My February Round-up.

 A little later than I planned but here is February. 

I started the month with a trip to London, literally. 

On the 1st I headed up to London on the train with Himself. He was off to meet one of his best friends to catch up and have his first ‘I’m allowed to drink again’ beer after his surgery. Whilst I was meeting Charlotte and Alex for a post-Christmas catch up, which included a trip to Spitalfields Market, somewhere I must confess I’ve never been before!

We met Charlotte at Paddington and caught the underground together to Picaddilly Circus where we parted, Himself off to the Lego Store and Forbidden Planet, Charlotte and I to the recently reopened National Portrait Gallery to meet Alex.  

First point of call once Alex arrived was the new café at the Gallery for a hot drink, then we took ourselves to the top floor gallery and worked our way down. 

                              (one of my gardening heros here Gertrude Jekyll)

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the newly refurbished building and wonderful re-hung collections up close.

We mused on the fact there are so many people from history you recognise immediately simply because of these portraits being shared in schoolbooks or on television.

The gallery done and an obligatory browse of the gift shop over, we decided to walk to Spitalfields with the idea of getting lunch there. 

Charlotte grew up in London, and used to work there for many years (in another life working for Coutts bank) so she took a bit of a sentimental journey past old workplaces, some long gone, recounting pre-technology tales of running between buildings with with paper slips for bank trading and pointing out various drinking haunts.

Unsurprisingly we all decided we were hungry long before we reached our destination, so diverted slightly to Covent Garden to find somewhere to eat. Something that proved harder than you would have thought. 

We finally found a branch of Franca Manca who managed to squeeze us in, three to a  two person table so not exactly ideal.

Thankfully the people at the table next to us left before our pizzas arrived, so we were able to pull them together and eat with elbow room. 

Full of pizza and with Christmas presents exchanged we headed out again.

I loved this astrological clock, it's amazing how you can walk past things many times then all of a suddn spot them.

Arriving at Spitalfields I was delighted to find a group of bronze elephant sculptures. On googling later I discovered they are called the Herd of Hope 

I left the others in the square whilst I walked around looking at them all. Each sculpture has the name of the animal it is modelled on and their story.

Pretty much all of the stories are incredibly harrowing, they are all orphaned elephant babies in the care of the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust so it’s a pretty sobering read next to a cute sculpture.

 

We walked round the outside of the market and past the gorgeous old Huguenot houses to Brick Lane, again somewhere I have actually never been before! It was absolutely packed with people. 

We walked up one side and down the other, only stepping into the bookshop, everywhere else was just crazy busy, most shops seemed to have queues, particularly the eateries. I  feel bad saying it but I didn’t really get what the big fuss is about Brick Lane, maybe I need to see it with less people there.

From there we mooched through Spitalfields market before deciding it was time for a drink.

Again, we hit the same snag of just not finding anywhere to go, but this time it was mostly because places were closed rather than too busy. We finally found a pub and managed to snag the last free table. Charlotte and Alex went to the bar whilst I found myself called for photographer duty to a big birthday party group in the same part of the pub. I always get slightly panicky about taking pictures on other people’s phones, especially as was the case this time, where I’m given multiple phones one after another to take pictures with. Hopefully at least a couple of them will have been in focus!

 

We had a couple of beers and a good catch up before it was time to head back to our respective trains home. I arranged to meet Himself at Paddington and sort of poured him onto a train home where we shared a custard pastry Alex had kindly bought me.

 

The next couple of weeks were full on busy with work, I’m guessing I would have gone out for a walk at some point over the weekend but otherwise, same old same old.

 

Saturday 15th Soo and I had a date in the diary, we had thought either a walk or a mooch around some shops. Soo got in touch and said she really wanted to go somewhere and see swathes of snowdrops and suggested Batsford Arboretum.

Batsford Park was at one time home to the Mitford sisters and the arboretum does give a wonderful view down to the house. 

