Last night I started the first volume of the Cairo Trilogy by Mahfouz… Palace Walk.

It is an exquisitely painted picture of family life in Cairo before the British left. The wife and her six children and the fearsomely somber Husband/Master/Patriarch are compelling and exotic and all too familiar  all at the same time. And since there are three of them I should have a good time with them for quite a while.

By then my Robert Graves books on Rome should have arrived and I can leave the sordid world of HBO’s sex ridden/ sadomasochistic fantasy rendition of Octavian’s life and jump into the poetic beauty of Graves’ writing.  It’s a good day to think about books as the temperature has dropped and rain  is forecast for all day so I can leave behind my garden obsession and instead  I can build a fire, curl up on the sofa with a thick blanket and a cup of jasmine pearl tea and lounge my day away.

Well that’s after I finish two duvet covers for half comforters so Jim can have one weight duvet and I another. And maybe make another kitty bad out of fleece for the Princess Abigail. Here is yesterday’s addition… which she took to instantly.

 Or  maybe I will simply procrastinate and stare out the windows at the rain.