Sunday Sevens #49

I love sharing my weekly updates with you in the form of a Sunday Sevens. Thanks to Natalie at Threads and bobbins for creating the series. 🙂

Book I’m reading:

Seven Wonders of the Industrial World – Deborah Cadbury.

I’ve picked up a book from my library, (OMG I can say library!) OK, a very small library! :p (David is cringing with the amount of books I am buying!) It’s a book I bought years ago and not had the time to read. So I thought I would read it for my 2018 Year in Books. Deborah Cadbury’s book accompanied the acclaimed 2004 BBC series Seven Wonders of the Industrial World.

I have to admit the series was inspirational. The Industrial Revolution created revolutionary thinkers such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, whose world changing designs were built by the superhuman navvies who toiled, bled and died creating a modern world! It made me stop and think of how we take for granted these wonderful works of engineering.

Awe-inspiring accounts of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, (which to me will always be the Roebling Bridge), and of Joseph Bazalgette’s Cholera defying London sewers are among the best episodes of the series. Add wonderful music by the then up and coming Hollywood composer Steve Jablonsky and you have the ingredients for a superb TV series. I was gifted the DVD set for a birthday and the book only adds to the incredible achievement of these men of vision.

Have you seen this TV series, read the book? What are your favorite industrial wonders?

Cooking:

Returning to the mundane, this week I managed to do some cooking. It’s been a while since I cooked a meal from scratch. It may have been for one (as David cooked himself a curry) but I was happy with the result. I followed the recipe from the Quorn site, of Fajitas with Quorn Pieces. I served with warmed tortillas. The meal was filling yet ultimately healthy as the main base was vegetables.

Spicy Quorn Fajitas

Honey bee on Salvia

Red Campion

Yarden:

All the sun of last week has made a big difference to the yarden. The potato chits and wildflower seedlings have pushed through the soil and the red campion has started to flower. The only sad demise from this winter was my beautiful Salvia Mystic Spires. It was loved by bees well into the autumn months. I am mourning this beautiful plant and hope to find a replacement in the shops in future.

#walk1000miles:

My miles this week have been an accumulation of walks with Riley, housework and sessions on the cross trainer. My miles this week has been 30, bringing my annual total to 607 miles.

 

Walking the Dog:

Christine and Riley

Riley and Bennie

This Sunday David and I got up at the ungodly hour of 5.30am to take a drive to Formby Point for an early morning walk with David’s sister, partner and doggy nephew, Bennie! It was the first time both dogs had met each other. After a good sniff both dogs walked side by side as we took to the sand dunes and walked along the beach. I think they both enjoyed their 3.5 mile walk.

That was my week, how was yours?

Thanks for reading,

Christine x

Sunday Sevens #13

#13, unlucky for some!

Again, I wasn’t going to write a Sunday Sevens post (devised by Threads and bobbins) but I thought ‘what the heck!’ I may as well document my mundane life.

I have thoroughly enjoyed the recent, second series of the BBC’s adaptations of the Shakespeare history plays. (The Hollow Crown, The War of the Roses.) Culminating in the final film, Richard III. After watching Henry 6th part two with my hands over my face in horror at Benedict Cumberbatch’s sublime performance as Richard, Duke of Gloucester. I eagerly anticipated his performance in Richard III. It was engaging viewing! At first Richard nicely spun a plot to gain the crown but after being crowned king, his mind soon unraveled. He became paranoid and fearful. Quite rightly so, with the future Henry 7th waiting in the wings in France. The film climaxed with Richard’s death at Bosworth.

Mid week, I made a short visit to Liverpool’s Central Library. I came back with my haul of wild swimming books. I also came back with S J Watson’s second novel, Second Life. It wasn’t a particularly nice book to read. I kept thinking that the main protagonist was rather stupid! She kept saying she had too much to lose, her child and husband and yet she continued with a rather violent affair! It wasn’t my cup of tea. I only read it as I had quite enjoyed his first novel, Before I go to Sleep.

This week happened to be the fourth anniversary of David and I receiving the keys to our house! I was going to celebrate by baking a cake, but I decided it would be cheaper to buy one already made, so I bought a Victoria sponge!

Thursday poured with rain all day! It was a rather gloomy day. I was in the kitchen, making my lunch of curried red lentils when I noticed a male house sparrow on my feeders. I took a closer look and there was a baby sparrow alongside him. The baby looked quite independent, but kept begging for food off the adult. I got my camcorder out and filmed the below.

I’ll finish today’s roundup with a picture from the yarden, of an aquilegia. This plant has grown readily in the yarden for three summers now. Long may it continue to grow!

‘Take time to be thankful for everything that you have. You can always have more, but you could also have less.’ Mohd Uved

Christine x

Sunday Sevens #8

This week I have spent most of my time in the yarden! The NW of England has had some lovely long spells of warm, spring weather. Warm enough for me to bring out my bandeau dresses and coat my skin in SPF. Artie has also enjoyed stretching his legs and worrying resting bumblebees who when flying off, seemed to urinate!!

