Consequences

You might ask why anyone would have a reading pile that had two of the same book in it. Is that the same sort of forgetfulness and general crapness that explains why I have a train ticket for 18 July purchased without using my senior railcard? No, it's intentional. But the "cheese" in the sandwich is not. They were accidental purchases.

Yesterday, I saw Hell4Murph's latest blip with some books she had recently been gifted. I decided I would be getting the one in the middle, about the history of women gardeners, as summer reading, so I reserved a copy at Blackwells and left a comment on the blip stating my intention. My sister was along afterwards reading the blip and also leaving a comment. She and W are quite the gardeners, creating their new garden in Ireland out of a large empty space. She messaged me to ask me to get them a copy as well. So I reserved a second copy at Blackwells, and after we'd finished interviewing in the morning I popped across to pick the books up. "Unfortunately", some more summer reading landed in my basket (as it were) at the same time. Two of those books - the Erpenbeek and the Magnusson - are books that I heard the authors talking about last year. Erpenbeek at the Edinburgh International Book Festival and  Magnusson here at our very own wee Festival in Tain. They were put on the mental "definitely to read in due course list", and I was happy to see both books now in paperback. It was easy to find a third one I fancied in order to take advantage of the standard three for two offer. I knew there was a reason I didn't go in bookshops very often.... Ach, well, that's my summer evening reading sorted. I do like reading real books when I'm here and while we now have a TV up here, I hope it won't be going on too often.

It was another long day of a full day at work (after a sunny walk to work - see extra), followed by a train trip and collection from Inverness by Mr A. I started reading about women gardeners once I'd sorted out a few bits of additional correspondence that needed finalising. The time passed quickly, as it does on these summer evening trips, and the drive was also smooth and quiet. We were back in Tain at 10.02 and of course it was still pretty light.

The weekly commuting by train business has been going well. My trip to Edinburgh on Wednesday turned out to be for free because Scotrail cancelled the first leg of the trip, which didn't worry me as we needed to take the car into Inverness anyway, but it still allowed me to reclaim the cost of the ticket. So far, I've had a grand total of about 15 minutes lateness on the trains I've taken. And they've all been rather empty, except the LNER one the other week which was fairly busy at least as far as Perth. While all my remaining tickets are from Inverness, I think that when I go back on Tuesday next week I'll try and get the connecting train from Tain. But let's wait and see what glories Scotrail are offering.

Happy to be "home", but of course it took a little while to wind down and get to sleep.