The weather was initially meant to be good but by the time Saturday came around it was raining. We decided to go anyway and had a lovely walk despite the showers. 

It was well worth it for there were indeed swathes of snowdrops.

We managed to time it so that we were heading back to the garden centre and café as the rain got very heavy. Just outside the garden centre we spotted one of the outhouses was labelled as a museum of gardening implements so we swerved in to have a look. It was actually fascinating, and as one keen gardener and one non gardener, we both thoroughly enjoyed looking round.

 

We had a browse of the shop, used the facilities, and then had a quick look at the lunch menu fancying something warming like a jacket potato or soup. We both felt that £6.95 for a bowl of soup was a bit steep so decided to drive into Morten-in-Marsh and get something there. 

As it turned out apparently that was cheap for a bowl of soup! Every eatery we passed got slightly more expensive to the point we started looking at what they were charging for a bowl of soup first, the priciest being £12 for soup and bread at Huffkins! 

The joys of being in The Cotswolds tourist territory. In the end we found a little café with homemade quiche which Soo fancied whilst I went for a cheese and mushroom omelette. We shared a slice of homemade Biscoff cake.

I had to head home fairly soon afterwards as Himself and I had a table booked for dinner in our favourite pub. My train was slightly delayed meaning I literally got in and had enough time to make a cup of tea and drink it whilst I got changed before we headed back out into the rain. Our dinner was delicious, and I ate too much so it was a good job we walked there and back. By the time we left for home it had finally stopped raining and it stayed dry the rest of the weekend so we went out for a walk on Sunday.

 

The following weekend thankfully the weather was good which was perfect as I wanted to attack the very overgrown honeysuckle & jasmine at the bottom of the garden and try and fix the broken trellis they had pulled over.  

We have a garden waste wheelie bin which we pay an annual fee for, this house also has one, so technically if we have lots of green waste, we can put out tweo bins every other week. 

As of April the 1st we are due to get a new permit that you have to stick on top of the bin. Any bin without a permit won’t be emptied. Knowing we only had a couple of collections left before this comes into play, and that hacking down the very overgrown plants was going to make loads of green waste, I wanted to take advantage of still being able to use both bins. 

It took longer than expected, but once it was cleared, we managed to get the trellis upright again and wire it onto the fence so hopefully it stays that way, I completely fill both green waste bins. It was tiring but very satisfactory work.   

 

I can’t think of anything new I have watched or off the top of my head any new purchases other than some brooches from the latest Erstwilder release. I have definitely become an unashamed Ersty collector!   

As a lifelong gardener I was hardly going to miss this amazing collection by Jocelyn Proust. I have already worn all bar the hydrangea.

I did spot this heartshaped noticeboard thing in a charity shop window when I walked into town for something. I thought I might be able to convert it into a new bigger frame to hang earrings on so bought it for the princely sum of £3. I bought a roll of mesh online for £12. 

One pair of broken wire cutters and plenty of swearing later I'm please with the result. 

I have hung all of my larger/quirky earrings on there now, having worn them all first. I decided it was a good time to sort out my earrings by wearing them and deciding if I still liked them or not. The above ones have made the grade.

I wonder how long it will take me to fill it...   

   

Now I  am wearing my way through the rest of my dangly earrings 

Is this the time to confess this isn't even all of them,

and this also doesn't include my smaller pairs of hook earrings 

or any of the stud earrings I own...

You might now understand where the name of my blog comes from, once a magpie always a magpie!

 

January Plus Fashion and Film

 Hello hello. I’m determined to get back to at the very least posting a monthly round up.

Before I plunge into January I wanted to dip back into November and the wonderful exhibition 

‘Outlaws : Fashion Renegades of 80’s London’ at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London.  

My friend Charlotte and I seem to have got in the habit of doing an exhibition of some sort for her birthday (yes we already have this year’s planned for October!)  This was the exhibition of choice for 2024.

