The Dead Time

Well it has turned dark and it has turned a bit colder. Winter is definitely coming!

For those of us who like to visit historic properties this is the dead time when they are "put to bed" as the National Trust so quaintly put it!

I guess there are reasons why this is so but I can't help but feel that there is a market for weekend opening. Many trust properties keep there cafes and parks open and houses have to have a certain temperature to protect the contents and houses are mostly manned by volunteers.

Now given the dark nights and the cooling temperatures you'd think if I was going to buy a travelogue I'd buy one about somewhere warm wouldn't you?

Well I WOULD have bought Paul Theroux's Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the tracks of 'The Great Railway Bazaar', It's a sequel to his classic The Great Railway Bazaar which is about travelling by train in India, the new book was written 30 years later, but alas its not available on the Kindle.

So what travelogue did I buy? The Magnetic North: Travels in the Arctic by Sara Wheeler. Yes the Arctic!!! Wheeler wrote a fine book about Antarctica.

And no I still have yet to read on the Kindle!!! Desperately trying to finish the paperbacks!