Rain, Books, Read....

OK! OK!  We wanted rain but you can stop now!
Passing showers they said, they did not say how slowly they would pass.  Still this will soak into the ground and ease the grass around us.  It also keeps kids at home out of the shops and that is always a good thing.

It has been one of those weeks when it was difficult to read.  The mind found Calvin's 'Genesis' a bit hard, similar readings made the brain work to much and nothing else was easy reading to my mind.  This comes from the heat of recent days leading to unsettled sleep patterns, doing too much (Ha!), and the knees being very troublesome this week making things difficult.  All in I found little to hold onto either on TV or in books.  
This is annoying as little can be done when in such moods.  I have done things of course, some cleaning has to be done whatever, yet the desire to move has been lacking.  Now the weather has become normal I hope this will die away.
Funny how I can stand in front of a bookcase and not find a book.  None fit the mood, are easy enough to read or interest me at the time.  Yet all have played a part, some were marvellous and will not be found again in a charity shop, others were dipped into as required and may be read properly one day.  Saying that it does appear a shame that so many words just lie about, this leaves me wishing I knew someone who could make use of them, yet retain them in my bookcase!  Consider how many words lie on the shelves, not all good ones of course, some pretty rotten, but the vast output from someone's mind that has played a part in my, and others, lives.  Our thoughts put in print to change the world.  Hmm, I wonder how changed it has been since I started scribbling...?

 

Bookcase 'A' and Bookcase 'B.'

Having bought, carted upstairs, scrubbed and filled £20 worth of bookcase the other day with the remains of the videos that have littered the floor since the beginning of last year I saw another, much better, bookcase outside the wee shop on the corner this morning.
As I obtained Bookcase 'A' he mentioned he might be obtaining more furniture with a move he was doing on Wednesday.  Therefore as I passed heading for the early morning bargains in Sainsburys (ha! Bargains!) he called out as I slouched along.   I kept walking as I was not sure if I could afford or wanted another small bookcase and perused the money grabbing supermarket caught in two minds re the purchase.
At home I immediately forgot the bookcase and began the hard work of stuffing my fat face and getting on with the needs of the day - or doing nothing as it came to be.  By early afternoon I had remembered the expensive bookcase (Bookcase 'B') and plodded along dutifully feeling somewhat obliged to view it properly as he does offer us good things and reduces his invented prices for us.  
It was a better bookcase and by this time I had justified the purchase even though I ought not to have done so, but I did!  So I made for the shop, obtained the goods for a reduced £15 'Because your a good guy and it cost me nothing' said he, although he could have said that re 'A' also but didn't, and while he cashed in I made of with my heavier than I thought bookcase 'B.'

  
The weather it was warm, the sky blue, and I as carried the goods the fifty yards my face became a similar colour.  Then I had to climb stairs with loose shelves wishing to leave me, stair light leaving me in the dark, keys not fitting lock and eventually the job of finding space.
After a look around the prefab I decided it had to go by the bed.  This would create space there but would it fit, no it would not!  However 'A' would fit so 'A' had to be emptied of contents and replaced by 'B.'  A simple task, just as simple as removing the wee table and boxes underneath in the bedroom, except for the wires from the lamp getting caught, things falling, dust that has lain undisturbed since Disraeli passed by deciding to arise, and me, myself and I falling over the bin which I moved out of the way under my feet.  Much cleaning required, dust removed, more cleaning required and then change the bookcase contents.
To remove videos from 'A' meant moving 'B' close but not too close, space small.  This meant scrubbing 'B' just to ensure fit for use, then transferring videos, all numbered in wrong order, into place, finding there were too many for 'B' and then moving 'A' which liked to fall over when being walked while 'B' being heavier, and containing half the videos, liked not to move.  Once in place, sweat dripping off me for the first time this year, I finished the content sorting and humped 'A' into place by my bed.  Scrubbed, hoovered, dusted, and all in place I then moved books from proper full sized bookcase 'C' which was overloaded into 'A.'   All this took time and effort, and you know 'effort' is no longer a part of me, but eventually all was in place, clean, packed and the necessary repairs completed.  
The more I try to develop this place bit by bit over the years the more I wish I had just bought proper furniture at high cost in the first place.  It would stop this house looking like a junk shop.  There again if that was the case I would appear out of place I suppose...

 

World Book Day, Apparently

Thanks to what we now must refer to as 'social media' I discovered today is 'World Book Day.'  This appears at first sight to be an attempt to get kids to read books.  It seems to my little mind it ought to be aimed at adults also!  A glance at the website showed me that it was to complicated to follow and contained far too much fun for my liking, so I abandoned it.  

