linger on

Now that the days are slowly lengthening you might imagine opportunities to sit by the fire and read are fewer. But no, reading is as part of my daily life as cooking and eating and school runs and laundry and walking the dogs. I often have two or three books on the go at once and that's the case at the moment. I'm nearly finished Sightlines and it's been such a joy that I'm lingering over it, stretching the words over a few more bedtimes. Kathleen Jamie's essays are rooted in the natural world and are informed by her interests in archaeology, whales, birds, bones, pathology, islands and people. She brings us alongside icebergs, through whale museums to the islands of Rona and St. Kilda, past noisy gannetries and glinting orcas, to the moon and deep into the mysterious landscapes of the human body. All the way I journey with her, never leaving home and how my heart soars. 

grey and misty

Oh it's a bit uninspiring all this rain. Today it's too wet to consider all but the briefest of walks and even then I only go up the hill. The low lying cloud and mist have covered the hill in a blanket of damp grey. Quick - get back home, indoors to the fire, maybe a few stolen pages of reading (the poetic and beautiful essays in Kathleen Jamie's Sightlines). Not quite hibernating but certainly something close to it.