My Week in Review to the 1st July

Stop Press!! Harry Whitewolf is offering All his books for free on Amazon from the 27th June to the 1st July 2018. That means the last day is today so do all rush at once! Click the pics to read my reviews of these three:

I am linking up with The Sunday Post hosted by Kimberly at The Caffeinated Reviewer.
And in bookish news, I am linking up again with Book Photo Sundays over at Ronyell's Rabbit Ears Book Blog.

This photo of me reading in my cosy Bailey caravan was taken on a chilly November evening in Portugal back in 2013. We're wondering whether we might return to Portugal this winter instead of staying in Spain. This pic was first on A Month In Books - November 2013.


In reality when today's post publishes itself I shall be boarding a ferry back to the UK so my actual sharing around of links will happen much later in the day. Unless there's a problem with the boarding or, indeed, with the ferry of course in which case who knows?! I do have to get up unwelcomely early for me so fingers crossed that waking up actually happens!


Last weekend we treated ourselves to a day trip to La Rochelle, meeting up there with one of Dave's daughters who had flown out for the town's Documentary Festival. I remember cartoon scenes in my school French textbook being set in La Rochelle and - I don't know why - had always imagined it as some drab industrial port town. Like Newhaven I guess! It's not! We saw historic buildings and walked a little of the old walls, enjoyed artisan ice cream, wondered why the green lighthouse was in the midst of a row of houses quite some distance from the water, and admired a working carousel that dated back to 1900. I loved that the black lines on apparently half-timbered buildings are, on closer inspection, made of slate tiles! The pizzas in Via Roma are great too. I'd happily go back to La Rochelle for a longer visit, perhaps on a slightly cooler day.

On my blogs this week:
My Week in Review to the 24th June
Artisan Rainbow - Aprons
State Of The ARC - June 2018
50/50 Friday - Favourite/Least Favourite Genre
A Month In Books - June 2018

Swallowtail by Sheri Meshal
The Fear Of Being Eaten by Ronald J Wichers + #Giveaway
Manipulated Lives by H A Leuschel
The Occasional Virgin by Hanan Al-Shaykh
The Pumpkin Patch by Sandi Smith + #Giveaway
Galaxies And Oceans by N. R. Walker + #Giveaway + Excerpt
The Shape Of The Ruins by Juan Gabriel Vasquez


Around the blogosphere:
Avalinah's Books has a great review of The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
Chuckles features Night In The Lonesome October on her Books From The Backlog
Greg's Book Haven resurrects Comic Of The Week looking Excalibur Visionaries Volume 1

Have a great week!

Artisan Rainbow - Aprons 

My Week in Review to the 29th April

I'm linking this post up with The Sunday Post at The Caffeinated Reviewer.

A fairly brief Week In Review today as we are mostly packing our car (read that as cramming every available corner!) in preparation for renewed wanderings tomorrow. Yay! The potential panic from last week's post has been averted. We managed to get the trailer tent tyres replaced thanks to the folks at MandM Tyres in Marsh Barton. Their while-you-wait service did involve a bit of a wait as we arrived at a busy time. We were directed to a nearby cafe which, unfortunately wasn't due to reopen until tomorrow. However the woman there preparing for their Big Reopen was happy to make us each a cup of good coffee On The House and even brought us out biscuits. How amazing was that? If you find yourself at a loose end in Marsh Barton, be sure to support the Snack Station on Clapperbrook Lane. Admittedly, you probably won't get a free drink, but they are Very Nice People!

Also VNPs are our friends Josie and Jim Tipler who, together, are folk duo Milton Hide. Their brand new EP, Little Fish, was launched in Sussex yesterday and I was lucky enough to be offered a review copy. Great harmonies and I love Josie's lyrics! Take a listen to this YouTube of Home Is Where Your Heart is and visit the Milton Hide Facebook page to find your nearest gig.

In book news, if you love exciting new crime fiction, use This Link Here to get 20% off at Fahrenheit Press. I've got one of their books, Dead Is Better by Jo Perry, to read soon and am looking forward to discovering more!

And congrats to Shirley who won the Literary Flits Nervous Conditions book giveaway last week! I'm not personally running any other giveaways right now, but am hosting several as part of book tours. There's free books and Amazon gift cards up for grabs ...

This week on Stephanie Jane you can look forward to A Month In Books, my April reads roundup, which will be blogged tomorrow morning, and WorldReads on the 5th will feature Five Books from Zimbabwe - my third literary visit to Africa.


Around the blogosphere:

My friend Chris has started a new blog about his French off-grid lifestyle. Welcome to The Ramshack

Joyous Reads has a fascinating interview with Genevieve Graham about the inevitability of writing about Nazis.

Caree Risover has been helping out with a plumbing job


Here's what you might have missed Across My Blogs this week. Click the images to visit the pages ... and don't forget to enter all the Giveaways!

