Articles in “Life, the Universe, and Everything”

We’ve only a little house, and we’ve already filled it to the brim. Yet we keep buying things—not bulky things like furniture (at least, not often) but books and prints and the like.

And we’ve finally run out of room for them.

After buying another set of three prints.

So I’ve been wondering how to husband a little space for the new prints (which turned out to be bigger than anticipated), and I decided to hang my old family photos (only half of which I could display in the old location, anyway) down the spaces where my hallway bookcases meet.

I strongly suspect I stole this idea from somewhere, and I think it might have been the Canadian adaptations of Nero Wolfe, but I’m not certain any more.

I’m unconvinced by the result, myself. On the one hand, I like having them where I can see them as I pass . . .

But on the other hand . . . actually, I’m not even sure why I object to them. I think I think they make the shelves look rather crowded, but perhaps it’s just the shock of the unfamiliar?

Or perhaps it’s the head injury? (Yep, not done milking that just yet.)

As Nick suggested, I’ll leave them a while, see if they grow on me. I hope they do, but I’m still not sure.

If you imagine that I’m listening to Poison as I post this, then these photographs pretty much sum up the last fortnight:

(Well, Nick is pretty much a constant, of course—thank goodness for that.)

You know what’s noticeable by its absence above?

Books.

I haven’t read a new book in weeks—though I have a brand-new Diana Wynne Jones that I had to shove on a shelf out of my sight because it was staring at me accusingly. And the new Jasper Fforde. And the first book in a boarding-school series that I’m fairly sure doesn’t include vampires but is bound to include some other kind of sexy supernatural creature who makes a surprisingly good boyfriend.

But I can’t risk getting caught up in a book I can’t put down. Frankly, I’m surprised at myself: I’m not normally good at delayed gratification.

I’ve been writing, though. Writing, and writing, and writing.

I’ve teased out issues of law and social custom in the U.S. Deep South in the 1930s, something that involved some fairly unpleasant Googling.

I’ve raised a dark menace from the sea, deleted a king, and nearly drowned two fictional children in a chameleonic city with no name.

I’ve tried desperately to keep up with Steven Moffat’s whipcrack dialogue.

I’m loving the writing.

But this, after all, is The Circulating Library. It would be fairly egotistical even for me to only read what I’ve actually written myself.

Still, I’ll have time to read Enchanted Glass soon. Surely?