking out my own reading material after several months of reading other people’s recommendations BUT this last weekend we were in Ireland visiting Rob’s Mum and she passed me a book she had just finished that she thought I would like and…

I absolutely loved it!

We were in Ireland for four days and in between visits to gardens, visiting family and playing on the beach I managed to read the whole thing. I literally read the last few pages in the car on the way to the airport on Monday morning.

The book was Summer at the Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan

I have read a few of Jenny Colgan’s books now and they follow a pattern that I know some will find sickeningly sweet but that I actually enjoy; woman takes on challenging small business in an old fashioned community finds love, friendship and healing along the way.

But this book is a little bit different, it is clearly a sequel and so we skip over the story of Polly making her home in the small Cornish Island that is connected to the mainland by a causeway that is underwater in high tide. In this installment Polly is faced with losing her job and her home and her friends, and has no easy answer to fix her problems. This book is about what you do when you have failed repeatedly and how to pick yourself up from the dust when the fight has gone out of you.

Yes, the cutesy town is there and ultimately a happy ending, and on the way there are plenty of mentions of comforting food, baths and the occasional lavish party due to millionaire characters who occasionally appear which keeps the book light and frothy but underneath that there is a true grit of character. Here there are people drowning in circumstances beyond their control and finding ways to break through to the surface again.

The sea battering the island makes a beautiful metaphor for this inner battle and after reading about the vicious storm in the book I lost myself for a while watching real life footage of storms at sea on YouTube. It has given me a new appreciation of the sea and a longing to get to our coastline more often.

There is talk of a family holiday to Cornwall next year and I would love to go see St Michael’s Mount which was the inspiration for the fictional location in Summer at Little Beach Street Bakery. Fingers crossed that if we do go the weather will be more welcoming!

Now that I have finished that book I have now started reading something new that I picked out at the library all by myself! I am half way through that one and have two other books sitting waiting to be read so hopefully there will be more Book Bag posts soon!

 

 

Book Bag – Fairy Tales Galore

I have only one book left in my reading pile at the moment! For over a year the majority of my reading has been books that have either been given or loaned to me and once I have finished the book I am currently reading I will be completely out of gifted books.

It is interesting to read what another person has loved and I am grateful that my family consult my reading wish list when it comes to present buying, but I am really looking forward to go book hunting soon and pick out some things for myself.

Before I go in search of new adventures I want to share what I have read in the last few weeks. Weirdly, they have all been fairy tale related:

Snow White by Jospehine Poole and Angela Barrett, and Beauty and the Beast by Max Eilenberg and Angela Barrett

These books were actually presents to Orla from Fionne but I absolutely adore them and have read them cover to cover myself. These fairy tales are beautifully retold and each illustration by Angela Barrett is packed with enchanting details. Orla especially likes Snow White as it has lots of cats that she can point to and go ‘meeeeeeow’.

The challenge now is keeping them in good condition so that Orla can truly appreciate them when she is old enough to take in the words.

Politically Correct Bedtime Stories by James Finn Garner

James Finn Garner has taken the opportunity to rewrite classic stories for more enlightened times: from Snow White s relationship with seven vertically challenged men, Little Red Riding Hood, her grandma and the cross-dressing wolf who set up an alternative household based on mutual respect and cooperation to the Emperor who was not naked but was endorsing a clothing-optional lifestyle. For the first time read the true story of what happened when the Ugly Duckling was judged on its personal merits and not on its physical appearance. At last, here is bedtime reading free from prejudice and discrimination to witches, giants, dwarves, goblins and fairies everywhere. You can remedy this cultural defect by reading Politically Correct Bedtime Stories and discovering what really happened when Jack climbed the beanstalk, when Cinderella went to the ball and when the wolf tried to blow down the house of the Three Little Pigs. For anyone brought up on sexist, racist, sizeist and ethnocentrist reading matter these stories have been purged of the influence of an insensitive cultural past to become fables for our times.

This was another gift from Fionne to contrast the more traditional fairy tales. This is an exceptionally fun and witty little book that makes cutting jibes against over the top correctness in the most mild mannered tone. Cinderella was particularly hilarious.

Fables Vol 15: Rose Red

It feels like Rose Red has been wallowing in her bed forever since the death of Boy Blue. She has been completely useless and to be honest I was getting rather tired of her but at last she rises from the murky bed sheets of despair and rises up once more to her position of leadership. It felt really good to see the old Rose Red back and to get a look into her past life and what caused the fissures in her relationship with Snow White.

In bigger news the fight against Mr Dark was spectacular but unsuccessful and now our Fables are having to flee once more. I am desperate to read the next volume to find out whether they are going to take back the homelands or are they going to fight to keep hold of the mundy world.

I love this series and 15 volumes in I still want to read the next one!