Category: Uncategorized

A2 went to the Chinese supermarket to stock up for New Year. But not as much as the shop had stocked up. Boxes everywhere. Couldn’t move.
A2 is rereading Hour of the Wolf by Hakan Nesser. Grrr!

As 1 and 2 went for our flu and covid shots today. Here are the lights of Scott Hall Road in the evening dark as we made our way home with achy arms but relief that we’d finally got around to it.
A2 is now rereading An Uncertain Place, by Fred Vargas again.

The gas men cometh with a digger on a wagon full of dirt to fill the holes where the rain gets in (and there has been plenty of rain today — 41.4 mm, all-time number four on the high score table). All done now; we are cooking with gas.
A1 is reading Scatter Her Ashes* by Heine Bakkeid, a grim and gloomy tale with another useless protagonist. A2 is reading A Death at Fountains Abbey by Antonia Hodgson.

The gas men are coming for us
Some of their stuff
A massive soil shifter — it sucks!
The new pipe — on a roll!
And a shedload of barriers in front of our hedge.
It will be our turn soon and our gas meter is buried in the bowels of the extension so we won’t be cooking with gas.
A1 is reading The Wild Swimmers by William Shaw, a double-spaced Cupidi novel(la). Weaker than WS’ usual offerings, unfortunately — has some signs of being rushed, with a number of typos, a slightly confusing plot and an implausible recovery from grave injury. Still, entertaining enough — thanks, A2!

A horrible old mattress riding a shopping trolley down the path to perdition. Amazingly streetmattress.com is still a thing.
A2 is rereading Runtime by Catherine Ryan Howard.

It got knocked down, but it’s put up again.
A1 it rereading the enormous but rewarding REAMDE by Neal Stephenson.

A1 tried to photograph a huge spot on the sun, 15 times the size of the Earth, which has been the source of the recent aurorae, but could not focus, so instead here is a picture of the spots made by the sun shining through trees.
A1 is rereading Mr Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. A2 is reading The Wolf by Samuel Bjork.

A2 went for another covid booster today. Scott Hall Road was looking exceptionally boring so here is another side of the jabberwocky mural.
A1 is rereading The Dying Light by Henry Porter. A2 started rereading Commonwealth by Ann Patchett, but read her own review and changed her mind.

They’re digging it round and it ought to be square.
A1 is reading The Vinyl Detective: Noise Floor by Andrew Cartmel. A2 is rereading The Sleepwalkers already to catch anything she missed first time round.

The footprints of cars.
A2 is rereading The Ninth Life of Louis Drax by Liz Jensen.

Christmas Lights Man’s illuminations continue into the post-Twelfth-Night danger zone.
A1 is reading Snow Fall by Jorn Lier Horst. A2 is reading Julia by Sandra Newman (thx A1) which has ruined Nineteen Eighty-Four for me forever with its [highlight for spoiler]  Wizard of Ozzy reveal and the recasting of Winston Smith as a magnetic sex god. Ungood.

Another victim of Storm Gerrit. Sorry kids.
A1 is rereading Slough House by Mick Herron.
We are watching Slow Horses.

City centre bling.
A1 is rereading London Rules by Mick Herron. A2 is reading Fearless by MW Craven which is all about masculinity and gunfire in the USA so far, with hooks to keep you reading. The protagonist is basically a psychopathic serial killer with no compunctions. A far cry from Washington Poe books set in Cumbria but might as well carry on (I finished it and felt quite dirty). There will be new books tomorrow; thank you baby Jesus.

Current crime fiction fans A1 and A2 were surprised when a pair of detectives (bearing a slight resemblance to characters Catherine Cawood of Happy Valley and Steve Arnott of Line of Duty, who are standing in for them in this photo) turned up unannounced to question A1 about a 1996 unsolved murder close to his former flat; sadly he couldn’t help them with their enquiries.
A1 is reading Cold as Hell* by Lilja Sigurdardottir. A2 is reading The Arsenic Labyrinth by Martin Edwards.

Props to A1 for fixing the broken battery latch on our £2 camera with 2 mending plates and a tripod screw. Now all we need is a data cable and to come to terms with the fact that the batteries are already exhausted. £2 becomes £20.
A1 is reading Longstone by LJ Ross. These three crime novels — 8, 9 and 10 in a series — were all readable, but otherwise unremarkable. Good on atmospheric and interesting locations (Northumberland and environs) but unconvincing on characterisation and plot.
A2 tried The Last House on Needless Street* by Catriona Ward but couldn’t get into it and is now reading Outside* by Ragnar Jonasson; four friends with secrets and scores to settle trapped in a mountain hut in a blizzard.

Another addition to our collection of personholes and street plaques, this one with our initials.
Admin1 is reading Conquest by Nina Allen, which appeared to tick a number of Admin1’s boxes — SF, JS Bach, crime, conspiracy — but ended up being slightly unfocused thematically and with some irritating stylistic quirks (NA eschews quotation marks for speech). A brave attempt which didn’t quite come off. But many thanks, Admin2!
Admin2 is reading The Lock-up* by John Banville. As in the other two books in the series, everything proceeds very sedately until the last chapter, when all hell breaks loose [correction: the penultimate chapter; the last 2 books had a coda in which someone got away with something].

Oh no! We have finally both caught covid and it’s awful!
Dizzy
Fever
Shakin all over
and So Tired.
And Admin2’s leg is still giving her hell, but she’s finished the Thomas M Disch book and is now reading Ararat by DM Thomas.
Admin1 is rereading The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith.

Yes we have no tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, peppers etc. Might as well give up vegetables for Lent. Same at the next shop along:
Admin 1 is reading The Mathematical Bridge by Jim Kelly. Admin2 is reading East of Hounslow* by Khurrum Rahman (a comic novel about Islamic terrorism ffs) for a change.

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.