What am I reading - What am I listening to.....

While looking for something entirely different I came across a small leather bound Bible that belonged to my Mother, - so finely scripted on delicate gold edged paper and inscribed 'To my dear wife, Easter 1931'.

As you can imagine it is a book I treasure, and  am concerned about the condition of the cover, which is badly worn.  It came to me that on the bookshelves beside our bed there was a small handmade cloth case to hold such a book, and so I went to find it.

I was surprised to open it and find within Muriel Spark's first novel, The Comforters, published in 1957 (the year my mother died).  I cannot remember ever having the book, or reading it - but then that is not unusual.  When Charles and I were first married he had his uniforms and the clothes he left behind when he joined the Airforce, - I had my trousseau and some other old clothes, and we had our wedding presents!

Today!!  Oh, today we have accumulated so much STUFF.  With six children and 65 years of marriage it is no wonder I come across things that are a total surprise to me, - things that I can never remember having seen before, and have no idea how they were acquired or spirited into the place where they were deposited, found comfort and settled down to stay for the duration.

I like the Muriel Spark novels I have read, and The Comforters is a small book, a paperback, easily handled in bed (not like John Fowles Wormholes) and so I tucked my Mother's bible in the cloth case and have just started The Comforters.

And what am I listening to?

I have had to take myself in hand, so to speak, regarding the socks I am knitting for Christmas presents - thirteen pair!  The summer was so desultary, - I was not in the least inspired to knit, and told myself that I could soon catch up my knitting schedule in the fall, and easily be finished by Christmas.  However, my old nemesis, procrastination, has sprung unbidden into September and I find myself sitting with idle hands in any number of places where I could be clicking the needles and getting on with the job.

I hit upon the clever (I thought) idea of multi-tasking in the evenings, and listening to an absorbing e-book while my hands unconsciously turned heels and cast off toes.  I downloaded Wallace Stegner, whose writing I am enamoured of but whose book "All the little live ones" I have somehow missed reading.

And just as soon as I am finished in the kitchen tonight I am going to put it to the test.  Unfortunately I have been known to fall asleep while listening to e-books, but I am hoping the combination of gripping the knitting needles, and finding the book gripping my imagination, will be enough to make the venture successful.

Do think of me now and then and send encouraging thoughts this way....