Tag: books

The Year That Was – 2024 Edition

On By TontowilliamsIn Annual Review

It would be easy to look back on the last year and remember some of the things that haven’t gone quite according to plan, not that there particularly was a plan. I’ll try not to do that but…

The year started, the way the previous year ended, with lots of water. Groundwater flooding is a thing here and floodwater started in December last year and carried on until May. It’s the longest length of time I can remember, and the levels were about the worst they’ve ever been and for a good proportion of that period. It doesn’t make for a very comfortable time and at times when pumps are running quite mentally tiring. I have realised over the last few years how much I hate the rain, mentally I find it very tough. This coming season it looks like it might be drier, fingers-crossed.

It doesn’t matter how much people bang on about climate change they always forget about the changes that are already locked into our climate / weather systems and the adaptation that will be required, because they are too busy banging on about cutting carbon. The latter is important, but adaptation will make a significant difference to many peoples lives, probably without them noticing.

We’ve had a change of government, finally the venal tories have been kicked out of office to be replaced by a seemingly lacklustre labour. Whilst its clear that they have a lot to do and it’s early days they are very unimpressive and picking fights over things that don’t really matter whilst boxing themselves into not raising taxes just about anywhere. Modern politicians are so f*****g useless.

I’ve pretty much given up with social media these days. I’ve closed my Twitter account, I’ve been there since sending tweets was something you did via SMS and I feel a bit of a loss about giving up something I’ve had for so long, but honestly the place is the worst of a bad bunch, and I am considering going even further.

LinkedIn is becoming quite the cesspool of trolls too, I am amazed that so many “professionals” can be such a bunch of dicks to one another. As someone who is self-employed I feel I need to maintain a presence there but honestly I find the behaviour of many of the users to be something that wouldn’t be allowed in a work place so shouldn’t be allowed there.

Bluesky appears to be attracting a lot of bot accounts. I’m not very active on there, but seemingly a lot of accounts want to follow me. Many do not seem to be real.

I don’t use Facebook anymore, although I still have an account. I do use Instagram, and will probably continue to for a while at least, even if my posting is sproradic at best.

Mastodon is probably the least used (generally) even though it’s been around a lot longer than some of the others. Possibly second only to Twitter and Facebook.

When #AudioMo comes around in the summer I’ll need to seriously think about what I’m doing.

We ended the year with our dog Sam swallowing a stone and requiring emergency surgery to remove it, followed by a lengthy stay in a veterinary hospital and a hefty bill which will only partly be covered by insurance. I don’t begrudge the unexpected expense but I could do without it.

Overall 2024 has been pretty 5h1t.

Reading

I’ve read a lot this year. We’ve pretty much given up tv as a pastime in the evenings, and reading has pretty much been my No.1 pursuit. Top fiction authors this year include: Craig Thomas, Martin Walker, Stephen King, Robert Harris and Georges Simenon.

Watching

As I mentioned above, not a lot but I did enjoy both Slow Horses and Masters of the Air. I also enjoyed Guy Ritchie’s somewhat ridiculous but very fun, Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.

Garden

The veg garden has been pretty average this year but we did have a magnificent glut of purple podded mange tout.

Work

The year held a lot of promise at the start, but ended up being quieter than expected. Some promised projects didn’t get started but may come up in 2025, and others became a little more involved. Overall not a bad year, but not the best either.

Outdoors

I spent a lot of time walking in my downtime. I do some of my best thinking when I’m outside and it’s the place that keeps me mentally calmer. I’ve kept a daily wildlife log on these walks too. I plan to continue with this next year.

That’s it. That’s 2024, here’s to 2025.

A Year of Reading Kindle

On By TontowilliamsIn books, Kindle

Back towards the end of last year I discovered my Kindle reading stats. I mostly read on a Kindle Paperwhite that’s about five years old, and although the stats aren’t available on that device you can find them either on a Kindle reading app (iOS or Android) or by going to the link here. (You need to be signed into your Amazon account and read on a Kindle!)

