16 posts tagged “books”

After repainting the hall, and getting the new carpet fitted (it came yesterday) the hall has suddenly got three feet wider. Wow, I can probably fit bookshelves in there now. After all, it is the only room in the house that doesn't have them...

I have a week's holiday next week, Handsome does too because it's the October half-term. We have some plans - decorating and such-like.

However, today my weekly library run came in, with all the books I had marked as things I wanted to read. All of them, at once! If the Amazon thingy was working I'd put them all in the sidebar, but it isn't, so I can't.

I already had the new Terry Pratchett, but now I've got the new Sarah Waters, Audrey Nifflinger, Laurie R King and Christopher Brookmyre as well. And some other stuff too....

I'd probably just get in the way helping with the decorating, I'm sure Handsome will do much better on his own. I could even read to him while he paints.

Depend upon it, it is possible for a person to have too much of a good thing...

I've been re-reading a lot of Jane Austen recently, and I mean a lot. I find myself beginning to think in Austenisms, and occasionally to talk in them. Regrettably, it is not noticeably improving my writing, either the content or the physical legibility. An Austen addiction, however, is not necessarily a bad thing, both the story and the language run at a gentler pace, which makes for such a calming read, and I have found myself actually taking lunch breaks this week so that I can read, whereas usually I have a tendency to eat whilst doing something 'useful' like checking emails or reading through reports. I only have Northanger Abbey to go, and then I will have to put them all back onto the metaphorical* bookshelf for several more years before I can read them again without finding the words too familiar.

* metaphorical because I'm reading them on my ebook

I suspect that I'm not very good at being in control of things. I'm finding, particularly at the moment, that if I take the time to get one thing (like the kitchen cupboards for instance) under control, everything else falls to pieces and I turn round to find out that I've got a week's worth of washing that somehow I've overlooked, or that the lounge is full to the gunnels of stuff that should be somewhere else. If I take the time to keep the generic clutter down in the lounge, Mouse takes over the study with his warhammer stuff and creates a sort of goth-horror model railway airfix breeding thingy. No win situation.

The thing is, it's happening to me at work too. Today I spent most of the day dealing with a 'priority' job (which did need to be done today), tomorrow I will have to work on the two things which got put off so that I could do the priority job today. That leaves Friday to do all the other stuff which needs to be done every day - in effect, housework - assuming that nothing else has arrived on my desk which needs to be done first...

I'm just too far down the chain, everyone else passes everything that has to be done downwards - to me - and I don't have anyone below me to pass it down to, I just have to do it. I think that applies to both home and work.

But I am really, really good at being easily distracted - it's amazing how far from a search query I can end up on t'web; if there's a link there I'll follow it. Today I started at the Guardian Book Club and ended up at a cartoon about a bear and a bird.  And then there's the books - honestly, no-one should have allowed me to work with books.

Sorry, too busy reading to blog (got it, got it, got it), and anyway, I don't want to remember the three hour cycle ride in the torrential rain last weekend

We only did it so that Handsome could try out his new bike rack...

So much for the boy leaving home - he's hardly what you'd call independent yet! Handsome took his bike across mid week, but apparently delivered it complete with it's own puncture. We don't think Hairy's ever had to repair a puncture before... but he did try, with over-phone and msn messenger instructions from Handsome. But this morning we had a call to say all efforts had failed.

We did have jellyish unset plans to go out for a walk, so we decided we'd better go for a drive instead. Just as well, turns out the puncture was probably Handsome's fault. He'd borrowed the tyres to cycle into work last week (because his are off-road tyres, and apparently they don't work on roads) and when he was putting them back onto Hairy's bike, he'd pinched the inner-tube. Anyway, it gave us a chance to go and find a bike shop in Glasgow.

Gosh, there's a bike shop in Central Scotland we'd never been to before!

