Stuff and Nonsense

Review: The Girl Who Couldn’t Say No

Alison Neale — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 10:24:36 +0000

The Girl Who Couldn’t Say No by Tracy Engelbrecht My rating: 3 of 5 stars I enjoyed this Kindle book about the life of a girl who got pregnant at 14, but I would have liked it to go a little deeper into how she really felt and how people responded to her. The early [...]

Review: Into the Darkest Corner

Alison Neale — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 08:38:58 +0000

Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes My rating: 5 of 5 stars Picked this up as a freebie on Kindle ages ago, stuck it in my “freebies I may or may not get round to reading one day” folder and forgot all about it, till it was mentioned at a recent BookCrossing meeting. Decided [...]

BBC: Don’t axe Something for the Weekend!

Alison Neale — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:05:27 +0000

I was gutted to hear this afternoon that the BBC show Something for the Weekend (lovingly known in our house as Summat for the Weekend) is going to be axed when the current series finishes in March. Apparently it’s up for the chop because of budget cuts, and the BBC will be replacing it with [...]

Review: Nemesis

Alison Neale — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:52:33 +0000

Nemesis by Jo Nesbø My rating: 3 of 5 stars Harry Hole is back, this time investigating a bank robbery where the clerk was killed despite handing over the money. Along the way he finds himself involved in the suspicious death of an ex girlfriend, caught up with gypsies, travelling to South America and on [...]

Thing #42 completed – send someone a surprise parcel

Alison Neale — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:46:25 +0000

I spoke to my old school friend Sharon for the first time in months and she sounded a bit down in the dumps – she’s recently moved house and though she’s in a lovely part of the country she’s living in the middle of nowhere and miles from family and friends. So I decided to [...]

Review: Are We Nearly There Yet?

Alison Neale — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 08:44:43 +0000

Are We Nearly There Yet? by Ben Hatch My rating: 3 of 5 stars Very enjoyable tale of a family’s trip round Britain. Ben is commissioned to write a travel guide about travelling round Britain with children, so he and his wife set off for three months with their two young kids Phoebe (4) and [...]

My Thruxton driving experience day!! (Thing #37)

Alison Neale — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 20:04:01 +0000

My wonderful family surprised me with an amazing 40th birthday present back in January – a driving experience at Thruxton race track, where I’d get to take not one, not two but THREE cars round the track – a Porsche Cayman, a Lamborghini Gallardo (all £165,000 of it!!) and a Formula Renault single seater race [...]

Review: UNTYING THE KNOT

Alison Neale — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 08:08:56 +0000

UNTYING THE KNOT by Linda Gillard My rating: 3 of 5 stars Enjoyed this but didn’t warmed to the characters quite as much as I normally do in Linda Gillard’s novels. tying together the restoration of an old Scottish tower, needlework, post traumatic shock disorder and some very complicated family affairs, the storyline kept me [...]

Fact: not all Housing Benefit tenants are trouble!

Alison Neale — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 16:31:56 +0000

I’ve not had a very good day today. The house we are living in was meant to be a short term arrangement – we moved in a rush and we don’t much like the house, and it’s way too small for us. I’ve been keeping an eye on the local rental market for months now, [...]

NoNaNo

Alison Neale — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 14:52:18 +0000

So I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year after all. I made a good start on Day 1 – managed my 1666 words pretty easily. But then on Day 2 I was on a workshop all day, and I was tired when I got home, and Katie was back from Uganda and full of chat, and [...]