TARDIS Tuesday- Clara in the Rings of Akhaten

Hello there,

TARDIS Tuesday is Clara's outfit from The Rings of Akhaten, her second episode as a main companion. I last wore this outfit in September 2019

Here it is: 

Image borrowed from Clara Oswald Cosplay

It's an All Saints and Urban Outfitters-heavy outfit with the boots and jacket from the former and the dress, necklace and satchel from the latter.

Let's look at the stuff for a change first.

I have upgraded this outfit since I last wore it by the addition of the All Saints denim jacket which I bought for probably a record low price for a Clara fan (£15 inc postage. For a £300+ jacket...pretty good).

My satchel was a charity shop purchase (£2) and my necklace was from eBay.  The boots from TK Maxx.

Here's the outfit, sans jacket.  I obtained the dress reasonably (back in 2019) and I wore it today for helping lead an NQT training course on Assessment. Very nice for a sunny day- it was light and easy to wear for sitting at a computer all day.

I didn't have to travel to school but the whole week is feeling incredibly stressful for me for various reasons (not children, not lessons). I wish I could switch off my brain. When I'm anxious things swirl repeatedly round my head and constantly nag at me. I woke up hideously early this morning stressing about school stuff and couldn't switch my brain off. Hate it.

Here is the entire outfit combined.  It is quite nice to have it to this level of accuracy even though I never intended to buy this jacket, having a perfectly good £2.50 charity shop alt.  However, when I saw the cheap Screen Accurate one, I put in a bid on an impulse.  I never thought for one minute that my one starting price bid would have no competitors.

2 days left at school, one of which involves packing up my entire room at school.  In one afternoon.

I am trying not to panic.

I hope all is well with you.  One nice thing about being at home co-leading the course was that I was able to see CBC through the day as he is on holiday this week (we have different holidays- sob!) and share lunch.

We watched the Snowpiercer finale on Netflix tonight which wasn't good for destressing me as my tummy was in knots all throughout it but it was exciting!

xx

Brights like Anna.

 Hello there!

I hope things are well with you. I'm fine at the moment, a few little things I'm anxious about connected to school (not pupils, not lessons) but apart from that, all is fine.

Had a nice weekend with another visit to the town we went to last week- we were hoping to pick up CBC's fixed glasses but alas, they broke his glasses trying to fit the new lenses and they've had to order in replacement frames for CBC's glasses! Disaster! Lucky he has spares.

Our visit was rather late and frantic in the end with a visit to the Refill shop over a query over my receipt and purchases from last week.  There appeared to be an item which cost £21 pounds on my receipt but 3 items seemed to be missing from my receipt. I'd tried emailing and Instagram DMing them to no avail.  It was all rather embarassing as the receipt listed most things as "Custom items" and I could only identify what things were from the stickers on my weighed items which had an label and yet 3 items weren't on the bill. In the end, it turned out that if they were going in and out of orders, things get lumped into one item and what I THOUGHT was the expensive item (I thought I had been overcharged for honey) was not and it turned out their refill shower gel was HORRENDOUSLY expensive!  I did question it (because I am not paying £9.00 for 300ml of shower gel in my own supplied bottle for a non-luxury brand and I was sure I'd bought the same shower gel in Northumberland for 28p for 100ml and they said they would check out with the company if they are charging the right amount but I realised it was a different brand from Northumberland that charged less so I messaged and said that, but I've subsequently checked out prices of other places selling Sesi shower gel retail and their prices are £1.20 per 100ml, not £3.00 per 100ml, so they are overcharging by a LOT!  Darn it, why did I send the message?  Does that mean they won't check with the seller about the prices now? Anyway, it transpired I had spent £18.00 on 550ml of shower gel.  They gave me £5.00 back as there was still a discrepancy, but said they would check the prices (or maybe they won't now? Sigh...)

We then went to walk at the place with the Wild Garlic again and went for a walk with our friend again.  It was even nicer on Saturday to visit there!

Today has involved  Palm Sunday service, cleaning and tidying and a lovely walk plus a bit of garden work.  CBC is not happy with me as I snaffled 3 watering cans from a neighbour who was getting rid of them and has gone mad at me for 'hoarding'. Also not helped by me bagging up a bin bag of leaves in the front garden for making leaf-mould.  Apparently I am turning our garden into a gypsy caravan.  I just wanted additional receptacles for water in the summer when we have lemon feed in one can, watering in another and wanting to max out the water catching when it is really hot.

