The month of July was many times bitter. In the first week I watched online, live from Kyiv, the funeral of the South-African born British volunteer killed in Ukraine, Peter Fouché. He has saved 200 lives in Ukraine, as a volunteer medic. After that, the russians deliberately targeted the children’s hospital Okhmatdyt. Apparently russia is so afraid of NATO that attacks children getting treatment for cancer.
I took this picture from the protest organised by the Ukrainian community of Liverpool. I am so disappointed by the lack of response from the west. It’s utterly shameful.
On a positive note, we’ve started renovating the bathroom. It’s a huge project, with one of the walls completely coming down to make way for a pocket door. The bathtub is replaced by a walk-in shower, which meant part of another wall was taken down and now it is being rebuild. It’s fun and exciting, but it is also very time consuming and, of course, very disruptive.
We’ve also been out a few times. We’ve had a lovely meal in Chester and again in Liverpool. We also went for drinks a few times.
We went to a pub to watch the final of Euros and it was fun and exciting. We barely found a table with an hour to start, after visiting 7 places which were full. We went on Lark Lane, which is not in the city centre, so we thought 6 is a good time to arrive for the match.
We’ve been to Chester. We went to look for mosaic and other bathroom related stuff and decided to spend the day walking around, visiting some places we haven’t been to before and taking a boat trip on the river Dee.
The trip is lovely, I do recommend it.
We also went to Ruthin, a beautiful castle in Wales. They have a SPA, hotel, and restaurant. We are thinking of booking a SPA getaway in autumn. One thing I loved was that they have bird food for the resident peacocks. It’s only £1 a bag and the funds are raised for charity, so it’s a shame not to get a bag if you are visiting.
The staff at the hotel and restaurant were great, even though we only stopped for coffee as it was between morning and lunch.
I fed a few peacocks. My favourite was the one on the right. He came to watch us having our coffee on the terrace. I put the food on a seat and noticed that he had favourite bits from the mix. He would pick a type of food until he got all before moving to the next one. In the bottom right picture I show him something he liked. If anyone is curious, his preferences are: black sunflower seeds, dried peas, hemp seeds, followed by oats and barley, rather evenly.
How cute is the peacock with his tail open? I loved spending time there.
1. CuppaPug, Manchester. 2. Supporting Romania at Euros 2024. 3. Pineapple & baby pineapple (same price). 4. Book I read on the day there were elections in UK: Democracy by Margaret Atwood. 5. Liverpool. 6. We watched Peter Fouche’s funeral online. He died in Ukraine and was commemorated in Kyiv. 7. Bees, a story of survival. 8. Clear skies, a privilege of peace. 9. Every donation counts (Toonie Tuesday). 10. England vs Netherlands Euros. 11. Food, homemade. 12. Meloni watching Orban. 13. March in support of Ukraine. 14. Watching the Euros final at a pub. 15. Books I wanted to read. 16. Cute & friendly dog in front of me in a queue. 17. Ukraine was mentioned in the King’s Speech. 18. Learning Ukrainian. 19. Ruthin Castle. 20. River trip on Dee, Chester. 21. Arthouse, Chester. 22. Bedroom wall decor, a few years old, but still love it. 23. Planting new flowers in the raised beds. 24. Remembered the Ukrainian athletes killed by russia, who can’t participate in the Olympics ever again. 25. Pondering on mosaic, for the bathroom renovation. 26. Olympic ceremony. 27. Pride, Liverpool. 28. Pocket door frame. 29. Flower. 30. Breakfast followed by dessert at The Vibe. 31. Books in July
Finally, the books I’ve read this month reached a total of 10! I’m happy with that. I am closer to my target of 89 for the year and now I’m only 3 books behind in my challenge. I liked all the books and I would recommend all of them. Only the murder mystery is fiction, while others are, as usual, non-fiction. For anyone interested in cricket, Getting Out talks about what happened to the players after the full-scale invasion, but it also presents how the sport was adopted. As one can imagine, it was introduced by Indians who emigrated to Ukraine. It’s an unusual and interesting read. Also, Stout’s book is unusual from another point of view, she was in russia when the full-scale invasion started and she talks about life there before and soon after 24 Feb 2022. She went to Romania to report from there and went into Ukraine. It is a short book, only a few hundred pages, but so important to read.