I find it surprising that such an effort is required to make kids read books.  As a lazy brat I rarely read books full of words, my sister did that, but we had loads of comics to read and many 'educational' books, the type full of pictures such a encyclopedias or books on different interesting subjects as our folks wanted us to read as much as possible.  Even the comics which appear so puerile in some ways today were teaching us much even if not directly.  
There were a couple of books I did read, not only once either.  One was 'Black Beauty,' the story of a horse about which I remember nothing even though I read it three times at least.  Another was a battered old book set in some Medieval, possibly Germanic town.  This concerned a young lad and his master and his adventures.  However I remember nothing else about the book but there is an uncomfortable feeling that it evoked still hanging around as I think of it.  The title escapes me also.   
As a kid I tried to read those Enid Blyton 'Five Get Drunk' books but these were for girlies and few others come to mind outside interesting books about space travel, railways and football.  
When working, aged about 16ish I read 'Days of Wine & Roses,' a book about a man who tries to stop his wife becoming a drunk, gets her out of it but becomes one himself, then when she has brought him out of it she relapses into drunkenness for good.  Or at least that is how I remember it, later it became a film with an excellent Jack Lemon playing the lead, his only serious part.  Another that I read at this time had a real effect on me, 'Culloden' by John Prebble.  This made me aware that that battle was not between Scotland and England as I supposed, and many still do, but a civil war as Charlie Stuart attempted to take the throne.  Looking back it taught me also that life is not what we think it is and neither is history.  So much propaganda is shoved down our throats we do not recognise it.  

I suspect some fear kids today only look at computer screens, possibly this is because that is what they see the parents doing all the time!  I doubt using computers will harm kids reading, it ought to enhance it and enable them to develop good computer skills.  If we only wish to encourage kids to read stories I would be against it.  I am not one for story books, sorry 'novels' as most are reflections of broken lives and not worth the paper they are printed on.  However there are so many things kids need to know that can only be found in books and these ought to be priorities for parents at all times.  Interestingly the book day is sponsored by 'Book Tokens' and there can never be a better gift to give kids (of all ages) than book tokens, especially when used for teaching them about the world as opposed to the bile they find available shoved in front of them.  Teach them, young and old, to consider for themselves.

The Bookcase

As I awoke to the chattering classes on the radio this morning I discovered aching arms and pains in the back remained after my exertions yesterday. This never used to happen.  When I was a lad I moved furniture up and down five flights of stairs regularly yet had no strains at all, just one or two trapped fingers. However I managed to struggle all the way to the grime covered kitchen and sustain myself via porridge and tea.  Then I placed the bookcase in position having moved the old dust covered shelving to a position where it would be a nuisance. The hoover is now thanking me for the years of dust that had accumulated behind the old shelving, my throat and lungs are not so thankful.  Once the thing was wiped down and shelves placed therein I checked the wee marks thereupon and began to wonder from where it had come.  Each mark on a shelf indicated someone searching out a book.  The marks on the base could be caused by years of feet scuffing the sides, kids toys bashing it as they passed by, mum's hoover, or possibly the hoover used by the 'woman who does,' all leaving a small memory behind.  For years this bookcase has stood in someones home, someone with money I suggest, in days gone by as when bought it would have been quite pricey.  Someone who had a 'nice' home and 'good' furniture within.  Does it date from the 80's, 70's, 60's perhaps?  Over the years their 'nice' home has become a wee bit bashed, this indicates a full house, probably a happy house, and if the bookcase was in the middle of house life maybe a well educated house.
What books stood on these shelves?
Were there intellectually stimulating books covering the subjects studied in university perhaps?  Did history volumes fill the shelves, weighty tomes of some science or engineering perhaps, could a trainee doctor have loaded the shelves with books full of unpronounceable words?  It could be they were used for story books, novels with which to waste life or worse novels through whom life was lived.  Large books have been stored on the bottom shelf as space has been made for them there.  Kids encyclopedias maybe, books about animals, aircraft, ships?  Possibly coffee table tomes full of glossy pictures covering fashion, houses or the world in general certainly covering the world of the owner. Maybe they were authored by the householder?  Was this the first recipient of a writers life I wonder? We shall never know so why am I prattling on?
If only the bookcase could talk.
Mind you if a bookcase began to talk we would then have other problems.  What would the bookcase say about the contents of the shelves?  Even worse imagine a sofa speaking to the press about those that had 'made use' of its comfort!  The boring sideboard may not appear so boring once it reveals the contents of that drawer with the lock that no family member bar one has ever seen open, at least the sideboard would know where the keys in the drawer fit!  The fridge would be able to reveal who was drinking out of that bottle late at night, the front door would have tales of many who had knocked hopefully over the years and as for the bathroom cabinet I despair if one of those ever began to speak!
Oh dear.  I think I made the tea too strong this morning, I will go and put some books on the shelf......

How ridiculously satisfying to have a bookcase full of books!  What strange satisfaction to see almost all the books almost in the right place.  Certainly when the world's problems are noted this small thing is unimportant, but I am strangely content. Behind me the place is er, not quite right, but that's another story as I am washed out now.  I probably should not have carted this upstairs yesterday and moved the books.  Ah well.


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