Enough of that....should have hidden them better.

Here's a happy outfit!!! The entire outfit is second hand, except for the necklace and earrings.

I copied Anna when I bought these trousers and Anna is a big fan of orange so I like to think of this outfit as a homage to her, except perhaps my shoes.

The shoes have an interesting story to them.  My penpal Katie (who used to blog) likes to customise boring grey plimsols with fun designs such as rainbows and octopuses and one day I asked her if one day she would do me some TARDIS ones if I could find a suitable pair of second hand shoes.  She agreed but in the meantime, has got together with and moved in with a lovely new boyfriend.  They have had to do some clearing out to make things fit.  These trainers belonged to him.  He had only worn them once for his wedding (previous marriage) as his ex was a huge Who fan and had had them customised for the wedding!  He didn't need/want them anymore and Katie thought this was rather serendipitous and sent them to me as my Christmas present as he has the same sized feet as me! So I got a perfect second-hand Christmas present.

Hope you are well and I promise I will catch up on blog visits soon!

xx

Wild Garlic and Daffofils

On Saturday, CBC and I had to go to a town which is about 45 minutes drive from us to visit CBC's opticians  as his glasses have become scratched and they have his prescription and details (plus they handily contacted him telling him he needed an appointment).

I was utterly thrilled because WE ACTUALLY HAD WEEKEND PLANS! And we had a legitimate excuse to go somewhere else other than home, school or anywhere within walking distance.

We arrived and CBC headed off.  I went off to visit the new Refill room in the town and ended up buying lots of lovely things.  I then headed off to Wilko and bought some flower bulbs, seeds, gardening bits and pieces and a seed sprouter and a spray bottle.

CBC and I then stopped to pick up some food from a takeaway hut that had set up and I ate tasty breaded prawns in the market place.   We then headed off to visit Leon's Veg, a business I knew about- we met him at a village fair 2 years ago and tried his wonderful food. He usually sells his veggie and vegan cuisine at Festivals but obviously has not been able to do that this past year so he has sold takeaway portions from his garage which he has set up as a shop on Saturdays.  They cost £3.00 a portion.  We went to see him and bought 5 dishes- Risotto  Veg Rice balls, Capriana, Peanut and Cauliflower curry, Greek Veg Stew, Coconut creamed Aubergines and another dish.  He gave us a free box of Rocket Pesto also.  I left some plastic takeaway dishes with him to reuse which I had in the car.  He's such a nice man and his food is delicious- he uses foraged ingredients too and he runs foraging courses.  I told him I was sad that I hadn't managed to find any Wild Garllic in Essex and he gave me directions from his house to find a huge patch of it.

CBC reluctantly agreed to follow the directions I told him and we found our place to a Wildlife trust place which was a beautiful place to walk.

We saw Snowdrops

Primroses:

The site is on the grounds of an old estate and house.

Lots of wonderful wild foliage.

Are these the start of the Bluebells?

And Daffodils

I loved all the wonderful variety of foliage there.

And finally, here is the Wild Garlic:

Can you see how happy I look!??!  I collected a plastic tub full of it to use at home.

The Daffodils were the crowning glory

CBC has to go back and pick up his glasses next Saturday so perhaps I might collect some more Wild Garlic.

After this, we went to drop in on our friend (CBC's old house mate) to go for a walk with him.  He quickly donned his walking boots as we hovered in his driveway and we headed out.  He took us past our old house (our first married home) and led us to a country park we never knew was there despite living for two years there!  We heard Great tits and saw Jays and had a lovely time.  We bidded our friend goodbye and then went home to eat left over Thai food from Friday night.

It was a great day!

x 

Style Imitating Art- Woman who flatly refuses a coffee pot!

 Daenel chose Paul Cezanne's Woman With a Coffee Pot for this week's inspiration piece for Style Imitating Art.

