High days and holidays: a chance to read

Hello all. I've not been posting much on here lately, and the absence of the G-Man (Get well soon Galen!) means I'm not even forcing myself to write my 55 words for a Friday.  (Though I'm doing my best to keep going with the Thursday extracts.) On the other hand, it means I'm catching up on my reading, and somehow I seem to have found a run of pretty good tales to absorb me.

The recent holiday helped, which coincided with World Book Day and my sad encounter with Bill Bryson. I had time and opportunity to read because I didn't have to go to work, and the fact that the book was free gave me a motive.  I'd taken a few novels with me on my e-reader (I always do take several books on holiday) so I had plenty of supply too.

And I spent Bank Holiday Monday morning in bed, completing the final hundred or so pages of my latest choice.

So you'll be reading my reviews over the next few days, because I'm now forcing myself to write them.  My own works of fiction might take a little longer. Or then again, they might not. I'll have a word with the muse.

Packing

My intention is always to pack light when I go travelling, but somehow I end up with loads of clothes and bits and bobs that I throw in 'just in case'. Literally just in case, because that's where they spend the entire holiday; never touched, never used, never even seen. In spite of that, I never learn. I find myself standing on stations and in airports, weighed down with all my clutter, surrounded by bags and holdalls and rucksacks and wondering just how I'm going to fit in everything I'm prepared for. Reading, photography, painting, hill walking, bird watching, shopping, fine dining, (we never do), and that's even before I start to cater for every potential kind of weather.

Five pairs of trousers is way too much for a week, particularly when I shall find myself slumming round in the same, comfortable pair of jeans for four out of the seven days. Take lots of t-shirts to ring the changes, that's the secret. But then there's the shoes.

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We're off on holiday in a few weeks and I've been wondering what to take with me. I started writing a list. It made me realise just how much STUFF I pack that I don't need, so now I shall start crossing things off it.

Holiday Reading

Don't think there'll be much writing going on!

Holiday Reading

I’m going on holiday soon to an area that I’ve never visited before. We’re off to Hastings, and one of the things I always do before any vacation is to research what’s there and who used to live in the area. After I’ve done that I try to find some holiday reading that is relevant to where I’m staying.

Apparently Dickens was fond of Hastings and gave readings at the old music hall (which is now a Yates’s Wine Lodge). The source I’m using online says “Hastings features in many of his works” but fails to identify which ones.

Another son of Hastings appears to have been Lewis Carroll who, in spite of being born in Cheshire, spent time there as a student with his good friend the artist Harry Furniss.

Catherine Cookson moved to Hastings as a young woman when she became laundry manageress of the local workhouses (later a hospital) and was married in the town. She’s a Northerner really though, and most of her books, as far as I am aware, are set in Northumberland (or at least Tyneside and higher latitudes).

Dante Gabriel Rosetti stayed in Hastings in the 1860s and apparently married Elizabeth Siddall there but he’s an artist. I suppose I could find something non-fiction about him and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood but it’s not really what I want.

Six miles east of where we’ll be staying is the town of Rye, which also has a lot of literary connections. The town lays claim to several such as Henry James, Joseph Conrad, H G Wells, G K Chesterton and E F Benson, who wrote the Mapp and Lucia series.

So what does everyone think?  Which of the many literary giants with links to East Sussex should I choose?