It's been a looooong week ......

It's been a long week and today I've been busy sorting out ... as I was yesterday and the day before, ... in the meantime while you're waiting for me to return to normal blogging .... what do you mean it's never normal!!

Here are some funnys that brightened my day .... I hope they brighten yours too.

Tonight we are treating ourselves to a Valentines Day night out at one of our favourite places The Hayloft Restaurant at Bodnant.  A good end to a loooooong week.

Have a good weekend.

Sue xx

Meanwhile ......

Meanwhile .... whilst I've been pottering in the house showing you our book collection, outside the area around the house has undergone something of a transformation.

The front has resembled a car park for trucks of every description.

I managed with a bit of jiggery pokery to squeeze my little car out of a gap made slightly wider with Lovely Hubby's manful directions when I needed to go out.

More trucks arrived and unloaded ....

... with lots of 'WHOAS' 'STOP's and 'WATCH OUTS' from the workmen when this one narrowly missed hitting the house, before he came to a halt and tipped up his trailer to start off loading tarmacadam.

And now around the house looks like this.

Much better, it just needs a good rain to clear off the mud, and guess what we haven't had rain for weeks, it's been forecast for this weekend, so although I'm happy at the thought, Lovely Hubby is not so much so .... he's back to working on polytunnel construction.

This old tram bench will eventually be repainted and is our choice of seat for admiring the view with our cups of coffee at break times when we're outdoors working.  Neatly under the overhang in case of rain :-)

The back is where we intend to site one of the old Belfast sinks, to use as a mucky dog outdoors bathing area.

And the front now looks nice and neat.

Once the polytunnel is finished the tyres will move over there and be planted up ... you know how much I love growing in tyres :-)

Now the patio area is all done it's time to move on to the next stage.

And measurements and plans are already drawn up.  This guy is doing the final measurements for the splay at the end of the drive which will make pulling out so much safer for us and everyone that calls here.

All planning permissions have been granted and the Welsh Government which was involved because we exit straight out onto an A road, is finally happy with the plans and what will be the execution of them.

Once this has been done it will be onto the next stage .....will it ever end!!

I hope so  :-)

Sue xx

Our Bookshelves - Part Four - Dotted About the House

And finally we come to the books that live here, there and everywhere.  Dotted around the house they are the books being read, waiting to be read or simply living in their own little places because I like them there.

In the kitchen on the top shelf are my Aga books, some new, some from charity shops, Mary Berry's original Aga book from Ebay and one given to me by a lovely blogging buddy.

And my current read Deliciously Ella, is open on the breakfast bar for reading each morning and while I'm waiting for the kettle to boil.  They say a watched kettle never boils ....so I read instead :-)

Upstairs we go and into the spare bedroom where we have a few books for guests to peruse, although why Jason has never rushed down stairs gushing about them I'll never know :-)

They look good to me.

On my bedside table are my current reads ....

... a few waiting to be read ......

...... and if I can just get Rosy out of the way ....

... a few more in the queue.

There are a few on Lovely Hubby's beside drawers that I forgot to photograph, just another one in the River Cottage series, this time on Curing meats, and a couple of bee books.

I thought that was it and then yesterday I looked up from my typing and saw these.

It's funny how you get so used to something being there that you stop 'seeing' it.

Well that's it all our books with this final 69 dotted around the house it makes a grand total of 619 ... phew.

BUT ....

There is just one little pile of books that doesn't take up much space ...

 ... yes I have a Kindle.  

Which I find extremely useful for holidays, days out, waiting in waiting rooms etc.  It can never replace my love for real books but used correctly it has it's place. in my life.

Currently being read on it is  'The Life Changing Magic of Tidying - A simple effective way to banish clutter forever.'  by Marie Kondo.   It seemed wrong somehow to buy this in real book format considering it's subject matter so I bought it for the Kindle instead.  I've already started putting her method into use in my drawers , maybe I'll have to carry on with my books!

Usually I look out for free books and download them when available, I also have a wonderful selection of blogging buddies books on there, some from Suzy Bowler of Sudden Lunch fame, and some of Elaine's from Mortgage Free in Three, good reads and very useful all of them.

In total there are 102 books on my Kindle.  And I love that they take up so little room on the bookshelf  :-)

To all those of you who have asked either via emails or in the comments if they can pick up this idea for showing their books to the Blogging world I say GO FOR IT ... and don't forget to let me know when you do, so that I and all my readers can come over and have a nosy at your selves, alcoves and table stacks of books, the more the merrier in my opinion.  I really enjoy a good peruse of other peoples books.