The premise of this challenge, if you have not ever seen a post from me about it before, is that one of our 3 curators chooses a piece of art and posts it. We, the blog readers can then submit an outfit to them that we feel reflects some aspect of the painting of is our sartorial response to it, no matter how tenuous.  For me, I always like to hear the person's choices of why they chose garments- that's what I find the most interesting so I love reading posts where people write about their decisions.  There's no wrong or right answer and flatlays and pet outfits are also accepted, props are optional.  If you think this is something you'd find fun, then pop an email to Daenel at livingoutsidethestacks@gmail.com by Tuesday night and then visit Daenel's blog on Wednesday to see the round up of everyone's outfits.

The piece is pretty powerful.  She doesn't look too happy to me about her coffee but maybe she just burnt her tongue and it's slight grimace, coupled with a yearning for coffee NOW!

Here's my outfit!

I knew that I had two outfits that I would do for this picture and I would go down the more literal route than abstract.  

The first thing I did was to go down my 'clothes to cull' bag to take this dress out.  It's a vintage 70's one I bought about 8 years ago and I haven't worn for about 2 years or more but it was always a bit too big on me and sometimes I felt it was a bit too 'kitsch' and dress up for me. It's been in a cull pile under my bed for a while.  However, I thought the shape of the dress plus its style, neckline and colour made it suitable for the challenge and, actually, having tried it on again, it actually fits me better now, so perhaps it might keep its place for now.

Black leggings for warmth and my men's brown brogues plus my Mum's vintage belt were a nod to the table cloth and that's about all I have to say for my outfit- I think it speaks for itself.

On the subject of coffee, from my nomenclature of this post, you can perhaps hypothesize that I am none too fond of this popular beverage.  Funnily enough though, I ended up talking to my Year 6 children about coffee today as we were listening to J.S. Bach's Hunt Cantata and whilst I was explaining what a cantata is* and talking about Bach and what the subject of some of his cantatas were, I told them that he loved coffee so he wrote a cantata about it.  Here's a link to the lyrics translated from German. Do have a look as they are really funny! It's all about a coffee addiction!   Here's an aria from the cantata below sung by the coffee addict! Do listen as it is beautiful!

By the way, in case you aren't sure, a cantata is a medium-scale piece of music from the Baroque era that is narrative (e.g. tells a story) told through the medium of singing and instrumental accompaniment.  It can be a secular or sacred subject matter.  Some people may think they are listening to opera when they hear it but cantatas are not acted out, they are told purely through singing, not on a stage or in costumes usually.  They are shorter too.

The story can be sung by soloists, duets or the whole chorus as well as there being orchestral instrumental sections.

One boy who was sitting in front of me was really getting into Bach's Hunt Cantata and I heard him telling his friend he really liked it! Love it when they really groove to something unexpected.

I've never liked coffee and perhaps you think I should just try it again and see if I like it BUT, I can confirm that it won't happen.  When I was studying in Indonesia, I frequently visited people's houses.  The tradition there is not that you ask your guests if they would like and drink and therefore what they might like.  Instead, you are brought a drink and a snack as a matter of course and it is the expected and polite thing that you drink it.

So I had a year of drinking both sugary tea AND coffee and I would have to finish that glass (always in a glass) and I STILL don't like either!

You can take your coffee and leave me the UNSUGARED tea in exchange.

How do you feel about coffee?  Love it enough to write an entire cantata about it?

Hope all is well with you.

Take care

xx

Fungi #7

 It's been a little while since I shared some fungus pictures.  I haven't seen any new but remembered there were some fungus pictures from last year's walks which I didn't share at all and there's some pretty cool ones here.

This first find was from last May or June I think. I saw it on a walk with the DoE group from CBC's work and one of them is good with fungus.  She said it was Yellow Slime Mould.  Such a vibrant colour!  It also has the disgusting name, "Dog vomit slime mould" Fulio Septica is its Latin name.

I was never sure what this one was but Banana pancakes came to mind!

I wonder if, in retrospect, I had found Hen of the Woods here- a fungus that is very tasty to foragers who seek it. It was most prolific.

Here's a hoof fungus that reminded me of a monkey's face combined with Tiramisu!

I think this one was a Beef steak fungus again.

Here it is from below.  I saw this one in the New Forest in August. I think of the Starship Enterprise!

This fungus, viewed in also in the New Forest looked like a Satsuma had been stowed here!

More Tiramisu fungus!?

