One Of Those Questions

How did a tie I lost at a wedding my father didn't attend (because he was dead) get into the pocket of one of his jackets that I don't wear (because he was much smaller than me)? 

I suppose I could ask him when I cross over but I imagine I'll have more important things on my mind.

Weeding The Shelves

 I've been rationalising the family library. Ailz only ever reads digital texts these days and my mother no longer reads anything so I don't have to consult anyone's taste but my own. 

There's a certain amount of overlap between my mother's books and ours. Do we need two not dissimilar copies of the Collected Works of John Keats? I think not. Mine is inferior to my mother's- which has a nice frontispiece portrait of the poet- so it's mine that goes into the carrier bag destined for the charity shop.

No household needs more than one copy of Barnaby Rudge- incidentally the only major Dickens I've never read.

And then there's the dead wood. Novelty publications that were given as Christmas presents and books on handicrafts that belonged to my grandmother and books by once celebrated 20th century authors whose time has passed. John Brophy? Marganita Laski? Osbert Sitwell? Sorry, chaps. 

I have spent my life avoiding reading The Forsyte Saga. Am I likely to succumb now? I enjoyed the TV version- the first one with Eric Porter and Kenneth More and Nyree Dawn Porter- but that was then and this is now...