This was our promenade a century or so ago:

The Rain It Raineth by Norman Garstin

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These days it’s considerably wetter and windier, and we’ve been warned not to expect things to get better, save the odd calm day between storms, until March. It’s calm tonight but the next storm is due this time tomorrow…..

But let’s not talk about the weather, because we’ve been luckier than many.

Though a certain small dog is displeased that the ground is so waterlogged that it’s impossible to bounce tennis balls for her …..

The Classics Club Spin has been very kind to me this time around – I have been spun ‘Black Narcissus’ by Rumer Godden. I love the film, I have been meaning to read the book for ages, and I think it gives me legitimate grounds for replacing my tatty old copy with a lovely new Virago edition.

But I have been somewhat distracted by work. I still love my job, but I have been dealing with ridiculously tight year end deadlines, the retirement of an experienced colleague, picking up some of his duties, and saying goodbye to old owners who have sold us and hello to new owners. I hope that things will settle down in a few weeks.

As a result there hasn’t been too much reading. I did finish Samantha Ellis’s ‘How to be a Heroine’ and I loved it, so I’m going to wait until my head is a little less cluttered. And now I’m re-reading ‘Charlotte Sometimes’ by Penelope Farmer.

But I’ve been listening more than reading, to ‘The Thirteenth Tale’ by Diane Setterfield, read by Jenny Agutter. I  liked BBC dramatization, and I think it would be fair to say that it was as good as it could be given that it was squeezed into an hour and a half. But it made me want to go back to the book and remember all of the bits that were left out, and I saw a mention of the audiobook somewhere, I checked the library catalogue and there it was …..

It’s lovely seeing all of the signs, enjoying all of the details, and though I have noticed a few weaknesses this time around, the strengths outweigh them. The dramatization did lose the wonderful bookishness of the book.

I’ve not been a great lover of audiobooks in the past, but life has changed over the last few years and now I’m appreciating being able to read while I knit or while I do things around the house.

This month’s knitting project has been using up half a dozen balls of green wool in two similar shades. I’ve just finished a hat and I’m two-thirds of the way through a scarf. I put it down to knit the hat, so now I can carry on with the scarf until there’s no more yarn.

I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I’m wondering about Audible, because the library is heavy on Dickens and Austen but rather light on many of the other classics I’d like to hear read. I’ve read some very positive comments about Timothy West’s reading of Trollope …..

I’ve been wondering for a couple of days of my time for doing this was coming to an end. On balance, I don’t think it is, but I do need to step away from the computer for a while and catch up with myself.

So things may be quiet for a few days but I’m still here.

There are far too many books – old and new – that I so want to read and write about.