Category: Uncategorized

Lots of mending, gravelling, tarring and installing huge networks of temporary traffic lights going on, plus people changing the bulbs in the street lights and a lost fire engine.
June 2022 had twice as much rain as June 2021 but half a kWh more sunshine, making it our third best June ever. Average temperatures were within a fraction of a degree of last year’s averages.
Admin1 is reading The Vinyl Detective: Attack and Decay by Andrew Cartmel. Admin2 is reading The Botanist by MW Craven.

Another fine window from the local underwear emporium.
Admin1 is rereading London Rules (oh no it doesn’t) by Mick Herron. Admin2 has been reading What Makes This Book so Great by Jo Walton; about rereading old sf books, sadly not many of our favourites, and is now going to find an old book to read again.
Happy Birthday Dave!

An escaped number balloon trapped on a telephone wire catches the sun as a bird flies by.
Admin1 is reading Rewind by Catherine Ryan Howard. Admin2 is reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. Wind and rewind.

The remains of a tree waiting for the dustcart.
Admin1 is reading When Silence Kills by Mark Griffin, a competent and readable crime story. Admin2 is rereading Eye in the Sky by Philip K Dick. Last time she read it, the name of the character Bill Laws meant nothing to her, but for the last 30 or so years Bill Laws has been one of her in-Laws.

The horrible overpriced shops in the Victoria Quarter reflected in the horrible shiny floor.
Admin1 is rereading Mr Mercedes by Stephen King. Admin2 is reading Body Breaker by MW Craven.
January was marginally warmer than December but slightly less sunny than most years so far.

The baubles have had their year in the sun; now they are going back in their box in the dark cupboard. Sorry shiny balls.
Admin2 is reading The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown by Vaseem Khan.

Admin2 is much enjoying A History of Pictures by David Hockney and Martin Gayford (thx Admin1) and since it was a dull day weatherwise here is a fake oil painting of the master in his studio.
Admin1 is reading The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown by Vaseem Khan.

Giant baubles in a shop window. Not sure what it has to do with F Scott Fitzgerald. Admin1 is reading Murder at the Grand Raj Palace by Vaseem Khan.

Christmas Lights Man seems not to have quite finished his display but here are a lit up tree and a luminous festive figure. Admin2 went looking for Geminid meteors in a sky that was very clear between the clouds on a night that was warmer than the day, but did not see any.
Admin1 is reading Too Much of Water by LC Tyler. Admin2 is reading The Dying Day by Vaseem Khan.

People from up the road celebrating that they have succeeded in colonising the traffic island which is legally part of our territory. Well I hope the people who gave them £500 to install a bench and gazebo on “The Green” were impressed by the massive turnout.
Admin1 is reading Dolphin Junction by Mick Herron. Admin2 is reading The Dutch House by Ann Patchett; a brother and sister turfed out of their iconic house by their wicked stepmother.

On her first day in hospital, Admin2 had a window seat with a view of the backside of Leeds Beckett University. On the second day she was moved to another ward with a view of the backside of Leeds University.
In the course of that day she had x-rays, ultrasound and an angiogram and was finally taken to a grand stage-like room where people in different uniforms stood around like characters in an opera and she watched her arteries wriggling around like snakes on the x-ray while a balloon stent was inserted from a tube from her arm to her heart to stretch out the blocked artery, after which she felt hale and hearty again.
Admin1 is rereading Oranges and Lemons by Christopher Fowler.

Admin2 was feeling somewhat under the weather and had extremely minor chest pains for a few days so she called 111 and they sent an ambulance. Ambulance men found nothing much wrong but recommended the hospital for another test, which Admin2 failed. Not corona but a coronary. To while away the many hours, she read A Climate of Fear by Fred Vargas, which had a very complicated plot linking Icelandic mythology with the French Revolution, eventually untangled by the free-associating detective Adamsberg.

Leeds city centre, one year after Admin2 last visited. Spot the tumbleweed.
Admin1’s 1000th book is What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe (thanks, Admin2!). Admin2 is reading Seeking Whom He May Devour by Ms Fred Vargas.

Oh no! The bin is broken and the bottles have fallen out!
Admin1 is reading False Value by Ben Aaronovitch and Admin2 is reading The Art of Dying by Ambrose Parry. New books! Thanks, Admin2 🙂

Part of the Living Advent Calendar.
Admin1 is reading Cold Justice by Lee Weeks — Cold Comfort Farm without the jokes. Started off OK but descended into ludicrous melodrama.
Admin2 is reading The Explosion Chronicles by Yan Lianke; a parable of untrammelled growth.