Today is all about stories – the first is one of a long, arduous day (again, but when isn’t it?). I’ve been ‘there and back’ today again – that’s two weeks in a row. Advantage = being able to sleep in my own bed and lower cost for me, disadvantage = a syrupy tiredness that lasts the whole week afterwards!

The second is a proposal – largely written (Ginny – I have a few little bits to finish) on a train this morning – that’s a story of sorts.

Next there is the story of a client meeting that failed to reach an ending, either happy or unhappy.

Lastly there is the story I’m really interested in – that of having the pleasure and privilege of being able to indulge one of my great passions on a long train journey this evening. Reading! (No, not the station, though that, of course to anyone who knows the Great West Railway, also featured.)

I set off without anything from my book pile this morning so I bought, almost on a complete whim, a book at Reading station, see, Reading has something to do with reading after all. It turned out to be a completely joyous little treasure that made me laugh out loud and also shed a tear. The man who wrote it is certainly a wordsmith of a very special kind, one with such a tender human touch that you get sucked in and feel every cherished moment of family life with him.

What’s more, he’s Canadian and I’m not sure if I’d have even bought it had I realised, having an irrational upset with Canada at the moment from the trials and tribulations of dealing with a Canadian company who are causing me much distress….although to be truthful, I’m causing myself distress, it’s just that they keep pointing out my flaws in bigger and bigger numbers seemingly each day and it’s getting me down. I know it’s not sane to find myself flinching at the thought of this, but nonetheless, I’m feeling so much pain over it that I find myself in a completely miserable stupor every time I think of the company! (Please don’t tick me off – I mean no slight to my friends Canadian – it is, after all, just an irrational mood swing of an over-tired woman!)

Anyway, the chap is called Stuart McLean and I urge you to go and buy Vinyl Café Unplugged – it’s completely, bloody marvellous. Like I said, the man is an angel of mercy because he kept me entertained and delighted throughout my four hours on the train tonight. Why did I choose it? Well, it’s sort of loosely about records, one of my favourite little pleasures on this planet! As for the ending? Completely, exquisitely heartbreaking in the nicest possible way.

This got me to remembering that I ought to mention a man whose demise escaped me for a few years, but while looking last week to see if he’d written anything else, following a conversation with Colin, my bookworm friend who also loves his work, I discovered he’d died. Now you see, that is certainly NOT the sentence of a wordsmith, convoluted and unwieldy as it most certainly was!

The great man, who first came to my attention through the poignant story ‘White Palace’, which I read in a day and felt bereft when I finished it, is Glenn Savan. I was bought this gorgeous book by Claz and then I bought copies for Colin and Debbie, I loved it so much. I waited what seemed like a lifetime for his second novel, Goldman’s Anatomy was an entirely different kind of read. Clearly bitter and angry, I thought it was the product of a number of years of writer’s block.

It now transpires (though perhaps many already knew of this), that he died tragically, a man of 49 (scarily only two years older than me), of a stroke or heart attack but also after a long battle with Parkinson’s and a bone disease. So now I know where the inspiration for Goldman’s Anatomy came from!

Anyway, the two novels are both wonderful, albeit in totally different ways and I was deeply saddened to hear of the loss of a clearly talented writer.

So, I use the title (obviously knicked from AA Milne) and the shot of the flags to celebrate the passing of a wonderful talent and the discovery of a new one whose work I will be seeking out on Amazon later!

Last year, I posted the photo of a convict!