Dumb Witness - Book Review

I am reading through the novels of Agatha Christie in the order in which they were written and writing a review on each one.

Dumb Witness

1937

Description

An elderly spinster has been poisoned in her country home…

Everyone blamed Emily’s accident on a rubber ball left on the stairs by her frisky terrier. But the more she thought about her fall, the more convinced she became that one of her relatives was trying to kill her.

On April 17th she wrote her suspicions in a letter to Hercule Poirot. Mysteriously he didn’t receive the letter until June 28th… by which time Emily was already dead…

My Thoughts

This is the 28th book by Agatha Christie and the 15th Poirot Mystery

Okay I don't like cats, I do like dogs but not enough to be a dog owner.  So I would not particularly be drawn to a story which seems to be written about a dog.

However I love this book.

I have read it a few times and always enjoy how she has carefully written certain aspects to each of the suspects' character.  I like the way they are each not how we expect them to be and actually in the end nearly all of them are displaying different feelings and actions than before.  It is as if we have an aquaintance with them to start with but then get to know them and they have relaxed in front of us by the end.

Of course the dog Bob cannot speak but by getting to know his character as well the mystery is solved.

I would almost guarantee that the first person you think is the murderer will not be the one you think of half way through the book and certainly not the one who is revealed at the end.

If you would like to know more about this book then click on the title or picture above.

 Here is a link to a list of her novels on Amazon
Books by Agatha Christie


If thinking of reading this book in the future why not pin this pic to go back to later.

Smile God Loves You! Ephesians 5:2 - Sunday Scripture

This Sunday's Scripture on God's Love is Ephesians 5:2  

So many times when looking at a verse from Scripture I come back to these 

Question Words.

Who?

                    How?

                                        What?

                                                            Why?

 In this verse we are exhorted to Walk in Love but the verse goes on to tell us how to do this 

by following the example of God's Love.

Who gives the example for us to follow?
Christ.   We have seen that He loves us.


How do we know He loves us?
He gave Himself in our place.


What did He become?
An offering for us to God, a sacrifice instead of us.


Why did He do that?
To make an aroma of fragrance for God to be able to enjoy.

Because of Jesus we can be a sweet fragrance unto God.

If God had not had such great love for us then Christ would not have loved us and there would have been no sacrifice to prepare our way back to God.

It all stems from God's Love to us.

There is no hope for us without God's Love for us.

Surely this should make us smile each day.

Gran Canaria - A to Z of Places I have Visited

I am writing about some places I have visited in alphabetical order.
Still wondering what I will do for the more unusual letters like Q and X etc. but maybe I will have a brilliant idea later.

So for the letter G I decided to take Gran Canaria.

Fred and I have been there twice if not three times now and as with the other Canary Islands we really like it.


In December 2012  we decided we needed a break somewhere hot before we faced the onslaught of a cold Christmas in Northern Ireland so we looked for a last minute cheap holiday in the Canary Islands and chose Gran Canaria.

We had little idea of where we would be staying but ended up in a resort in the southern part of the island.

It was a lovely resort and we had a great time there apart from one thing.

Poor Wi-fi


Everyone ended up in the reception area of the resort sitting on the wide staircase or standing around or if you were very lucky you got one of the few seats there.

Food, rooms & outside facilities all great but the many teenagers there were not so happy trying to keep up with their online social life and Fred and I (not so young) did feel it in the early and late part of the evenings as we are and were then used to great wifi at home.

Yes I know we were on holiday and should have been forgetting about our ipads but we like to chill out reading and catching up on social media at night.



During that holiday most of the time was spent in and around the area of the resort but we did make a trip to Puerto de Mogan to see the Market there and another to Las Palmas the capital of the Island.



Las Palmas

We took a one day coach trip to the north of the Island to see this city which has a large harbour and nice streets.

One of the main sights is the Cathedral and it was one of our first stops (along with a coffee break).

The harbour area was lovely

A lot of the beaches in the Canary islands have "black" sand and here the sand was darker than we are used to with our lovely golden sandy beaches in Northern Ireland but not too dark.

As always the hills and mountains can be seen in the Canary Islands because they were formed by volcanic eruptions.

One thing not to miss, whenever you are in any of the Canary Islands, are the parrots and the parrot shows.  We have enjoyed these on each of the islands we have been to.

Another beautiful thing there was the sunrise so we made a particular effort to get up early and go to a part of the resort to get a great view.

Watching a sunrise in Gran Canaria.

I'm not usually good at getting pictures of the sunrise or the sunset even though we love to watch them but this was wasn't too bad.

That was the day we were heading off to the market at Puerto de Mogan which I would recommend as another day trip.  It was a relaxing day wandering around the market looking at the stalls and listening to some pan pipe music.  We even got a cd of the music these guys were playing and it's playing at home now as I write this post.

We were in Gran Canaria again a couple of times and the latest was in February 2017  when we also went to a resort in the southern part but further west round the coast.

Again a lovely resort and the Wi-Fi was better here but of course it was over 4 years later.

This time we took a short video of the view from our balcony.

The really great thing about the Canary Islands is that the temperatures are quite constant throughout the whole of the year so a visit at any time of the year will be warm if not nice and hot and we have never had a holiday there with much rain but it does happen.

So if you are thinking of a break in the cold winter time we would recommend Gran Canaria or any of the other Canary Islands.

A Collection of Plates - Coffee & Conversation

Well it was time to Declutter!


