It's the last day of Bout of Books 15 - and as usual, it both feels like it's lasted forever, and like it's flown by in about twelve seconds. Unlike usual, on this final Sunday I'm up early because NOISY CAT and HEADACHE and also JUST PLAIN AWAKE, so I might actually get a decent reading day in again, woohoo! Let's get started, shall we? *reaches for painkillers and coffee determinedly*
~ SUNDAY ~
Books I've read from: Zoo by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge; The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens; 21st Century Dodos: A Collection Endangered Objects (and Other Stuff) by Steve Stack
Pages read today: 156
Books finished today: None
Running total: 2 books; 846 pages
The menu: Coffee; pains au chocolat and mixed tinned fruit; Nutella hot chocolate; lasagne with sweetcorn; cocoa puffs with sultanas; vanilla rooibos tea
Today #insixwords: "WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS, MY FRIEEEEENDS..."
5:30am: Yup, definitely an early start over here. And on a Sunday too. Ugh. Aaaanyway, the sky is already starting to shift from navy black to that lovely pre-sunrise blue, and I have coffee, and Domino has ARRIVED, so I'm going to start reading Chapter 2 of The Pickwick Papers and have some headache tablets, and we'll go from here. More sleep afterwards? Breakfast? More reading? WHO KNOWS?! When you're up at 5:30am, the options are endless. Lovely. :)
7:30am: Weeeell, that 'going back to sleep' thing's probably shot to pieces at this point to be honest. More coffee and the REST of Chapter 2 of Pickwick I think. Also I need to make some review notes and copy down some notable quotables from Knots and Crosses so it can go back to the library, which is something else easy but productive to cross off nice and early. Might as well start this last readathon day RIGHT.
1pm: I switched to Zoo a bit ago, after I finished my chapter of Pickwick. I was GOING to have delicious pains au chocolat for breakfast about two hours ago, but then we discovered a little stray piece of cat poo on the stairs (Domino's so fluffy she doesn't always notice these things while they're actually upon her person) and I accidentally stuck my finger in it when I went to clean it up, SO I kinda went right off the 'gooey chocolatey breakfast' idea for a bit. I had a good long shower instead, washed my hair, shower gelled the shit out of the offending hand (literally), and NOW I've got pains au chocolat and fruit and coffee for a late breakfast-slash-brunch. It's aaaaaall good.
So, I'm carrying on with Zoo, and it's getting very interesting as Oz and his fellow scientists try to work out what's going on with the world's mammals. It skipped forward in time by five years a bit back, just as I was starting to wonder how the story could sustain itself as it was, and now it's getting scientific and political and weird and shocking, and I THINK my earlier theory about what could be happening just turned out to be correct. Don't you love it when that happens?!
4pm: Weeeeeell, look at me! Despite a sore hip from yesterday's walk, I was determined to go out again, because it's a lovely day today, AND because tomorrow it's given rain all day so I probably won't go then. Anyway, I found a mini route with slightly less steep inclines up and down and walked that. The views across town were surprisingly good, the clouds were beautiful, the air was crisp... it was nice.
I'm not gonna lie, my lower back and my hip are now cricked in such a weird way that I feel like I might not be able to move properly at ALL tomorrow, but every little walk should help counter that. I sort of forgot it was Sunday, and that there would therefore be lots of other people out having a wander too, and I end up trying to walk more 'normally' (straighter, faster) around them rather than walking comfortably. Ooops. Still, it was a good excuse to make Nutella hot chocolate and sit down for a few minutes with my book when I got home!
5:30pm: Yummy. I set the books aside, and ate lasagne and sweetcorn, and drank coffee, and watched the episode of Being Human where Annie babysits and George tries to get his life in order and Mitchell breaks apart and sobs all over Doctor Lucy and totally gets in her pants.
6:30pm: Aaaaand I fell asleep. Not to dream of Aidan Turner with his shirt off, tragically, and it was only for ten minutes, but... let's try that 'reading and being awake in the early evening like a normal person' thing again, shall we? I might listen to Michael Ball's radio show on Radio 2 for a bit while I do a bit of internetty shizzle, then it'll be time to turn off the screen again for tonight's digital sundown. I'll be ready to go back to my book by then for one last push towards the end of Bout of Books! And I'll be back tomorrow to add the week's wrap-up onto the end of this post, of course. Arrivederci, fellow readers!
Quote of the day: "What I was feeling wasn't even quite fear. What I was feeling was the fear equivalent of when you're so sad you laugh. The wheel of fear went around a whole turn, came out the other side. I thought, well, this is it."