This one looked so dark!

Ha, the Satsuma is now mouldy!

I was hoping to share some photos from my walk today but they've failed to send from my phone so far.  Hopefully more soon.

How has your week been?

I was so tired all week, I didn't do anything in the evenings at all apart from slump on the sofa, play brinkmanship with CBC over making the dinner and trying to go to bed earlier.  The swollen tonsils and sore throat from Monday developed into continuous snot on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday - I spent much of the day blowing my nose and sneezing and being bunged up in a carousel of misery.   By the time the symptoms began to abate somewhat, by Thursday evening, I had a washing basket full of sodden hankies and a bin full of kitchen roll paper as I ran out of cotton hankies and got desperate- I even cut up an old pair of CBC's pants which he declared were too small and made hankies out of those!

SUCH a relief to be feeling much better on Friday and today.  Having not had a cold for well over a year, it was so good to be without the bunged up nose and snot.

We had a lovely day today which I will write about soon!

Hope all is ok with you.

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Yaz from The Battle of Ranskoor av Kolos

 This week for TARDIS Tuesday, I wanted a comfy outfit for school.

I chose Yaz Khan's outfit from Series 11 Finale- the curiously-titled The Battle of Ranskoor av Kolos.

Let's take a look at it:

Image borrowed from:
http://www.multiversitycomics.com/tv/doctor-who-the-battle-of-ranskoor-av-kolos/

Image borrowed from:
https://www.blogtorwho.com/doctor-who-series-11-89/ 

Image borrowed from:
https://www.blogtorwho.com/doctor-who-series-11-90/ 

As usual, Yaz is comfy and practical in her outfits for adventuring with the Doctor.  Much more practical than Clara.

She wears her ubiquitous leather jacket (brown in this case) worn with a simple cotton-looking green jumper, her Alex Monroe Posy-loop necklace, black skinny jeans and her Dune Pacey boots.

And here's a very tired-looking me:

Every item in this outfit, you have seen before except the jumper and I have worn them all in my Yaz permutations.   The leather jacket is Clara's, the black trousers worn for every black skinny-jeans requiring outfit I've done for TARDIS Tuesday, my Dune Pacey boots in the black colour rather than her Burgundy colour and my lovely Alex Monroe necklace I received for my 40th birthday.

I don't know for certain where Yaz's green jumper comes from, but I bought mine for £3.00 on eBay and it's from Zara.  I DID see a post a few years ago about where hers was from but sadly, the person with the handy instagram deleted their profile so I can no longer check for certain but I have a feeling mine might be right.  

I was left with a year 6 girl last to be picked up today who, during lockdown, was sending me cheery messages all the time.  It was actually really nice getting to know her through those messages and funnily enough, one of the things she said to me is, "I miss seeing what fun outfits you will be wearing during our lessons!".  Now, of course, my main purpose is to teach her music (which she has said she loves) and to teach her to be a good and kind person and the best she can be, but it's really quite sweet that she looks forward to what I'm wearing too. The funny thing is, I had no idea that she thought that until she sent me lockdown messages.  Now we have some nice conversations where she feels confident to chat to me, because she wanted to send me messages to say hi and tell me jokes and anecdotes as well as her work.    Today, when we were chatting, I said to her, "I've got quite a boring outfit on today, nothing novelty!" and she said, "No, you always look nice."  

Her mum, when she collected her, said she really enjoys my music sessions and must have enjoyed having an extra chat to me.  It's so nice when we can have the time for a little extra conversation.

Anyway, that was one nice recollection from the day and from lockdown lessons so I thought it would be nice to record that for myself to read back over at some point.

Hope you had a good day.

Owl and Skirt

 Thank you for those of you that kindly commented on my last two posts- I know they weren't the greatest posts ever (one full of lengthly book reviews and the other, me feeling annoyed the rantings on social media).  I don't think, despite my long walk, I was feeling my best. My sinuses and tonsils felt really sore and swollen last night and I ended up not sleeping well and feeling dreadful when I woke up so I ended up not going to school as my throat felt awful- the usual 'apple in the throat' feeling I get when my tonsils are enflamed.  Having an additional 4 hours sleep has helped and I am feeling much improved.

