Last day of Easter holidays ...

[Anne Brooke]

... sigh. Work tomorrow - groan! I always hate the last day of any holiday (even if it's just a weekend and a normal Sunday) but this one's worse; what with conferencing and Easter university closure days, I haven't been in for a lifetime, so tomorrow morning is going to arrive like an unwelcome visitor. With a case. Thank goodness the boss isn't in, so it gives me time to get used to it all again without the need for a false professional face. Not that the boss is horrible - it's just that all bosses like to see that false professional face or they start asking awkward questions. Which is the last thing I need.
This morning, Lord H (still silent) went to church, but I stayed behind as I guessed (rightly, no doubt) that I'd be happier washing the car. Which I did. I also typed up the scribblings I've done to The Gifting onto the computer, and am now at the 110,000 words marker. With one section of my current scene left, followed by the big end scene. My, how I like a big finish. I've also written a poem, cooked a chicken and chatted briefly to one of the neighbours. So I feel that my duties are done.

Oh, and I've finished reading some really dreadful books. Though maybe "given up" is more accurate than "finished". First up is the truly appalling The Lighthouse by PD James. Call me an iconoclast (if you must), but I really do think that her appeal went out with the 1980s. It's excruciatingly dull, full of mindless details and backstory I don't much care about, and nothing at all happened before I gave up (about halfway through). It just seems an astonishingly old-fashioned way of writing. The second novel - which I skimmed through but did (just) manage to get to the end of - was Andrew O'Hagan's Be Near Me. I should have been warned as to its unreadability by its Booker longlisting, but really I am a fool to myself. It's about a dickhead priest with no charm and no sense. And no redeeming features, as far as I can see. Also cliched stuff re child abuse done boringly and with no sensitivity (so, yawn) and a long-lost gay love (double yawn). There is a glorious moment though when, near the beginning, he tries to talk to a music teacher at school who has an armful of violins and who, he believes, is obviously trying to get away from him whilst using the violins as a barrier. Believe me, I am right with that violin-teacher. I too spent the whole novel trying to get away from Father David, but sadly the ruddy man was just so much up his own arse that it simply wasn't possible. Sigh.

Later on, I shall ring Mother (arrggh!!), and I'm planning to watch "Ugly Betty" and "Foyle's War" on TV. So something to look forward to then before the horrors of Monday - hurrah!

This week's haiku (in honour of the weekend so far - double sigh!):

They say that silence
is golden. Wrong. Yours remains
silver and spiky.

Today's nice things:

1. Getting to 110,000 words in The Gifting
2. Not having to open those two dreadful James/O'Hagan books again - ever!
3. TV.

Anne Brooke
http://www.annebrooke.com
http://www.goldenford.co.uk