- from Zoo by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
5:30am: Yup, definitely an early start over here. And on a Sunday too. Ugh. Aaaanyway, the sky is already starting to shift from navy black to that lovely pre-sunrise blue, and I have coffee, and Domino has ARRIVED, so I'm going to start reading Chapter 2 of The Pickwick Papers and have some headache tablets, and we'll go from here. More sleep afterwards? Breakfast? More reading? WHO KNOWS?! When you're up at 5:30am, the options are endless. Lovely. :)
7:30am: Weeeell, that 'going back to sleep' thing's probably shot to pieces at this point to be honest. More coffee and the REST of Chapter 2 of Pickwick I think. Also I need to make some review notes and copy down some notable quotables from Knots and Crosses so it can go back to the library, which is something else easy but productive to cross off nice and early. Might as well start this last readathon day RIGHT.
1pm: I switched to Zoo a bit ago, after I finished my chapter of Pickwick. I was GOING to have delicious pains au chocolat for breakfast about two hours ago, but then we discovered a little stray piece of cat poo on the stairs (Domino's so fluffy she doesn't always notice these things while they're actually upon her person) and I accidentally stuck my finger in it when I went to clean it up, SO I kinda went right off the 'gooey chocolatey breakfast' idea for a bit. I had a good long shower instead, washed my hair, shower gelled the shit out of the offending hand (literally), and NOW I've got pains au chocolat and fruit and coffee for a late breakfast-slash-brunch. It's aaaaaall good.
So, I'm carrying on with Zoo, and it's getting very interesting as Oz and his fellow scientists try to work out what's going on with the world's mammals. It skipped forward in time by five years a bit back, just as I was starting to wonder how the story could sustain itself as it was, and now it's getting scientific and political and weird and shocking, and I THINK my earlier theory about what could be happening just turned out to be correct. Don't you love it when that happens?!
4pm: Weeeeeell, look at me! Despite a sore hip from yesterday's walk, I was determined to go out again, because it's a lovely day today, AND because tomorrow it's given rain all day so I probably won't go then. Anyway, I found a mini route with slightly less steep inclines up and down and walked that. The views across town were surprisingly good, the clouds were beautiful, the air was crisp... it was nice.
I'm not gonna lie, my lower back and my hip are now cricked in such a weird way that I feel like I might not be able to move properly at ALL tomorrow, but every little walk should help counter that. I sort of forgot it was Sunday, and that there would therefore be lots of other people out having a wander too, and I end up trying to walk more 'normally' (straighter, faster) around them rather than walking comfortably. Ooops. Still, it was a good excuse to make Nutella hot chocolate and sit down for a few minutes with my book when I got home!
5:30pm: Yummy. I set the books aside, and ate lasagne and sweetcorn, and drank coffee, and watched the episode of Being Human where Annie babysits and George tries to get his life in order and Mitchell breaks apart and sobs all over Doctor Lucy and totally gets in her pants.
 |
| *licks screen experimentally* |
6:30pm: Aaaaand I fell asleep. Not to dream of Aidan Turner with his shirt off, tragically, and it was only for ten minutes, but... let's try that 'reading and being awake in the early evening like a normal person' thing again, shall we? I might listen to Michael Ball's radio show on Radio 2 for a bit while I do a bit of internetty shizzle, then it'll be time to turn off the screen again for tonight's digital sundown. I'll be ready to go back to my book by then for one last push towards the end of Bout of Books! And I'll be back tomorrow to add the week's wrap-up onto the end of this post, of course. Arrivederci, fellow readers!
Quote of the day: "What I was feeling wasn't even quite fear. What I was feeling was the fear equivalent of when you're so sad you laugh. The wheel of fear went around a whole turn, came out the other side. I thought, well, this is it."
- from Zoo by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
~ Wrap-Up ~
We've come to the end of another readathon - so how did I do? Well, pretty darn well, actually, now you mention it... I read a total of 846 pages, including the second half of Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie, all of Knots and Crosses, the first Rebus novel by Ian Rankin, most of Zoo by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge, a big chunk of 21st Century Dodos by Steve Stack and two chapters of The Pickwick Papers. Not bad considering that my 'daily page average' goal in previous years has been to read about 50 pages a day - this week I've averaged a whopping 121 pages a day. Hooray! I love getting a new year's reading off to a flying start.
Aside from the reading, I've posted every day, with pictures, stats, challenge entries and reading updates. I took part in three challenges, the fun 'Would You Rather' challenge (Tuesday), the now practically traditional Rainbow challenge (Wednesday) and the cosy Comfy Reading Spot challenge (Saturday). I also managed to squeeze in a couple of episodes of Being Human, watching Disney's Peter Pan for the first time since I was a child, going on a couple of nice little walks to start boosting me out of my agoraphobic backslide, a trip to the dentist and a potter round Tesco, amongst other things. Not too shabby really!
You can read all my updates, see all my photos and GIFs, and check out my challenge entries in one handy package by clicking here!
I hope you've enjoyed coming along for the ride with me, and that you've had a fantastic week of reading, whether or not you were taking part in Bout of Books this time!
