This weekend’s walk at Lepe had an added element of danger as we raced against high tide. We did have an hour to spare but our path led me to climb over trees to avoid paddling (Josh showed off his superior footwear by just walking in the sea). There were so many signs warning us that we might get trapped, but I think the worst that would have happened would be getting wet feet at the end. Or we could have hung out in a tree until it went out again. I’d definitely allow more time if it’s been stormy or it’s a spring tide.

The steadily disappearing beach:

Despite ominous clouds on the horizon it turned out to be a lovely day, which was a real pick-me up after the autumnal feeling that’s been in the air recently.

Even Scully left her grumpy face at home:

I didn’t do much reading over the past week, with only one book finished, Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura (translated into English by Philip Gabriel). It took me a long time to get into it, but in the end it turned into something special and was worth it. It’s a book that deals with bullying in a thoughtful and beautiful way with a positive message at the end. I did wonder if the translator was over explaining some stuff, like pointing out which honorifics were formal or friendly.

I posted three reviews; Arsenic and Adobo, The Other Black Girl and Black Water Sister. That leaves me four more reviews to write to meet my 20 Books of Summer goal. It’s possible, but I won’t beat myself up if I don’t manage all of them, since I have done so much better at actually writing reviews because of it.

I didn’t buy that many books on my virtual Summer Bookshop Crawl, though I did look at a lot of bookshop websites. In the end I ordered a few books from The Portal Bookshop in York, City Books in Brighton and Blackwell’s.

New books acquired:

Eve by Una
Dog Rose Dirt by Jen Williams (audio)
Dear Mrs Bird by A.J. Pearce (audio)