So that's me and my books signing off, I have a mission in mind that has been highlighted and is now niggling at me after these posts, so I may be gone for a couple of hours.

Sue xx

Our Bookshelves - Part Three - The Main Bookcase

The main bookcase is built into the house, just behind the living room door, and actually when we came to view this house for the first time and I saw it, my first words were "oooh a bookcase" ..... I remember that vividly.

(It holds 251 of our 619 books.)

Here I have a lot of my cookbooks,  the top two shelves are a mix of fiction and biographies and virtually all of our River Cottage books are here, although I spied Hugh's 'Fruit' book in the cupboard in yesterdays post.  Just looking at these shelves makes me wish I had time to read more.  I think we should make more of an effort to turn off the television and immerse ourselves in our reading matter on a more regular basis.

A mix of biographies and some fiction.  The orange coloured books are my 'Down to Earth books, republished after the television series of the same name, but I originally read and re-read these from the library years ago when times were hard and my book collection was tiny.  

I used to take my son to the library every week, he was a library member and ticket holder from 18 months of age.  The librarian saw him being so careful with and used to handling books she asked me if he would like to be their youngest member,  We would go nearly every Monday to get him 4 new books to look at, and I used to get my quota which at that time was 6 books for adults.

Faith Addis, who wrote these books and her husband seemed to have a real 'just do it' mentality and I loved that.  In the update that is in these books, which were republished from the originals in 2000 to tie in with the television series, it states that her children were then in their 40's, well now they will be in their 50's ... how time flies.  Anyway these books fired my imagination and made me dream of a time when I would live in the country, with animals and a business of my own :-)

The next shelf down is virtually all fiction, with just a couple of exceptions.  One book I really enjoyed (and will again) was the 'Save Karyn' book, this one is not fiction and is about one woman's determination to get out of $20,000 worth of debt by asking 20,000 people for $1 each and her mission to keep working at her debt and not spending any money until she was debt free.  A really good read.

As you can see I've run out of shelves and this one must be the messiest of them all, I will have to do something about this.  Less books or more shelves .... oooh the dilemma!!

So to make it easier for you to see, here's a shot without the ones at the front ....

... and a close up of the thinner ones.

This shelf is a mix of cooking and healthy eating books.  The wooden box in the middle holds nightlights and matches for emergencies, and the little plant pot also contains a candle.

Down a shelf and it's our collection of Hugh Fearnly Whittingstall and River Cottage books, most of them picked up when we've been there and most of them signed by either Hugh or the author of the individual book.

(Haha spell-check gave me 'Hairsplitting' as a correction for Whittingstall ..... his hair wasn't that bad was it!!)

Also here are nearly all of my Nigel Slater books.  Nigel is one of my favourite food writers, in fact if I had to save one shelf from a fire I think it would be this one.

The next shelf down, after the above one being mostly male writers, rather weirdly has virtually all female writers, not planned that way at all, with just a couple of volumes from Monty, Simon, Bryn and Nick standing up for the boys.

Rachel Allen lives on this shelf with Lorraine Pascale and Nigella who is another of my favourite foody writers, strange that Nigel and Nigella are my favourites.  I went off Rachel Allan slightly after she lobbed a live lobster into a pan of warm water and slowly brought it up to the boil ....  poor thing, the lobster that is not Rachel!!  

So if I had to downsize my collection hers would be the first to go.

The bottom shelf belongs almost entirely to Jamie Oliver, he's very prolific.  I've watched him on television since his 'Naked Chef' days, and his recipes always work.  My favourite book of his is the Jamie at Home one, we also have the accompanying TV series on DVD, and when I'm having a 'can't be bothered to go out and dig day'  they can both inspire me to go out and grow my own food and then plan to use what I grow in the kitchen.

There are also a few vegetarian books on this shelf on the right hand side and my two newest purchases are on the top, The Natural Cook by Tom Hunt  I managed to pick up from a charity shop at a very reasonable price, but I have to confess to buying The Kinfolk Table at full price from Waterstones, not something I do very often but it is a beautiful book and I simply had to have it.

Was it a need or a want I really can't categorise, but I bought it because I had to have it, there's not much in the world that does that to me but books can!!

So there you go 251 more books.

