Category: Days out

Recent Reads: London’s Museums and Galleries; Exploring the Best of the City’s Art and Culture by Eleanor Ross

Posted on by Pam

My review:????

London’s Museums and Galleries; Exploring the Best of the City’s Art and Culture by Eleanor Ross is a great visual guide to London’s museums and galleries.  It shows you inside these places, so you have an idea of what it’s like, and is arranged by location, such as Central London.

I think this is a great book to use to plan your next visit to London, and being able to have a look at all the different places will give you an idea of the places that you might never have found on your own!

London’s Museums and Galleries was published on 6th July 2021 and is available to buy from Amazon, Waterstones and Bookshop.org.

You can follow Eleanor Ross on Twitter and on her website.

I was given this book in exchange for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and to Quarto.

Portsmouth MysteryFest 2019

Posted on by Pam
Earlier this year, I went to my first event at a literary festival, which those who know me will probably be surprised that I’ve managed to live this long without having gone to one!
Portsmouth BookFest, a literary festival, held in libraries in Portsmouth, and I went to a couple of events they held.  One was Afternoon Tea with Deadly Dames, which was a talk from 4 female authors of crime fiction!  

They had some prepared questions, and they each took turns answering them.  It was an interesting mix of indie published forensic murder mystery (Carol Westron), what looked to be popular crime books (Sue Fortin), gay historical mystery (Charlie Cochrane), and historical crime (Nicola Slade).  

The other was Portsmouth MysteryFest, which was held in Portsmouth Central Library, and was an all day event.  Yes, an entire Saturday of murder mystery lovers, all in a room together!

The audience was mostly female, and there was a series of talks, on subjects such as ‘Bodies in the Library’ by Jennifer Palmer (whom I’d love to link, but I can’t find a page for her!), how a lot of crime novels have things happening in libraries, including bodies being found there.  The examples were books such as Agatha Christie, ‘The Body in the library’, and Simon Brett, ‘The Liar in the Library‘ (which I’ve reviewed!).

Speaking of Simon Brett, he gave a monologue called ‘Lines of Enquiry’, which was taking a humours look at police procedurals, and all of their cliches.

Because I was at a book event, I felt it would be wrong if I didn’t buy anything, so I came away with three books, which felt a bit rude, as I had to choose between all of the authors who had come to the event!

I chose:


The Terminal Velocity of Cats by Carol Westron, who was at both events, and is a police procedural.

The Devil’s Daughters by Diana Bretherick, which is a historical crime book.

The Detective’s Daughter by Lesley Thomson which is a daughter looking into a crime her father investigated.

I’ve not read any of them yet, but they’re now on my lovely ‘To Be Read’ trolley, in my office!


If you’re interested, and to be fair to all of the author’s and others who gave their time, here’s the timetable for the day!

Panel 1 ‘In the Reviewers’ Hot Seat’ Authors Diana Bretherick, Donna Fletcher-Crow, Leigh Russell, Sally Spedding and Carol Westron asked questions by Mystery People Reviewers Dot Marshall-Gent and Jennifer Palmer.

‘Research for Crime Writers’ where Judith Cranswick discussing her lessons of how much research you need to do versus the amount of research you need to put in the book!

Simon Brett‘s monologue ‘Lines of Enquiry’.

Panel 2 ‘Single Offender or Serial Killer?’ Authors Jeff Dowson, Christine Hammacott, Graham Minette, Lesley Thomson and Linda Regan (moderator as well), discussed stand-alone crime novels versus series.  Series authors said it meant their characters can grow, stand-alone didn’t get bored of the characters.  This is an over-simplication, as not everyone would fall into one of these two camps, but we know that Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan-Doyle definitely did!

‘Authur Conan Doyle’s real life investigations’ – Laura Weston discussed the two cases that Conan Doyle looked at,  They were the cases of George Edalji and Oscar Slater.

Dot Marshall-Gent talked about ‘Victorian crime writing’, mentioning Catherine Crowe, who wrote Susan Hopley, for which there is an argument that it’s the first detective novel!

And last but not least, Jennifer Palmer talked about ‘Bodies in the Library!’

DediKated – An evening with Kate Somerville

Posted on by Pam
A couple of Friday’s ago, I did something pretty different for me – I went to an event in London at a pop up by Kate Somerville.  It was an evening with Kate Somerville and Caroline Hirons (who I credit with changing my view on skincare from being I’ll moisturise occasionally, to I have a routine that I do in the morning, and another for night), but she couldn’t make it, so Nadine Bagot stepped in.

I was going to the event as Caroline Hirons told her Facebook group (Caroline Hirons Skincare Freaks is the name, and I feel like that says it all!) about the event, which had space for 35 people.  We sold it out in 11 minutes.

So, I had a ticket to this event, and just had to count down the days until it, and dream of what amazing things could be in the goody bag we were told we’d get (I’m telling you now, I had no idea it would be so amazing!).

