January Reading Wrapup

Finally sharing my January reading wrapup, after a fairly hectic start to February. Last month, I sought out a few gentle, comfort reads to contrast the back to work blues and grim news.

Away with the Penguins by Hazel Prior

Away with the Penguins was my first read of the year, and what an emotional roller-coaster it was! I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the cantankerous and indomitable Veronica McCready as she embarks on a grand adventure at the age of 86 to Antarctica and learns so much about herself, others and penguins along the way. Parts of this were extremely moving, and reminded me of stories my own late nanna told me about how much society has changed in her lifetime. I’ll definitely be reading the sequel.

What You Are Looking for is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama

A lovely novel translated from Japanese that follows a group of characters all at different stages of life who visit their little local library, and get a personal recommendation from the enigmatic librarian. This is such a heartwarming, inspiring and comforting story about characters learning to see their own value and worth, working towards their dreams and learning to enjoy where they are on the journey too.

More than a Woman by Caitlin Moran

I’ve always considered Caitlyn Moran to be an opinionated, funny and sometimes vulgar big sisterly figure. I loved How to Be a Woman, which I read at a time when I was in a similar stage of life, and had been looking forward to her take on middle-age. As ever, Caitlin delivers an unflinchingly honest report of the joys, stresses and sorrows of life as she describes her work-life balance, housework, parenting teenagers, marriage, aging parents, botox and mid-life a fashion. I didn’t find this quite as politically astute as How to Be A Woman but at times this felt like such a reassuring chat and a cup of tea with an old friend.

Have a lovely week. X

January Notes and Hopes

My little blog has been gathering dust while I’ve been juggling my return to work with family life, but just finding some time to share a little post about some of the adventures we’ve enjoyed in January.

We started 2024 with a trip to Ayr Beach for a stroll along the shore with a rainbow arching overhead, which seemed like the loveliest symbol of hope for the New Year. A wrapped up New Year’s Day walk has become one of our traditions, and it’s been lovely to share it with our little daughters, who always love a trip to the beach whatever the weather or season.

We also took a trip to the Sea Life Centre, which we last visited when our youngest was just a couple of weeks old, but now a year old and walking, she was delighted by the fish, sharks, rays and otters. Our nearly four year old also enjoyed it, and was fascinated by seeing a real crown of thorns starfish, which are the villains in one of her favourite TV shows, The Octonauts.

Finally, we visited Loch Lomond one morning for a wee wander. While the kids played in the park, I admired the view and spotted some snowdrop growing under an oak tree. As much as I love the excuse to stay home and cosy in the winter, I miss spending time outside, so these winter walks and the little signs that spring is on the way always give me a boost.

I returned to work after the Christmas break, and it’s been a less smooth transition second time around because so much has changed, colleagues have been promoted, others have moved on, retired or passed away, and I feel like I’m ready for a change too.

Have a lovely week. X

2023 in Books

I read a total of 50 books in 2023, only reaching my target on the 30th of December as I underestimated how much time and concentration I’d have left for reading during my maternity leave.

The books pictured were my Top Five favourites, these are the stories I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since I read them. There’s some interesting overlap between my favourites with ghosts and the paranormal in both Hell Bent and The Hollow Boy, environmental themes through Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of the Dead and Leila and the Blue Fox, and aging amateur sleuths investigating murders in both Drive Your Plow and The Man Who Died Twice.

Overall I read 39 fiction books and 11 non-fiction. Most of the non-fiction books I read covered parenting/child development or environmental themes.

The fiction I read ranged across genres from children’s and YA to mysteries, fantasy and science fiction, and this year I dipped into the contemporary romance genre for the first time with writers like Jenny Colgan and Sarah Morgan. I’ve always been put off by the covers and a fair dose of literary snobbery when it comes to contemporary women’s fiction but was thoroughly captivated by relatable characters and the nuanced exploration of family, friendships and romantic relationships that I found in the small sample of stories I read. I also read four translations, one translated from Polish was a surprise favourite (Drive Your Plow), while the other three were translated from Japanese.

I borrowed 26 books from the library last year, a trend that I plan to continue this year as libraries are a such a brilliant community resource.

24 for 2024

I’ve picked out 24 books from my TBR to read in 2024, though I’m a mood reader and notoriously bad at sticking to reading plans. Many of these are sequels to series I’ve already started but some are books I’ve seen recommended by other bloggers and bookstagrammers and a few have been recommended by close friends and even one from my husband who mostly reads subjects related to his career and only reads a handful of fiction books a year. Spot any favourites?

