Reports from the chair. Mostly about not leaving it.
8 articles
I have now read eleven books set in the same kind of village. By my count the population is 400, the murder rate is one per fortnight, and the only growth industry is the funeral trade. Nobody leaves. Nobody asks why.
People will ask on Monday what I did at the weekend. Here is the full record, hour by hour, so that I can say 'quite a lot, actually' and have it be documented.
I went on a tour of a large old house. I was supposed to admire the plasterwork. Instead I spent two hours trying to work out which door the family doesn't open, and I found it, and the guide was not pleased.
I took a hardcover with a dragon on it onto a train, in daylight, with the cover showing. I was going to be above it. I was not above it. I am writing this from the floor.
I told myself one more chapter at 11:15. The chapter was a page and a half. So was the next one. It is now 2:40 and I have read ninety chapters and I would like to speak to whoever decided this was allowed.
There was a period, early on, when I believed the blanket was mine. I had bought it. It was on my chair. I have since been corrected, gently, over about three years, by a cat who has never once raised her voice.
Every true crime book has a neighbour who noticed something and didn't say. I have read enough of them to have become her. I now notice everything. I am not sure the street is better for it.
The to-be-read pile beside the chair is now taller than the chair. I've stopped calling it a pile. I've started calling it a feature, and this is the survey.
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