Book Blogger Hop July 17th to 23rd

How does book blogger work? Follow this link to find out.

Each week, although I’m going to aim to participate monthly, there is a question.

Here’s this week’s question:

 Do you bring along books when you go on a vacation?

(submitted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer)

Yes, I always take my kindle with me on holiday, which I fill with three or four new books to choose from, half traditionally published and half Indie. I used to take paperbacks.

I also look out for paperbacks in the area where I am staying. There’s nothing like relaxing to a historical fiction set in my current surroundings, where I imagine, absorb the atmosphere as well as learn about the evolution of the place and it’s people. It’s also a way of taking my holiday back home with me and extending the pleasure. The pictures in my mind are still so vivid!

How better than to read a book set in the Outer Hebrides when you are there for example? (Or the Greek islands but that seems a distant dream at the moment.)

Secrets of the Sea House set in the Outer Hebrides was my June book review. You can check it out here.

Dementia Awareness Week 17th to 23rd May 2021

This week is close to my heart because both of my parents were diagnosed with on set dementia a year or so before the first lock down. They lived in a warden assisted flat and gradually their lives narrowed. It was tough supporting them under normal circumstances, but during this pandemic it was unbearable at times.

This Dementia Action Week, the Alzheimer’s Society is calling on the Government to cure the care system now! All they are asking you to do is click the link above and sign their petition. Please take a few moments to sign this worthy cause. As they say on their website:

“Right now, the broken social care system means that in the UK, nearly 1 million people with dementia and their families are struggling to get the support and care that they need and deserve.

 With the right support people with dementia can live a good quality of life, doing what matters most to them for as long as possible.”

My parents were not two of the lucky ones. Tragically, they did not survive covid, but attitudes and the care support in the UK CAN CHANGE FOR THE BETTER.

A bit of GOOD NEWS: Help is at hand if you are at your wits end, as we were. Dementia UK have a wonderful free service; The Admiral Nurses Service who you can email or phone for advice, guidance or even a shoulder to cry on at any time. Their advice to us was invaluable:

The lines are open ‘seven days a week, on 0800 888 6678 or helpline@dementiauk.org. The Helpline is open from Monday to Friday, 9am-9pm and at weekends, 9am-5pm‘

Throughout the difficult time of the last eighteen months, as a cathartic form of therapy, I wrote poems and prose about our experiences which I might share with you in due course.

Book Review ~The Ears of the Cat by Roderick Hart

Available on Amazon

The Ears of the Cat

By Roderick Hart

‘The Ears of the Cat’ is a thriller involving a group called Future World who believe that the only way to deal with over population in the world is to release a bird flu virus. Files of the virus are stolen successfully from a lab, communication is made through Wattsapp, which the group believe to be safe, and agents from different organisations, with orthodox methods and decidedly otherwise are on the case. (Personally I found some of these methods hard to stomach until right was addressed later in the novel).

 

 

It was a gripping yarn and although, in many ways, I was a reluctant reader, since we are currently awaiting a possible epidemic or worse, my inner voice compelled me read to the very end.

A very well written novel, so close to the truth it was entirely believable. (unfortunately!!)

The title is apt and very clever!

Author Roderick Hart has enjoyed a varied life in interesting places around the world, but currently he lives with his wife in Edinburgh.