The stats showed me that I had a pretty healthy consecutive daily reading streak going, and I got to thinking as to whether or not I could get that to a year? To be honest I read everyday so it didn’t feel like it was going to be a hard target to achieve, and a few days ago I hit the 366 days (this year’s a leap year).

I was right, it wasn’t a hard ask to hit that target, I just had to read a minimum of a few pages of a book each day and as I normally have more than one book on the go at any one time it didn’t impact on my reading that much. Except towards the end of the ‘year’ when I focussed my reading much more towards the kindle, and my ‘to be read’ pile(s) of real books started to stack up. I noticed that I would favour a book on my kindle over reading a ‘real’ book. Towards the end I was feeling much more driven by the target, and at the same time realising what an arbitrary thing it was. To be honest I nearly gave up because I didn’t want to be ruled by a number or gamified by some statistics. Since completing the year, I haven’t opened up my kindle and I do miss it, but I’ve been making some minor inroads into the piles of unread ‘real’ books. The piles had started to garner comments during Zoom calls about how many books I had, and how precarious the stacks were looking (these comments aren’t without foundation), and they are only a small proportion of books I’ve yet to read.

In total over the ‘year’ I read 135 books, 91 of these were on my kindle. (If that sounds like a lot of reading, I don’t really watch any tv or films these days or spend a lot of evenings out of the house, I’m mostly reading).

Will it change my reading habits? No probably not, although I might be a bit more balanced between reading on my Kindle and a ‘real’ book. I might have a look in a years time and see if that’s the case.

One thing I won’t be doing though is chasing any more arbitrary numbers, I track my reading, but I don’t have a target of a number of books I want to read, that’s another one of ‘those’ numbers that I gave up years ago. I’m still going to be taking part in reading events (if you listened to my AudioMo posts, you’ll know I was taking part in “June On The Range”, an event around reading Westerns. I’m also currently taking part in “The Summer of Trek” – reading Star Trek books during June, July & August and about to take part in “GarbAugust” – reading trashy books during August. I like these events, because they make me read things that perhaps I wouldn’t otherwise, and there’s no one holding my feet to a flame to take part.

Reading, whatever drives you to do it should at least be fun.

Mid January Update

On By TontowilliamsIn books, Film, Garden / Allotment, tv, Wildlife/Nature, work

Welcome. If you’re a subscriber to my newsletter (Fifty From Fifty / Life After Fifty) and you missed the last post there I’ve moved you across to my blog as I will be discontinuing my writing there. I hope you’ll stick around but if you don’t want to then there is an unsubscribe link at the bottom of this email. If you did see the last post then you’ll already know what is going on and hopefully you are receiving this.

I noticed that there were a couple of duplicate subscriptions (i.e. people already subscribing here with the same email as the newsletter), and have tried as far as possible to make sure you’re not on the list twice! If however you subscribed to both using different email addresses then it’s possible you will get two copies and will need to unsubscribe from one of them. It’s not a perfect system but overall the move seems to have gone okay.

Right, enough housekeeping.

An Update from the First Couple of Weeks of January

I find it hard to believe that three weeks have passed since Christmas already and I’m not altogether sure what it is I’ve actually done in that time. I know I took some time away from work and pretty much everything for a while to reflect on a not particularly great year gone by and plan for a better one (as much as you can) in 2024.

Life moves forward at a regular pace, but I think sometimes we don’t. We’re either trying to push on ahead or fall behind and I don’t think either of those things are particularly healthy. Time is probably our most valuable commodity, and it was something that I felt like I had less of than I needed in 2023, so some of my decisions for 2024 were to guard it more jealousy. Of course I’ve already found myself challenging that decision when a work offer came in. I have however stuck to my decision and turned it down. It was hard, but on balance it feels like the right thing to have done and honestly it’s unlikely that I’ll ever find out anything differently, so…

Reading

I’ve read a couple of good books so far this year. Holly by Stephen King and Local by Alastair Humphreys. I recommend both.
The Stephen King is more on his crime writing than horror, although some of the crimes in the book are pretty horrific and has the returning character Holly Gibney.
Local is the culmination of Alastair Humphreys year long exploration of his local Ordnance Survey map, visiting on square on the map randomly each week and writing up what he finds. Originally a series of blog posts during the pandemic/post pandemic it’s packed full of his adventures and lots of facts and information about what he discovers. Also recommended.

