Amaryllis’ Choice

So the corona virus has finally won and the bookshop doors are closed BUT only temporarily! And anyway the new upbeat. me prefers to see the closure as a positive move. The space and air C and I would have used on trains and tubes is now free for NHS workers etc.

But I will still be around in virtual-land and let’s face it, someone needs to take charge…

For a start, I have just come back from a glorious hike along the sea front (my daily exercise) which was spoilt by the amount of plastic and litter around inches away from the encroaching tide… I did my best but the corona virus is not INSTEAD of climate change!!

I have prepared myself for my isolation by signing up to the bfi home cinema and also to something that shows ballet, opera and theatre. And, of course, I have lots and lots of lovely books! i am currently reading A Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter which was to be the first book in a new book group, Reading Around the World. It is a memoir from the 1930s – a European woman goes to join her husband in the remote Arctic for a year. It is very funny and beautiful in her descriptions of the area. I will leave you with this bit from when they first arrive at their new home…

”Where’s he going now, just when we want to eat?” I ask my husband. “To look for fresh water” is the laconic answer. “To look?” I am horrified. “Then you don’t know where it is?” “No…but the hunters say there’s a stream here somewhere…”

Things could be worse…