What a vacation! We are usually only gone for a weekend with a day or two on either side. This time we were gone for about ten days. We had a great time. The down side was coming home to a stack of phone messages to return and a foot high stack of mail.

Mayhem as usual was great fun! We had Thursday a.m. to visit the Heritage Museum. Chose that over the zoo because it was pouring rain. For lunch, we went to our favorite Ahmad’s Persian Restaurant and we weren’t disappointed. Ahmad…

By Guest Blogger Deb Baker

I grew up in the Michigan U.P. where my Yooper mystery series takes place. When I was looking for material for my first book, I thought my childhood was just like everyone else’s. But I gave it some thought and decided it had been a little unusual.

We had bugs the size of Volkswagen Beetles. One year my grandmother’s house…

Is it just me or is getting back into the normal routine post-holiday just hell? It feels like a non-day really, the calm before the storm of work. A space between two definite engagements. Groan. I was vaguely thinking of popping into the Quakers again today, but couldn't be arsed, frankly. So I have had a super-non-spiritual day tripping my way down the primrose path to sin. As it were. I think that might be some kind of Medieval image, but can't think where it comes from - possibly…

One of my earliest memories is of discovering the box of well thumbed paperbacks stored under my parent’s bed. They belonged to my late maternal grandmother, who, like me, had been an avid if reader with determinedly eclectic tastes.…

We're back! Had a great time on hols, once we'd finished with the rainy days. And in fact even they weren't bad either.



Holiday highlights included:



1. Lord H's comment that if people simply pressed the "off" button on the wind turbines, then everything would be much calmer. Not sure he's got the hang of what a wind turbine does. (I love 'em, by the way. They're soooo elegant - like giraffes in Prada).



2. Playing on the only hilly golf course in the whole of…

I'm one of those people who is impossible to buy for. I have to make lists for people, but often I have no idea what I want, myself. Other than writing time, and no one wants to believe that that is ALL I want. I don't quite understand - if I ask for it, I must want it, right? - but whatever.

So I asked for things for Christmas, but ended up returning them because 1) they weren't quite what I needed (yes, I'm also one of those people who only asks for necessary things) and 2) we were…

SPARE CHANGE (PI/Polc. Proc- Sunny Randall-Boston-Cont) - VG

Parker, Robert B. – 6^th in series

G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2007, US Hardcover – ISBN:…

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My throat starts to close and my hands get clammy whenever friends at a gathering start talking about board games. “Scramble! Boggle! I bet Naomi’s good at that,”…