I consider myself to be most fortunate just now because I am almost finished an excellent book called My Friends the Miss Boyds by Jane Duncan. I say most fortunate because I had stumbled across a blog which referred to the My Friends books by this author and the next week found two of them (former library copies, so they weren’t as dear as they normally would have been – apparently secondhand Jane Duncan books are highly collectible) in the Glasgow shop Panoptican, which not only sells secondhand books but lots of lovely secondhand clothes, shoes, bags and knick-knacks.  I love the book and can’t recommend it enough…it’s just lovely. The narrator is nine-year-old Janet Sandison and she lives on a farm called Reachfar in the far north of Scotland (Ross-shire – a lovely area to visit if you can ever go). It follows the ups and downs of her life there, the successes and the tragedies (puir craiture Miss Boyd).

The second one is My Friends the Misses Kindness, which I will be starting next. The cover illustrations are by illustrator Virginia Smith and I think they have a very 50s feel to them.

What I also like about these books is that the author was originally from Renton, which is five minutes by car from where I live now. I will now look at Renton with fresh eyes!

Anyway, this week has been very busy as usual. My washing/ironing workload never seems to diminish and it is with a heavy heart that I tackle the dirty washing mountain every week. How can two little people like my kids produce SO MUCH washing?? Anyway, no doubt I’ll miss it when they grow up and leave home…yeah right! I hate ironing with a passion.

I’ve not been doing much else – well nothing of interest. I’m always super busy, but it’s usually because I’m doing boring stuff like housework. Anyway, this weekend we have friends coming for dinner and I’m planning a casual Italian inspired meal for them: home-made pizza, cold meats, olives, salad etc. These will be followed by New York style cheesecake (a fantastic Annabel Caramel recipe…I discovered her when I had my daughter and was looking for a book to help with weaning. Her recipes are generally very good, although I still don’t get the fish and orange juice one…mums who’ve used her books will know the one I mean).

Okay, enough of my moans. Am away to gut the house.  Speak to you soon.

Dawn xx

PS am still writing DI3 (chapter 17 is almost complete) and crafting (got my Killim cushion going, am still knitting that second blasted sock (it’s boredom that is keeping me from completing it) and am planning to knit a hat from Jane Brocket’s Gentle Art of Knitting for each of my two friends. I’ll share pics of them once finished.

PPS found out you can buy reprinted versions of some of Jane Duncan’s books at Millrace Books here.