TV / Film

It seems we really don’t watch much TV anymore but I did sit and watch Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny yesterday. I loved the opening but didn’t love the film as a whole. Raiders and Last Crusade are my two favourites of the series, the others I’m pretty much not interested in. I’ll watch DoD again but I’m not expecting my opinion will change much.

The Garden

Bit too cold for much to be happening out there are the moment. I have however cleaned out the greenhouse in preparation for the growing season and I’m still shocked everytime I walk past and realise how much cleaner it is now. It’s positively shiny! I’ve also sown some tomatoes, chilli and sunflower seeds in a tray in my office – I like to sow something each year on New Year’s Day, to mark the turning of the year, plus chillies have a long growing season and the early you can get them started the better. The sunflowers have already germinated but no sign of the chillies yet.

Work

I think I’ve pretty much covered that above, otherwise I’m just doing some new year admin stuff.

Outside

It’s been a bit of mixed bag weather wise, and I long for the lighter mornings, but being out early and hearing the calls of tawny and little owls is a bit special, as is seeing the eyes of deer light up in the beam of the headtorch.

Well that’s it from me. I hope to write a bit more here this year and I hope that you’ll stick around for the journey. If not however I understand and no hard feelings if you choose to unsubscribe. I’m not sure how frequently these will be coming however and I’m not planning to stick to any schedule, I’d rather write something when I have something to say rather than write something for the sake of a calendar date.

Talk soon…

End of the Year 2023

On By TontowilliamsIn Annual Review, books, Dog, Film, Garden / Allotment, Life, tv, walking, Wildlife/Nature, Wilson's Story, work, writing2 Comments

I couldn’t decide whether I was going to sit and write one of these this year or not. I’ve done something like this most years but the latter part of this year I’ve not been really feeling the desire to blog or write my newsletter or even be on the socials much. Some of this is because in the case of the site formerly known as twitter it’s pretty much a horror story these days and unless you’re paying for your account you’re unlikely to show up in anyone’s feed, so why bother. Most of it though is because I’ve just not felt much in the way of creative energy to write, I pushed through AudioMo because I do genuinely enjoy it but the energy just hasn’t been there since April when we lost Wilson.

He was 13 and hadn’t been well for a number of years, one thing on top of another was finally too much and when he stopped eating and drinking it was obvious. I try and remember the good times, but I miss him terribly and genuinely struggle some days.

I am hoping that I will be writing more in 2024, and probably here rather than anywhere else. I think that perhaps my newsletter has run its course, and I have more control over what happens here than anywhere else. I’ve heard some people talk of a resurgence in blogging since the demise of twitter, I’m not sure if that is likely to be true or not but I’d rather set out my shingle here than anywhere else.

So what else has been happening in 2023? Let’s see shall we?

Books
I’ve read a lot this year, at last count 109 112 books, more than I’ve ever read in any year previously that I’ve got a detailed record for. You can check them all out on GoodReads here. I’ve been continuing to read some old favourite series such as Simenon’s Maigret novels and discovering some newer ones too. I also finally managed to read all of Stephen King’s “Under the Dome” probably ten years after it came out and I bought it in paperback. I actually enjoyed it too and have been enjoying a bit of a King renaissance this year, which I’ll probably continue next year, along with a couple of other authors. A couple of stand-outs for me though were some of the most troubling books that I read. “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” and “Berlin Diaries” by William L Shirer. I wanted to read the former with a view to seeing if what happened 80 – 90 years ago bears any resemblance to what is happening in the world now, and in particular is reflected in some of the politics of this country. Whilst what happened then might be remembered as being some extremes of humanity, it didn’t necessarily start that way and I think we would be well advised to remember the times before the world was at war and what was happening. It’s a slippery slope and there are certainly examples of gaslighting and lying and reinforcing those lies in our modern political discourse that are exactly the early behaviours seen then.

