The big move and the joys of reading

Before we get into the general kerfuffle of the day, here’s this morning’s meditation:

Meditation 123

The blessing
and the curse of God

focus, it seems,
on war
or the absence of war.

You would have thought
there’d be some other measure

for happiness.

Talking of matters literary, it's lovely to see a mention for A Dangerous Man in The Obsidian Bookshelf reviewer perspective. Even now Michael is preening himself for being in such good company ... Oh, and my article on the joys and importance of reading for writers, and indeed everyone else, is now up at The View From Here Magazine so pop along and find out all about my peculiar youthful reading habits (which probably explains a lot) and more. Go on, you know you want to ...

And I've thoroughly enjoyed reading Fiona Doloughan's chapbook, Repetition and Difference. Very lyrical and also accessible indeed - it reminded me a lot of Keats. Which is always a good thing. And I thought the haiku sequence was stunning. As Fiona is a member of the English Department at the University, I'm afraid the book isn't available commercially (which is a crying shame, to my mind), but I can thoroughly recommend her poems, should she ever decide to go public.

Apart from that, my whole day has been taken up with moving our offices from Oak House to the posh venue of Senate House third floor. After the initial panic, it’s actually been surprisingly okay and at 4pm I am actually set up on my desk, with a working phone, a working computer and a lamp, hurrah. I can’t print anything but hey I’m not worried, yet. I even have all my fluffy pens and snowstorms on the desk smiling at me so all is relatively okay in Anne’s world, double hurrahs. Nice offices too, though the kitchen is smaller. But hey we have a toilet that we don’t have to go outside for, so that’s a definite plus point. It almost balances out the sadness of no longer being near Starbucks, eh. Almost.

The main problem that’s arisen is for some reason they started repainting the boss’s new office this morning, so he wasn’t able to unpack anything into it until later this afternoon, dammit. Not the ideal plan really. What was wrong with repainting last week exactly?...

Mind you, I’ve managed to get some computer work done and dealt with most of my emails, so I have a halo of office competence hovering over my head. Won’t last, I can guarantee it.

Tonight, I’m going to pop into see Gladys on my way home and run the gauntlet of the nurse door opening procedures, groan. After that I’ll be collapsing in a heap on the sofa. I can’t decide whether to catch up with last night’s video of Compulsion or get some more done to my erotic short story. Ah decisions, decisions, eh …

Today’s nice things:

1. Poetry
2. A mention for A Dangerous Man
3. The reading article
4. The new office
5. An indoor toilet
6. TV/short story – whichever comes first.

Anne Brooke
Race for Life - help beat cancer