Wanting to post something cheerful, I thought I'd share my outfit from Saturday.  It was comfy and a bit different so I wanted to share it.

It features my March purchase (I did mention I would only be buying one thing a month, less if I could) and is a second hand skirt originally from East but made by Indian company Fabindia.  Vix, has been looking stunning in her beautiful Indian blockprint items and I bought a maxi skirt last year but it didn't quite work for me as it was wrap-around.  This one has an elasticated waistband.

I wore it with an old sparkly navy top and a cardigan I bought from Mistral in Wallingford a long time ago and my blue boots.

Something about the outfit suggested  a night sky to me so I decided to don my Starry night necklace (Kimchi and Coconut) and gold star earrings (Esoteric London)

The Battlesbridge antiques centre wired headscarf was the final thing to complete the artistic look. CBC liked it- he said it was very me but also very Ellie S. (Ellie is in her 70's,  dear flute playing friend and someone who I aspire to be like- she is an artist in later life too).

It was fitting, therefore, to be able to pose with our Oliver Hurst owl (you will remember it was one of our lockdown 1, 'support an artist' works which featured in the Bloggers' art gallery) which CBC finally bought a frame for, had a lot of trouble getting it together and then hung it in our entrance hall between the toilet and the kitchen.

I'll be back in school tomorrow and I hope to be back on form- unfortunately, I think the return to school was a bit of a shock to the system and the constant use of my projected voice, the long days, the early starts and the lack of sleep is often a trigger for me to get tonsil issues so I will try to make sure I get to bed nice and early....even if I can't sleep!

Hope all is ok with you.

xx

Patience and peace

I've been feeling fed up all week about how we seem to have a complete lack of patience and peace in the modern world- I see so much vitriol on social media. I am fed up of people demanding things happen NOW, of demanding a change INSTANTLY, to not be able to wait for things to happen logically- just wanting what they want IMMEDIATELY and then getting all huffy and loud if they don't and wanting to pick arguments.  Of not wanting to think about things more carefully and being peaceful about but being aggressive having to make a big show.  Patience and peace are two things I think the modern person has lost sight of. And I am not innocent in all this, I can be impatient and lacking in peace at times but I think being able to reflect on oneself is so important.  And actually being willing to give up a sense of entitlement and just waiting and reflecting, not reacting instantly and being so reactive and demanding about everything.  Maybe I'm talking more about the younger generation- namely teens and young adults though not totally.

Actually,  I see great patience and peace in so many of my blog friends.  Perhaps that is because the majority of my blog friends are older but I've seen great patience and kindness in all of you, and it reminds me that there are so many good people.  And it makes me think that actually Instagram is not the place I want to be spending time because I see so much stropping.  Coming back to blogland is a comfort and a solitude and I want to thank you for your presence.

This morning, after church online, I headed off for a walk by myself. Being back at school has made me, more than ever, want to get out and walk in the wild, and I was feeling anxious about how many things are going on that are making people more angry, more ranty, causing more issues socially, I wanted to head for the localish country park (it's about 3 miles from my house) to get away from it.

As it turned out, it was so beautiful, that I just kept walking and ending up doing a massive circular route, trying to recreate a walk I had done with CBC before, without a map.  I'm trying to work out how many miles I did and I think it might be between 8-12- not sure beyond that as I can't seem to drag google maps onto the fields.  After even just half an hour of walking in the sun and fields with no one around me, I was serene and full of quiet joy.  A feeling that I was with God and his creation grounds me. I forgot about the stress and anxiety about what people will do next and how it will have an impact and I was with the beauty of nature.  Again, I am so grateful that I can walk so easily where I live and even though I saw lots of people on my walk, it really was a walk on my own. I felt safe, I felt content, I felt restored and full of gratitude.

As I reached the carpark in the woods, which spelt the end of the rural section of my walk, probably 2/3 of the way through, I knew I'd have to take the main road as I wasn't sure of the route across the country at this point.  An ice-cream van was parked in the car park and they took bank cards.  I was so delighted and ordered a 99 with a chocolate waffle cone and a flake. It was enormous and utterly delicious. I ate it very slowly (I reckon it lasted me a mile and a half) and reverently and it only served to increase my joy.  My whole walk was around about 3.5 hours in total and I had things to do but I was glad to have the time to be out and walking, plus the sense of achievement that I didn't get lost!