Whilst I was too young to be part of the scene to begin with, and later not into the music, I was definitely gigging and clubbing in London during the later part of the 80’s (on the Rock/Glam Metal scene.) Meaning I certainly knew of the existence of the clubs and designers this exhibition focuses on and even visited some of the shops mentioned.

Mainly focused on Taboo the club started by Leigh Bowery who’s dress code was ‘dress as though your life depends on it, or don’t bother’, it is small and perfectly formed exhibition and we had a wonderful time spotting outfits we had similar (probably knock off versions) of. 

It was such a trip down memory lane took me right back to the hours I spent altering, modifying, and adorning t-shirts, jackets and jeans to make them unique. 80’s clothing gets such a bad rap and to be fair a lot of it was terrible, but it does mean you do forget that it wasn’t all bad.

I had also forgotten just how creative this era could be, and how creative I was, adding embellishments, stitching, painting, and taking some of my ideas as an art student onto my clothing.

I particularly loved the part of the exhibition that had items of clothing loaned by musicians of the day displayed alongside a video screen showing clips of them in their video or on Top of The Pops wearing that item.

The exhibition was fairly busy when we were there, and we both noted with interest that there were far more men than women there! It runs until the 9th March and if of interest I strongly recommend going if you can.

 

Back to January which started wet and miserable. We had planned to go to The Fleur for their annual New Year’s Day folk musician session, Himself was just about up to walking the mile and a half there if we went at a steady pace but the torrential rain put paid to that plan, so we just chilled at home instead. I was back at work the next day anyway, with January as ever being our busiest month. A lot of my colleagues took the extra two days off work, but personally I prefer to ease back into the chaos for a couple of days before starting a whole week.

 

Luckily, I had something to look forward to on Friday the 10th, an outing to the theatre with Soo and Melissa to see Joseph and his Technicolour Dreamcoat. 

I haven’t seen it for years now so suggested it as soon as I saw the advert.

It's such a joyful uplifting musical and just what you need in a cold and storm battered January. 

We met for a quick drink at The Grapes before heading to the fairly new restaurant 100% Pasta at Gloucester Green. Sadly they had no filled pasta that night and I couldn’t go for the aubergine dish as it has red pepper in it, but the tomato based one I settled on was delicious and we were all naughty and had a desert too!

The show was wonderful, it was a fairly small touring cast with no celebrity starring, which meant some of the cast played more than one role, but it was slickly done and the singing and dancing was fantastic. 

It’s just such a joy you can’t help but come out beaming. As we parted outside the theatre and I headed back to the train station, all the people around me were singing bits from the show and someone even sat at the piano on the station concourse playing a medley and entertained the crowd, which is of course why the piano is there. 

I must admit I love it when people start playing something on the piano, though not so much when little children just attack the keys!

This was the right in the middle of that really cold snap between the named storms, so it was absolutely Baltic walking home. I was straight in the kitchen for a cup of tea when I got in, to help me defrost. The joys of being decaf means I can now tea before bedtime without the caffeine keeping me wide eyed all night.

 

The next day was crisp and bitterly cold with freezing fog making crystals in the air and a heavy frost that had built up over a few days. I hadn’t been out for a proper walk since Himself had been in hospital so the siren call to go out with my camera proved too strong. Himself wrapped up well and came with me, his post-surgery slow pace meaning for once he wasn’t getting fed-up with me constantly slowing him down by stopping to take pictures or to look at things. 

It was gorgeous but I was very happy to get in and have a huge mug of hot chocolate. I treated myself to some 72% dark chocolate flakes from Knopps. I love hot chocolate but never buy it when I’m out and about as it is inevitably way too sweet for me, the darker the better as far as I’m concerned.

 

The next Monday I had my annual thyroid blood test and was left with a massive bruise that took 2 weeks to clear. Thankfully all is well and there is no need to increase my meds.

 

We also went to see the most recent Paddington film. Despite having enjoyed the first two films, Himself had seen the trailer before Christmas and decided he didn’t want to go because he thought it didn’t look very good. I could have gone on my own of course, but instead I just grizzled because he refused to go with me.

