Jak's blog
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After four days away, I returned home on Thursday and I’m still trying to catch up. That’s why I missed my posts last week, so here’s a weekend one instead. Although this post begins rather indelicately, I beg your forbearance and promise it’s going to lead somewhere better.

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As I suffer from IBS, I spend quite a lot of time sitting on the throne in the smallest room. I used to find this very frustrating, watching the unproductive minutes go by, until I hit on the idea of leaving magazines in there – the ones I really should read but which can’t compete with the books I escape into.

That way I have been able to tick off the quarterly National Trust one (jotting down a couple of ideas for articles), and even the latest Mslexia. This morning I allowed myself the luxury of taking a book in there.

I’m reading The House at Riverton and was particularly impressed by the following passage, which I thought I’d share with you. It’s part of a description of a summer ball for the aristocratic family’s eldest daughter.

“A battalion of fur-draped chaperones lined the walls, perched on gold chairs with hot-water bottles under their lap rugs. Veterans were recognizable for the reading and knitting they had sensibly brought to while away the wee hours.”

How glad I am that my twilight years are happening now, rather than post the Great War.