The Garden Today

I took a walk around the garden this morning.

This is the first peony to bloom, there are close to a hundred buds on the plant and it is about 5 feet tall!!  Sadly the blooms last such a short time, and even shorter if it rains, which is forecast for Friday, or it gets really windy.

David Austin rose, just loaded with flowers.

Lots of baskets and pots of petunias.

These baskets are just loaded with little flowers, can't remember the name of them.  Takes for ever to dead head them!

 Lots of pansies, salvia and lobellia.

Martha Washington geraniums

Red geraniums

Hostas

 Begonias loving the shade

The first tomato.  The label said Supremo but the picture looks like Roma.  It's only the size of a grape. but it's a start. A few beans are peaking through the soil but no sign of the zucchini
Having shingles has certainly curtailed my planting this year.  I've only planted about half of the pots and baskets I usually do and very little in the veg department.  Some of my flower beds are-as my mother would have said-'choked with weeds'.  It's amazing how the heat brings on the nerve pain and I can only manage about 45 minutes in the garden and then I'm done.  Hopefully, slowly but surely, I'll get  some of it in order, but if not there's always next year!!

Books 8-10

All By Myself by Mary Higgins Clark

Fleeing the humiliating arrest of her husband-to-be, Celia Kilbride, a jewelry expert, hopes to escape from public attention by lecturing on a brand-new cruise ship-the Queen Charlotte.

On board she meets eighty-six year old"LadyEm".Immensely wealthy, Lady Em plans to wear her priceless emerald Cleopatra necklace, which, according to legend, places a deadly curse on whoever brings it to sea.
The Queen Charlotte is three days out and Lady Em is found dead-and the necklace is missing.  Is it the work of her devoted assistant or her lawyer-executor  Is it the scholar who is lecturing on board, or a guest on the ship who is planning to spread his wife's ashes at sea?  Or is it the young lawyer who tried to persuade Lady Em to return the necklace to Egypt?  The list of suspects is large and growing.
Celia does not realize that her friendship with Lady Em has not escaped the notice of the killer.  With the help of her new friends Willy and Alvirah Meehan, she must avoid the danger that awaits her before the ship reaches its final destination...
Another fast, easy read from MHC.  Her books are very predictable and usually always have a happy ending.  If you want a book that doesn't require much brain power, this is the book.
Gray Mountain by John Grisham

The year is 2008 and Samantha Kofer's career at a huge Wall Street law firm is on the fast track-until the recession hits and she is downsized, furloughed, and escorted out of the building.Samantha, though, is offered an opportunity to work at a legal aid clinic for one year without pay, all for a slim chance of getting rehired.
In a matter of days Samantha moves from Manhattan to Brady, Virginia, population 2,200, in the heart of Appalachia, a part of the world she has only read about.  Samantha's new job takes her into the murky and dangerous world of coal mining, where laws are often broken, communities are divided, and the land itself is under attack.  But some of the locals aren't so thrilled to have a big-city lawyer in town, and within weeks Samantha is engulfed in litigation that turns deadly.  Because like most small towns, Bradey harbors big secrets that some will kill to conceal.
I really enjoyed this book, although the main character, Samantha, made some foolish decisions at times that put her own safety in great jeopardy!  The book highlights the injustice of strip mining and mountain topping and the effect it all had on the economically poor people living in the Appalachia valley.  It made you feel so bad for these miners that had black lung from working in the mines, but really had no options.  As most books I found the ending predictable but I still enjoyed it.

Name of Dead Girls by Eric Rickstad

In the small Vermont town of Canaan, college student Rachel Rath is being watched. She can feel the stranger’s eyes on her, relentless and possessive. And she’s sure the man watching her is the same man who killed her mother and father years ago: Ned Preacher, a serial rapist and murderer who gamed the system to get a light sentence. Now, he’s free.
Detective Frank Rath adopted Rachel, his niece, after the shocking murder of her parents when she was a baby. Ever since, Rath’s tried to protect her from the true story of her parents’ deaths. But now Preacher is calling Rath to torment him, and threaten Rachel.  Then local girls begin to vanish, and when a few are found, Rath along with Detective Sonja Test, must unravel the threads that tie these new crimes to that  long-ago nightmares. Soon they will learn that the truth is more twisted than anyone could guess, rife with secrets, cruel desires, and warped, deadly loyalty.

This book is the sequel to The Silent Girls that I read in July 2017.  I  enjoyed the first book and enjoyed this one as well. The book picks up where the first one ended.  It was very suspenseful and scary and had you wanting to keep reading far later into the night than you should.  There are twists and turns along the way and a quite surprising ending.  Highly recommend both books.

Is anyone else having trouble with blogger?  It's taken me ages, over several days, to write this post-very frustrating.  The text keeps jumping all over the place and the font changes at will.  So glad to get this finished and can't wait to hit Publish!!

Bye for now. 

It Must Be Spring!!

4 little visitors this morning!

Book 5

The Chilbury Ladies' Choir by Jennifer Ryan

As England becomes enmeshed in the early days of World War II and the men are away fighting, the women of Chilbury village forge an uncommon bond.  They defy the vicar's stuffy edict to close the choir and instead "carry on singing," resurrecting themselves as the Chilbury Ladies' Choir.  This story tells the home-front struggles of five unforgettable choir members: a timid widow devastated when her only son goes to fight; the older daughter of a local scion drawn to a mysterious artist; her younger sister pining over an impossible crush; a Jewish refugee from Czechoslovakia hiding a family secret; and a conniving midwife plotting to outrun her seedy past.

I enjoyed this book although a lot of it was very predictable.  It is written as a series of letters and diary entries by different characters in the story.  Through these letters and diary entries we see how the women in the village change and grow.  They seem to draw strength from one another.  For the most part the men are away at war and so it is left to the women to step up and take charge.  Easy reading.
Edit: Somehow this post ended up in my drafts and it should be dated sometime in March.

Books 6-7

The Little Old Lady who Broke All the Rules 
by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg

Martha Anderson may be seventy-nine years old and live in a retirement home, but that doesn't mean she's ready to stop enjoying life.  When the new management starts cutting corners to save money, it's the final straw in a life of early bedtimes and lost independence.  Martha and her four closest friends-Brains, Rake, Christina and Anna-Greta (a.k.a. the League of Pensioners)-decide to take a stand for seniors everywhere.  Their solution?  White-collar crime.  What begins as a relatively straightforward robbery of a nearby luxury hotel quickly escalates.  With police baffled and the mafia hot on their trail, the delinquent League of Pensioners has to stay one walker's length ahead if it's going to succeed.

The Little Old Lady Strikes Again 

by Catharina Ingleman-Sundberg

Martha Anderson may be seventy-nine years old, but she and her friends aren't afraid to break the rules.  Six months after making it onto Sweden's Most Wanted list, they're ready to continue their life of crime somewhere new.

In Vegas. they hatch a plot to outwit the security system at one of the city's biggest casinos.  However they aren't the only ones planning to steal bucket loads of cash.

They soon find themselves pitted against a gang of younger robbers with their own criminal plans.  Will the League of Pensioners be able to outsmart them and get away with its biggest heist yet?

These two books are both on the same lines.  Several robberies, different place, different items.  They are quite funny and extremely far fetched.  Maybe the League of Pensioners are every OAP's dream.  They get up to all kinds of silly antics and, of course, always come out on top but maybe not with the intended outcomes every time.  Very light reads.  Apparently there is a third book coming out-The Little old Lady Behaving Badly which I will probably read to find out what else they get up to!!