That's it!

I finished reading Agatha Christie's novels!

Well, OK, not really, cause I still have the Mary Westmacott romances and the two autobiographies to read but they don't really count, do they? I will certainly read them in the next months but they won't be judged ...

83. The Mysterious Mr Quin
A quite unusual collection of short stories featuring the mysterious Mr. Harley Quin. He always appears just at the right moments before drama begins and helps solving the problems without actually helping... I quite liked the stories, except the last one. Unfortunately, this was the last Agatha story that I read and it's a shame I didn't like it. Oh, well ...

Memorable quotes:
-"A problem is not necessarily unsolvable because it has remained unsolved."
-"There is no atmosphere in the present."
-"Nobody knows what another person is thinking. They may imagine they do, but they are nearly always wrong."
-"Life is lived very much the same everywhere [...] It wears different clothes - that's all."
-"It makes one feel terribly old to have a grown-up daughter."
-"Daughters have a depressing effect upon one, I find." 
-"He wished the world had not become definitely so noisy." 

Favourite Guest Character: Mr Satterthwaite!
Favourite Stories: The Coming of Mr Quin and The Man from the Sea
Mystery: ***
Final Solution: ***
Entertainment: ****
10/15

A short (statistical) summary on all the books will follow shortly.

Craft table!

I have a new table! Just for me, for my crafts, for sewing, drawing, painting, creating ... whatever.

I first bought a solid beech kitchen worktop, painted it with three coats of wood stain (earthly brown, Nr. 68 from Belinka) and one coat of colourless varnish.

I added only two legs, the other two were replaced with two Ikea's 2x2 Expedits. However, my sewing machine would not fit into the shelves, so I altered them a little and added the required height on one side.

:-D

22 meters...

22 meters of gorgeous fabric.

Some simple sewing and the curtains for our new home are ready.

Well, almost ready, four down, eight to go ...

My absence...

... is excused.
We've moved.
I've become an auntie.
I'm currently away.

A simple skirt

Although summer seems to be over, it's still time to write about a skirt I recently made and happily wore in the second half of the summer. A very simple simple Jersey skirt, just the side seams and an elastic band, but it's the pattern that makes the skirt one of my favourites.

I've been wearing it with a blue T-shirt and a Maori necklace :-)

Almost there ...

82. HERCULE POIROT'S CHRISTMAS (Poirot)
Usually there's a black sheep in the family but Simeon Lee's family seems to have more black sheep than white ones! A grumpy old man who loves diamonds hopes for some 'fun' when he invites all his children to a Christmas party. With such a melange of characters, something is bound to go wrong. Will the police find the murderer or must Poirot help them identify the killer?

Memorable quotes:
-"If we seek to keep the past alive, we end, I think, by distorting it."
-"All men are wicked. The nuns say so ."
-"I do notice things. It's a habit of mine." 
-"Les femmes, they are never slow to form an opinion, Dieu merci." 

Favourite Guest Character: Pilar
Mystery: ***
Final Solution: *****
Entertainment: **
10/15


81. EVIL UNDER THE SUN (Poirot)
A great story to read in the middle of the summer: the sun, the sea, the holidays, beaches and boats... and a murder. A great classic from Agatha.

Memorable quotes:
-"There is no such thing as a really calm sea. Always, always, there is motion."
-"He was accustomed to think of The Husband in three lights only - as 'the Obstacle', 'the Inconvenience' or 'the Safeguard'."
-"Les Femmes. [...] They are capable of complicating life unbearably."  
-"Women always keep letters and then swear they've burnt them."

Favourite Guest Character: Hm. Emily Brewster
Mystery: ***
Final Solution: ****
Entertainment: ****
11/15


80. THE HOLLOW (Poirot)
What happens if you invite someone, his wife and his mistress to your home? Another mistress bursts through the doors! Not a simple situation and sometimes a little help from your friends is just not enough to fool Poirot.

Memorable quotes:
-"It was nice, she thought, to be a human being again ... and not that other thing."
-"The past  is sometimes a very good place to live."
-"How cynical it is that a wife or a husband is always the first suspect." 
-"To the scientific mind, truth comes first."

Favourite Guest Character: Lucy Angkatell
Mystery: ****
Final Solution: ***
Entertainment: ****
11/15


79. A POCKET FULL OF RYE (Marple)
 A pocket full of rye, four and twenty blackbirds, a peg, yew, cyanide, Percival and Lancelot. And another blackbird.

Memorable quotes:
-"I find one must know how to do everything oneself. Then - one need never do it."
-"You can't change people."
-"People aren't always what they think themselves to be." 

Favourite Guest Character: Hm.
Mystery: ***
Final Solution: ***
Entertainment: *
7/15

The after-party

Returning home from a journey isn't quite the end yet. One still has to sort all the photos, the tickets and postcards, maybe even make a Google Earth visualisation of the tour ... send the photos to other participants!

It's about time I start finishing my Lycian journey that I did in May.

But it's not an easy task!