 It turned out they were showing it at 11.30pm one Sunday so Himself asked me if I still wanted to go “Off course!” was my reply so he booked us tickets.

I loved it. Not as much as the second one, but that would take some beating. It’s just such a joyous, funny, feel-good film. With all the horror going on in the world, it’s good to have such escapism. Himself was also pleasantly surprised and enjoyed it too.

 

The last time we had been to the cinema was when I dragged him to see Lee which he did not enjoy anywhere near as much, not knowing anything about Lee Miller. 

I have known about Lee Miller as a model turned photographer due to my interest in the 1920’s/30’s and WW2, but as soon as I saw Kate Winslet being interviewed, I was sold. She was so passionate about telling Lee’s story despite it taking her seven years and a lot of her own money to finally get the film made. 

I knew Lee Miller went to France and Germany as the war was coming to a climax, but I had somehow forgotten that she took the first powerful and harrowing pictures to be sent from the liberated concentration camps. Things this world needs to be reminded of I feel given the way we seem to be going.

 

The last week of January saw us heading back to the hospital for Himself’s follow up appointment with the consultant. The prognosis is thankfully as good as it could be, there will be follow up scans every six months for the time being, eventually going to every two years for the rest of his life, but at this point no further treatment. 

I can’t begin to tell you what an incredible relief that news was. Definitely the way I would want to start a new year that is for sure.   

 

I finished the month with a big staff event at work where I helped man the table for our staff LGBTQ+ group Iridescent. Again, in the world we seem to be living in right now it feels more and more important to support, and well, to just be kind.

I'll sign off with my January purchases. Other than undies from M&S and socks from Seasalt, I needed to replace my Clarks Orinoco boots and when I saw 50% off shoes in New Look I dived in as I had fallen for the black boots when they were in the window months before. The size six were a tad tight so I went with the seven and I have to say they are a little large but super comfortable and they were also less than half price when they went through the till = result! 

The brown pair were 50% off in the Clarks sale but it wasn't until they had an additional 20% off that I crumbled. I gave them a good eight mile outing in London on Saturday and thankfully me feet lived to tell the tale.

I bought a couple of dresses in the sales

and some brooches and earrings. The space hamster got a lot of love at work!

Finally  my new t-shirt for pilates, I could not resist it when I saw it

I'll be back soon.

December and The Annual Reading List

I’d like to start by wishing you a Happy New Year. Here we are in 2025 and who knows what that might bring but as ever I’m hoping for better things.

 

I did have a round up post for October pretty much ready to go and had already had thoughts for the November round up but as ever life conspired against me. 

To put it simply, Himself has been waiting for a date for some major surgery since September, which has meant not really planning anything new, whilst also trying to carry on as normal until the date came through. After the window of time the hospital had given had been and gone, Himself started gently pestering and finally got a date for the 10th December. A couple of weeks later that got postponed, but thankfully only by one day, to the 11th. So we did our Christmas shopping, and card writing, and all that other stuff early and I tried not to worry too much. Ha.

 There was a pre-op three weeks or so before which went well, it was then just a case of trying to keep Himself well and praying the date didn’t get cancelled again. 

We had one delightful final blow out on the 30th November when our friends Dan and Melissa invited us and three other close friends to dinner. It was such a lovely evening, with fabulous food and wonderful company. I don’t think we stopped laughing from the moment we stepped through the door. Just what was needed.

 

Once we realised the date wasn’t going to come through by the end of October we did decide to have a short break in Bristol for our anniversary. We were going to stay at the Premier Inn, but then I found a deal for the Marriot on College Green that was only slightly more expensive, so we decided to go there instead. What a cracking decision that was! (Wallace and Gromit reference there) 

When we got to our room, we were convinced there had been some sort of error, but no we had been checked into a suite! 

I swear it was bigger than the whole downstairs of our house!! Absolute bliss. 