When I was almost home, I walked through the church yard and spent 10 minutes picking nettles to make soup with (I had come prepared with gloves, scissors and a bag).

Back home, CBC was in the front garden and he had drilled together my new birthday planter which we had (worriedly) picked up from the garden centre yesterday.  It was expensive but hopefully we can plant lots of lovely flowers in it to brighten up the front garden.

We had tea and bread whilst joining a Zoom with CBC's family (ended up having some discussion which made the anxiety return again) and then I made nettle soup whilst chatting to my Stepmum and then my Dad on the phone.

I was pleased to see 2 of my tomato plants have germinated so far out of the six of my own saved seeds from last year, I hope they survive this year as most of them died last year! 

Having been to visit a few posts of yours has made the sense of peace come again after feeling anxious earlier.

Sending you all love.

xx

Books I've read so far this year.

Since the whole pandemic began last year, inexplicably, I have read less than I have read in years.

It is bizarre, but somehow I've found it harder to concentrate on books as much as I usually would.  Scrabble Online has also had a lot to do with it, less train journeys and waiting at platforms, having  a better phone.

Still, apart from trying to finish off some games, I've given up ScrabbleGo during Lent and I've read a little bit more in March so far but still not so much.

I really did get out of the habit of reviewing books I've read on here, not least because, when I was reading more books, I actually get Book Amnesia.  After I'd moved onto another book, unless I reviewed it straight away, I couldn't remember character names and things that happened so I couldn't write reviews and then writing 8-9 reviews with details I was hazy about, was also not book.  Plus, I was reading a lot of library books (till March!) and returned the books swiftly, knowing my propensity towards large library fines if I forgot to return/review.

Plus, if I didn't stick them on my blog list of books, I also forgot what I'd actually read.  All a bit hopeless really!

Anyway, that's a not very good introduction into actually writing about the books I've read so far this year as I'd really like to do that again, even if writing reviews is not really my favourite activity!

January:

1.  Blitzcat - Robert Westal

This was one of my Hexham charity shop book buys and I love a good WW2 children's story (indeed any WW2 story).  It follows the adventures of a cat, named Lord Gort, as she tries to find her owner who has gone off to fight in the war. Along the way, she touches the life of various people for a while who she meets and spends some time with as she moves on and has some incredible effects on those she encounters- perhaps she is lucky as the people who she meets seem to be very lucky.  It shows various aspects of life for different people during the war- civilians, soldiers, homeguards, pilots, landladies for soldiers which is interesting and keeps it varied. There is a real sense of hope in this story.  The writing is poignant and beautiful with some good building of tension. It doesn't end the way I expected which was good and I was compelled to keep reading.  

It has some swearing and references to sex made which make it perhaps not quite suitable for the age I teach but apart from that, I think it is a marvellous book.   I give it 4.5/5

2.  Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour bookstore  -  Robin Sloan

I bought this in Hexham also and bought it purely for the compelling title.  It wasn't what I expect and was a really intriguing book.  Clay, a web-designer originally, can't seem to find a job in his field until he takes a job at a strange, dusty old bookshop which is open 24 hours a day and a very, very odd owner.  He has the night shift which is bizarrre for a bookshop. He has very few customers but then discovers the shop has another purpose.  Visitors have to be recorded carefully in a log with descriptions and they have access to some very strange books on very, very high bookshelves which Clay must never read himself.  It turns out there is a great ancient mystery to be solved from centuries ago and whilst it is an ancient mystery and conspiracy, it can only possibly be solved by using the latest technology.  With the help of a worker for Google and various high tech people, Clay goes on a search to try to solve the mystery.

I LOVED the ending of this and the feeling of wondering what on earth the mystery would turn out to be.  I honestly had no idea what it would be or how it would turn out. This was a wonderful mix of ancient and modern and I found it truly compelling though I found the beginning a bit slow!  The ending was fab!  4.25/5

3.  The Language of Kindness (A nurse's story) - Chrissie Watson

Another Hexham charity shop purchase, this is an autobiographical account of life as a nurse in the NHS.  It is told compassionately and with great care with a focus on the background of the author as well as her time as a nurse.  I enjoyed this and felt I learnt a lot more about nursing and how hard it is and what a thankless, stressful and yet amazing in some ways, job. However, I did find the way the chronology jumped around quite irritating.

