Had a rather disturbed night; woke up at 3 am with a terrible headache which eventually went away but kept me tossing and groaning (fnarr, fnarr) for at least an hour. It’s the kind of headache which is horrible when you have it but which leaves you feeling washed clean when it passes.
Yesterday was a very chilled day, spent mostly in the garden reading “His Dark Materials’ – apparently Phillip Pullman has been working on a sequel called ‘The Book of Dust’ for a very long time now.
‘I wonder if it’s a reference to Borges’ Book of Sand?’ I said.
‘Oo!’ said Mark excitedly. ‘It could be!’
It wasn’t that exciting really; but Dust is a central concept in “His Dark Materials’ and is a sort of cross between the force of splitting the atom and sexual awareness. In these books the Church – very strongly Catholic – is a force for evil and tries to suppress the knowledge of this Dust. They are terrific books and, just as you don’t have to be a Christian to appreciate the Narnia books, you don’t have to be an atheist to like these.
Mark got a book out of the library and for a joke covered it with newspaper and put a label on it which said ‘If I told you that I’d have to kill you.’ Turns out the book was written by a patient of his and he didn’t want to break confidentiality. No, I can’t tell you who it was because I’m afraid if I told you that…
Actually managed to pin Daniel down and read something to him yesterday – this hardly ever happens as he is very resistant to new material; he will read Harry Potter or graphic novels but not much else. I read him a scene where two boys wind up a third boy until the third boy snaps and then the third gets blamed for it. The second boy doesn’t tell on his friend because that’s their code. It’s interesting and Daniel really liked it, so that’s good. Today they will be doing Maths and Science and I shall be trying to work out what the hell to write.
Kirk out
Sarada Gray 