under another sun

To work feeling rather tired. Looking at poems on the train up for a wee bit, then reading The Driver's Seat , by Muriel Spark. I like Muriel Spark a lot, but this is a strange and dark little book. Work good, as I was briefed on some work, and simply got on with it. Ate my tupperware of little wraps my lovely made me at lunch, then took myself out for a bit of a walk. To nearby Paddington Basin. A new area, with lots of modern buildings built around the end of the canal, with a floating garden with planters and artificial grass. The place has dozens of little boats floating in it, looking like paper boats. Sometimes their reflections make them look like stars. Worked. Then home. Unusually tired today. Below some snaps of the wee boats at Paddington Basin.

Kissed Lorraine near Preston Park station, then into London, reading. I had randomly picked up Canal Dreams by Iain Banks which I have carried in boxes from house to house for years. Now was the time I would finally read it. After 40 minutes I decided I hated it. The characters were cardboard, the writing useless and I didn't care what happened in this story, just as long as I didn't have to keep reading it. I gave it a good go though. Interesting how good writers can write terrible books sometimes, I googled it afterwards, and it seems that Banks thought it was his worst novel. I've only read the Wasp Factory , which while I thought was only okay, it was much better than this Canal Dreams . I had selected it based on my current spate of canal mooching. Into work, and a reasonable pace of things today, rather than yesterday's machine-like slog. A walk at lunchtime, first to the Smiths in Paddington station and a futile search for something decent to read. Then I walk...