No football today!

 After testing positive for Covid_19 on Tuesday 15th, the first time I've tested positive, and I'm so grateful to be fully vaccinated. I will be missing only my second home game at Adams Park this season. I will be testing myself over the next couple of days to see if I can attend the Tuesday game, when Wigan Athletic will be the guests.

So, today will be an afternoon of listening to the game against Cheltenham Town on the new Wycombe Wanderers website #COYB

Reading...

 Or more accurately, not being able to get into much reading.

Since this whole Covid_19 epidemic has been around, I have been unable to really settle into any books apart from Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga, Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained. Both books are massive, yet I read through them in relatively short order. 

I'm now trying to read a 200-page Fantasy-SciFi book call Pilgrimage: The Book Of The People by Zenna Henderson, and have barely read 50 pages in the last month.

I may have to move on to something else

Call me

Some days:

We don’t need confirmation

Or approval.

Other days:

We all need support

Understanding and acceptance.

Today:

I need a witness

Shout my name in elation.

Tomorrow:

Call me,

I will support you too.

 

deceased

sap weeps, blood runs

an axe falls, bone shatters, wood splinters

a tree, a human, deceased

28/10/2019

To be in the country, 
on a chilling October morning. 
The fire is lit, 
the cat's curled up on his chair 
and I have coffee and a new book to read.

Another Tuesday! 09/07/2019

In 2016 I voted to leave the EU and escape all that is wrong with the European Parliament. The way it is run with un-elected leaders, some very strange ideas and proposals becoming reality. Even now now I see so much that is wrong with the EU and all it does but I have come to the conclusion that Britain is better off in, than out!
Once you open your eyes a bit, you see plenty in this country that has been funded, or part funded by EU funds. There are also plenty of human rights issues that I feel we would not now enjoy if it were not for us being a part of the EU.
Anyway, given the chance to vote again, I would vote to stay. Then maybe help makes changes from within.

The Tory leadership campaign is something that I personally think requires a General Election once the new Tory leader is elected. I am one of the many floating voters and I normally vote in General Elections for local issues and local candidates that I think will represent my area well. I can see nothing that would entice me to vote Tory at this time with these two self serving ministers currently running for the leadership and ultimately, Prime Minister.

The almost totally forgotten Lib Dem Leadership election carries on. With two almost totally unheard of MP’s as candidates. I do not worry so much about this election but I would like to see the Lib Dems back on the main stage in British politics. It is about time we had centre politics in this country instead of swaying left to right as it has done in the last one hundred years or so.

On a personal note, I’ve been busy in my partners garden, doing a bit of tidying up. Still more to do but getting there.

The Darkness by Ragnar Jónasson, Victoria Cribb (Translator)

Hulda Hermannsdóttir is being forced to retire early, told to clear her desk she has been given the opportunity to work out her last days looking into any cold case she wishes. She chooses one of a murdered asylum seeker, her body found washed up on a remote rocky beach.

To start with, she chooses the case as she feels it was not investigated properly in the first place. She thinks that the detective who ran the case is, at best, useless. Although there initially seems very little to go on, it becomes clear that there is more to the case. She goes back to the scene and the victims hostel, she discovers that another woman went missing a year before this murder. She was never reported missing but was thought to be still in hiding or left the country.

Along with this, Hulda has a new man in her life, the first one since her husband died some years before. Hulda has many secrets, her early life is told in snap-shot short chapters alongside her investigation and current life. Her new man is giving her hope for a future that she thought she would never see and eventually sees the retirement as the start of a new chapter in her life.

The investigation into the murder progresses but she is coming under increasing pressure from her superior to close the case and walk away. She will wish she had.

I’ve read the four Dark Iceland books translated into English and really enjoyed them. This new series in what is being called Hidden Iceland gets off to a fantastic start. This is definitly a page turner and the ending will come as a real shock. I had to stop, think, then reread the last few pages just to be sure I had read it right. Ragnar Jónasson is definitely one to add if you like Nordic Noir even darker.