Tuesday was the actual W.I, meeting and this month's was a social evening playing board games. I am not the greatest fan of board games so I chose ones that were quick to complete. It was funny to see how competitive some of the ladies got and the accusations of cheating (mostly in good humour).
Wednesday was Zumba. I am trying to get a bit fitter and I have taken out the membership for the local authority leisure centres. I find that if I book a class then I am going to go. Unfortunately a lot of the ones I am interested in are during the week day when I am in work. Zumba is really the only one that appeals to me. I do have access to other centres in the area through the membership but classes get booked up really quickly.
On Thursday I went with Craig to one of his Masonic meetings. Women are not permitted to attend normally but this was a special one as it was a talk from a lady from Hearing Dogs for The Deaf. She brought the gorgeous Abney, a cocker spaniel, who was so well behaved.
Friday night was Book club and this month's book was 'A Good Girl's Guide to Murder' by Holly Jackson.
Each month a genre is chosen and the theme was 'Young Adult'. Bearing in mind I am the youngest and I am in my mid 50's I thought this would be a genre that would take the ladies out of their comfort zone. The lady who chose this also enjoys murder and thrillers so I was not surprised that there was a murder involved. I did enjoy this and like a lot of the 'cosy' murder mysteries I read I had to suspend belief in police procedures and how people tend to open up more to people who are not the police. I did get upset at one particular part of the story involving the pet dog but I will not say more in case someone wants to read it. The next choice as 'humour' so hopefully I will find out the next book to read from the lady whose turn it is soon. We don't meet in December so there is no rush to get it finished.
On Saturday we had friends visiting from Oxford which is always lovely. We don't get to meet as often as we would like. I am hoping that they will eventually move north as they keep thinking about doing, though it would be a little further north and east than where we are. They stayed overnight and on Sunday we went to Elizabeth Gaskell's house as my friend has read a few of her books and we did not have the time to go to Lyme Park (She is also a huge Pride and Prejudice fan and has watched the BBC adaptation many times but has never managed to visit Lyme Park a.k.a Pemberley). The House is not a mansion like Lyme but it is a good size, You are able to touch a lot of things as they are not the original items that would have been in the house at the time. A lot of work has been put in to reproduce how the house would have looked when Elizabeth lived there.
I learnt that Elizabeth initially wrote for Charles Dickens and that Charlotte Bronte stayed for a week and they corresponded regularly. There was a letter from Charlotte to Elizabeth on display and all I can say is the language used was a lot more eloquent than is used today. It made me feel sad that we seem to have 'dumbed down' our language . I wish I had remembered to take photos but I was so intrigued by everything on display that I forgot. The photos here are from the official website.
The Dining table set for Christmas
Of course copies of her books were available to buy. Cranford was the only one I have read so far so I ended up buying a copy of her last novel 'Wives and Daughters' which I will probably read at some point next year.
I am hoping for a quieter week next week but it is also the start of the Christmas party season and I really need to get a move on with my own Christmas preparations.
