feargal

Just finished Westwind by Ian Rankin, his earliest novel it think. Its a decent story, but very dated in part - one of the cars has (gasp!) central locking, much to the astonishment of the protagonist!

You're right Nightrider, its dreadful at the moment. The thing to remember with this part of the Loxley Valley is it is BROWNFIELD, not green field. It has been an industrial area for a long time.

The gulleys and drain covers outside GeeVee are in very poor repair. I've reported it a couple of times, but nothing gets done.

I've got a carrier bag full of crime novels and thrillers if you can make use of them Taxman. They've been round our reading circle, and are destined for the charity shop next. Just PM me an address and I will drop them off.

The first couple of Ben Elton novels were excellent - Gridlock, and Stark in particular. I've just finished "The girl who takes an eye for an eye" which is David Lagerkranz's second 'sequel', to Stigg Larsson's Dragon tattoo series. Very weak, with the characters all being everso slightly wrong... There was none of the dramatic build up of the originals, just rattling through a plot about the separation of identical twins for a nefarious psychological test.

Patricia, the missing woman has now been found

Our GPs have started calling the younger "at risk" group now too. The receptionist did mention that there's none currently available (in our surgery group at least) for general public who aren't elderly/at risk.

What was the problem that's keeping that scaffolding there at the junction of Chapel Walk/Fargate? It's been there forever, and you rarely see any work going on. It's such an obstruction, I'm surprised the Council has let it go on so long.

Not half! I expected to get a notification that the payees didn't match either from the machine (which I've had before), or once it had gone through clearing. Nothing! Luckily I'm not a scamster or a money launderer... To clarify as well, the name on the cheque was totally different to mine, so not the same surname, or a named child, etc.

The Natwest in the City Centre is awful now - you are greeted by a gatekeeper whose sole job appears to be stopping you seeing a real-life person, and instead funnelling you to a machine. I needed to pay a cheque into an account which is not mine, and doesn't have a card associated. The member of staff wouldn't even let me explain properly, and insisted on me using a machine, with my own card. I ended up paying a cheque in someone else's name into my own account, which then cleared (well done on that level of security!). I then had to transfer those funds via online banking... what a joke!

Emmaus are great, but they won't take damaged furniture, as they won't be able to sell it. The bed must have fire labels and mattress be clean and unmarked. It's worth emailing them with photos first. We did that with some pieces last year.

My condolences Jay - that's heartbreaking news.

I've got this one on the "to do" pile. I read her earlier one, "Boys, boys, boys, music music.."? Very good! I've just finished Orphea by Joanne Harris, which was short, but great. Beautifully illustrated as well. Also done and dusted this month was "Thin Air" by Ann Cleves. This was OK, but she's obviously running out of scenarios for murder in the Shetlands. I also ready "Not Dead Enough" by Peter James... his Roy Grace books are so samey, that it wasn't until I reached about 3/4 through that I realised I've ready it before! Need a quick charity shop to stock up for lockdown 2!

Looking good round there now, although there are still quite a few street drinkers and (fairly open) drug dealing still going on in the corners. Hopefully, with more footfall from the public, this will fizzle out. Who am I kidding, it will move elsewhere!

Is it dictaphone size? Amazon would be my first port of call.