One good thing about living in a flat is the absence of small children demanding money and sweets with menaces - Halloween is long past being my favourite night of the year, but the clocks going back last night has been something of a bonus. This week has been exhausting and seems to have lasted for ever with more than its fair share of ups and downs. It probably hasn’t helped that we’ve sold approximately 12 tonnes of wine in the last 10 days (that’s a bit by any standards when you’re only dealing retail) and I don’t think I’ve ever been so dirty or tired this long before Christmas.
The end result was me sleeping like the dead for 12 hours last night and being extremely grateful for an extra time to catch up in today. I’ve washed things, tidied things, gone to town and dealt with things, and finished ‘Barchester Towers’ (it also helped being asked out for an early dinner or I’d still be looking at washing up instead of Downton Abbey and wondering what I might read before yet more sleep).
I occasionally mean to theme my reading but never seem to manage it however today I’ve pulled ‘The Virago Book of Ghost Stories’ off the shelf. After ‘Barchester Towers’ I want something quite different and I’m not quite ready for another book that will absorb me as completely as that one did (the rest of the series are on their way to me – I have a parcel to pick up tomorrow which should either be amazon riches or a new shower hose which my father thinks I might be in want of). Short stories are perfect for times like this and anthologies don’t go amiss when it’s hard to settle on something specific.
‘The Virago Book of Ghost Stories’ is a collection I can’t help but get excited over. I’ve had it a couple of years and wrote about it here last year. I think I’ll be reading the Ruth Rendell or A.S Byatt contributions tonight, but have just looked up Charlotte Riddell who sounds quite intriguing so it’s a contender. Either way it’s time for bed and scaring myself just enough to really enjoy the twin benefits of duvets and hot water bottles, if I start anything that promises to be too daunting for night time consumption I can save it for a daylight perusal on the bus - just in case that parcel does turn out to be plumbing supplies and not the handful of Trollope’s I’m hoping for... 
What a week you've had - curling up with ghost stories sounds excellent - I have not had my volume of Virago ones out this year yet :(
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to see what you thought of the ghost stories - I tried some M R James for the first time this year, good but I think I might have fared better with an anthology from a variety of authors.
ReplyDeleteWe live in a flat, top floor at that, so no trick or treat door bell ringing for us either. Hope this week is a little more restful for you.
ReplyDeleteWith any luck this week will be even busier work wise (I have bonus to consider - the more we sell, the more we get, the more I can buy - bring on the books.) The good stuff last week was terrific, but there's been the odd crisis to and they were a bit rubbish - that's the stuff I could do without more off. Looking forward to a day off tommorrow and some reading time...
ReplyDeleteI had four adorable little witches knocking on my door which is fine. I can do without the teenagers in horror masks though! Trollope - another writer I've not read.
ReplyDeleteVintage Reading - cute witches I can be nice too, horrible teens are more of a struggle. Trollope is great so far but I'm thinking he's one of those writers you need to be in the right mood for/ right place in life for? I've been skirting round him for 15 years and only just got there, but I've always been a slow starter...
ReplyDeleteI love your big-eyed pumpkin! (My 11yo carved Dracula and Frankenstein on our two pumpkins.)
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that was a pumpkin from a year or so ago, and his eyes are so big because it'd started to go mouldy - face dictated by the rotten bits, but I guess that's in the spirit of halloween
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