2009 — 9 September: Wednesday
Need some beauty sleep. So, a picture of Christa (and a rare sighting of me!) followed by an early night:
G'night.
Sunny side up
On one side of the house, at least. Somewhat grey on t'other. Cuppa, please. It's 09:55 and the story of William Golding is unfolding. It's reached 1961, which was a year before I bought "Lord of the Flies". (Christa bought her copy in 1963, in Nebraska, according to her hand-written note inside it.)
Although primarily about the Kindle, I was taken by this little paragraph:
I learned much of what I needed to know in life during weekly trips to Gold's News and Stationary [sic] across from the train station in Morristown, New Jersey. Here, my father and I went most Sunday mornings to pick up the New York Times, the Newark Star-Ledger, and The Morristown Daily Record. The lessons from Gold's: A magazine exists for every interest you can think of, and many you can't. You should never make eye contact with the furtive men reading the "special" magazines in the back of the store. If you're helpful and carry papers to the car, there's a better than even chance that a pack of Teaberry gum will appear in your future.
Why on earth does this chap get any further air time?
The warm glow...
... that comes from yet another set of security patches. Pah! Right, I have a small-scale audio demo session to prepare for. Step 1: get dressed! It may well be 11:35 but I'm retired, you know.
Later
Lunch has been lunched, and the audio side of my system has been assessed and found (un)wanting. Suddenly it's 16:17 and my next decision is do I nip out to the shops now or can it wait until tomorrow? Or Friday, come to that. I think sloth might well rule in this case. Mind you, it's nearly time for the next issue of "Word" magazine. Jane Goodall is on NPR — amazing woman. Travels 300 days of each year. Can you imagine?
Later still
Tea has been taken, and there remains only one major decision: do I watch the new Jonathan Meades? I was in Aberdeen in the summer of 1959, but only for long enough to catch the overnight ferry over to Kirkwall in — I clearly recall — what were described as "Force 10" winds. It was a notable voyage of discovery for me: I learned that dear Mama was not a good sailor, that soup could actually tip over the side of its dish during the more extreme waves, that even cabin crew could become ill, and that I was allowed to stay up quite late in bed, reading1 my then-favourite one-volume encyclopedia.