We can and should be better than that and as nations and governments are too good at ignoring the facts because they do not fit the narrative that we want to tell, rather than being honest about them.

Watching
I haven’t watched much of anything this year, hence why I’ve had so much reading time. I did enjoy the final season of Jack Ryan on Amazon but other than that I haven’t watched much. There are several things that I would like to see, the new seasons of Foundation and Slow Horses on Apple TV+ but we stopped our subscription to those as we weren’t watching. I also have a stack of things recorded that I should try to watch or delete if I’m not going to. I was planning on doing some of this over the Christmas break but I haven’t managed it yet.

Work
This year started slow, but picked up a lot of pace in the latter half of the year. Overall I’d say it’s been a successful year for me. Some old clients and some new ones, and some interesting projects that blurred the lines a little between work and personal projects (in a good way).

Gardening
There is always more I could have done this year in the garden, but I think I’d say that I’ve pretty much hit the minimum targets that I had and a few additional things. Next year I am hoping to devote more time to the garden generally and now we’ve seen it through a full year that means we have a better idea of some the things that we want to achieve next year.

Outside
I’m still walking between 5 and 6 miles most days (a bit less when it’s raining hard) and it’s a delight, it has helped to keep me balanced mentally and physically and it is not something that I am planning to pull back from next year. I’ve kept notes pretty much everyday of the things I’ve seen and heard and want to double down on that particularly next year.

To 2024
As I said at the outset I hope to be more present here in 2024, but please don’t hold me to that, I need a certain amount of mental space to be able to write these posts and ones similar to those I have before and during a good chunk of 2023 I just didn’t have it. There are a couple of big changes that happened at the beginning of December however that were bigs things for me to have removed from my life and I hope that now gives me the mental space and more importantly the time to be able to get back to writing more.

Books Read In January 2023

On By TontowilliamsIn books, Kindle

The Quentin Blake Book by Jenny Uglow

Ego is the Enemy: The Fight to Master Our Greatest Opponent by Ryan Holiday

Sidney Chambers and The Dangers of Temptation by James Runcie

B: A Year in Plagues and Pencils by Edward Carey

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy

Inspector Cadaver by Georges Simenon                                                               

I haven’t really felt that I’ve been reading much the first month of 2023 but according to GoodReads I’ve clocked in eight books. Five of these were on my Kindle and the other three were a lot of pictures, so I guess it soon mounts up . Heavier on the fiction than non-fiction but that’s just how I’ve been feeling.

Standouts for me were The Quentin Blake Book and B: A Year in Plagues and Pencils and I think I need to revisit both to get more out of them as it was difficult to take them in with just one reading. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is a book that I put off reading for far too long and should also spend more time with.

I’ve also been dipping into Doctor Sleep by Stephen King (the “sequel” to The Shining) and An Immense World by Ed Yong. I’m enjoying both of these but just haven’t had a chance to really get into them. I may well get to finish them during February.

January 2023 Update

On By TontowilliamsIn books, Garden / Allotment, tv, walking, work

I’m pretty sure that a year ago I wrote something like I can’t believe that it’s the end of January already. This year I’m glad it is and this month really feels like it’s been dragging. We’ve had a few unexpected things happen that has made the month more stressful than it might otherwise have been and some of these are going to be expensive to put right. Others just are, and there is little that we can do about them for the time being.

Firstly we had the boiler in our “new” house serviced and discovered that there is a small problem with the gas supply. The problem is not urgent but is going to need to be fixed and will cost quite a bit to put right. On the positive side we also had the chimney swept and can now use the wood stove. I have mixed feelings about this as I have concerns about the air quality and climate change issues surrounding it but it has been a definite boost to morale and when our tumble dryer broke a helpful way to dry clothes.

We also discovered that the old conservatory has a leak somewhere and this will also need to be attended to, probably means we need to replace the building itself. Again more expense.