The yarden is looking verdant. Spring bulbs are flowering and trees/shrubs are heavy with dense foliage. The air has been laced with singing dunnocks/blackbirds and the happy buzz of bees and other pollinators.

Tulip

Tree Bumblebee on rhododendron

I recently read that rhododendron pollen can be toxic to bees. I hope the nectar from my plant is not detrimental to this busy tree bumblebee!

Keeping with the theme of nature. I have signed up to take part in The Wildlife Trusts’s 30 Day’s Wild 2016. Last year, lovely Sharon from Sunsine and Celandines got me interested in the scheme and I had a wonderful June observing nature more closely. Why not sign up and join in the fun?

You can read my 2015, 30 Days wild at the following: week one, week two, week three, week four. Happy reading!

This Friday, 22nd April was Earth Day. Their campaign, to ‘motivate people into action,’ in regard to the welfare of our planet. I particularly liked the ‘doodles’ on Google’s search page. This one was my favourite!

Earlier in the week we had a blue tit visiting. He spied the cat hair we had left out for birds nests and I caught video footage, (though not great) of him trying to take the whole bundle! I saw him fly off with most of it in his beak. So somewhere, Artie’s hair lines the nest of a blue tit!

This week I have begun to read Dan Brown’s Inferno. I tried to read it a couple of years ago and failed. I thought with the film coming out later in the year I would attempt it again. Talking of books. I have applied for a library card. I haven’t registered with a library for years, but thought it would be a good idea to do so. I can pick and chose what books I read now without the cost.

This weekend, England celebrated the 400 year anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death. The Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London commissioned The Complete Walk, a screening of ten minute productions of each of his 37 plays. Liverpool was the only city in the UK to also screen these films and I was excited by the opportunity to see some of my favourite plays. I dragged David along with me to some iconic venues in the city, such as St George’s Hall, Liverpool Cathedral and the Tate. We also visited some more unusual venues, I particularly liked the grand feel to the hotel Aloft, which I later read is a renovation of the Royal Insurance Building and Ziferblat, which is a pay per minute cafe.

Of the productions we saw, my favourites are as follows: The Tempest, I found Douglas Hodge walking out into the sea at the end very touching! James Norton was fantastic as Richard II, I just wish it wasn’t viewed on a small TV screen in a railway tourist centre, and Much Ado About Nothing with Samuel West and Catherine Parkinson precisely captured the prickly romance between Benedick and Beatrice. The only downside (or upside) to seeing these ten minute films is that they make you crave to see the whole performance!

Have you been to any Shakespeare Celebrations this weekend? Do you indeed like the Bard?

Have a nice week ahead.

Christine xx

Sunday Sevens was devised by Threads and bobbins.

I haven’t written in a while…

… though I will undoubtedly be using this medium to assist with my Open University writing course. I tend to have a habit of writing more than I should! Hence needing my blog to post my latest exercise. Perhaps you can all comment on the quality of the writing too??

 

IMAGINING WRITING SPACES:

OK, I know it doesn’t really address the title of the assignment but this is what I have written in response.

Scene that is most suited to me:

Autumnal light shone blazingly through the large panes of glass that lined one wall of the room. The brightness was magnified by the white painted walls and the gleam from the chrome of the chairs. There was a hushed sigh of reverence from the other students in the library as Susan sat with head resting on hand, gazing sidelong out of the window. The screen of her laptop glowed as the curser flashed on a blank Word document. She knew she should have been writing. She had been sitting in her favourite room for half an hour now after getting up early, just to enjoy what was left of the morning sun. However, her eyes had wandered to the Sycamore Tree that burned red outside. Its leaves drifted to the road below burnishing the pavements. She had been watching a couple of Blue Tits flit about the boughs of the tree, pecking at the blackened bark before calling their alarm as a Magpie flew by.

Susan blinked and turned to look into the room she sat in. She started when she saw a pair of dark eyes peer over the rim of a cup at her. She subconsciously sniffed at the air and the comforting smell of roasted coffee reached her olfactory. Those eyes looked at her accusingly, knowing she should be writing. They made her feel very much like the day she had been caught dancing in her bedroom by her uncle. She couldn’t remember what he had said, but whatever it was it made her feel like she had been caught doing something wrong and something inside of her recoiled.

The owner of those eyes lowered the cup of steaming coffee revealing a handsome face with full lips and square jaw. Susan smiled shyly in reply. She knew he should have been working too instead of sneakily peaking at her. She watched as he picked up a paperback with something to do with tort written on the front and pretended like he was deep in thought. Susan turned to look at her computer screen and smirked. She began typing.

‘It was in the library that she first noticed him…’