Dog Days Of Summer #8

MONDAY
After the weekend I was still thinking about the new plan to give me more time to do things away from my blog by sorting out my time better. I've now decided to batter in to getting a pile of reviews done this week, get ahead in a few blog posts and ensure that I keep up daily with my comments and blog visits. Then at the weekend I hope to switch to my new routine of spending the weekend doing blog posts then 30 minutes each morning Mon-Thu to stay up to date. That gives me four whole days for whatever else I want or need to do, plus each night after 6pm. I should be able to start getting a bit of everything into my routine-films, TV, Wii, news scrapbooks, puzzles and crafts, slothing around as well as house clearance duties and the usual housework to do.  

What a joy also that the live Darts is back on TV! I'm recording the sessions each night and then watching it the following morning. My dad and I stopped watching the live football because of all the political chat and events being brought into it but thankfully the darts isn't doing that so I can just enjoy the sport and forget about the real world for a few happy hours! 

TUESDAY
The last of my bakery items arrived-cases for baking my cupcakes, rolling pin, pastry brush, piping bag, cookie cutters-all at a pretty low price which is always good. My dad wanted me to get the animal shapes cookie cutters but I sniffily informed him that I don't eat Kermit, Miss Piggy, Larry the Lamb, Ducky Lucky, Paddington or any other animal shaped biscuit. It's virtually cannibalism!!! My dad suggested I make myself a birthday cake and I gave him a Paddington hard stare! I shall be getting a few sponge cakes from Asda thank you very much! Unless anyone has an easy recipe for a one layer sponge cake with buttercream and I can use sheets of marzipan on it?

I ordered a Paddington bookmark from an Amazon marketplace seller. I paid nearly £3 for it including postage and then Royal Mail refused to deliver it as the company who sent it to me underpaid the postage. I was told I needed to pay £1.50 extra in charges to get it! Why the bleeding heck should I pay it? Why can't Royal Mail contact the company and tell THEM to pay the fine? Bloody cheek of it! They can keep the bloody bookmark or send it back but I'm not paying any more for it! 

WEDNESDAY
I got a wooden desktop organizer thing for my computer desk today. Easy to put together! No fuss! What bullcrap! The screws don't fit the holes which is making it a bugger to screw together. I've worked on it for two hours, gained blisters on several fingers and the palm of my hand, and I'll still need my dad to  help me finish it! Thankfully my dad is stronger than me and has now finished the project so I've now got all my stuff on the new rack and it's much neater to look at. My dad has ordered a bigger desktop unit for his stuff which should come next week. My new kitchen storage unit on wheels is out of stock which is a bummer but I hope it comes soon.

THURSDAY
Today I ordered replacement packs of my favourite gel pens ready for winter. I use them a lot for review notes and writing my Coronation Street episode guide, so I don't want to be running out this winter! I need to ensure I have plenty glue, scrapbooks, tippex and everything I need for my crafts and puzzles too. I like feeling ready for winter!

FRIDAY
Hurrah, my birthday presents have arrived and I LOVE them! OK so they are a few weeks early but who cares really! I've done a post about it for this weekend so you can see what I got! Hopefully it will be a weekend of getting book reviews written (*groans*) and then switching to my new blogging system for next week! Oh and my Paddington bookmark arrived without me having to pay that extra charge and with no contact from the seller or Royal Mail, which was weird. I suspect that the local postman may have paid the charge himself as he delivered it yesterday in the post van. I guess I'll never know but he always gets a big Christmas bonus from us every year anyway!

Top Ten Tuesday-Book Events

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.  http://www.thatartsyreadergirl.com/top-ten-tuesday/

NB: I don't follow or leave comments on blogs run by Google Plus, or DISQUS as I refuse to join something just to leave comments, and I won't allow them to follow new people, update my profile or post tweets 'on my behalf'. I won't comment on any blog that makes me sign in using another account. 

I don't go to any kind of book events, festivals or conventions as I don't like big gatherings of strangers and trying to make small talk. I'm tweaking the fictional part of this to fictional events from books I'd love to watch on TV.

1) The Hunger Games
Call me sick and twisted but I'd watch a version of this for thug juvenile delinquents. ASBOs are useless, the Children's Panel is a joke, so punish the little shits properly! Gets them off the streets and away from decent people...or a computer version where poorer people can win money and houses and shit by surviving the game.

2) Funland
In this book the Funhouse is a place to avoid! The whole theme park could have traps and tricks and only the best players get to the actual Funhouse where things are even scarier! I like the idea of being real monsters but a toned down version could still be fun.

3) The Running Man
The prospect of watching Arnie style version where terrorists, rapists, serial killers and paedophiles get what is coming to them really appeals! I can see me in front of the TV each weekend chanting 'Buzzsaw! Buzzsaw!' And I've always wanted to know what the Running Man home game is!

