Last Days of Regency

I'm in the final throes of packing, and tomorrow I shall be living in Marlborough Road, Oxford, rather than Regent Street, Oxford. Last time I moved, I didn't have the internet for a few weeks - I do hope the same won't be true this time, but I thought I'd write and warn you all that any silence is probably involuntary.

This photo might be horribly familiar to those of you who have moved house recently. I've only been here a year, and have accumulated an enormous amount of rubbish. Having 'almost finished' packing yesterday, I filled three boxes tonight with what can only be described as 'assorted tat'. How does it happen? Can't imagine. Oddly enough, when we moved from Worcestershire to Somerset in 2005 (my only major move, since I was shipped off to friends for the 1992 move from Merseyside to Worcestershire) it didn't seem to take too long or reveal too much unwanted junk. Curious.

What am I up to over the next week or so? This weekend I'm off to London - that was quite a last minute decision, as I have been invited to my friend's 'stag party'. I wish there were a less repellent term for that... Marital Preparation Celebration, perhaps. The guy in question is a Christian, as is his brother who is organising it, so I have no qualms on the ethical front - but I don't really know what to expect. We'll see. On more familiar ground, I shall be spending the following week attending Book Groups - well, two of 'em. My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier, and To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The Carbon Copy has been asking me to read the latter ever since he read it at school, and I have been meaning to. So far, wonderful (about 100 pages in) and unmistakably Southern American. Something in the style and characterisation, more than the topics or dialect. I'll report back on those two in further detail in the future, no doubt, and haven't forgotten that I owe you a review of The Brontes Went To Woolworths...

Adieu, hopefully not for long!