The Art of Queuing, and Other Travel-Related Notes

pinterestIt is three o'clock in the morning in Glasgow and I am all out of sleep.  Having slept for at least four or five hours this past afternoon, in addition to going to bed at a decent hour, my body is all full up on sleep and ready to start a new day.  The poor thing is very bewildered.  I kept it mostly awake for the previous twenty-four hours (sleeping on a plane is next door to impossible).  By the time I got to my flat after a mind-numbing eight-hour layover in Newark and a grueling night-flight to Glasgow, I looked and felt like a hellhound who, despite its best efforts, has lost its quarry and is in disgrace.  Between what certainly felt like a much-needed shower and what was certainly much-needed sleep, I managed to remove the appearance of hellhoundishness. 

Prior to leaving my home town, my sister and I discovered "Pocahontas" streaming on Netflix; having only seen the movie once in our lives, and that many years ago, we hunkered down and watched it.  It turned out to be alarmingly apropos since Abigail is taking a Minority Rights class and I was on the brink of travelling to a very strange new world.  In the past forty-eight hours I have used an airplane bathroom, employed an electric shower-head, boiled water for tea in a saucepan, and become half-convinced that I have somehow, freakishly, wandered onto the set of "Doctor Who."

moonblood - anne elisabeth stengl
dragonwitch - anne elisabeth stengl
practical religion - j.c. ryle
friday's child - georgette heyer
the foundling - georgette heyer
the black moth - georgette heyer
bath tangle - georgette heyer
the mind of the maker - dorothy sayers
the last of the mohicans - james fenimore cooper
howl's moving castle - diana wynne jones
sin and salvation - lesslie newbigin
the heir of redclyffe - charlotte yonge
green dolphin street - elizabeth gouge 

It turns out, I brought a lot of books.  I read nearly halfway through Dragonwitch on my stay in Newark; I read a little more on the first evening at the flat.  I didn't manage to make it to the halfway point in Practical Religion; the last few days at home were understandably hectic.  But some of my creative juices have been restored through reading Dragonwitch, and I have been reading so much that I am almost sick and tired of doing so and want to go write, just for a change.  I brought The Last of the Mohicans because Abigail loves it; I brought Green Dolphin Street because she gifted me with my own copy and I didn't want to leave it behind.  There are what appear to be some first-rate second-hand bookstores here in Glasgow, but it is comforting to see all my books on the sitting room shelf: their faces are blissfully familiar.