This week...

I'm reading...

After finished reading both the books I mentioned last week, I was faced with what is one of the tougher decisions ..... what to read next? I could read on the library books I have here so that they are all read by the time that the library reopens, or I could read one of the many, many, many books I already have downloaded on my Kindle or just pick one of the unread books off my bookshelf.

In the end, I didn't do any of those things. I ended up downloading a completely new book. Earlier this year I read When It All Went to Custard by Danielle Hawkins and really enjoyed it so I downloaded Chocolate Cake for Breakfast. We won't talk about the fact that I started reading it at 4am because I couldn't sleep. I had read a quarter of by the time I went to sleep. I then finished the book by 1.30am the next night which is probably a fair sign of how much I enjoyed it, which was lucky given that it was a book that Bree from All the Books You Can Read recommended to me about 3 years ago.

The other book I started this week was Ambulance Girls Under Fire by Deborah Burrows which features ambulance girls working in London during the blitz in World War II. I read the first book in the trilogy a couple of years ago and it has taken me that long to get back to it. This is one of the library books.

After finishing Chocolate Cake, I was again left pondering what to read. Bree and I have long been recommending books to each other. Many years ago I recommended Poison Study by Maria Snyder to her. I should clarify, it was actually many, many, many years ago. We even went to an author event together back in 2011 where we both bought several of this authors books.  A couple of weeks ago, Bree finally read Poison Study, and then proceeded to read the rest of the books in the series in quick succession (all 9 of them). After chatting to her, it was probably inevitable that I would go back and reread the book! Poison Study was a 5/5 read for me back in 2006, and I have already been sucked back into the book very quickly.

But all is fair in love and war, and in book recommendations, because when I was speaking to her about Chocolate Cake it turns out that she felt the need to reread that book!


I'm watching....

I mentioned last week that the new series of Masterchef had started but that there were new judges, so it was going to be the beginning of a new era. It's fair to say that we are in! The first week they had Gordon Ramsay as a guest judge and it was a great start to the season and I can't see any reason why we won't keep watching.

At the opposite end of the skills spectrum are the contestants that sign up for Nailed It which is what we binge watched on Friday night! The show can be a bit over the top at times, and most of the time I think that there is no way even the most talented chef could complete the challenges that are set but it is entertaining to watch the contestants try!

Another baking show that we started watching again this week is Bake Off: The Professionals. This is part of The Great British Bake Off franchise. Instead of amateur bakers, this show features teams of professional pastry chefs making amazing looking miniature pastries and then a huge showstopper. It is beautiful food produced in a high pressure environment. We do love watching the judges, Benoit Blin and Cherish Finden. They are professional baking judges and they make us laugh quite regularly, especially Cherish!

My #isoviewing adventures continued over the weekend. On Friday night we watched The Phantom of the Opera which was fabulous. I did decide that there were some advantages to getting to watch these shows at home. If we were watching in a theatre there is no way that we would be able to singalong!

What I am finding is that there isn't enough time to watch everything that is available online. I haven't watched any of the Shakespeare productions, didn't watch Jane Eyre, or so many other things!

Life

How are we all going with our social distancing? I think I am in week 5 or 6 now of working from home, and this has been the hardest week so far. I am not sure why this is the case, maybe because we know that it is going to still be another 3 weeks before life starts to get to be heading towards the new normal, whatever that is going to look like.

One thing that we did do for the first time this week was a jigsaw puzzle. Not too long ago our Prime Minister told the country that jigsaws counted as essential items for shopping which was a bit puzzling (no pun intended). I have ordered a new one online which hasn't arrived yet, but then Robert (my husband) mentioned that he thought that he had a couple when we moved in. A quick search of the shed produced a couple. We possibly should have started with one where there was a picture of the puzzle on the box to at least refer to!

We enjoyed doing the puzzle together, but it will be a couple of weeks before we do another one. Robert found it a bit distracting to have it sitting there incomplete on the kitchen table. Every time he walked past he had to put a few pieces in which isn't ideal when you are working from home!

There was also a moment last week when he was at the kitchen table doing the puzzle and I was watching Masterchef. Next thing he is saying I thought we were doing this puzzle together? And my response was I thought we watched Masterchef together!?!


Posts from the last week

Weekend Cooking: The patisserie shop
Alphabet 2020: C is for Chocolate
The first glimpse of la tour Eiffel

I've linked this post to It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date