Have a lovely week. X

December Reading Wrapup

Belated Happy New Year! I just managed to reach my reading target on the 30th of December after a very stop-start reading year, and will share my yearly wrapup and favourites soon, but first here’s my December reading wrapup.

The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi

This is often recommended to people who enjoyed Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows but was a poor imitation for me, the two lead characters felt derivitive of Kaz and Inej with their drawn out angst-ridden romance, and my favourite character was actually Zophia, who was written with autistic characteristics, struggling to fit into the team and navigate social situations, whom I found much more interesting and sympathetic. The story is set in an alternative version of Paris, but with a merging of science and magic that gives some people the ability to forge items with special powers and uses. The Gilded Wolves had a few good twists, lots of mystery and puzzles to solve, and some good action scenes but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I’d hoped and probably won’t read the sequel.

The Galaxy and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers

Perfect for Christmas, instead of a snowed in story, it focuses on five aliens stranded together on a pit-stop planet forging kindness, co-operation and even friendship across ideological and racial chasms. One of the aspects of this series that I’ve really appreciated is how well described the alien races are from their biology to culture, yet these stories offer such compelling explorations of humanity with this one covering colonisation, parenthood, reproductive choices and so much more. While other books in the quartet have brought tears to my eye, this one made me laugh out loud several times, and it was such an uplifting end to the series.

Midnight at the Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan

I loved The Christmas Bookshop and enjoyed returning to the story to find out what Carmen and everyone else was up to. This is a good sequel but the plot is a little contrived as misunderstandings drive Carmen and her Brazilian lover Oke apart, then another misunderstanding creates a wedge between Carmen and her sister. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the introduction of a new anti-hero, Jackson McClackerty, who owns a chain of tacky Tartan gift shops, which if you’ve ever been to Edinburgh you’ll know are everywhere, and loved getting to see more of the bookshop and the house above it.

The Vanishing of Aveline Jones by Phil Hickes

Set around the Winter Solstice, it seemed like a good choice to read over Christmas itself. The third book in the spooky children’s series follows Aveline and her friend Harold visiting her missing Uncle Rowan’s house as he has been gone long enough to be presumed dead. Aveline starts witnessing mysterious incidents almost immediately and decides to investigate. This has some genuinely chilling scenes as Aveline finds herself lured into a fairy barrow underground and trapped there by the cunning Fae. The plot does rest quite heavily on Aveline’s impulsiveness and foolishness, but it’s an enjoyable story of bravery and friendship with a few good scares.

The Christmas Bookclub by Sarah Morgan

I picked this up after thoroughly enjoying The Christmas Sisters. The story follows three friends who meet every year for a Bookclub holiday and the woman who runs the hotel that they stay at on this particular trip. I found parts of the story a little predictable but what I really like about Sarah Morgan’s stories are how relatable the main characters are and the strong, supportive female relationships between them as they navigate various personal dilemmas. This is an easy and uplifting read about friendship, change and new beginnings.

Betwixtmas ~ 2023 in Review

Taking some time over my morning coffee to reflect on the year behind and the new one ahead. 2023 was overall a great year for us as we enjoyed so many new experiences and adventures as a family of four.

In February we celebrated our oldest daughter’s third birthday, she has always been such a determined and independent little girl and over the last year she’s reached new levels, learning to ride a bike, playing football and learning Spanish at preschool. She’s a sociable child and we’ve loved meeting some of her little friends for playdates too. Her imagination has exploded this year and we’ve enjoyed lots of make believe games of doctors, vets, hair dressers and librarians with various playsets and improvised props.

Our first family holiday

In July, we took our first family holiday together spending a few nights in a caravan on the East Coast and spending every day at the beach with the kids, which we all loved. I also celebrated a milestone birthday, and it has provoked some reflection on what’s important to me now and what I’d like to do in the next decade of my life.

Over the summer we enjoyed lots of trips to the beach, local parks and time in our own garden too, letting the kids eat fresh berries they picked, and our oldest grew carrots from seed. We’ve made some big changes to the front and back gardens this year, adding a pond to the front garden and replacing the unruly privet hedge with a fence in the back.

Homegrown fruit and veg

In October, we finally returned to the Enchanted Forest for the first time since 2019, which was a first for both our girls. We also celebrated eight year anniversary for adopting Mara, I’m not sure I ever imagined we’d be so lucky when we adopted her without knowing her age, but I’m so grateful for her companionship.