The view from our window, not too shabby at all. For some reason I was singing Vienna by Ultravox after looking at this view.

We had no plans and just wandered about reacquainting ourselves with the city. Himself had booked a table in a highly recommended little Italian restaurant for dinner where we had a delicious though speedy meal, I’m not sure if their service is always that quick but it would have been nice to have eaten at a more leisurely pace. That was my only niggle though and we would definitely go there again if we were in town. Finding ourselves back outside with more time that we expected we headed to The Gryphon pub and ended up staying there for the rest of the night due to the magnificent old school heavy metal playlist and very decent beer.

The next day we took ourselves off to Clifton, where after the obligatory walk along the suspension bridge we just took an amble about. I was surprised to spot a huge Jolly Roger flag hanging in a charity shop. I called Himself back to see it and of course I went in and bought it! The lady at the till said somewhat doubtfully “It is £5” when I asked if I could buy it. I couldn’t hand my money over fast enough. My plan was to use it to adorn the wall in the downstairs toilet, but it turns out it is actually way too big, so it’s currently draped in the passageway leading to said toilet until I find the ideal place for it, and I will. There was some amazing street art around the city.

and we even got to catch some being created

It was a lovely couple of days.

On the 11th December we had to present ourselves to the hospital at 7am so my brother very kindly gave us a lift before heading off to work. I have to say once they started, the processing happened pretty quickly with no one seemingly quite able to believe that Himself didn’t have any pre-existing conditions, didn’t take any medication and had no allergies. 

I got to meet the anaesthetist and the registrar as well as the consultant who would be performing the surgery. The later reassuringly being one of the top 2 in the country in his field, which was the reason we had to wait so long for a date.  

By about 8.30am Himself was being wheeled off to be knocked out and I was waiting to catch a bus back into Oxford.  

I had been due to have lunch with my friends Simon, Carole and Liz, and at first, I did dither about cancelling but knowing I would only have climbed the walls at home waiting for news, and on Himself’s suggestion I kept the appointment. It was a good move because their company certainly helped keep my mind off things.

After a lovely meal in our local Italian I headed down to the station with Carole and saw her onto the train towards Reading, whilst I caught the one to Oxford. 

As the surgery was scheduled to take 3-4 hours and the hospital stay was due to be 2 days, I fully anticipating Himself to be out of recovery and ready on the ward by the time I got there. It was just before 5pm as I was walking through the city centre trying to figure out which bus-stop I needed when my phone rang. It was the registrar to say the surgery had been more complicated than expected and they had only just finished.

Let’s just say this wasn’t the only complication, indeed as I have told people since this is the most dramatic Himself has been in all the years I have known him! Not only was the surgery 5 hours longer than expected, he then decided to go into shock that night. Once stabilized and on the ward, not only would his drain not play ball, he also got a fever so had to have IV antibiotics and stay in hospital for 8 days. By which point he was champing at the bit to come home, and I was utterly frazzled from working full time, travelling to and from the hospital every day, which took up to 2 hours each way depending on buses and trains, then the round of messages and calls to family and friends once I got home. Not to mention the stress of it all, it’s certainly been a crazy few months.  

Thankfully, just in time for Christmas he was home, with the first task being to shove all his hospital smelling clothes into the wash and tape a plastic bag over his various holes so he could have a shower! (thankfully they were able to do keyhole, so the recovery time is shorter.)

I managed to nip out for a quick lunch with Charlotte to exchange pressies, and Soo popped round here to say hello to the invalid and drop off and pick up pressies. 

By Christmas Eve he was well enough for me to leave him for a few hours to go round to my brother’s for a few festive nibbles and prosecco as they were due to be away over Christmas. Mum drove me home and chatted with Himself whilst I loaded up the car and we headed home with her for a few days. I’m not going to lie it was wonderful to be spoilt for a few days.

