Book Review | A Word For Every Day of the Year by Steven Poole

Journal

Lucubration

Well, I didn’t know that!

I’ve been a Lucabrat all my life!!

The Day’s Start

Steven Poole has done a marvllous Work here.

WE ALL HAVE ways we like to start the day.

Regardless of weather or season, having showered and dressed, I open the house room by room, blind by blind, window by window, by which time the kettle has boiled.

I then go downstairs to the study - that place where all the work is done, where countless hours are spent, and swish back the long curtains, the only room with curtains, and unlock and open wide the french doors.

Ah! Fresh air. Beautiful. Ja. Das ist gut. Es ist so schön.

Frost requires a check of the pond and breaking the ice, rain has me staying off the lawn at this end of the small garden, the breeze on my face, often the wind on my face; and i admit I love it when my hair is swirling about, and all the cobsebs are being blown away.

I like to watch the birdlife. As I live in a street of houses, the birds tend to stay high up and swoop across gardens. But the trees are growing well, and providing safe haven. Higher up I catch two Herons in close formation, one slightly behind the other and tucked in.

Sometimes, a Sparrowhawk will appear. That is when it all goes quiet further down as smaller birdlife take cover.

Higher still, is a rumble. I know the sound. Very heavy. Four engines. On a heading for an air-base somewhere in Poland not far from the Ukraine border; higher still, ah yes. That sound. NATO battlefield command, way, way, way into the stratosphere, but with eyes and ears as sharp as any bird of prey, and sharper still. Please GOD, don’t let that stupid man try his hand. The outcome will be catastrophic for the People he insists he represents.

Now the best moment of all. That very first sip of coffee.

Yep, the day now starts. In my mind’s eye a pile of books await me upstairs; I’ll start with the first over a light breakfast and my second, larger coffee. My eye runs across the diary. I plan my day. I’ll use the Benz this morning for that job, leave her out, as I’ve got that journey this evening.

Quick mental check. Yep, I’ve got de-icer.

How strange. It has taken me seven decades to learn that there is actually a Noun for the person who works by artificial light. How lovely, when this book dropped through the letterbox from my niece.

Team Effort

Caroline, yet again, you and Jack bang on target!

Thanks a million. Uncle Ken

12 January 2023
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