Stern talking to

If this blog were an allotment I'd have had a nasty letter from the council by now telling me in no uncertain terms to get my act in gear or they will kick me out. Luckily the blog police don't appear to be bothered that my output has been less than prolific over the last few months so I can update you on what's been going on and with any luck do a bit better in July. As Deborah pointed out at work today it's all downhill now, the longest day has come and gone and the nights are drawing in already. Fabulous.

So to get some semblance of order back to things I'll use the loose tags I made up as categories and take it from there. I'll post them as separate posts, not to make the number of June's posts look good or anything compared to May (ha!) but because I know I have to be in a very leisurely mood to read any kind of massive post in my Bloglines feeds and it's easier to digest in smaller chunks I'm sure.

First off then, books. Not much to report here, I missed our last bookgroup at the beginning of June (a shame as the author was Henning Mankell, a Swedish crime writer I really like) but did get through a hell of a lot on our recent holiday, more of which later. I finished Suite Francaise, Roddy Doyle's 'Oh Play That Thing'; 'In the Miso Soup' by Riu Murakami (a little disappointing, I was expecting something a lot more gripping), the next bookgroup choice, Persephone Books' 'Someone at a Distance' by Dorothy Whipple (excellent) and am now wading through 'The Virgin in the Garden' by A.S. Byatt which is a bit of a struggle if you want to know, but I feel I ought to persevere and see if I start to care about any of the characters. Hardly a glowing review I know.

Holidays, family stuff, and garden to come! They'll be a bit less brief than this section anyway.