Thank Goodness for Books

Lucky I’m an avid reader. I will go through a novel a week, sometimes two, and it’s just as well because with all the social distancing and restrictions on travel, my games of Memory, Scrabble and Monopoly are spending a lot of time on the shelf under the telly.

Not gathering dust though. One of the things I’ve been doing a lot of is cleaning. Not that I don’t normally clean, because I do, I don’t like a messy space, but when a lot of other activities are off the agenda and I’m not into daytime TV, doing an almost daily whiz around with the cloth and the vacuum  etc has become my newest normal. But at night I like to read.

And it’s just as well because my fellow players (my kids) and I can’t get together to play those games nearly often enough because of the restrictions in place to keep us safe from The Bug. And it’s killing us! Like, we’ve been known to sit up until the wee small hours with a family game, or six, and we did it regularly, when family visits could be a lot more regular. And we had the best time ever going hammer and tongs on each other in a close match.

We are mad keen Scrabblers  and get the kind of close scores that lead to “revenge” matches, one after the other after the other, then a cuppa break, and then another game, it’s great! It’s the same with Memory and as for Monopoly, it’s just open slather when we all get together over the Monopoly board.  Everyone wants Mayfair and Park Lane and once we set everything up…it’s on!

But as I mentioned, playing regularly is not happening at the moment, and attempting to play on my own, well take it from me, it doesn’t quite work. Hence books.

The beauty of a good book is that it will grab your attention from the first page and keep you happily occupied until the last. You can read a book on your own. The joy you get from a book is as good as landing on Mayfair when you already have Park Lane, and have enough money left over to put a house on each and the other players just keep landing on them…

Books even take precedence over social media with me. I love crime fiction, mystery and a good creepy story and right now I have a hot selection in several piles sitting on the coffee table (thank goodness for the local op shop) so I am one happy woman! So I am very thankful that I’m a big reader or I’d be going crackers about now because one can only take so many walks, read so many newspapers and make so many batches of biscuits and meringues. The plants have been repotted, the wisteria trimmed and, well, the house got dusted to within an inch of it’s life. Again.  I didn’t vacuum though. I showed a bit of restraint there because it was only done yesterday.

I’ll just do it tomorrow.

 

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