4) The Valley
Criminals have to travel across a lush valley where the first to get to the exit wins their freedom. The down side? They have to survive a whole pile of deadly dinosaurs first! I so much want to see the worst criminals in the world meet justice by T-Rex!

5) Tri Wizard Tournament
Of course I'd love to watch this! I loved It's a Knockout and similar game shows so we could have two different schools with a few pupils each taking part each week with the winners going to Knockout Week until there is a winner. Think how exciting to watch it from the Goblet of Fire selection to the final maze with Hagrid's beasties!

6) Dinosaur 65 million
Another show where teams compete to get across a dinosaur filled environment for prizes. As long as it was really bad criminals, again I'd watch this. Or a computer animation version where the avatars of the teams get killed while they are safe in a studio. Still fun!

7) The Last Flag
This is a gameshow where people in teams are put in a small town overrun with zombies and have to get flags and go to an extraction point to collect a big cash prize. It was a fun book to read and I could watch this kind of thing for entertainment even if the zombies aren't real.

8) Gameland
Computer geeks control real life zombies in a game zone to kill other people's avatars. How about a live action version of this that people can watch for fun? They have to get through the game zone to live or get prizes or get a lesser sentence...

9) Ready Player One
I love the whole egg hunt thing so a version of it where we can watch the gamers solve problems and riddles, win battles and get through each level could be fun. Then the heat winners in semi and finals to get a big prize in a giant Pac Man game!

10) Quidditch
Think how much fun it'd be to watch this on the TV every weekend and cheer on your team! I'd love to go and watch the real version they do in the UK and maybe give them jet packs so they can really fly!

Tackling The TBR

In December 2018 I launched Tackling The TBR, a challenge to reduce the ever extending TBR pile and 2019 was pretty successful in that regard. In 2020 I intended to make a big effort to reduce my TBR by buying less, getting stuff read and getting rid of the things that I just don't want to read from my bookshelves and my ereaders Maurice and Myrnin! However the darn Coronavirus Pandemic has put the skids under all my plans and I had to suspend the challenge. I've now decided to bring it back in a bid to kickstart my TBR reduction as nothing else has been working.
 
The TBR total shown is the total number of books I own but have not read yet-wishlist books are NOT in my TBR! Sometimes there will be a difference between the books read and new total-sometimes I read a book not on the TBR so it counts for books read for the week but

BOOKS IN

-Books in refers to bought, downloaded or gifted books being added to the TBR list. 

BOOKS OUT

-Books read refers to books read that were ON the TBR and DNFed is obvious. 

-Deleted from the TBR are books I lost interest in reading, or sequels to DNFed books I no longer want to read and have been removed without starting to read them. These three categories added together are my books 'out'.

I'm posting my progress on the 7th, 14th, 21st and final day of the month as before, even if there is no progress to report and anyone else is welcome to join in. No rules, set up your posts how you want and when you want, just reduce the pile! And each week I'll add my new week to the end of the post so I can track how the whole month went.

June 26th-July 7th   

TBR Start Total: 1518

BOOKS IN:

New Books In: 5

BOOKS OUT:

Books Read: 11

Books DNF: 0

Others Deleted From TBR: 0

Target Total: 1500

New Total: 1512
********************
July 8th-July 14th
TBR Start Total: 1512

BOOKS IN:
New Books In: 3

BOOKS OUT:
Books Read: 6
Books DNF: 0
Others Deleted From TBR:1

Target Total: 1500

New Total: 1508

A bit of a mixed week really but heh, reduction of four y'know? I'll take it considering the health issues this week! I feel much better now and I'm ready to go for the coming week!
********************
July 15th-July 21st
TBR Start Total: 1508

BOOKS IN:
New Books In: 2

BOOKS OUT:
Books Read: 6
Books DNF: 2
Others Deleted From TBR: 8

Target Total: 1500-done!

New Total: 1493

OK I've reached the small first total and got down below the 1500 books. My next target is to get down to 1450. Small goals at a time to keep things moving.
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Book Review: The Secret Island by Enid Blyton

Four runaways, Mike, Peggy, Nora and Jack, find a secret hiding place—a deserted island on a lovely lake. They build a willow-tree house, make their beds of heather and bracken, and grow their own vegetables. And Jack even manages to bring his cow, Daisy, and some hens to the island for fresh milk and eggs every day! But one day invaders come to the secret island...

My Review:
Mike, Nora and Peggy are living with their aunt and uncle while their parents are on their own plane to Australia. But now that the plane and their parents have vanished, presumed dead, their nasty relatives are using them as slave labour on the farm instead of sending them to school and beating the grieving children when they don't get something right. Their only friend is Jack, who lives and works for his grandfather, who cares little about the boy. When Jack discovers that his grandfather is planning to move away and leave him behind, he comes up with a plan for the four children to run away to the deserted small island hidden out in the nearby lake. The children start to steal items that they can use on the island and store them in Jack's hidden rowing boat, ready for when they decide to leave.

