As movement is largely curtailed these days I thought I’d share some of my musings and revisit some of the places I’ve been to in the past. As you can see from my ‘active table’ of books, I am currently reading about twelve volumes simultaneously, plus a few others on the Kindle. The Kindle also offers a handy alternative to buying books at charity shops, which have been closed for about a year now. I still marvel that I can carry an entire library of books in my pocket.

 

So, to go through my daily routine. I spend some time each day writing my journals, and some time is also devoted to fundraising for a local community centre. I used to have student lodgers but not at the moment for obvious reasons. When the weather improves I’ll get exercise in the garden, and fresh air, although I am surrounded by three parks. These however tend to get congested nowadays to the extent that it feels as if I am in a crowded department store rather than in an open space.

Anyway, philosophy, archaeology, medieval history, Gothic literature, theology, Turkish, photography and music are my interests at the moment. Each subject has up to seven separate books associated with it, and I read a few paragraphs at least of each of them in the afternoons, after getting the writing out of the way. I am well into the fourth chapter of the second draft of a new novel which I’m writing and which seems to be coming along well; it should be ready for the publisher by June or July if I complete one chapter every week. This is the backbone of the day for me, and it’s roughly the same at weekends. In the evenings I watch operas.

My enthusiasms tend to be unpredictable but I’ve noticed that I keep coming around to the same groups of subjects. Over the years I’ve been obsessed with everything from dinosaurs and the Middle Ages to the European Renaissance and Wagner, touching on most things inbetween. I think of it as juggling saucers on sticks, but a better analogy might be that I have dug a number of shelter holes across the plain of my life and they’re all quite well furnished by now so I can revisit any of them as the mood takes me and continue with the decorating. I can escape into scriptoria and cathedrals, the Cretaceous, have adventures in Turkish, lose myself in Tristan und Isolde, explore Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and a whole host of other things, especially useful these days of lockdown.

Home is where the books are.