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
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 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
