So today has been a bit up and down, both on the holiday front and the read-a-thon front. By which I mean I haven’t felt entirely well and therefore wasn’t able to tuck into a bottle of wine, as I had been planning to do. I have had quite a lot of tea, of various kinds, which is also nice.

Today I finished reading The Small Hand by Susan Hill, which is a ghost story set in the current day but using the tropes of classic Victorian ghost stories. I enjoyed it but wasn’t at all scared, I must admit. I then read all of The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, which I had heard a lot about thanks to the film. It’s a very sweet, honest book about being a teenager and I am annoyed with the edition that I have, because it both a film tie-in (never a good move) and it has a quote on the front comparing it to Catcher in the Rye, which it’s nothing like and which gets referenced in the novel. But I suppose I never like quotes.

What else have I been up to today? Well, there was a brief trip to the local pub, or at least brief for me because I felt unwell and came home. I indulged myself for a few hours with a hot water bottle, Pretty in Pink and Gilmore Girls, before deciding to stop wallowing and get back to the books. I also helped Tim feed the five thousand (or however many guests it is he has) with an oven full of jacket potatoes.

Now I’m weighing up whether I’m awake enough to begin book four – Dead Air by Iain Banks or if I should just go to sleep.