Bike shop browsing opportunity over, we hauled back out of Glasgow and headed home via the Fort, which is a huge shopping centre off the M8. It has Borders. Well, fair's fair, I'd been in a bike shop. We had coffee, and I looked at masses of books, and made notes about which ones I could borrow (cash flow situation), but I was sorely tempted by the new Christopher Brookmyre - especially as Handsome sat next to a pile of copies with our coffee. I resisted, but only because a) I know I can borrow it from a friend soon (or at least as soon as his whole family has read it), b) I know Papa'll buy it next time he's in an airport, which is a fairly regular occurance and c) I bought myself a compensatory bookmark, which cost much less, but made me feel that I was not walking out of a bookshop with nothing in my hands.

I think that's a double negative...

Then we went home via some geocaches - we did the one by the M8 with the really big head sculpture - it's even huger up close. I took photos, but I haven't downloaded them yet - maybe I'll update later, maybe I'll pinch somone else's picture off the internet. Then we did one of those roadside caches that I hate, and really are pointless, but Handsome needs the numbers. And then we did a lost railway line one, which would probably have been fine if we'd found the right path down. We didn't. So we trogged down embankments, under bridges, through barbed wire (bear hunt?) and brambles until we found it. And then we found the path everyone else had used to get there, so we used that to get out.

I haven't done much today, because yesterday afternoon I acquired these...and I've got to return them on Monday.

We had to go into the city today - so that I could get my hair cut, and Handsome could visit the big farmer's market. And let's face it, the rest of those book tokens were burning a hole in my pocket. I couldn't get a hair appointment until mid afternoon, and the farmer's market is only worth going to fairly early on, so I knew I had enough time to really, really browse through the bookshops. Bliss.

We took Mouse with us, as he also had money burning through the lining of his jeans' pockets. He has recently discovered the joy of asking people for freebies, and intended to ask for posters in every game, music and book shop he could get away with - for once he had remembered to charge his mobile, so he could go off on his own.

I had a lovely hour in Waterstones, bought lots of books (the anticipation of reading is sometimes almost as good as the real thing), and then settled down for a coffee with Handsome upstairs in the coffee-shop. The windows overlook Princes Street and the gardens, and it's a great place to people-watch for a while. Mouse re-joined us for a hot chocolate, and to do some complex financial arrangement along the lines of 'I already owe Dad this much, if I borrow this much from you Mum, I can pay you back next week if I use my school-lunch money...' etc, etc. We gave in and lent the required amount, so he could buy styluses (styli?) as well as a manga book. He managed to get three huge Harry Potter posters as well, so the begging techniques he has honed on us obviously work on others too.

Then we had lunch in the Art Gallery on the Mound (huge disappointment, the sandwiches were really ordinary), and I left the boys alone for a while to get my hair cut too short (as usual) because I like it to be no effort at all in the mornings, so I always go over the top a bit. Luckily it grows back fast.

Haven't managed to get time to read yet!

It's a local holiday this weekend, so Handsome and myself had this afternoon off, and we have Monday to look forward to. He dashed off to Glentress with Hairy as soon as we got home today (Hairy's on exam leave, so only has to go to school on the days when he actually has exams), and I had a little quiet time, and made myself some real mint tea, with the first of the fresh mint from the garden. It tastes absolutely nothing like the mint tea I usually buy, it's much more delicate and tastes of green! The only problem is the tendency to find insects in the bottom of the teapot when I haven't been bothered to wash the mint properly... but at least they're boiled.

I collected Mouse from school this afternoon, something I can't do very often, although I wish I could. After we'd stashed two saxophones and a school bag in the car, we went for a wander around town. Naturally we started at the bookshop... luckily I've still got some book tokens left over from Christmas, because neither Mouse nor myself find it easy to leave a bookshop without a book. After that we headed for the ice cream shop, which is at the other end of town, so we get to walk up one side of the high street discussing flavours, and then down the other side eating them. Today we both had chocolate, and we bought two tubs for the freezer - one chocolate, one vanilla.

And then we came home, and I sat in the sunshine in my garden and read my book for a while, before I started to feel guilty about sitting around doing nothing, and felt obligated to do a bit of gardening... nothing too strenuous though, wouldn't want to spoil a perfect afternoon.