6 Weeks, 6 Reads

So, surprise surprise, I'm a tad behind on the old 6 weeks, 6 reads challenge! It's not too bad: I've nearly finished book 4 and we're in week 5, but I do need to speed up a bit. The problem was this little baby:

I finished the Horse Whisperer a bit early actually (very good book, not really much romance, hurray!) and so started this brick a day before I planned. OK, so it was 750 pages long, but I had a 10 day holiday planned with hours sat in the car, relaxing on the beach, no housework once the kids were in bed etc to fit plenty of reading in so 750 pages shouldn't really be a problem...famous last words!

The hours in the car were spent either listening to the dialogue from Alvin and the f***ing Chipmunks playing on constant loop on the kids' dvd players in the back, or directing Rob as the sat nav had a meltdown when we were only 60 miles down the road. So, not much reading in the car (ever tried to read a political thriller with a cartoon chipmunk squealing in your ear?!). The beach was OK for reading but I seemed to spend most of my time desanding things (some because of the coastal breeze blowing the sand everywhere but most from my son deliberately dumping it where he knew he shouldn't!) And as for once the kids were in bed, well I thought I could just take myself off to bed and get through a good chapter a night, completely forgetting how much I hate 'public' beds and so therefore not wanting to venture in there any more than I had to. So, I got home with only half the book read. However, I have had a good run at it and got it finished it on Saturday.

Phew!

I picked this one up straight away:

which had to be my next choice as apparently the library want it back and so I'm rattling through it and hopefully will get it finished tomorrow (and back to you asap Mr Librarian I promise!). Kind of liking the concept of this one: a guy goes to a dinner party as a guest of a guest (ie doesn't know the hosts) and halfway through dinner gets up, goes upstairs and barricades himself in the spare room, not coming out for months! Not quite sure where it's going, there seems to be lots of random people popping up in it but I'm hoping for a nice surprise as to why the main character did it (so far I've no idea!).

So that leaves 2 books in about 11 days. Hmmmm, do Xander's books count? ;)

We Love Cornwall!

We've just been away for a week in Cornwall and had the best time. We've never been down there before and are now kicking ourselves that we've left it this long and will definately be going again.

The whole place is just so beautiful, especially the coastline:

 We spent so much time on the beaches, the kids especially loved playing in the sand:

 And, as we were staying in Newquay, of course that surf just had to be experienced. Emily turned out to be quite the natural body boarder:

 And there was so much fun to be had, with this probably being the highlight, a nice bit of Beach Sumo:

 I think these purchases summed it up, it's been years since I've had the urge to buy clothing with the name of the place I'm visiting emblazoned on it:

 As you can see, the Gillards had a great time on Cornwall!

Right, better get booked for next year!