Book-drunk and bits of news
It's the weirdest thing to have so many books to read. Before, I've sometimes treated myself to a nice pile of books and felt I was happily supplied for ages, but I read so fast they've always been gone in a few days.
But now, with Kindle versions of multi-book collections, Stephen King's backlist, as many sample chapters as I feel like downloading, and the ability to buy others with a couple of clicks…well, after a weekend spent reading I kind of felt drunk on books!
I've just sent first-round edits on Blood of the Volcano back to my editor, with the hope that she'll approve my many deletions and a few significant additions.
I've been dieting for the last three weeks, and have lost a little bit of weight, maybe a couple of pounds? Which is about the right speed. My godson's naming ceremony is this weekend, and I'll look relatively svelte, I feel. And hopefully even more svelte by the time Abstract and I have a weekend at a hotel in the Lake District later this month.
Speaking of hotel breaks, there may not be many of those in the future. We're kind of nervous about what the current government is doing with working families tax credit and child benefit. Due to the way the child benefit is worked out, I've decided that the thing for us to do is make sure Abstract's salary doesn't go up at all (so he stays under the threshold), but for my salary to climb as much as it likes. I haven't worked out the tax credit yet, but suspect there'll be no fixing that.
I know, I have a new Kindle, so we're clearly not on the breadline or anything. But it's not like the child benefit gets spent on holidays abroad or private education, either. We'd survive without, but we'd really miss it.
I made the mistake of reading a discussion about it on a parenting board earlier. A discussion which split neatly into "if you're above that income threshold you're over-privileged and don't need any benefits" (with a secondary line of "don't have kids if you can't afford them") and "I work hard to get above the threshold, why should I be penalized when scroungers/single mums/paedophiles get an easy ride". Yes, paedophiles were referenced. It was a super-intelligent discussion.
Tangentially, I am deeply irritated by people who throw out the casual comment "I don't like children" with clearly no idea that they're being seriously offensive. I don't mind at all people who say "I don't want children" or "I don't like looking after children" or any number of similar statements. But saying you don't like a whole section of the population? Hello, Mr Bigot.
I'm also bewildered that they think it's okay to say it about children (or babies, or teenagers), but you can bet that if someone said something similar about, oh, older people, or people with disabilities, or, you know, people of a different race, there'd be a shocked intake of breath all round.
