Skywatch Friday

 

Linking to Skywatch Friday 

It's been a week of more clouds than sunshine, and also quite a bit of rain on and off - but still quite a few colourful autumn leaves "hanging on" to brighten up the views. 

It's also been a "going round the mulberry bush" kind of week (i.e. a week of various repetitive household chores). (We have the song in Swedish, too - but here we go round a juniper bush!) 

On Monday afternoon I went for a walk down to the river and back. Tuesday was laundry day for me. It was also raining more or less all day, and I don't think I got out at all. 

Wednesday was sunny, and I got some "autumn cleaning" done on my balcony: Taking down the "privacy" trellis from one side of the railing (most of its fake leaves "gone with the wind" now anyway!); and then getting the (two) plastic rugs off the (metal) floor, and hanging those on the railing to dry in the sun that afternoon, and then rolling them up and put them to spend another couple of days in a corner of my bathroom - before I finally got them down to the basement storage today. (They're getting old and stiff, and so am I, so I'm not sure they'll be laid out again next summer...) 

Thursday was grocery delivery day (in the late morning, before lunch). In the afternoon I got out for a while, for my usual walk around the old cemetery. Today, Friday, it was raining most of the day again; and on top of that it was another day of constant noise and vibrations from the park construction work going on nearby: Still just a huge muddy field that seems to be craving endless layers of grit, sand and soil to raise it to the same level as the surfaces next to it... I did manage a short walk during a break in the rain, but stayed even closer to home (i.e. did not go over to the cemetery). 

 

Grand Finale

 

Rowan Tree

  

Unidentified bush along the river

We have an expression in Swedish that doesn't have an exact equivalent in English. I would say about these dahlias that they "sjunger på sista versen", which literally means "singing the last verse". Trying to find an equivalent in English, the nearest I come is that they're "on their last legs". (?) - But I guess both expressions can apply: both to flowers still keeping upright, even if some of their neighbours have already given up, and also to trees still hanging on to the major part of their leaves, while knowing the next storm may change that all to quickly...

Huge Horse Chestnut Tree (in the cemetery)

Grand Finale: "A particularly elaborate, high-energy, or spectacular ending, often featuring special effects like fireworks or a full ensemble."

The Case of the Christmas Card (Book Review)

 

The Case of the Christmas Card
(Ali Dawson 2.5)
by Elly Griffiths
Audio book narrated by Julie Maisey
(4 hrs and 42 mins)

A "Christmas special" in Elly Griffiths' series about time-travelling detective Ali Dawson. 

You can read my reviews of the two previous books in the series here: 
The Frozen People and The Killing Time. 

In the first book we got to know Ali Dawson, a woman in her 50s, working with a "cold case team"  reputed to investigate "crimes so old, they're frozen". What most people outside the team don't know, is that they have even found a way to travel back in time to do research. In both books we get to follow Ali back to London in the 1850s - but even the time travellers themselves are still having difficulties when it comes to  understanding the details of how it all works - and especially, how to get back to their own time again...

In this "Christmas special", it's not Ali who goes travelling in time, though - but a famous person from the past who unexpectedly turns up on her doorstep, in our own time: The famous author Charles Dickens (whom Ali met before, back in his time.) And he doesn't know more than Ali, neither about how he ended up there - or how to get back.

Quoting Audible's teaser for the book:

"As the whole of London is in full festive swing and preparing for the most special day of the year, Ali and Dickens are exploring the town, desperate to solve not just one but two crime cases. Will they succeed before Christmas Day arrives - and more importantly, will Charles find a way back home?"

While I'm still having "difficulties" myself with the time travelling concept in these books, at the same time I did find it entertaining. 

 

The problem with listening to audio books is that it's hard to go back and look up specific things afterwards, but I think it was hinted at somewhere in this story that the real Dickens did actually at some point "disappear". So asked the all-knowing Google AI about that, and this (below) is what it came up with:

 

Charles Dickens did not permanently disappear, though he did go missing from his family for a short period as a young child, and he maintained a secret, hidden double life as an adult.

• Childhood (1824): At age 12, when his father was sent to Marshalsea debtor's prison, Charles was sent to work in a blacking (shoe polish) factory. He lived on his own in a lodging house and was essentially cut off from normal family life, an experience that left a deep emotional scar.

• The Staplehurst Train Crash (1865): Dickens was briefly unaccounted for or lost from public view during the June 9, 1865, train accident in Staplehurst, Kent. He survived the crash and famously crawled back into a suspended first-class carriage to rescue the manuscript of Our Mutual Friend before helping other wounded passengers.

• Secret Affair (1857–1870): As an adult, Dickens lived a double life. He separated from his wife, Catherine, in 1857 and maintained a clandestine, long-term relationship with the young actress Nelly Ternan, keeping her hidden from public society. 

Seeing Red

No, not "seeing red" as in being angry... I just decided to look for the colour RED on my walk in the old cemetery this afternoon. I just wanted to be out for a while, without straying too far from home. (It wasn't raining just then - but they sky was all grey, and it was the kind of day when you have to be prepared for showers.)

 

The most common flower decorating the graves this time of year is heather, with comes in a variety of pinkish/reddish hues... For my "hunt" today I decided not to count those as red - which didn't stop a few from sneaking into my photos anyway... But in the photo above it was the red begonia I was focusing on!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Silence is golden

 

I'm finding it hard to distinguish one weekday from another just now... Monday through Friday this week have been filled with constant background noise and vibrations from the construction work going on in the nearby old football field, to turn that into a park. (Actually harder to imagine now than when they first got started, as just now it's just a playground for huge excavators and trucks and ground flattening machines playing around in wet mud... I'm finding the noise (and especially the vibrations) very tiring as it makes it hard to concentrate on anything at all; but at the same time I also don't have the energy to escape from home for very long at a time. 

Photo from Wednesday
(when it was still mostly dry)

On Thursday it was raining all day, and I didn't get out at all except for a very short walk in the late afternoon, after the moving around of mud had stopped. I know I managed to get some vacuuming done (competing with the noise from outside) - but as for what else I may have been able to get done (or not), I've already managed to forget...

Friday offered somewhat better weather (at least not as wet!) so I went for another walk to the charity shop in town around noon, to donate another old winter jacket. (If this very noisy stage of the park project keeps on much longer, I might end up with a proper wardrobe clear-out!) 

Today is Saturday, though, and no over-time going on in the muddy field - so it's been blissfully quiet! I slept late, and have then been trying to catch up with a bit of this and that - but mostly just appreciating the silence... (Noting to myself that I've not even really wanted to have radio/TV on much!)

Grey sky, but not raining in the afternoon, so I also got out for a quiet (...) walk in the cemetery...

 

 

Snapping these photos of gardening tools in the cemetery may have been inspired by me having read Jenny's (of the blog Salt&Light) post about "Red Things" earlier in the day! ;)