Michael Ridpath ' Final Venture '

Brit Simon lives in Boston and works in the fast-paced world of capital investments - the Venture Capitalists. He is married to his bosses daughter. When the boss gets murdered, he becomes the main suspect, and the story becomes a 'how-dunnit'. Lots of dodgy business deals and private secrets get uncovered, and Simon has to find the murderer himself to prove his innocence. The dealings of the biological research companies become e at the centre of his investigations. Even his wife does not trust him any more. This is a gripping drama and even if you don't know anything about the world of capital investments, this explains it all and makes a interesting read.

it's been raining the whole day. the River Thames is less than 1 mile from us, but so far no risk of flooding here. Our house is on top of a small embankement, so we should be ok if worse comes to worse. I went to a quick trip to the supermarket with Imran, and all the roads are absoluely soaked. My order with sewandso was dispatched today, so hopefully will be here tomorrow or Wednesday.

I went back to Curry's today, because one of the buttons of my laptop (the '8') had come off. Felt like crying when I saw it - don't know what happened, maybe one of the cats jumped on it. Anyway, they've fixed it for me right there and then, it's perfect again. And because Hobbycraft is next door's to Curry's , I had a good browse there as well. I was going to buy a Janlynn kit which I try to stitch for a good friend. Couldn't find it so I had to order it online with sewandso. I was itching to start right away - oh well. but I still had to get a cat picture 'Kats by Kelly' which was reduced to £2.99 (from £13.99). No idea which century I will stitch this, but the two cats look so much like Candy and Honey, I couldn't possibly resist.

And here is my fav. picture of Thomas. He is sitting on Dan's pool table.

Val Hopkirk ' Relative Strangers '

A Family story, easy reading and not too challenging, with 'established' twists at the end.
The main players are the two brothers Andrew and Callum. Callum is married to his childhood sweetheart, they have a 15-year old daughter Gabriella. Andrew is also married and is young son suffers from leukaemia, he devotes himself to find a suitable donor for him. Whereas Callum is succcessful, Andrew has always been the black sheep of the family. And when Andrew finds himself excluded from their father's will, his anger sits deep. He then discovers that Gabriella, who is the main beneficiary of the will, is, infact, not Callum's biological daughter. Andrew will fight the will by all means, and the whole issue will put a right challenge to Callum's prev. happy marriage. And Callum's wife keeps insisting she did not have another man since marrying him, the daughter must be his, but the DNA tells a different story. So, where does it end? Can you figure it out yourself?

I'm getting tired and exhausted at work, I find difficult-ish people really get to me - I think I desperately need a break. and the good news: only 2 more weeks at work and I'm off JIPPEE!

I bought myself a brand-new laptop - my new pride and joy. Nafees installed a router, and now I've got Internet on my desk upstairs - it's great. I'm even trying to get my writing started again. Not much x-stitch done over the last few weeks, well, not a single stitch really. Too tired, too busy studying. TMA05 is submitted, and now I have to prepare for the final, big double weighted TMA06. Today I went to OU dayschool in the LSE in Aldwych. I dragged my laptop with me in the hope of doing some work in the break, however, the break was only 30 mins, the laptop so heavy, and it was raining on top of it. And I'm more confused about TMA06 than ever.

here's some pictures from Imran's year 6 production - Alice in Wonderland. Imran was a card, he didn't have any lines to say, but it still looked like he enjoyed himself.