Books in July:
Tea, Coffee & Chocolate by Melanie King – 5 stars
Democracy by Margaret Atwood – 4 stars
Getting out by Jonathan Campion – 4 stars
A small, stubborn town by Andrew Harding – 5 stars
The Russo-Ukrainian war by Serhii Plokhy – 5 stars
Ukraine 22 by Mark Andryczyk – 5 stars
Night Train to Odesa by Jen Stout – 5 stars
Evil under the sun by Agatha Christie – 5 stars
Storehouses of empire by Colum Giles – 5 stars
Come to This Court and Cry by Linda Kinstler – 4 stars
Chester does sound like a lovely place to visit. Will have to add it to my list of places to see!
That’s terrible that a children’s hospital was targeted in Ukraine. Good luck with your bathroom renovation. Looks like you had a lovely trip to Chester and Ruthin looks like a beautiful place to visit too. I love the peacock photos. #project365
We got married in Chester and keep meaning to go back, but haven’t got round to doing so, maybe for our 25th anniversary in a couple of years. I do love a peacock. I’m behind with my reading other than a few summer holiday romance novels. but I did manage to read Catch 22, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Chester looks beautiful – I have only ever driven through so will add it to my visit list
Sounds like a nice month. We liked Chester too. I love that you can feed the peacocks. I’ve never seen anywhere where you can do that, so it’s something a bit special. Hope the renovations aren’t too painful and are completed on time with no issues.
That is awful about Peter Fouché and just sick about the children’s hospital. Those poor kids.
Good luck with the bathroom. It does sound like a big job but so worth it in the end.
It sounds like you have had some great adventures. Chester sounds like a fun time and the peacocks are just beautiful. x
If I could vote I would have voted for Harris. Trump’s Project 2025 is too scary. Trump wants to put tariffs, has a poor track record with russia, including when it comes to intelligence.
Vance is a poor choice too, if something happens to Trump. His messaging is going from stupid (childfree people) to dangerous (100% abortion ban). There are many situations in which abortion is necessary, to save the mother’s life. He removed that part from his website, but he still believes that and that’s crazy. On top of that, his comments that couples should stay married “for the children” even if there is domestic violence says again a lot about him.
GOP chose very poorly. As usual, only swing states matter.
I enjoyed this recap of your month. While we do get reports of what’s going on in Ukraine in our news, much has been overshadowed by the events in Gaza and Israel. And of course now it’s the Olympics. (not to mention American politics and the issues driving that)
Were the peacocks noisy? I know they can be.
It’s similar in UK, less about Ukraine, despite the importance of the war for world peace. If russia wins we are heading for WW3, there are quite a few parallels with pre-WW2 to predict that.
American politics is funny now. Are you familiar with the memes on Vance with the couch? I’ve been having fun with that.
The peacocks were not noisy at all, maybe it was too early in the morning, around 10, to be vocal about stuff. At least one was still sleeping.
OMG! I wasn’t familiar with the Vance business until you mentioned it, so I just googled and found a bunch of them. 🤦🏼♀️ I’m not sure if I should be laughing or worried for the future of my country! 😅
I think US is saved now that Kamala is running. She has great traction and Trump’s pick of Vance backfired superbly. Even if Trump replaces Vance, the damage is done.
Did you see that AP had an article to debunk that Vance had sex with a couch… and then they pull the article down because it did “adhere to their standards”, as they couldn’t say he didn’t have sex with a couch (what they initially said) instead of saying that Vance didn’t mention in the book that he had sex with a couch. AP pulling down the article did wonders for Vance’s reputation and for our collective enjoyment of the whole thing.
What a cluster! Of course politicians have always been raked through the coals, but with the advent of social media it’s so much more prevalent.
I’ve never been able to get behind Trump as a candidate and at this point I don’t know if I can support Harris. I consider myself a moderate and she is a little too far to the left for me on some things. It’s hard being a fiscal conservative with left leanings on social issues. Bottom line, though, is my state will carry Trump no matter how I vote. I live in MAGA country.