A kind of favourite saying of mine is

A Place for Everything & Everything in it's Place

which sometimes just invokes a smile from Fred or other times a laugh from the kids.

Of course you may have seen me write about that phrase before in A Place for Everything  and in  Everything in it's Place?

But why would they smile or laugh at me?

You see I have been known to collect things.

Yes in the past I have collected:

• Plates
• Books
• Magnets
• Anything to do with Arks
• Dvds
• Teddy Bears
• Jig Saws
• Wedgewood Pottery
• Aynsley China
• Scrapbooking items
• Notebooks

and the list could go on...........


In the last few years I made a decision on the plates

THEY had to GO!

I had collected plates from all of the States we had visited in America and there were quite a few between Fred travelling there for his work and then us living there for 3 years.

I decided to keep 1  -  the first one Fred had ever brought back from a work trip and it was from Delaware but the fact that we later ended up living in Delaware made it extra special.


However I didn't just get rid of the rest of them easily, it took a bit of time and as I went through them I set some aside to think about and finally had these 4 that I thought the kids might want me to keep from very special trips we had made.

You have to take into consideration the fact that they are no longer kids but are all in their 30's now but their reactions were "no - get rid of them all" - why did I ever think they might still be interested in these?

Obviously I am far too sentimental!

So Fred made a trip down the hill from where we live to the nearest charity shop and gave them the rest of my collection of plates from America.

only kidding there were not that many - maybe a bit more than half of that!


There had been a small amount of small plates from around the UK as well but after this they went too.  It was a little while later but the decision was easier to make because I knew I had made the right decision about the larger ones.

The right decision has to be made.

In Philippians chapter 4 we are told to think on things that have a good value to them and obviously forget the rest.

Spending our time on these things is important and not cluttering it up with the unimportant or unworthy things that will not bring us peace and help us rejoice as is written of in the verses leading up to verse 8.

It's a decision that has to be made.

Gotta get rid of the ones that clutter up our minds and don't leave room for the good things  because it is much better for us to dwell on the good things.

Florida - A to Z of Places I have visited

I am going to write about some places I have visited and do them in alphabetical order.
Still wondering what I will do for the more unusual letters like Q and X etc. but maybe I will have a brilliant idea later.

I have been to Florida 3 different times.

In 1983 I flew over to the US from Northern Ireland on my own to join my husband who had been there for a work conference.

In 1995 our family of 5 drove down from our (then) home in Delaware to let our children experience Disney World and Sea World and a few other places before we would be packing up all our belongings and returning to live once again in Northern Ireland.

In 2017 - yes just last year - Fred and I returned to Florida for a week so that he could attend a church conference and I could sit at the pool at the hotel.


So some of the highlights of Florida for me have been the following:


St. Augustine

In 1983 we were driving from Jacksonville to Kissimmee (after my horrible experiences both at JFK Airport and at a motel in Jacksonville which could be a future Travel Blog Post) and stopped in St. Augustine to see the Alligators.  I mentioned this briefly in an earlier blog post The Alligator in the Ditch.


St. Augustine is a lovely old town and we were able to take a bit of time to see around a bit of it befor going to the Alligator Farm.

Photo Credit - Pixabay

Photo Credit - Pixabay

Photo Credit - Pixabay

I have to admit that I do not like alligators but we enjoyed the alligator farm but if I ever had the chance to go back to At. Augustine I would rather explore the town (old and new) rather than the farm again.



Kenedy Space Station


In 1995 one of the places we saw was the Kenedy Space Station and for anyone with a husband with an engineering background like mine this was a place not to be missed, our two boys who were 11 and 13 at the time also had a great time and our daughter and I quite enjoyed it too.

Photo Credit - Pixabay

Disney World


In both 1983 and 1995 there was a visit to Disney World and of course the first stop each time was The Magic Kingdom

Photo Credit - Pixabay

followed by Epcot Centre.

Photo Credit - Pixabay

My best memory of 1983 was Fred and I buying turkey legs to eat for lunch and not realising how big they would be.
They are enormous but also delicious - so if you are heading there try them out (if they still do them after all these years).



Sea World

In 1995 we also went to Sea World and Universal Studios which are also great for all ages.

Photo Credit - Pixabay

Photo Credit - Pixabay

Relaxing


2017 in Florida was so different for us.

No Alligator farm, no Space Station, no Theme Parks.

As well as relaxing by the pool I got to do some relaxing shopping because we found two nice large Craft Shops for me to wander around  -  just didn't get to buy all that I really liked because of having to travel back home but managed to get a few things I couldn't get in the UK.

How could you possible pick scrapbook paper from this multitude?

We also got to meet up with some friends from when we lived in Belgium for a lovely meal and chat one evening.


AND


We got to go to some restaurants we had loved when we lived in the US

Doggy Bag from The Ponderosa!

 so just had to take some selfies to make our kids jealous.

What do alligators and doggy bags have in common?

Smile God Loves You! Psalm 36:7 - Sunday Scripture

This Sunday's Scripture on God's Love is 

Psalm 36:7  

What type of Love?

Precious

Important

Personal feel to it.

Worth a lot

Kind

Embracing

What does this love offer us?

Security

Peace

Calm

A hiding place

Protection

What can God's precious love offer us?

What should our reaction be?

Trust His Love

Recognise God's Love is the most Important Love

Believe He is giving us His Personal Love

Know there is nothing else like God's Love

Come into his care

Accept his kindness

Rest in his protection