Anyway, Friday night, I’m in London, meeting other people from the Facebook group, and it was a lovely vibe! People were talking to each other about what they’ve tried, and what they loved, and we were all counting down the minutes until we could get in!


Nadine Baggot on the left, and Kate Somerville on the right
We were in, and we were trying to stay out of the way of the photographers, and the rest of the people in the room, who looked like they were working.  But, we were in the room!  Hurrah! 

Now, I should probably tell you a little about who Kate Somerville is!  She’s an American Aesthetician (beautician to you and I!), who started her own clinic in Hollywood, and offers treatments from facials up to PRP (the vampire facelift), Botox, laser treatment, light treatment, micro needling, and the list goes on!   

She also has a skincare range that is available to buy in the UK, and Caroline Hirons is a big fan of hers.  And if CH rates you, then I’m going to be interested!

Kate Somerville with some ExfoliKate on her hand
We all crowded into a little room, with Kate and Nadine perched on tall stools at the front, and we waited for everyone to file through coat checks.  Once we were all in, Nadine introduced the event, and Kate.  And then Kate Somerville started talking about her products, and it was so interesting to hear from her about how her mother used to give her goats milk baths, and that’s what started her to realise how good goats milk was for skin.

Kate passed around some products, like DermalQuench Liquid Lift and DermalQuench Wrinkle Warrior, and whilst so many of us were trying these on the backs of our hands, one bright spark near me was using it on her neck, which made complete sense, but still gave me the giggles as she was rubbing it in.

Kate also talked us through the products we were getting in our goody bags, and these were Goat Milk moisturising cream, ExfoliKate intensive exfoliating treatment, Deep Tissue repair, also known as Peptide K8 (but which I can’t find on the UK or US website, but it’s been around for a while as Caroline Hirons has raved about it!) and we could use the price of our tickets to redeem against something, and I chose ExfoliKate facial cleanser daily foaming wash.


All in all, I had a great time, and I’ve not even shown you around the venue yet!

It was 4 floors worth of wonder!  On the first floor, we had the event itself, with Nadine and Kate sticking around to answer questions and take photos, whilst people bought things!

The next floor up had a bar where you had your own gin cocktail made from the Oxygin bar (I had driving to do, and don’t really drink, so had a mocktail, which was delicious!), and this floor had the Hylauronic Acid products, swings and a bed in a wall!

The next floor up had doughnuts hanging on the wall, and was dedicated to glow, but had orange lights that really didn’t work well in photos!
And the top floor had the EradiKate products and the ExfoliKate products, a candy floss machine, and a bath with a waterfall tap, and a goat next to it.

I had a really good time, and would go again!  The downside of this is that I’m really loving Goat Milk moisturiser and ExfoliKate facial cleanser, so that’s going to be expensive when I need to replace them!  I’ve barely touched the Deep Tissue Repair as it’s really expensive, and I am quite nervous about loving it, and the ExfoliKate intensive exfoliating treatment is something I’m sure I’ll be using when it gets colder, and my skin gets drier!

Kirstie Allsop’s Handmade Fair

Posted on by Pam

On Saturday, my friend Vicky (who blogs over on Random Nerdery) and I went to the Handmade Fair, at Hampton Court Palace – we could see it in the distance at least!

As we were queueing in, there was a  performer with a ukulele and singing ‘Park Life’ by Blur – a good start to the day when you file in smiling!

The theme for the day was bunting….
Our first stop was the Mollie Mash-up with Jamie Chalmers aka Mr X-Stitch vs Lisa Comfort of Sew Over It – I hadn’t really known what was going to happen, but seeing that Mr X-Stitch was there was what sold it to me!

 I really need to start taking better photos – I’m afraid all of these were taken on my iphone! (5, not even a more up to date one!)

 Here we are – not the best picture (so shiny!) but definitely happy people!

This mash up was actually about turning a tote into something wearable, and both went for making aprons out of the tote bags.

I’m not going to subject you to all of the pictures, as they’re pretty ropey, but here’s a picture of the finished articles

Lisa won with her very impressive apron, but Vicky and I voted for Mr X-Stitch mostly because he made us laugh the most!

And then we were off to Sewing with Wire with Daisy May except there was a problem sourcing enough for all of us, and so we did finger knitting instead.

Before!

I’m afraid I wasn’t as excited by this as I’m sure I should have been – I can’t knit as it gives me RSI, and I’ve never been terribly interested in the idea of finger knitting.

Here’s my finger knitted bracelet
It was then that we realised that we had about 5 hours before our last class – we went with what we wanted to do, not our heads!
That meant we had ages for looking round the shops – hurrah!  I had already checked out where a couple of stands were that I wanted to go and visit!
First up was Hannah Bass Tapestries – I can’t remember where I found Hannah Bass originally, but I’ve loved her tapestries for a while – they are all maps of cities!
Look at the beautiful box!
When we got there, I was very excited to find that she actually had the London Underground tapestry with her – hurrah! It’s not been available on her website yet, but there it was, in person!

