I’m interested in when and where people like to read, and it always amazes me when people say they don’t have time to read, or can’t find the space.
I like to bookend (phrase of the week here in the office) my day with reading. I always read last thing at night. Sometimes it can be a good few chapters, other times it’s a couple of pages and I may have to re-read them the following day – obviously that’s nothing to do with the amount of red wine that may or may not have been consumed prior to reading, sometimes I just like to re-read pages honestly!
I also like to read first thing in the morning, in the bath, whilst eating my breakfast, sometimes whilst having a cup of coffee and working out if I can shave another 5 minutes off my commute to work. Unfortunately reading doesn’t always happen where I live. Take yesterday morning for example, it was a bit chilly so I got up to turn the heating on, made a coffee and took it back upstairs to drink whilst the house heated up.
There’s a knock on the door. My neighbour (we’ll call her Hilda1) She likes to knock on my door, usually about 7am to tell me all the important news from the street. Yesterday’s news for those of you interested, was that the workman outside have dug a big hole in the street. Its good to be told news like this just in case the flashing lights, workman signs and big barriers around the gap in the pavement hadn’t quite made the point that there was a hole. By the time Hilda1 has gone back across the street its too late for coffee and a read, so I run a bath.
There’s a knock on the door. My other neighbour (we’ll call her Hilda2) She likes to knock on my door, usually about 7.30am to tell me the parking situation in the street. Today she was taking her bike to be serviced so I shouldn’t worry if I noticed the bike was gone. Well aren’t we all happier for knowing that. By the time Hilda2 has finished her story the bath water is cold so no time for lazy reading, will leave it til breakfast.
As it sit down to my toast and book, Hilda2 decides to start her bike ready to go off for its service. Now Hilda2’s bike is not some nice little push bike, or even just one of those hair dryer powered scooters that are all the rage, oh no. She has a full sized, full powered Harley Davidson.
In case anyone hasn’t been near one of these before, it’s like I imagine standing underneath a jumbo jet just before take off would be, if said jumbo jet was revving the engine just for the fun of it. After 10 minutes of this I give up on the reading and head to work to drink my coffee in peace. Just as I’m leaving Hilda1 pops out again, she wanted to let me know that Hilda2 was going out on her bike. Well thanks for that, what would I do without her?
I wander if she’d be so keen to keep interrupting my personal space if I gave her a glimpse of my bookshelves and told her it was actually research! Hopefully it will rain at the weekend, at least that keeps all the neighbours inside and I’ll be able to get on with my reading.
PS In case you are worried, this mornings news is that today the hole will be filled in. I’m looking forward to seeing that tonight…
A crime readers blog 