Nephew Number One and his Fiancée came over on Christmas day evening and also stayed the night. Not only did they get engaged on his 30th in October, they are also now proud cat parents to a gorgeous 8year old rescue kitty called Maisie.

We had a lovely chilled evening eating and drinking and watching Gavin and Stacey, the nephew and I are both huge fans.

 

Himself and I have been taking gentle strolls every day so by Friday he felt able to accompany Mum and I to Thame for a slow walk up one side of the high street and back down the other, stopping for a sit down and a coffee, before grabbing some groceries and heading home. 

The horrible fog that had been blanketing most of the country started to settle down our way too so we pretty much just unloaded Mum’s food shop, loaded our bags in and Mum drove us home before it got dark.

 

We spent the rest of the Christmas break quietly. Still walking every day and slowly building up the distance until Himself is now up to 3-4 miles though at a speed of about a third of his usual pace. His stitches have pretty much all fallen out and other than having to inject blood thinners every day for another few weeks he’s doing really well. He will be back to work next Thursday though at reduced hours. They said it will take 4-6 weeks to come back with the results of the lesion they removed from his kidney and then we will know next steps.

 

I had hoped 2024 was going to be a better year but there you go, maybe 2025 might be a bit kinder than the last 2 years, I have everything crossed…

 

I’m going to finish up with my usual round up of my reading list for 2024. You may or may not recall that I started 2024 stating I was going to a) try to buy less books, b) get rid of the ones I didn’t enjoy or would never read again and c) aim to read my bookshelves. I had books that have moved with me four times now, and have either not been read in the intervening years, or at all.

Well, the first part of my declaration has been a monumentally epic fail! I may even have bought more books this year than in any previous year I can think of – oops. 

The second part I can confirm I have stuck to religiously. Many trips have been made to either a local charity shop, the book shelves at the station, or Oxfam Book Shop in Oxford with the more worthy/valuable tomes. 

The final part has been mostly successful. I have read many books from my bookshelves, got rid of quite a few, discovered some old friends, Maeve I’m looking at you, but possible not read as many as I had hoped I would. I had other new purchases to be reading. 

Anyway below are the books I read in 2024 and my ratings for Goodreads where I shelve my list.

For the first time in all the years I have been using the rating system I actually managed to give a book a 0! 

That was Barbara Cartland’s autobiographical We Danced All Night. 

After Kate Atkinson said it had been hugely useful resource when she wrote The Shrines of Gaiety, I decided to give it a read and found a copy on Ebay. I’m genuinely at a loss to understand how, it is so badly written it’s practically unreadable, I wondered if she was being ironic/joking?

The Patricia Wendorf books were a prime example of ones I’ve moved with me several times. I seem to recall really enjoying them at the time but have never read them since, I can only imagine this is another example of how my reading taste has changed and evolved over the years as I had to plough doggedly through them and gratefully stuck them in the charity bag once done. 

Similarly, the early Lisa Jewell books. I have always enjoyed her books and will snap up her latest as soon as it comes out in paperback, but I had never gone back to the very early ones where her focus was very much light chick lit, rather than the dark psychological thrillers she is more known for now. Apart from a couple which I did keep the rest also hit the charity bag. 

I picked up Maeve Binchey with some trepidation as her books really are my not so guilty pleasure. Would a re-read of some of the early books also let me down? 

Thankfully not, they are still an absolute delight to read, and whilst I did pass on the knackered old charity shopped copies of some, it was not before I had ordered new copies. I also bought a couple that I was missing so I now have a complete set which gives me great joy.   

2024 was the year my favourite author Kate Morton brought out a new book and it didn’t disappoint. That was my flight to New York treat. I love to save a special book when I know I have a long-haul flight so I can spend a delicious uninterrupted 8 hours reading. 

My in New York purchase was 'Fifth Avenue, 5am'. I spotted it in the book shop in the New York library and treated myself. No regrets I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Apart from the Elly Griffiths and Richard Osman books which I will always buy hot off the press, all the other books I gave a 4 were ones I spotted on offer from one of the two book clubs I’m part of. 

