Tag Archives: Weekend

The Door is Ajar: Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d by Alan Bradley.

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 9780345539960

Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d – Alan Bradley (2016, Doubleday Canada)

The eighth book in the Flavia de Luce mystery series packs a right-between-the-eyes knockout punch – and no, I won’t spoil it for you, other than to say this is an even bigger deal than her temporary “exile” in Canada, where she attended a private boarding school, solved a weird murder involving a body stuffed up a chimney, and learned more about her family’s connection to a secret organization which I shouldn’t discuss further.  (Go get book seven, As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust, and read it right now.  It’s a ragged and uneven go, but it serves as a decent set up for the new book).  In Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d, Flavia returns home to her beloved Buckshaw just before Christmas, to find that her father is ill and the household is unsettled and cold.  The accidental finding of the body of a wood carver while running an errand cheers Flavia up immensely, as she goes to great lengths and concocts elaborate lies to uncover the murderer.  Despite remaining endearingly irrepressible, Flavia is definitely taking on a more mature, experienced voice (if that can even be possible) as the series develops and she approaches her teenage years.

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What are you reading this weekend?

Flowery Friday.

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ssbgfpnormandeau

And I do mean FLOWERY! I was digging through my photo files a couple of days ago, when I came across this shot of one of the large perennial beds at the Silver Springs Botanical Garden here in Calgary, photographed on a trip I took out there in July of last year. A sight for winter-weary eyes, that’s for sure!

Flowery Friday.

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fppwsnormandeaupip

Here’s a flashback to a gorgeous sunny morning in mid-June, and these new Supertunias from Proven Winners were really putting on a show in my garden.  What do you think of the brilliant green edge on ‘Picasso in Purple’?

(You can preview the 2017 collection from Proven Winners here).

Alberta snapshot: Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park.

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gbrfpnormandeau

The leaves are turning so quickly this year!  (And falling, too). I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise…we had summer-hot weather in April and May, and the whole growing season felt completely accelerated.

Hope you have some time to get outside and enjoy someplace beautiful this weekend!

 

Flowery Friday.

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MSFPNormandeau

I have a lot of favourite roses, but this is my favourite favourite. I found this particular specimen of ‘Morden Sunrise’ at the Kootenai Brown Pioneer Village in Pincher Creek, Alberta, in mid-August.

Alberta snapshot: Beauvais Lake.

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BLFPNormandeau

Beautiful late day light at Beauvais Lake, near Pincher Creek, in southern Alberta. The fish weren’t biting last weekend,  but a view like that more than made up for it!

Garden horror.

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Procrastination is totally a good thing.  You always have something to do tomorrow, plus you have nothing to do today.

                             ~Some random Internet meme I found while procrastinating on social media.  

Shhh….don’t tell anyone…I’m supposed to be working on an article due in a couple of days.

But I’m thinking about Garden Horror instead.  (See yesterday’s post if you are blinking at the screen and thinking I’ve finally totally lost it).

So, ahem, I thought of a few titles for as-yet-unwritten Garden Horror novels (which also ties into yesterday’s post – please do go check it out if you haven’t already).  Of course, these may sound eerily (see what I did there?) familiar to some of you:

The Slug Also Rises

Apocalypse Bough

Close Encounters of the Larval Kind 

The Drawing of the Tree 

The Turn of the Yew

The Tell-Tale Bark

The Call of Kudzu 

Okay, I must be getting back to work…the ball’s in your court.  What Garden Horror titles can you add to my list?  Make me laugh – the article I’m at this very moment feverishly churning out at a breathtaking rate of speed is about plant propagation, and we all know how very unfunny that topic is.