Tuesday 1st October

The first of a month is a good time for starting things; my goddaughter got married on the 1st of October (many years ago now). "Choose a date that's easy to remember, " said her mother wisely. 

We hadn't heard of this excellent advice, with the result we celebrated our wedding anniversaries on the wrong date for many years before I came across an old order of service. 

I'm embarking on creating a booklet that my father might enjoy; rather along the lines of an anthology, or maybe a Commonplace Book, or perhaps a mixture of the two. 

Why? 

I remember my grandmother saying (at the ripe old age of 86) that one of the irritating things about being old was that by the time she reached the end of an article in The New Scientist magazine she had list the thread and couldn't remember the beginning. 

Now my father, in his 95th year, is complaining of much the same thing, so that reading books with a plot, or articles in his magazines, is becoming too frustrating. 

"Perhaps you enjoy a book of bits and pieces?"

"Maybe", was the cautious response. So here goes...

I collected about 8 A4 sides of material, using my own Commonplace books and also Alec Guinness' book which I had bought recently.

I included a page from my old Commonplace book from October 2023. I couldn't resist adding a comment in purple!

I thought I'd chosen a nice big font, but after learning how to print it to be folded into an A5 booklet I realised I needed a font size of about 22! 

I've got a fairly promising version printed off; with the larger font it is now 18 sides of A4. That's not too bad, just 9 double-sided pieces of paper. I won't be printing many copies - the corrected draft and a final version for my father. Hopefully he'll have his copy on Thursday when BB takes his shopping round.

Now for that editing and proof reading. Not my strong points as long term readers of this blog may have noticed...