I give it 3.5/5

4.  The Psychology of  Time Travel - Kate Mascarenhas

CBC bought this for me for my birthday last year (I think, or was it the year before?) and was a curious story,  It is about a team of women who built a way of time travel but one of them went mad.  It is set in  1967 but then 2017 where the grandaughter, Ruby, of one of those timetravel pioneers never knew what happened to her Gran but then gets a strange warning about the imminent death of someone elderly but unknown and finally 2018, where Odette is the person who finds the mystery dead woman and wants to solve it.  This was an odd book, intriguing but I didn't find myself gelling with it at first.  I wanted to know who had killed the dead woman but the strange chronology and the curious way time travel was portrayed didn't make me love it at first.  Things became clearer and more intriguing as the book moved on. I did really like the character of Odette and it was good that the entire set of main characters were female.  The psychology aspect of it was really clever and different (and crucial to the plot).   It was a very imaginative and original read and I would recommend giving it a go even it wasn't my favourite read- probably because it is sci-fi and for some reason, I don't LOVE sci-fi books. 

I give it 3/5 just because it wasn't totally for me, not because it isn't a good book.

In February, as far as I can remember, I read  3 books (atrocious!)

Rumblestar by  Abi Elphinstone

The Unmapped Kingdom is a set of lands where magic is real and all sorts of creatures live. But one day, Caspar Tock is trying to escape some bullies by hiding in a clock when he finds himself in another land.  This is not good for Casper who likes routines and timetables and is NOT the sort to like adventures.  But he finds himself alongside a grumpy girl called Utterly Thankless, being the only hope of saving the unmapped kingdom of Rumblestar from a harpy called the Morg who is trying to steal the magic of the kingdoms for herself from where she is imprisoned.

The story was a lovely one and builds on the typical theme of friendship and taking risks to allow yourself to have friends.  It was imaginative and fun with great descriptions and likeable characters.  I did contemplate trying to dress up as Utterly for my world book day costume but knew no one would have heard of this book sadly.  I really want to read the other books in this series now and when various relatives were talking about birthday presents, really wanted to say, "Please buy me the rest of the books!" but at the same time, worrying about purchases being made from Amazon and wanting them from an independent bookshop, actually asking for something in particular and people expecting me to want 'SPECIAL' presents because it was a big birthday (I didn't).  Sadly, didn't pluck up the courage but I hope to buy the sequels next time I'm in Northumberland from Cogito books (where I bought this one)

I give this one 4.5/5

6.  The Problem of evil- James Runcie

This is the second of the Granchester books I have read (this one obtained from the library sale rack) and is about the life and adventures of priest, Canon Sidney Chambers who helps solve murders and mysteries  He is now happily married to his lovely German wife,Hildegard (LOVE!) and faces a series of mysteries to solve.  I like the short story format but all within a chronological time frame and overarching storyline and I like that Sidney is truly portayed as not perfect.  There's a missing painting, a priest killer and a baby who goes missing- they were enjoyable stories. I wasn't totally fixated on reading this but I enjoyed it.   3.75/5

7.  The Kingdom by the sea - Robert Westall

I didn't realise I had inadvertantly bought two Robert Westall WW2 setting books when I was in Hexham.  This is about Harry, a boy whose house is bombed in WW2 Northumberland (very happy to read another book set in Northumberland!) and whose family hadn't made it to the air raid shelter with him.  He doesn't want to be sent to live with his aunty so he sets off along the Northumbrian coast.  He doesn't have a plan apart from a vague idea to head towards Lindisfarne with a dog who it seems has lost its family.  The book tells about how he survives in terms of food, shelter and mentally.

Firstly, any book set in Northumberland is bound to please me, plus, my aforementioned liking of WW2 era books but the proximity to the sea and the sense of survival in in this book really is wonderful.  I read it really quickly, really wondering what would happen to Harry.  I like books with details about food, I think this stems from my love of Enid Blyton and food descriptions, though I do think Harry eats waaaay too many chips. I really did love this though and all the strange, good and bad characters he meets. The descriptions of the sea and the weather and events really did transfix me and I didn't know how the book was going to end. The ending was a bit of a shock to me, I must say.  There was something so free and different about this book and I would definitely read it again.