Most recently we have had groundwater flooding. This is basically where the water table reaches such a height that it breaks the surface of the ground and causes flooding. It’s not been as bad as I know it can get, but it has meant that we’ve had to be careful with out water use as it has impacted on our sewerage system. I’ve had to rig submersible pumps and think about things that I’ve not had to for some time and would really rather weren’t an issue. Other houses in the local area are much more badly affected by it, but sometimes it is difficult to see beyond your own immediate experience.

All of this has made January feel like it was never going to end and why I’ll be glad when the days start to lengthen and the weather gets warmer. I’ve realised how much I hate rain. It has become something we are hoping will not happen (as this exacerbates the flood impacts) and it has had a big impact on my mental health at times.

Reading

I’ve had a little less time to read this month and have mostly been sticking to crime novels. Nothing has really jumped out to me as something that I think I should mention here, some were better than others.

Watching

We haven’t been watching much TV, and in reality what we have watched was catching up with things we didn’t watch over the Christmas period. Christmas specials of All Creatures Great and Small and The Detectorists as well as other shows that we would normally watch if they were on as well as highlights such as The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse and reruns of the Wallace and Gromit claymations.

Garden

I have made a little bit of progress in the garden when it’s not been too wet or cold to get much done. I’ve managed to start to repair the raised beds that were already here and have recently discovered that I have more spare bits than I thought I did so will be able to do some more work on these in due course. I’ve also made a start on this years crops with potatoes that are chitting ready for planting towards the end of March (hopefully) and some onion sets and other seeds ready to get started in the next month or so.

Work

It’s been a quiet start to the year which wasn’t entirely unexpected, but I do need to get things going again and get some income in (as mentioned above we have some unexpected expenditure on the horizon). I had a meeting with a client at the end of the month, which was the first time that I’ve seen them face to face since before the pandemic.

Outside

This still remains one of my highlights and daily walks have really helped my mental health and deal with some of the low points over the last few weeks. It’s hard to overstate how much this is one of the pleasures of living here now.

In other news I’ve reached the Fiftieth post in my Fifty Things From Fifty Years newsletter and decided to keep going. You can read more about what that means here. It might also have an impact on what happens here to, here’s what I wrote about that:

Away from the newsletter I’m thinking about using my blog more. Perhaps as more of a status update or more immediate news. I haven’t quite thought this through. You can also subscribe there (if you really want an overload of me in your inbox) or use an RSS reader or just stop by now and again. I’m thinking of this more as a replacement for Twitter unless by some miracle that’s rescued by someone sensible, which seems increasingly unlikely.

Well I think that’s it for this month, thanks for reading, stay safe and take care. Expect the occasional extra post over the coming weeks as I adapt to my new ideas about how this site will be used.

December 2022 Update

On By TontowilliamsIn books, Dog, Garden / Allotment, tv, walking, Wildlife/Nature, work

I’m not yet sure if this is the end of the year show or whether I’ll do another post looking back across the whole year before the end of the month. I’m feeling very tired at the moment so I suspect that this might be the last one you’ll get here, but you never know a break across Christmas might just revive me enough to write something else.

So why so tired? Just life. It’s been busy, new house, work etc., just things occupying my time. Busy is good but sometimes you think that some things are really surplus.

We’ve been continuing to unpack our stuff and now that we have a bit more sense of what we want and how we want it set up, move furniture about a bit. There’s still a ways to go, particularly with books and ornaments. I suspect we’ll tackle this afresh once the Christmas decorations come down and we don’t have a tree that seems to be in the way.

We’ve had another round of visits to the vet with Wilson, and are about to embark on a change of diet for him. I’ll be honest here and say that I think the vet is grasping for straws, but I’m willing to go along with him for now. He is young and eager and not as old and jaded as me but I’m increasingly feeling that there is no cure and we should be settling for the situation and making the best of what we have. It feels a bit like we are repeating the same things we’ve done before hoping for different results. Wilson is happy enough in himself but perhaps we should just respect that for what it is.

