Ahaaaah, it’s been a while! August has been a good one though. I’ve been spending most of it either holidaying at home, holidaying in Scotland or holidaying in the caravan. Back to reality tommorrow ( Oh No! ) , with a 7 hour cleaning shift at school. Can’t say I’m looking forward to it. Need to get my ‘ Back To Work Head’ on folks! Before I get back into blogging proper, here’s a quick look at my month…
Reading ~ Wils Mum passed this book onto me, I’m reading Pachinko slowly and I am enjoying this epic historical tale by writer Min Jin Lee. The novel is a sweeping family saga about a Korean girl who moves with her new husband to Japan , a country that is hostile towards the displaced Korean people. Family love and sacrifice are big themes in Pachinko. I believe it may have been turned into a TV series for Apple 🍏 TV.
Watching~ As usual I’m incredibly late to the party ~ Wil and I have just started watching the brilliant Boardwalk Empire. Has anybody out there watched this series? It’s an American Crime Drama set during Prohibition, full of Mobsters and Molls. There are several characters that the show centres around, I suppose the main one is dodgy city treasurer ‘ Nucky Thompson ‘ played by Steve Buscemi, who seemingly has the whole of Atlantic City at his feet. I found the first season on dvd at a charity shop and we are watching it at the Caravan, Old School, we don’t have wifi there. We are hooked, so I will have to look out for the other seasons, there are 5 altogether. At home I am just catching up on Shetland and seriously wishing poor old DCI Jimmy Perez finds some happiness in this series. 🙏
Eating ~ I’ve definitely been eating far too much lately! Hopefully being back at work will hurl me into a routine again and a New Start/ New healthy eating regime. Maybe…. Meanwhile here’s a photo of the most delicious cake I’ve ever tried. A friend’s sister baked her this amazing creation for her birthday. It’s a super sumptuous ‘ Ferrero Rocher Cake’ and wow, a slice of this was pure heaven. Soo good.
Holidaying ~ My family survived a weeks holiday together. We stayed in the most lovely fairytale castle called Knock Old Castle in Ayrshire, Scotland and hopefully I will be blogging about it very soon. Check out those turrets……
Birthdaying ~ A couple of lovely friends celebrated Birthdays in August. And also a certain Labrador Gentleman is now 8 Years Old. Which seems crazy, wasn’t he a wee puppy, only yesterday?? Yes Hugo is now in his early fifties, if you compare dog years to human years. 😲 Below Hugo poses with his Birthday Moose, only a few days after licking a jellyfish in Wemys Bay and costing us £90 in vets fees. Love you Hugo!
Walking and Geo Caching ~ Whilst in Scotland we got into Geo Caching , as something to do with the family. Wil and I have gotten quite addicted it seems , and have recently been wandering the Eden Valley looking for treasures ourselves. Have you ever tried it? It’s a good way of discovering new places. 🙂
Thanks for dropping by. I’ve got some blog reading to catch up on myself , so see you soon. 🧡
sunshine and celandines 
Looks like a wonderful month! Hope you enjoyed your trip to Scotland! We haven’t done Geocaching in soo long but used to about 15 years ago when we were first together.. must have a look and see what’s about now! Lovely catch up. X
Gosh has Geocaching been around that long? I do feel very late to the party. 😅 Could be fun to do again with your little ones. X
I loved Pachenko – such a fascinating insight to another country and time.
It’s a great story. I hadn’t realised the history between Korea and Japan.
What a wonderful post! Pachinko is a great book with a powerful message, but somehow I am averse to its TV adaptation. Hugo is unbelievably handsome.
Thank you for your comment 😊
I will probably just read the book. I know I do find watching a film or TV adaptation sometimes spoils things a little. Hugo knows he is a handsome chap I think, I tell him far too much. 😅
That Ferrero Roche cake looks amazing! Sounds like a month well spent and I’m looking forward to reading about your Scottish holiday. X
Thank you, I will try and write the post soon. I did love everything about my holiday. And thanks for your recommendations, I saw the little tapas place you mentioned, and wish we had got there. Another time I hope! X
It looks like you had a great month. I like Geocaching but Matt not so much. There are some great caches in the Lake.
That’s good to know, I think we are going to do it occasionally, not all the time, so it doesn’t lose its novelty value. 🙂
Happy birthday (belated) Hugo – we always say that yoga was invented by cats and geo-caching invented by dogs – coz our dilly dog loves caching. I think it is a combo of the walk then the too-ing and fro-ing when looking for the gz, she loves the sniffing and checking down holes etc. That ‘back to work’ feeling – urgh – you’ll be fine once you are back xx
Aw, I love that Moss is so into geocaching, Hugo usually just lies down when we start
and gives us funny looks. Xx
Happy Birthday, Hugo! I’m glad he didn’t suffer any lasting effects from the jelly fish.
Geocaching is very addictive. A great pastime, however. X
Thanks for the birthday greeting Jules. X
Looks like you have had a wonderful and busy August. The cake looks amazing. Yes, I hope Jimmy Perez finds happiness or at least smiles once or twice by the end of this series of Shetland:)
Let’s hope so!