	Artisan Rainbow	Literary Flits	Stephanie Jane
M O N D A Y
T U E S D A Y
W E D N E S D A Y
T H U R S D A Y
F R I D A Y
S A T U R D A Y
S U N D A Y

My Week in Review to the 11th March

I am linking up again today with The Sunday Post hosted by Kimberly at The Caffeinated Reviewer. Except I've written this post in advance, yesterday, and might not get a chance to do the actual linking today because We Are On The Move Again!

We were supposed to be travelling to L'Estartit tomorrow for a last day of (mostly) cleaning before putting our Bailey caravan in storage for the summer and heading back northwards. However strong winds forecast for Monday mean we're now moving Today. I don't like towing the caravan when it's windy! We'll be back at Les Medes for a couple days, then driving up to the French town of Chef Boutonne from where I shall impart Exciting News later this week!

In the meantime, I am doing well with both my March reading challenges, IndieAthon and Take Control of Your TBR Pile. You can see the books I've read for each by following those links. Plus March's WorldReads visited my first South American country with Five Books from Brazil.

We had a last good walk earlier in the week when I took the tower and sea photos. The sun was much hotter than for previous walks and I didn't think we had enough water - especially once we started slogging uphill for half an hour. Also my hip was a bit sore, but it turned out all right in the end and I am glad we made the effort. I think we will return to Peñiscola in future winters. We like that there is lots of flat ground to explore by bicycle and that the Serra d'Irta is so close for walking. We could probably even walk from here to our previous Alcossebre campsite in a day if we wanted to - although we might need to get a bus back!

On a walking theme, Ordnance Survey got in touch to say that their Pathfinder Walking Guides sale will continue until the end of March. Discounts vary depending on the book, but there's lots of guides reduced from £12.99 to £8.96. (Here endeth the advert!)

Heron! 

Around the blogosphere this week,
1) I joined in Rosie Amber's discussion post What Kind of Reader Are You? Not a butterfly, it turns out!
2) Edith's Miscellany revisited my favourite Carlos Ruiz Zafon book, The Shadow of the Wind. I've got The Prince of Mist awaiting my attention at the moment.
3) I discovered this old Hello Glow post about how to make my own natural fridge cleaner. That's going to come in handy.

And a question for you: I just read the brilliant Collected Stories by Bruno Schulz (Literary Flits review to follow on the 15th) which, several times, used the word soughing. I know it means the sound of wind through trees, but how am I supposed to pronounce it? As in bough, cough, dough, through or rough?
Don't you just love English?!

While we ponder, here's what you might have missed on my other blogs this week. Click the images to visit the pages ... and don't forget to enter all the Giveaways!

	Artisan Rainbow	Literary Flits
M O N D A Y
T U E S D A Y
W E D N E S D A Y
T H U R S D A Y
F R I D A Y
S A T U R D A Y
S U N D A Y

My Week in Review to the 28th January

First up, huge news that it is my niece's birthday today!

Happy Birthday Emily!!!

We've had a quietish week this week with just one excursion of note which was a cycle ride from Puerto de Mazarron to Bolnuevo and back. We went out by the roads and returned as much as possible along the seafront promenade so got to see different things to the last time we visited Bolnuevo. I loved this statue of a diver. There wasn't a plaque I could see anywhere identifying the sculptor though. Dave also spotted a trio of flamingos! They are in the centre of this photo below although you'll probably need to click into it to enlarge it - and squint - to see them The birds are white, not pink.

There's an old aqueduct that we've passed several times on our way in Puerto de Mazarron. It has a sign board, by parking up safely nearby is tricky. Dave remembered in time to stop last time though. Apparently the aqueduct was still in use for irrigating agricultural land until just a few years ago when the water source dried up.

In other news, two cooking experiments turned out surprisingly well for me this week! Firstly I wasn't able to find the usual dried yeast sachets at Consum to was recommended to try fresh yeast cubes instead. A pack of two 15g cubes is just 29 cents and worked brilliantly. In my standard Slow Cooker Wholemeal Bread recipe, the change was that I dissolved the yeast in the warm water and then added the salt, oil and flour as usual. The rolls came out even bigger than they normally do! And the fresh yeast is less than half the price of the dried.

I also made a batch of Scottish Drop Scones with aquafaba (chickpea water) instead of egg. These worked perfectly too and the banana slices I fried alongside the pancakes were an excellent topping. I had the liquid from a 400g jar of chickpeas which I used instead of one egg. Everything else was as per the recipe linked here.

	Artisan Rainbow	Literary Flits
M O N D A Y
T U E S D A Y
W E D N E S D A Y
T H U R S D A Y
F R I D A Y
S A T U R D A Y
S U N D A Y

Currently reading

Waiting for the Barbarians

by J.M. Coetzee

tagged: currently-reading, fiction-africa, and charity-shop-find