If you want to see them clearer, just click on the pictures and they will enlarge, if you want to read more about them, including other peoples opinions on them use the link on the sidebar just under my name near the top entitled  'Find The Books on My Shelves' and you will be whisked over to Amazon to be able to put in the name of the book you want more information about into the search bar there.

There are now just 69 books you have not yet seen, so I'll be back tomorrow to complete this not so mini mission.

Sue xx

Our Bookshelves - Part Two

Another day another bookcase.

This unit, also an ex shop display shelf from my little shop in Cumbria before our change of lifestyle, holds a mix of dvds and books.  The bottom three compartments are the books.  It's ideal for holding the books that are just too tall for the other shelves shown yesterday.

On the far left shelf an eclectic mix of cook books, tips on how to do things and nature books.  A couple of my favourites on here are the Commoners Cottage by Francis Mountford and a book I was lucky enough to get at a car boot sale for just 20p ... a signed copy of Ian Niall's book Country Notes.   He wrote for Country Life for years and it is a brilliantly relaxing read.  Also tucked in at the left hand side hidden from view by the bigger books sticking out are the two Sex and the City books ... there I told you a very eclectic mix!!

The middle section holds mostly cookery books, in fact looking at it closer I think they are all cookbooks.  The Riverford recipe folder at the end was a gift from a Blog reader, how nice is that.  I love getting books as gifts, they always seem special..

  I've just double checked and the book that is end on on top of the others, is in fact a gardening book ... 'A Little Light Weeding' ... picked up a charity shop the other week, written by Richard Briers.

The final section of these shelves is mostly gardening, growing type books, but I seem to have slotted a couple of cook books on the top.  Jamie should be with the other Jamie books on the main bookshelf but there is no room for this, his latest book over there.  I feel a sort out will be called for soon, to keep authors in their own sections and not visiting in places where they shouldn't be ;-)

Now I have to own up ..... to some hidden books.

Lurking in this cupboard at the side of the fireplace (and one of the few surviving original features of this one hundred year old house), are the books that were going to go on the bookshelves that Lovely Hubby promised to build at the end of the breakfast bar when we re-jigged the kitchen.  Needless to say this job isn't as urgent as some others so has been put further down the list for a while. 

 Meanwhile the books that were destined to go on the shelves continue to live in the cupboard.  And maybe I might have added a few newer purchases to them since the originals were put in there on moving day ;-)

Today's book total is 114 out of our total of 619

Do you still want to see more or are you all booked out.....?

Sue xx

Our Bookshelves - Part One

This bookcase (and the stool) holds 185 of our 619 books.

Sue over at Frugal in Suffolk had a series of posts recently about her massive book collection, I loved looking at them (I don't actually think she's finished yet) and comparing which titles we had in common.  I said I would join in and show mine too as I have been getting a lot of requests to see them.  

(Thanks for the emails Joanne ... see I told you I would do it ... eventually ...LOL !!)

This set of shelves is near the doorway to the bathroom, which rather unusually is off our living room !!  So I get to pass these lovely books on a very regular basis ;-)

Most of our hundreds of books (I will count them and add the totals to each post) are non-fiction, although I am going to try and make time to read a bit of fiction this year, I've read somewhere that it's supposed to be very good for your brain to have time off for learning from books and relax into a fictional world.

Which sounds to me like a very good excuse to have yet another book on the go :-)

This shelf has my Hovel, Garden and Kitchen in the Hills books, which rather ironically were written by Elizabeth West about their lives when they lived on the hill across the road from us, but they were much higher up than us on a level with a house we viewed before we bought this one.  The only reason we didn't buy that one was that we would never have gotten our animal trailers up there, the track was only wide enough for our smallest car ... the cottage was my dream cottage though ... shucks!!

There are lots of books on this set of shelves that fit in nicely with our lifestyle and are full of tips, hints and methods of doing things.  I notice Nigel has somehow got on here too ... the rest of his books are on the other shelves!!

Some of them have been bought new when on special offer, but lots of them have come from car boot sales and charity shops.  I look for books wherever I go.

There are lots of foody books on these shelves too, my small Alys Fowler collection, a couple of James Wong's, that I have to confess to not reading yet,  and I also have a lot of Gillian McKeith's books ... as I really do believe that  'you are what you eat'.

The little stool (made by my lovely Uncle Harold many, many years ago) holds the overspill of as yet unread books.

Hopefully you should be able to click on the pictures to make them a bit larger, then you will get to see the books in all their glory.  I do love a good nosy through other folks bookshelves .... do you?

Back tomorrow with some more if you want to see them.

Sue xx