This seems like it was a great month with celebrations and fun travels!
Naughty Hugo! As for that awesome cake 😋 – eat too much of it – end up being sick as a dog! 🤮 🤢
I only had one slice, don’t worry. 🙂
It sounds like you have had a very busy month. That cake looks amazing, as does your holiday accommodation, look forward to hearing all about your stay there.
Oh dear, back to work, but does sound as though you’ve had an enjoyable summer. Staying in that castle would have been amazing and we are a bit old school with watching stuff too, though I’ll tell you as I know at one time you were talking about Amanda Owen & her farm. We’ve just seen the first two episodes of “Our Yorkshire Farm” and definitely didn
t know more children had come along. I’ve read her book & think she was up to No.6 and now there are…… nine! Thanks for sharing, take care & hugs.
Looking forward to hearing about Largs. I don’t watch Shetland but always knew when this series was on because of the flurry of messages telling me about the library. Which is Shetland outside – and Glasgow Women’s Library inside!
Oh wow, I didn’t know that. The library has been featured quite a bit this series. 🙂
I remember a few months ago being told that I couldn’t go in because of “filming”. Now I know what it was!
Wow Hugo is eight!!!!
I know! Time flies.
We used to be avid Geocachers, even setting a stack of caches of our own. We don’t do so much now as Martin isn’t quite as mobile as he was, but we still do look out for them when we are somewhere new. I particularly the multi-cache type which takes you on a bit of a treasure trail of a new village or town looking for clues to the final hiding place 🙂
Oh great, yeh I would love to set up my own cache at some point. 🙂
Happy birthday Hugo, still as handsome as ever!
He is a beautiful boy. 🙂 Thank you.
The castle and cake look amazing. Poor Hugo.
They were. Hugo doing good. Think he is a bit tired still from the holiday though. X
Happy birthday, Hugo! I hope he has recovered from the jelly fish incident. It looks like you’ve had a lovely summer. X
Thank you! Yes, he’s good now , waiting for the next daft thing to try and eat. 🙂
Glad to hear you had a good August. Happy Birthday to Hugo, tell him 50 is new 40 😉
Haha, will do! 😉
Gorgeous puppy and the book sounds good! You’ve also given me something fun to watch! Thanks so much for sharing
Thanks very much for your comment,that’s great. 😊
Don’t we just love August? It’s my ‘escape the heat’ in the UK month with lots of family hugs and I’m always sad to come back here. We don’t have English TV and Netflix often doesn’t want us either so I don’t keep up with series but picking up videos or dvds from a charity shop sounds a good idea. I get most of my books there so will watch out next time. Hope September is kind to you.
Thank you Jo. Yes, we don’t mind reverting back in time at the caravan, so charity shop dvds are a good option for us. Especially for watching older shows that we somehow missed out on. Like Peter Kay in Phoenix Nights! Can’t believe I only watched that for the first time this year. X
🤣💗
I’m looking forward to reading about your Scotland holiday – I enjoyed your Instagram photos
Thank you.:) I am being a bit lazy when it comes to getting on with my posts.
Me too 🙄
Just catching up with this as I’ve been having some intermittent pc problems. It sounds like you had a busy but very enjoyable month. That cake looks amazing, I can almost taste it but can imagine it was the sort of cake you wouldn’t want to eat too much of.
I’m glad Hugo recovered from the jellyfish incident, you’ll have to tell him you’ll dock his pocket money to cover the cost of the vet’s bill 🙂 As for seven hours cleaning, rather you than me – my attention span in that respect is just about three hours, after that I give up 🙂
Haha I get you on the cleaning. My usual shift is 4 hours from 3pm but I also now do two hours early morning. Having them altogether was very waring! But it was only for one day. X
Ooh me! Boardwalk Empire Fan! I think the Mr and I still have a season to watch. I was all over this one for the vintage fashions alone. The castle looks amazing, will look forward to the post on that!
I’m also a bit off plan (read that as entirely off plan. There literally is no plan at this point) diet and exercise wise. I’m trying but temptation keeps tripping me up. I’m not very good at being good.
Ooh it’s good to find someone on here who has watched Boardwalk Empire. Still watching the first season and enjoying it. I am not good at being good either! X
In a similar vein, we’ve just started watching Game of Thrones. Still wondering a bit what all the fuss is about? (Oops, I maybe shouldn’t have said that out loud!)
Love that first photo!
Geocaching was briefly a good way to coax the kids out for a walk! These days we usually have to offer a swum, or a meal out.
Loved Game of thrones. It does actually get better once you’ve watched a few episodes. Then your hooked! Or I was.
Still quite like to do a bit of Geocaching, even when my niece and nephew aren’t with us. But not always.
What a lovely Labrador gentleman he is too. My choccy us 6 now. Middle aged, I keep telling myself. They are truly wonderful. Mine was the reason I srarted blogging. Lovely pics. Enjoy and thanks for the book recommend.