Repeat after Me

DSC_1230 Rippled, a photo by Lillput on Flickr.

At last...after four years I'm reading again for fun.

I always used to be a reading fanatic but when the boy departed, so did my concentration.

Over Christmas, I asked S if he'd mind encouraging me to get reading a book whilst we were on holiday. I took one of my all-time favourites "The Midwich Cuckoos" by John Wyndham. A little archaic, perhaps, but short enough to seem achievable.

He also brought along a book and one afternoon, we sprawled in companionable silence on the comfy sofa with mugs of tea and read for a couple of hours. It might not have been a big deal for S...but it was for me.

...and Cuckoos is still spine chilling...

Then a few weeks ago, S sent me a book by the power of Amazon. As I mentioned in a post at the time, it's a great book all about the history of football tactics. Instead of a joint reading session, though, I read it at night, in bed, at home. It took me a couple of weeks, but I finished it.

So I decided that the time might be right to buy a few new books and see if I could keep the momentum up.

A couple of months back I went to see a production of "Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell" - which is brilliantly funny but with lingering pathos that left me quite moved.

It's based on a real-life journalist/writer and so I tried to find some of his writing.

I found it in "Reach for the Ground". It is a collection of some of his columns for the Spectator and so is effectively arranged into very short chapters.

I get the sense he's very much a man of his time and profession - although I might be wrong.

Some of his attitudes to women and alcohol, gambling and smoking seem quite shocking but I found him quite endearing and very funny.

He had very many failed and dysfunctional relationships with women but never stopped being entranced by them.

Even though he suffered from pancreatitis, pneumonia and diabetes - eventually having a leg amputated, and many falls and accidents he seems to keep his wit about him to the last.

As a result even the sad chapters are able to provoke a smile or two...sometimes a real laugh out loud moment for me.

So, in summary ...thank you Jeffrey Bernard for a splendid read and thank you S for pushing me gently back on the road to reading.

x