Inner Temple

It didn't rain on me today at Inner Temple Garden on my lunchtime bench, so I had a chance to look around and snap some foliage. The extra is a snowdrop with a lovely green detail on one of its petals. I've not seen this before on this kind of flower.

My day started on edge as I finished reading The End We Start From by Megan Hunter, which I read in three commutes (it's a slim book). It's written from the point of view of a mum who gives birth at the same time as a catastrophic flooding in her home city of London (and elsewhere I would think, though it's not mentioned). It's about survival and little hopes. I won't give too much away, but looking up from the pages to step out onto a central London street where the imagination of flooded post-apocalyptic London meets normal commuter London was a little unsettling. It didn't help that the "Jesus, oh Jesus" commuter was on my bus and was whispering prayers behind me for the last five minutes. She's a regular and it's fine, but not when I'm reading a disaster novel.

For my next read, I have Small Island by Andrea Levy. It's part of the reading challenge a few of us in the office are encouraging each other to do – reading the 25 winners of the Women's Prize for Fiction. The list is here. I've read five already (Fugitive Pieces, Bel Canto, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Half of a Yellow Sun, and How to be Both) and I brought in the books that I had on my shelf to add to the pile. We all have different ones, which is handy. There are already a couple of books that some loved but others disliked. We shall see.

The West Norwood Feast volunteer meeting turned into social occasion, too, as we all stayed for one more drink after we'd tackled the agenda. It was great to see everyone. I had another book chat here and was encouraged to read Sebastian Barry and Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Connor. I've popped those on my very long list. A reading list is allowed to be extremely long, I feel.