In November, our youngest daughter turned one and started walking. She is quite petite for her age but smiley, quietly determined, curious and mischievous; she loves musical toys, games of peekaboo and snuggling up to read her lift the flap, and touchy-feely books together.

Christmas at home

This last month has been an emotional one starting and ending with funerals for two very different women but both of whom were much loved and who lived well. Despite the grief, we’ve managed to enjoy trips to the Christmas Market with rides on the carousel, ferris wheel and waltzers, snowball fights on a snow day and a lovely few days with our extended families for Christmas itself. We are now enjoying a few quieter days at home just the four of us and Mara, of course, with a few playdates to tide us over until nursery and work resume, and I’m feeling incredibly grateful for my little family.

Wishing everyone the very happiest New Year. X

Winter Solstice Reflections

Taking some time on the Winter Solstice to reflect on the build up to Christmas so far. December has been a bittersweet month, our festive preparations and fun bookended by funerals at the beginning and end of the month, it’s a very pertinent reminder that the most important things cannot be bought and never to take our loved ones for granted.

I’ve shown remarkable restraint in not overbooking our calendar and dragging my family to every Santa’s grotto, light show and pantomime. Yet we have enjoyed trips to the Christmas markets with full family rides on the carousel, waltzers and ferris wheel. We also attended our oldest daughter’s first nativity and Christmas show at preschool, which was lovely, if a bit overwhelming for the young cast.

Decorating the tree was no mean feat with our one-year-old daughter stealing the baubles, our cat chasing the tinsel and our nearly four year old daughter “helping”, but we got there in the end. I added two new ornaments to our collection for the tree: a wooden Santa, that I found at the Christmas Emporium in Pitlochry back in October when we went to visit the Enchanted Forest, and a Nordic Gnome (or Gonk) because our youngest daughter is fascinated by them.

We had a couple of snow days in early December, waking up to the muffled silence of snow blanketing our corner of the world. I was every bit as excited as our kids as we wrapped up to tumble outside throwing snowballs at each other and making Angels on the ground. It was a wonderful reminder that sometimes the most fun can be both spontaneous and free.

The festive season can feel stressful and overwhelming as we rush around buying presents and trying to squeeze in all the magical experiences, forgetting that the true magic of Christmas is often the warmth and comfort of our homes contrasted with the cold and darkness outside, waking up to the world blanketed by snow and just enjoying time together with the people we love most.

Wishing everyone a very merry Christmas when it comes. X

November Reading Wrapup

My library requests arrived early so read mostly Christmas stories in November, which worked out well as it was a cold, frosty and dark month that definitely felt more wintry than autumnal.

The Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan

I’ve been feeling oddly nostalgic for the years I spent working in a bookshop, though romance is a genre I’ve overlooked but this appealed to me because it reminded me of how my own husband and I met in a bookshop. The Christmas Bookshop defied all my expectations, it’s so much more then a romance, with a much greater focus on family relationships and personal agency than romance. When the department store Carmen has worked at since school closes down, she moves to Edinburgh with her over achieving, perfectionist older sister, Sofia, and starts working at a failing bookshop with the eccentric and reclusive owner. In many ways, this story feels like a love letter to Edinburgh with its idiosyncratic architecture and town planning, and I have to agree the Scottish capital is particularly enchanting around Christmas. I loved this story from start to end, and I can’t wait to read more by Jenny Colgan.

I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday by Milly Johnson

The Christmas Bookshop was always going to be a hard book to follow and this didn’t hit the mark for me. It follows six people who are snowed in at an abandoned inn in the middle of nowhere: there’s the couple who met at the wrong time in their lives and had a roller-coaster romance reuniting only to sign their divorce papers, the PA with a crush on her oblivious boss, and an aging gay couple celebrating one last Christmas together after one of them receives a terminal diagnosis. This is full of festive atmosphere but it’s a very slow burn romance and I was disappointed when the couple I was rooting for didn’t end up together and the heroine I really hoped would move on ended up with her love interest whose rapid realisation and personality change just didn’t ring true for me.

The Christmas Sisters by Sarah Morgan

This was more of a family drama than a romance, which was just as well as the romantic subplots all fell flat for me, but I was swept up in the McBride family’s Christmas reunion as all three sisters return home for the first time in years. There’s ambitious, successful and emotionally reserved Hannah, Beth who feels overwhelmed and lost in motherhood but feels guilty about wanting to return to work, and finally the most open and adventurous sister, Posy, who has never left home for fear of letting her parents down. This was an enjoyable read but quite cheesy and the personal and romantic dilemmas were all resolved a bit too easily.