We received the news at the start of this week that the care home where my Mum lives have had another outbreak of Covid. This means that for the third year in a row our Christmas plans have changed. I’m sure we’re not alone in having last minute alterations, particularly if your plans require any sort of travelling, but it is frustrating. For me personally I’m also being careful where I go and what I do as I was in the care home visiting Mum on the day that they undertook the tests revealing the outbreak. Although I was masked and as always careful about hand sanitising etc., I have taken a couple of tests subsequently which have both been negative and am watching for any symptoms.

The farce that is Twitter continues to provide “news” on a nearly daily basis. The manbaby Musk seems to only think that free speech is what he says it is and not what the rest of the world understands it to mean. In fairness he does own the company but it seems to be getting worse. I’m not even sure that him standing down as CEO will make for much difference. I’m sticking with it for now, although mostly staying away, but did create a Mastadon account just in case. I don’t intend to use it unless things get really bad. In the meantime I’m going to be sticking to writing here and using Instagram as my main outlets. Also my newsletter once I’ve decided what I am going to do with it when it reaches it’s originally intended limited run.

Reading

The only thing that I’ve completed this month is Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot which I wrote a newsletter post about. There are a couple of reasons for my lack of reading, firstly there’s being too tired and second I’ve been struggling to find anything that I’ve wanted to get stuck into.

Watching

This is a bit of a similar story to my reading. We’ve barely had the tv on this month, mostly this is down to tiredness and a succession of early nights. I’m hoping that over the Christmas period I might be able to indulge a bit more and having had a look at what’s on there are a couple of things that look interesting so we’ll see.

Garden

I’ve been continuing to do a little bit of tidying and planning for next year. We’ve had a spell of very cold weather with temperatures dropping down to -6°C which put some things on hold while the ground was frozen, but as it’s thawing now I should be able to get back to it in due course.

Work

The start of the month was very busy finalising some reports but now it looks like it will be quiet until the New Year and I’m planning on not being actively chasing things until January. I feel like I need a break and a recharge until then.

Outside

I’m enjoying my daily walks and going further when the time allows. There is much more space for walking here, away from other people and without having to walk alongside roads. This is such a bonus for us, and the dogs enjoy it too.

Well that’s about all I have for this month, as you can see that isn’t much. So I’ll wish you a good break over the forthcoming Christmas and New Year and I’ll catch you again soon. In the meantime stay safe and take care.

October & November 2022 Update

On By TontowilliamsIn books, Garden / Allotment, Kindle, tv, work1 Comment

Well it’s been a while. I missed doing an October update (and it’s taken me this long to get to it that I thought I’d just as well do November as well before we hit Christmas) due to our house move. We moved in early November, but with packing and trying to continue to keep my work going things became very hectic and naturally time to do this was at a premium.

So we’re moved and slowly unpacking. The day of the move was pretty much torrential rain all day and it continued afterwards. I’ve realised how much I dislike the rain, although there are times when I quite enjoy it as well, it’s a bit of a weird paradox that I can’t quite explain.

Leading up to the move as we were madly filling boxes with all our worldly possessions and realising that we have just too much “stuff”, I was still trying to write daily in my journal and had rationed myself to just my Kindle for reading.

I love our new location. I’m walking more than I ever have done, and apart from a few blisters due to not having worn my wellingtons since last winter am finding it just a completely relaxing experience. I enjoyed walking at our old home but never felt it quite like I do here. I hope it’s not a novelty that will wear off.

Twitter

I’m still using my Twitter account, but mostly on a broadcast basis only. I am hopeful that despite all the damage the manbaby Musk seems to be doing that someone else might swoop in and save the day, but it doesn’t look likely. Most people who are leaving seem to be doing so for Mastodon, but I haven’t taken the leap yet, nor am I sure that I want to. If you want to get in touch via the socials I am still on Instagram (@tontowilliams) and you can of course contact me via this website or leave a comment on this post.

