Wednesday 3rd January

 I've reluctantly cried off Book Club tonight. I join the meetings via zoom, and it's actually quite tiring to follow the conversations of everyone else as they share delicious food and chat around the table. But I've done far too many things today; and when I had a bath this afternoon I really thought I was going to faint as I got out - very scary! I managed to get myself to the bedroom and switch on the oxygen machine, for I was pretty certain that was the cause. I'm OK now, as long as I'm sat sitting here on the settee and not doing much.

The book under discussion is 'Candide' by Voltaire

and yet again I haven't finished the book in time for the meeting. It's an unusual choice, but one of the group is doing an OU degree in English Literature so we're reading it to support her. I listened to several chapters but didn't enjoy it; a series of calamitous episodes which befall a young adventurer as he jumps out one frying pan into a fire and into another frying pan. A sort of quick-fire literary pantomime.

I may yet take a break from the club; I'd miss seeing my friends but find I'm preferring to read fairly light-weight fiction; blurbs which include 'thought-provoking' etc ring alarm bells, and then 'psychological thriller', 'heart-rending' and 'harrowing' set off all the klaxons!

I've just started re-reading 'Gaudy Night' by Dorothy L Sayers for the umpteenth time. Here's a paragraph for my Commonplace Book, a conversationbetween Harriet Vane and Miss de Vine;

There's something to ponder.