Women Vs Hollywood was a fascinating read and Cake: A Slice of British Life was an absolute joy.

 

So my reading resolutions for 2025, I give myself permission to go on buying books as and when, because heck life is tough and they give me joy, but only on the proviso I continue to move on the ones that I know I will never look at again. 

I think this year I also need to give myself permission to give up on bad books. Life is too short to read a bad book when there are so many other good ones clamouring for my attention.

 

Favourite book type quote for 2024. A publishing house asked on Twitter/X for ideas for a vampire novel. In my opinion the best by far was “ A woman deliberately gets bitten by a vampire so she can live forever and finally get through her To Read pile”    

  

My Christmas gift book pile, followed by

my first pile of book purchases for 2025!

       

Larksleve - Patricia Wendorf 2

Blanche  - Patricia Wendorf 2

The Cove - L J Ross 2

Bye Bye Blackbird - Patricia Wendorf 2

Light a Penny Candle - Maeve Binchey 4

One Hit Wonder - Lisa Jewell 3

Thirtynothing - Lisa Jewell 1

Homecoming - Kate Morton 4

Fifth Avenue, 5am : Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's and the Dawn of the Modern Wonman - Sam Wasson 4

31 Dream Street - Lisa Jewell 2

Ticket to Ride : Around the World in 49 Unusual Train Journeys - Tom Chesshyre 3

The Hidden Years  - Rachel Hore 2

Full House - Maeve Binchey 3

Evening Class - Maeve Binchey 4

Quentins - Maeve Binchey 3

Vince and Joy - Lisa Jewell 2

George Michael : The Biography - Rob Jovanovic 2

A Friend of the Family - Lisa Jewell 3

Letters of Note : Cats - Shaun Usher 2

The Last Devil to Die - Richard Osman 4

Pirates and Privateers in the 18th Centuary : The Final Flourish - Mike Rendell 3

Capote's Women : A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era - Laurence Leamer 3

The Glass Lake - Maeve Binchey  4

Women vs Hollywood : The Fall and Rise of Women in Film - Helen O'Hara 4

The Ghost Ship - Kate Mosse 3

Seasons at Highclere: Gardening, Growing and Cooking Through the Year at The Real Downton Abbey - Fiona Carnarvon 2

Star Sullivan - Maeve Binchey 2

The General History of the Lives, Murders and Adventures of the Most Notorious Pirates - Charles Johnson 2

The Return Journey : Stories - Maeve Binchey 3

A General History of the Robberies and Murders of The Most Notorious Pirates - Charles Johnson 2

The Blue Bedroom - Posamund Pilcher 2

Flowers in the Rain and Other Stories - Rosamund Pilcher 3

A Place Like Home - Rosamund Pilcher 2

Sherlocks Sisters : Stories From the Golden Age of Detective Fiction - Nick Rennison 4

Sleeping Tiger - Rosamund Pilcher 2

Coasts - Ruth Binney 4

A Notable Woman : The Romantic Journals of Jean Lucey Pratt - Jean Lucey Pratt 2

The Great Deceiver - Elly Griffiths 4

The Last Word - Elly Griffiths 3

A Week in Winter - Maeve Binchey 3

Women in War - Lucy Fisher 3

Shrines of Gaiety - Kate Atkinson 3

The Midnight House - Amanda Geard 2

We Danced All Night - Barbara Cartland 0

The Man in Black and Other Stories - Elly Griffiths 3

The Women Behind the Few: The Women's Auxiliary Air Force and British Intelligence During the Second World War - Sarah-Louise Miller 3

Cake: A Slice of British Life - Andrew Baker 4

The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder - C. L. Miller 2

And it Happened on Beaumont Street - Various 1

The Travelling Cat Chronicles - Hiro Arikawa 2

At Christmas we Feast - Annie Grey 3

A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs - Ellis Peters 3