Works of fiction

Since I started my new job I've been mainly travelling by car. This is great from the perspective of not being reliant on public transport, which is a pain in South London at best of times, but it also means I both get to listen to music in the car & hear the news. Previously I left the house without having heard any news, I would then work all day - never having time to dip into www.bbc.co.uk like many colleagues I've had seemed to find time for - and by the time I got home I'd have missed the early evening news and had fallen asleep by the time the 10pm news came on (why did they have to change it from 9pm?). I guess you could argue that I could listen to the radio while getting ready for work, but I've just never been able to get ready & listen to radio simultaneously. There's always so much to do: shower, breakfast, make packed lunch, decide what to wear, tame the hair (losing battle at the moment!), put my face on etc, etc.  If I had the news on as well I know I would get distracted and never make the deadline.  So anyway, the upshot is that travelling in the car means that I now have a vague notion of what is going on in the world, and that I get to listen to music.  Marvellous stuff.  So what's the downside?

I never get to read anymore and I really miss it!  In the 5 day gap I had between finishing my old job and starting the new I enjoyed a day to myself going down the Thames to Greenwich. It was a lovely day, I saw the sights, I talked to random tourists, got a wee picnic from M&S, found one of those bookstores which are always closing down and bought a very mixed bag of books for 50p each. That was 3.5 months ago and I haven't finished a single one of them. If  I'd still been going to work on the bus I would have bought another 2 bags by now.

In fact the only work of fiction I've read recently is the timetable for the 196 at my bus stop.  This is demonstrated by the fact that I decided against the car this morning, to enable me a trip to the HITW after work, and missed my train in spite of allowing 25 minutes to wait for bus which is purported to come every 10 -12 minutes ... I'm now going to be 30 minutes late for work (no lunch break for me ...) and the worst part about it is that I forgot the damn book I laid out to enjoy on the journey.