I give this 5/5.

I can't guarantee I will be able to keep up the reviews but will try!

Have you read any good books this month?

World Book Day Costumes 2021

 My school decided to postpone our World Book Day celebrations till today so the children were in school. The main reason was because we had a Zoom date with Michael Rosen, the wonderful children's author and poet.

This year, I decided to make one of my ideas that I have listed in my 'World Book Day costume ideas' blogpost but never actually made.

My inspiration was The Rainbow Fish from the above book.

It has a wonderful moral about not being proud and sharing your riches with others and is really beautiful!

As always, I want to make my costume from things I already have- I've only ever bought tiny items for my World Book Day costumes and used things that can go back to their regular use afterwards.

I started by knowing I wanted to use some of my craft felt stash to make coloured fish scales.  I found this turquoise top in my charity bag. It's too tight (and too low cut) and so I was going to get rid of it so I decided to give it a makeover.

I cut a template from a coaster and cut various scallops from the appropriately-coloured felt.

I sewed them roughly to the top.

Unfortunately, when I tried it on, because it was so tight, some of the threads pulled and broke.

I tried to sew them back on and hoped for the best.

Next, I wanted to make some fins so I had brought home some chiffon scarves that I use at school for music and movement with the year 1 children.  I got an old pair of pants of CBC's (they were in a cull bag) and I cut the cotton material off and left myself with the blue waistband. I tied 6 different scarves to that so they would dangle.

I laid these out on top of a blue petticoat that my sister bought me about 6 years ago and decided I needed more fins, perhaps from my shoulders so I took 3 chiffon scarves in 3 colours and tied them with a knot and I tied them onto large safetypins which I attached to the shoulders.

I made one more which I decided I would attach to my ponytail in the morning.

When I got up in the morning, I donned a blue top and leggings and a blue skirt to make the journey to school and put everything on when I got there.

The final touches were to dust my face with shimmery eye-shadow and I added my new GoryDorky necklace which my sister bought me for my birthday. It looks like soap suds but I decided to don it to represent the final glittery scale that the Rainbow fish has left after he's donated all his beautiful shimmery scales to the other fish.

And the final touch was my Nickat irridescent bubble earrings.

The children that knew the story recognised me instantly.  A few thought I was a mermaid or a princess.

It was a hard outfit to wear on a windy day- my scarves went everywhere!

However, that's not the end of things I made this year.

I decided to bite the bullet and make a few examples of simple costumes that could be made out of cardboard.

The first was a Wardrobe!

For a Narnian theme.  I was going to make some optional face masks to hang off it for a white witch and a lion but I ran out of time. I still have a wardrobe.

Next, I used an old pizza box (a supermarket one) and I painted a Gingerbread house that could be worn for a simple Hansel and Gretel-themed costume, either alone or with another costume, e.g. witch, lederhosen, dirndl etc. I added string to the top.

The next costume I made was a simple Ladybird costume which could be easily put onto a child should they need a costume. It actually ended up being used by my Deputy Head Teacher.

I had a pair of cardboard pizza bases which were relatively clean so I painted them red during a staff meeting. I then drew black spots on them in a marker.

I then hole-punched the tops to make them into a tabard.

The final touch was (if worn with all black), a head-dress made from red card and some wire from a floral decoration which I bent into antennae

My final contribution to the day was to help Year 3 teachers.

They were all going to come in wearing all black (boring) but didn't know what book to go with. I suspected they were the character of The Dark from the book by Lemony Snicket.

The Dark is personified and Lazlo, the little boy in the book, is really scared of it as he goes through the dark house with his torch.  The dark keeps talking as he goes and in the end, he realises, the dark can actually be our friend.

They were all entranced with the idea.  To help, I printed 3 mini copies of the book for them to hang round their necks with string and I made them all torches out of card too.

Other great costumes included all of Year 2 who came as Oliver Jeffers' The Crayons, a full blown Gruffalo, Year 5 as Willy Wonka characters, Year 6 as characters from Holes (Louis Sachar). Year 4 are studying the book Varmints at the moment and all came in adorable Varmints costumes with ears, noses and bunny ears!

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