The children arrive on the secret island and are thrilled about being on such an adventure. They have springs for fresh water, caves to shelter in for winter and an abundance of fresh berries to pick most of the year. Jack decides to smuggle his dairy cow and some chickens so they can have milk and eggs, and with plenty of fish in the lake and the tins they brought, things get off to a good start. Jack uses his skills to help them build a summer house and soft heather beds to sleep in and they learn about what it takes to look after their island home.

Danger comes in several forms for the children. The first is the constant fear of the authorities searching for them for running away from home and returning them to their relatives. The second is daytrippers coming to spoil the peace and quiet who might find them by accident and spoil everything. With winter approaching, the children know that they need food that can be stored longer term which means risky raids at their relatives home or trying to sell their wild berries at the market in a nearby town and hoping that nobody there knows who they are. If they don't take the risks, they will run out of food but if they get caught, things will be a whole lot worse for all of them.

I first read this book back when I was about eight and at the time I loved the whole idea of that kind of exciting adventure, running away with friends and living on a nice island. I still have dreams about having my own island getaway though I'd trade in heather beds for a fully constructed house! I was unsure how well this kind of book would age but I still found it quite an enjoyable adventure story, and quite suitable for kids to read. It was a touch predictable in places, especially the ending but it didn't take away from the story at all.

The kids themselves are not whiny little brats which makes a pleasant change. Nora is mildly annoying in the beginning in the way she doesn't take her duties seriously but Jack soon sorts out her attitude and she becomes much better. Jack is my favourite character because he knows about surviving, fishing and building things and he is the ideal friend to run away with. Without him, the kids would have found life a lot harder, and of course would never have found the island. I also enjoyed that Daisy and the chickens were given a bit of personality too. 

Warning-this book was written in 1938 so there is level of sexism in the way the boys do the rowing and Peggy cooks but it isn't that bad as all the kids have to do their share. Rabbits are also killed for food but the killing and preparing them for cooking is not mentioned in any detail thankfully.

Read July 2020
3 stars. 

Book Review: A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond (Paddington Bear #1)

Mr. and Mrs. Brown first met Paddington, a most endearing bear from Darkest Peru on a railway platform in London. A sign hanging around his neck said, "Please look after this bear. Thank you" So that is just what they did.

From the very first night when he attempted his first bath and ended up nearly flooding the house, Paddington was seldom far from imminent disaster. Jonathan and Judy were delighted with this havoc and even Mr. and Mrs. Brown had to admit that life seemed to be more filled with adventure when there was a bear in the house.

My Review: 
Paddington lived with his beloved Aunt Lucy in Darkest Peru until she had to go into a home for retired bears. She packed Paddington onto a liner and sent him off to Great Britain with his suitcase, his old hat, a supply of marmalade, and a note around his neck asking that someone look after the bear. He finds himself alone at Paddington station, unsure of where to go or what to do. This is where Mr and Mrs Brown catch sight of him and feel sorry for him, deciding to take the poor bear home with them until they decide what to do about him.

Poor Paddington! Alone in a strange country without his relatives around him, just waiting on the platform with nowhere to go! If I'd seen the poor guy I'm sure I'd have had to go and see if he was ok! Mr and Mrs Brown decide to name him Paddington after the station where they met him and take him back to their house, to the delight of their children Judy and Jonathan. The housekeeper Mrs Bird is a bit unsure of this untidy looking bear but the family quickly develop a soft spot for him and adopt him into the family. Paddington is relieved to have found a nice home and people who are looking after him.

What the Browns don't know is that Paddington is not the smartest bear in the world. He also has little knowledge of much that is going on in the world or the way the modern world works so he is easily confused by things. He also has the habit of getting himself into trouble during the most normal of outings. They can't get him out of the station and home without several messy disasters occuring and the resulting bath to get clean becomes an ordeal for the very confused bear! Disaster after disaster seems to follow with Paddington getting lost on the Underground, causing havoc in the window display of a department store, getting into danger on his first visit at the seaside, creating chaos at a theatre and having a wild birthday party.

I love this bear so much! He is kind and caring, easy to make friends with and will always try to help where he can. He is so very sweet but I shudder to think of the chaos he could cause in my house. Basically, you can't leave this bear unattended at all! He is however, very skilled at getting a bargain while shopping, which would be useful and is popular amongst the market traders. I also love the hard stares he gives to people he feels are insulting or conning him-I have my own stare like that so I can relate to him! His adventures are funny and endearing and have been the perfect light, quick reads that I've needed during the pandemic. The cartoons in my paperback editions are so cute and funny-it really adds to the book.

I can't believe that I never read Paddington when I was younger as I have no recollection of any of the stories I'm reading. It seems weird that someone who read as much as I did never read these books. I have to say as well that they are just as enjoyable for adults as they are for kids. If you're looking for a fun read to give you a few lockdown laughs, pick up Paddington!

Read June 2020
4 stars.