Preparations

Two months, or thirty-two working days, until I leave my job on voluntary redundancy; as any of you who read this blog will know, I will have three months off after that - cue excited jumping up and down.

I've been making some preparations for some things I want to do; small trivial things but still things that I want time for.

Some wool from the Wool Warehouse; these are the 'Coastal' and 'Cosy' collections put together by Lucy at Attic 24.  Perfect for sitting in the summer house (or garden if it's warm enough) crocheting blankets.  Also perfect for fascinating the Nu; keeping the right tension is difficult with a cat sitting on your yarn.

 Patterns and material for some summer skirts.  Since part of my preparations also include getting back on the exercise bike and restarting my 5:2 diet, I'm hoping I'll look a bit more svelte and some summer skirts seem like a good idea for a bit of an image reboot..

A decent haircut is also on the books.

Speaking of books here is the start of my 'real' book pile.  I'm adding to this pile on a regular basis as well as saving some of the ebooks on my kindle for my time off as well.

I can't wait to start.

Books

Jean-Luc and I love books, we are great readers. 

Two years ago when Jean-Luc moved into this house we has some book shelves built - four in fact. At the time they seemed huge - four six foot bookshelves; surely they would be ample.

Alas as we unpacked, took Jean-Luc's old university books out of storage and started to double stack the books it became quickly evident that No, indeed they were not enough.

We need more shelf space.

A very 1st world problem to say the least.

I guess the problem would be a lot worse if we didn't have Kindles.

However we still buy books as there is nothing like curling up with a real book as the rain lashes down outside and the wind howls and we can snuggle under some blankets with a cup of tea or coffee and some thick, buttery toast.

And so the problem continues to grow.

So as we contemplate where to put another bookshelf (and that corner of the bedroom seems the best place) I have been, as you may have guessed from the pictures, perusing book shelves and other such lovelinesses.

And I'm thinking, perhaps we should start arranging our books according to colour, like some literary rainbow.

It looks lovely but it's not for us - it would mean splitting up books from the same author and sadly, we're far to bookish to do that; after all, how on earth would we find them if they weren't all huddled together in author herds.

So now, contemplating the likelihood of a new bookshelf, we have to decide which books to move upstairs.

As all good bookists/ librarians know, the placement of one's books is a concise science, especially when thinking about the private and public spaces of ones house.

Do we move the favourite, best loved books, those cheap paperbacks and secret sins we have gathered over the years or those deeply worthy but not often read tomes.

Oh decisions, decisions, the most delightful of decisions.
Bare with us in our time of trial.

Of Books

A new book arrived in the post today.

It's one I've been waiting to arrive for a while.

It's a collection of writing; stories and poems of the Southwest of America by the women that know that land; edited by one of my favourite authors, Susan Wittig Albert.

 I read a lot of books and now I have my Kindle it's so easy to download them; but there is, to my mind, still nothing like a real life book.

The inviting cover calling to you, the creamy pages covered in crisp print, the warm scent of paper or old book bindings; and in this case the tactile seduction of rough cut pages.

All these things form a part of the poetry that is at the very heart of a book.

This book will be savoured along with several cups of coffee and cake and I can't wait to read it.

The most splendid firework of last night.