Reading

As I mentioned most of my reading has been on Kindle recently, I’m slowly unpacking my books, and have quite a few that I had preordered which arrived in the run up to the move that went straight into boxes. I’ve had a pretty decent run of reading the next three Bernie Gunther novels in the series by Philip Kerr – “The One From The Other”, “A Quiet Flame”, “If the Dead Rise Not” I quite enjoy reading these, although they can be a little bit drawn out at times, and the language is certainly well placed for the time they are set – 1930’s to 1950’s. I also read the “Bicycle Diaries” by David Byrne which I enjoyed. I’m hoping that my reading will settle down a bit again and perhaps I’ll get to some of those preorders just as soon as I find them!

Watching

This will be pretty short, as in the run up to the move and beyond we’ve not had much time for tv, and also because at a certain point all of that equipment was packed and we didn’t rush to unpack it. I will say though that we thoroughly enjoyed the latest season of Ghosts and am looking forward to seeing if the US version which is about to be shown on BBC3 is any good. Also of note, but I can’t say I particularly enjoyed it was Rings of Power on Amazon. It was okay but also a bit meh.

Garden

The category that would formally have been known as “Allotment”. Again I’ve not had much time to do very much here, although I have been making use of the cardboard from the boxes as we unpack to cover up some of the raised beds that we’ve inherited to try and suppress some of the weeds. I have plans for the garden, but it’s going to take a little bit of time.

Work

I was a little bit inundated with work at just the wrong time around the point of the move and had to do a few things on the fly in order to meet client deadlines. Things haven’t quite settled back into their normal routine at the moment, but I am having some long thinks about what I want to be doing when I’m on one of my walks.

Outside

I feel like there is a whole new category I should be writing about. Things I saw when walking or something like that. I’ve been inundated with the riches of the local flora and fauna with buzzards & sparrowhawks and roe & fallow deer. The autumn colours as well. We started autumn at our old house and have caught the end of it here, by the time we arrived it was really at its peak. So maybe I’ll add something here.

If you’re a subscriber to my Fifty from Fifty newsletter, you’ll know that I’m approaching the 50th edition and the theoretical end of it’s run. When I asked subscribers what I should do the emphatic response was “don’t stop, we don’t care what you do, but don’t stop”. This was so heartening to read, but I really haven’t decided what to do. With Twitter circling the drain, I did think posting more here – shorter but perhaps more frequently – might be an answer and I have other ideas for what the newsletter might become. Anyway suffice to say I might be posting more here or I might not. We’ll see, but in the meantime, thanks for reading and stay safe and take care.

September 2022 Update

On By TontowilliamsIn books, Garden / Allotment, work

This month has very much felt like I’ve been playing catch-up after Covid. I’ve still been getting tired much faster than I used to, but this has gotten better as the month progressed, I’d say that I’m nearly back to my normal/abnormal self. There’s some milestones this month, which you can read about below, but otherwise I’ve been focussed quite a bit on some work stuff. Autumn seems to have arrived with a distinct chill in the morning air now and it’s still dark when I get up.

Books.

I’ve read quite a few things this month, a couple of Maigret novels and I’ve now completed the series of Brother Cadfael books, including the prequel novel about how Cadfael came to find himself taking the cowl.

I also read a very intricate crime novel by the late Seichō Matsumoto – Tokyo Express. and subsequently tracked down a second of his novels which I have on the tbr pile. It seems as an author he was prolific, writing somewhere in the region of 450 works but not that many of them appear to have been translated into English so far. I’ll be keeping my eye out for more.

TV / Film

Pretty run of the mill TV this month. Nothing much to report, although we did watch Tenent one evening, which although I enjoyed I found a bit mind bending trying to understand the “time travel” elements of this story. In the end I decided not to bother trying to work it out and just focussed on enjoying the film!

Allotment

The allotment is no more.

On Friday 23rd I handed back my keys, after clearing out my shed and harvesting the final courgette. I wrote about this in a bit more detail in my Fifty from Fifty newsletter here. I feel quite emotional about this. It’s been my plot for over 14 years and now it’s going to be someone else’s.

Of course with the impending house move, it’s the right thing to be doing, there’s a big garden where we’re going, so it won’t be long before I’m back with my hands in the soil again. There’s also a lot to do in the new place so plenty of challenges ahead too I suspect.

