The last forty pages

God, I love a good book. I love how it can just worm its way into your life, so you find yourself picking it up even when you only have a few moments to spare. And since acquiring my, ahem, manbag, I have a book with me pretty much all the time. Hurrah!

The ending of a good book is problematic for two reasons: firstly, obviously, you don't want it to end and, secondly, the timing of the finish is not entirely within your control. Thus, I have found myself getting off Underground trains and finding a bench to sit on, just to enjoy those last few pages.

In the last week I have read and hugely enjoyed first Tony Visconti's auto-biography and then most of Graham Swift's 'Last Orders'. This morning I found myself with forty pages to go and decided that I would take them somewhere special for the finish.

And this is where I ended up, along the valley between Barbon and Dent. There were sunny spells and it was the right temperature for lying in the grass. I took this photo when it was a bit less sunny, just after I finished the book.

I didn't wade into the middle of the stream, incidentally: a hopped precariously from rock to rock, clutching my camera.