Look at how wonderfully it’s been packed up!

Next up, it was time to visit Floss and Mischief where I ended up buying the Turquoise Beetle – which is apparently one of their first patterns!
I promised Vicky that I would teach her to cross stitch, if she bought a small pattern, and she offered to teach me crochet, and so we were on a mission to find me a hook and wool, and Vicky a pattern that she actually wanted to stitch!
For Vicky, we found Bobo Stitch, who had a space rocket pattern, which fits in with her little boy’s bedroom.  And we found me a crochet hook and wool!
Cross stitch is a little easier to pick up than crochet, or at least I’ve found that the case!  Vicky did show me how to crochet, but as she is right handed, and I’m a lefty, it did make it a little difficult when she handed me some stitches to carry on – it all felt in the wrong place, which I think it technically was, and so I started again and had a play…. and then decided that I would have to spend some time with youtube when I got home!  Vicky made me a little sampler of some different stitches!  
My turn to teach cross stitch!  We were doing this on picnic tables, which we had to fight to find space on – there was oddly enough, nowhere set up for people to craft at, which felt very strange for such an event!  We managed, but we did have an audience who came and went, and watched with varying degrees of interest.  It was all part of the fun!
Vicky, learning to cross stitch

We still have over an hour and a half left, so it was time to go for a wander around the shops now that it had quietened down a little!

Crochet animals!

Crochet unicorn, just because!

 We wanted to go for a drink, and found chairs in the Deco Bar, which is gloriously 1920s!

 Vicky and I spent the day squabbling over whose turn it was to buy stuff, and at the Deco Bar, Vicky decided it was her turn, which was very lucky!  Vicky had taken her camera with her, and had been asked a couple of times why she was taking pictures, and when she explained that it was for her blog, one of the people she bumped into ( Kat Rayment of Laydey Katabella) who suggested going to the Press Tent, and learn how to take better instagram pictures!

A nerve racking couple of minutes later, we had downed our drinks, and were heading off to the Press Tent to get our lesson!

Louise from Bloved Blog and Sarah Hannam from Sarah Hannam photography gave us lots of tips, and then we had to take our own pictures!

What luck I had been wearing my Admit One brooch from Sugar & Vice!

We practically ran out of the Press Tent to make it to our last lesson for the day – needle felting!
Turns out, needle felting involves using something that looks like a punch with 5 needles on it, stabbed multiple times into felt and a bit of wool.
A beautiful picture, taken by Vicky of our felted flowers!

Once the class was done, that was the end of the day, and time to wend our weary ways home!  It was a fantastic day, and hopefully it’s the start of lots of them!  I’ve been too busy with college before this, but I’ve got my eye on the Knitting and Stitching show in October!

I’m a bit of a cross stitch fan

Posted on by Pam

I think I was introduced to stitching by my Gran, in birthday and Christmas presents.  I still have most of the finished items languishing in a bag, because I can never be bothered to make them into the finished article, or display them.  There  is only 1 piece on permanent display in my house, and that’s because my Mum had it framed!

The kit came from a trip my parents and 2 sisters took to the US years ago.

It’s only been in the last five years that I’ve re-discovered stitching, and found that actually, it can be fun, and that I want to show off what I make!

I found Cross Stitcher magazine, and started making their free kits, and then went on to more ambitious projects.

This is one piece from Cross Stitcher magazine that now goes up every Christmas!
I just need to go back to the one of London, and re-do the phone box in blue!

The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery was one of the first places I discovered that I actually wanted to buy everything from!  I signed up for their subscription packages that Christmas (2012, I believe!) after watching people having so much fun on facebook and instagram sewing the patterns, and then showing them off!

These were both released for people to stitch in late 2013, and yes, I am trying to fill the walls at Christmas time apparently!

I’ve liked making random bits for people, like Jen from Epbot and Cakewrecks when I sewed Princess Buttercup and Wesley from The Princess Bride, with the pattern from Wee Little Stitches on Etsy.

My works in progress would take up a much longer post, which I might do, just to shame myself into finishing something, and also as a reason to tidy up the mess that my stitching storage area is (no, really, I can’t show you a photo of that!)

But I will say that I love Felicity Hall’s Bird and Peony clutch and that I really really want to get one of Hannah Bass‘s maps – I want to do the light London one, and then each of the others, but I really feel I need to have visited first, before I can stitch them! Anyone else feel a lot of holidays coming on?

I’m looking forward to spending some more time stitching for this Autumn, especially as I’m visiting the Handmade Fair in September, and want to go to the Knitting and Stitching Show in October!

Hope this hasn’t been too boring, or that at least you enjoyed skimming the pictures!