Work

Busy month, none of which I can really directly talk about. Suffice to say it’s been paying the bills.

Links

Which Is The Best John le Carré Novel?

Best Selling Author Jeff VanderMeer Finds That Nature Is Stranger Than Fiction

The Daily Routines of Famous Creative People

Well I guess that’s about it for this month, shorter than usual I’m afraid, but then I’ve been focused on a couple of things rather than a lot.

August 2022 Update

On By TontowilliamsIn books, Garden / Allotment, work

After being very careful for well over two years, wearing a mask, social distancing and not going anywhere there are crowds and essentially living like a hermit even after our feckless government has said that it’s all over, Covid19 finally caught up with me. Laying me low for better part of two weeks, and even now still leaving me feeling listless.

Looking back as to where I could possibly have picked up the infection from, the only places I’d visited were our vets (twice), a grocery pick-up, or randomly out walking the dog.

I’m grateful for the vaccines as without them I suspect I would have been significantly sicker than I was. I was still testing positive after ten days.

Consequently this month has been quieter than most. I had hoped to make some significant progress on our house move but that’s been stalled, as have a couple of other things. Nothing much I can do about this other than move forward as soon as feasible.

Books.

I’d thought that if ever I did catch Covid I’d spend my isolation time reading. The first few days of being infected were quite horrible and this really wasn’t possible but after the first week I managed to read a lot more and it did become the thing that mostly occupied the time that I wasn’t sleeping (a lot), coughing (also a lot) and generally feeling miserable.

Right before I got sick I finished reading Smiley’s People by John le Carré which followed me reading A Murder of Quality. I’m slowly reading / rereading my way through John le Carré’s novels in no particular order but I did think I’d read the Smiley series again. I skipped three of them (The Looking Glass War; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; and The Honourable Schoolboy) because I had read those recently and have stopped at The Secret Pilgrim because I don’t own a copy and also didn’t want to carry on reading them in my Covid befuddled brain. I’ll pick them up again soon. In the meantime I’ve been reading other things that aren’t as taxing – River of Death by Alistair MacLean and Sharpe’s Rifles by Bernard Cornwell. I’m part way through a reread of The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean, which if you’ve only ever seen the film you really should read the book.

I’m still trying to fill my spare time with reading rather than watching the news or doom-scrolling through social media as I find both of those things quite depressing and let’s face it that doesn’t look like it’s going to change any time soon.

TV / Film

This is one of the things I really haven’t been able to do while I was sick. Watch the tellybox. Just haven’t felt like it. I’ve been recording a few things to watch when I feel like it again but it’s hardly been on, and still isn’t, so nothing much to report. I did however indulge in a little YouTube wildlife cams. There’s something to be said for watching Hummingbirds for two hours straight. Put them up on a big screen if you can and just enjoy.

Allotment

I was harvesting broccoli and cauliflower before I got sick but an enforced break and quarantine meant no visits for a period. Fortunately there has been a little bit of rain at just the right times to keep things from keeling over and I was rewarded by some more broccoli and cauliflower upon my return. I really need to be wrapping up the plot now ahead of the move, fees will be due next month and I’m not renewing, so I need to clear my shed and other things and move on to new pastures.

A Post Covid Harvest

Work

Again not much to report the combination of Covid and the usual summer holiday (clients, not mine) slowdown has meant that I haven’t got much done. I prepared a proposal for one client and we’re going to be discussing that work in the next week or so but otherwise I’m just continuing with a couple of other projects from last month.

Links

Why Free School Meal Recipients Earn Less That Their Peers

The Value of Owning More Books Than You Can Read (Tsunduko)

The Length of Earth’s Days Has Been Increasing and Scientists Don’t Know Why

Well that’s about it for August, I know there’s a few days left but I really don’t think I’m going to do much as I’m still feeling tired and fatigued. Hopefully September will kickstart me a bit with a couple of projects. Whatever you’re up to stay safe and take care.