Down Came the Hail

Bit of a hailstorm last night - sounded like someone was drumming on the house!

Did get some very dramatic Garage-cam pictures though:

Sealing out the Damp

We've had a long-standing problem with damp in the wall round the window frame in the downstairs guest bedroom . . .  and since we had the builders coming back to extend the wooden floor into that room, we thought we might as well add this job to their list!

First task was to chip away the plaster and see what was actually going on - as suspected there was practically no cavity between the inner and outer walls, and the damp proof liner didn't extend round far enough.

The solution has been to cover the affected sections of wall with a bitumen paint to hopefully seal out the damp.


The boys will be back then to concrete and plaster over the exposed brick, and make good.  Fingers crossed this works!

Anyone for Hot Chocolate?

We do like a hot chocolate at this time of the year, but it's been pointed out to me that I might have overdone it a bit . . .

At any rate, I've been banned from buying any more for the time-being  (even if it is on offer!).

Should keep us going for the rest of the year though ☺

In 2014 I Mostly Read . . .

Here's what I was reading in 2014:

December 2014 - A re-read of the last in the Rivers of London series, Broken Homes, ahead of the new offering Foxglove Summer - another excellent story, although a little outside the main mythology. Did get some interesting pointers though - roll on book 6.

November 2014 - The Little Old Lady Who Broke All The Rules - another charming Scandinavian effort, nice to see a bunch of older people as the heroes too.

November 2014 - bit of lifestyle humour with A La Mod: My So-Called Tranquil Family Life in Rural France - enjoyable and engaging read, even made me laugh out loud a couple of times.

October 2014 - on to a best seller (with a new film out), The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared - Nordic oddity, wasn't too sure at first but got quite into it in the end - heartwarming stuff.

October 2014 - quick dip back into period crime with The Mangle Street Murders - ok for 99p, but not particularly inspired to shell out full price for the next in the series.

October 2014 - a couple more fantasy offerings in Ready, Steady, Dig and Gnome or Mr Nice Guy bit less serious than other reading to date, but good fun.

September 2014 - a more literary 'fantasy-ish' effort with Mr Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore - ok but really rather odd, nearly didn't finish it but then it would pick up again.

August - September 2014 - sticking with the fantasy theme, on to Mike Shevdon's 'Courts of the Feyre' series, Sixty-One Nails, The Road to Bedlam, Strangeness and Charm, and The Eighth Court. Good stuff on the whole - strong characters - interesting ideas.

August 2014 - briefly dipped into romance (with a supernatural edge) in The Three Graces - did finish, but can't say it's one I'd read again.

July - August 2014 - another fantasy series, Jon Rosenberg's 'Hidden Academy', starting with The Unicorn Crisis, then The Digital Wolf and latterly Pantheon of the Dead - all good stuff, not dissimilar to Dresden in its basic context, and a damned good read with some really cool characters.

July 2014 - a bit of regency fantasy romance, Newt's Emerald by Garth Nix. Enjoyable enough but didn't blow me away.

June 2014 - the latest Dresden Skin Game (having re-read Cold Days) - excellent as ever; momentum seems to be building towards some kind of conclusion, with characters from yester-year being reintroduced, and plot lines weaving together - waiting for the next one now!

May 2014 - back to 'crime' with the first of Carola Dunn's Daisy Dalrymple mysteries - an engaging character, 1920s setting, but with a slightly superficial air.

May 2014 - moved back into fantasy-land with Polly Shulman's The Grimm Legacy a nicely constructed original young adult fantasy novel, and Helen Smith's Alison Wonderland which I'm not sure if fantasy is the right classification for, and sort of enjoyed, but wasn't inspired to read more of her offerings . . .

March-May 2014 - continuing the 'crime' theme, a re-read / first read of the entire PD James Dalgliesh canon. Again evidence of social change from the early 1960s to 2008, her final offering - love the way she explores character and humanity, so much more sophisticated than the bog-standard Agatha Christie. Was sad to finish . . .

January-March 2014 - continued my way through Ngaio Marsh's Alleyn Mysteries - good stuff - interesting to see how the tone changed over the years from pre-war to the early 1980s.

Bad Blogger

You may have noticed a lack of activity for 2015 (date in 'real time' of this post - 28 October 2015).  There has however been a lot of retrospective blogging - so if all you've seen is the fireworks for months on end, do go looking back through 2014.

On to 2015 - and a 'new year's resolution' to do better!