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Friday 6 August 2010

Bedtime Reading

So, thanks due to The Girl for lending me Sarah Walters wonderful book, "The Little Stranger". It's good that my reading habits are being expanded beyond detective novels set in Italy as I was in a bit of a rut. This book is set in the immediate post-war years in rural Warwickshire and narrated by a practical, sensible country doctor. The fascination of this book is how he reacts to mysterious goings-on at a decaying manor house.
Probably best not to read this in the middle of the night when you can't sleep (unless you enjoy scaring the beejeebus out of yourself I suppose) although my experience wasn't quite as bad as The Girl's...She'd got to a particularly spooky bit with tapping on walls when Maud tapped on the bedroom door and pushed it open. Not since the days of my late-lamented Harley has one cat caused such terror. Harley was an odd creature who used to go and sit in the bath when he wanted to be alone. One night I made my way down to the loo in the dark and on sitting down felt a touch on my shoulder. Harley had decided to sit on the cistern and was just alerting me to his presence with a paw. I wonder if he realised why I was screaming?

1 comment:

  1. For some reason whenever I think about this story, I imagine Harley speaking when he does this and the touch on the shoulder is accompanied by a rather deep, yet friendly, voice saying "Helloooooooooo"

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