Some people like beach holidays. Others enjoy city breaks, and yet others prefer activity holidays. Me? I don’t much care because in truth, I won’t be looking up from my book for long enough to pay much attention! Luckily for me, my husband feels much the same (although his attention is firmly directed at fishing rather than books), which means we really do have the perfect breaks, just like the one we had last week.
With a short break, we didn’t venture far. In fact, we made it about an hour away from where we live, but to a little (and I mean little) log cabin on the side of a private lake, stocked to the gills with carp (see what I did there?) for hubby but with plenty of lounging (or rather, reading) spots for me – including a beautiful, entirely isolated secret garden!
It was beautiful, idyllic, but of course, before we got there I had the difficulty of choosing what books to take. We were to be away for four days, so naturally I took nine books – two for each day, plus a Brucie-Bonus, because…you know…I’m a reading machine.
- From 0 to Infinity in 26 CenturiesFrom 0 to Infinity in 26 Centuries by Chris Waring
- Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
- Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari
- Flappers by Judith Mackrell
- If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller by Italo Calvino
- Hagseed by Margaret Atwood
- Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
- The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton by Kathryn Hughes
- The Altogether Unexpected Disappearance of Atticus Craftsman by Mamen Sanchez
And, of course my Kindle…just in case I ran out of reading material. I always have been one to be over-prepared and I’m not sure I even believed that I’d get through that lot. It was fun trying though. I read the first two and about half of the third, but you know what? You really can’t beat a holiday that involves pretty much sitting around in a beautiful place reading, followed by the odd tasty meal in a local restaurant (and then straight back to reading, of course), even if you don’t quite make it through your planned list.
You know, sometimes life gets in the way. It gets you down, it climbs all over you and pushes you deep into a whirlwind of activity, of work, of being social. All those things are great, but a pause in the countryside is just what I needed. A little bubble of calm and quiet, a petit piece of paradise into which I climbed and from there escaped. And if you’re wondering what my poor husband was doing whilst I was shunning his attention in favour of books…well, it wasn’t so bad for him after all, because he got to fish to his heart’s content (he even made a YouTube video of it).
One thing’s for sure, I’m certainly glad we didn’t opt for Disneyland Paris as we were tempted to. I can’t imagine I’d have even managed one book there!