The Deal of a Lifetime by Fredrik Backman

Having read and loved Fredrik Backman’s Beartown, I’ve been eager to read his other works but given the heavy topics he usually covers, I knew better than to expect his Christmas story to be cosy and heartwarming. The Deal of a Lifetime is a very short but haunting story about a man grappling with living and dying, his fear of death and his quest to build a legacy that will live on after him, until he has to choose whether to do something truly selfless even if no one else will ever know about it.

The Power of Showing Up by Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson

I ended the month by finishing a parenting book that I’ve been dipping in and out of for a few months. The Power of Showing Up takes a look at how to build a secure attachment with your children, explaining attachment theory and attachment disorders, before breaking down how to build a secure attachment at any age into four specific steps. I really enjoyed the informative and practical approach this book took to a topic that overlaps my personal and professional life.

Have a lovely week. X

Into the Embers

We’re into the embers of the year, which for us are always a balance of wrapping up warm for walks to feed the squirrels and ducks at the park, kicking our way through crunchy leaves and splashing in puddles before heading home for cosy evenings of warming meals, cartoons, crafts, bubble baths and bedtime stories.

We’ve been making an effort to get outside as much as possible whenever there’s a break in the rain to feed the squirrels and birds, or to play at the park. Our local park is particularly lovely at this time of year when all the leaves turn, and the fallen leaves create a colourful, crunchy carpet. I love the Scottish seasons and how they remind me to pause and pay attention to nature and the world around me.

This autumn has been filled with little adventures, time with our extended family and so many of the ordinary little moments that we often take for granted that make up the fabric of life. Reading the news lately I’ve been struck by how lucky I am to be able to play in the park with my girls, take my oldest to her football class and my youngest to sensory group, read bedtime stories together and tuck them in every night, it’s easy to take our relative comfort and safety for granted when it’s all we’ve ever known.

As autumn treads towards winter, our calendar is filling up with festive plans and we’ve made a few small preparations for Christmas, buying a few new baubles and decorations, baking our Christmas cake and picking out presents for people.

Have a lovely week. X

A Little Big Birthday

This week has been a big one in our little family as we celebrated our youngest daughter’s first birthday. We had a little party at home with her grandparents, she needed a bit of help to blow out the candle on her cake, but enjoyed chasing the balloons, unwrapping her presents and playing with her new toys.

In many ways she still seems like a baby, but in other ways she’s grown and changed so much in such a short time. In the last couple of weeks, she’s taken her first wobbly, wide-legged steps (though she still prefers to crawl most of the time), and shouts “Mara” whenever she sees our cat (and sometimes at dogs and squirrels too). She’s a curious, little explorer, who is usually into every unlocked cupboard and drawer while I try to keep up with the housework, and she’s covered in bumps and bruises from tumbling around, but she loves anything noisy or musical and playing peekaboo.

Our youngest adores her big sister and follows her around trying to join in with whatever her sister is doing, often wrecking the game in the process. For her part, our oldest has also taken the adjustment from only to oldest in her stride with only the odd wobble, and we’ve been so proud to see what a generous and fun big sister she’s become. It’s not always easy juggling the needs of two young children, but it’s definitely worth it, and I’m so grateful for it all.

Have a lovely week. X

Halloween at Glasglow

Last week instead of taking our girls out guising for Halloween, we visited our second light show of the season, Glasglow at the Botanic Gardens.

It’s always fun to see somewhere so familiar where we’ve strolled and fed squirrels during the day all lit up at night. The theme this year was “Ghostbusters” but there wasn’t any jump scares or other spooky parts that would upset the kids.

Our favourite part was actually inside Kibble Palace, a glasshouse home to the national fern collection, which had been filled with lasers for the event, it was spectacular.

Having been to a few different light shows over the years, and regular visitors to the Enchanted Forest in Pitlochry, Glasglow is one of the few that is worth visiting with a clear theme, making good use of the space, and conveniently located for us.

We’re disappointed that Elfingrove, the other winter event Itison hosts, will not be on this year as we all loved ice-skating and the ferris wheel but I’m sure we’ll find some other festive fun at the Christmas Market instead.

Have a lovely weekend all. X