Reading, cycling and other stories...

I finished reading Philippa Gregory's The Red Queen last night and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it although I wish the book didn't stop where it did. I should like to have continued reading about the exploits of Margaret after her son became King in the early years of his reign and I would like to have seen more about her relationship with her new daughter in law the future Queen of England. I think that both of these subjects may be addressed in future novels by Philippa as I understand from her biography that she is working on two further novels, one about the future Queen Elizabeth and one about Jacquetta her grandmother, and so I am certainly looking forward to reading those also.

On another positive note I discovered today that Alison Weir will be making an appearance at the Cheltenham literature festival in October 2011 to publicise her new nonfiction book on Mary Boleyn sister of the tragic second wife of Henry VIII Anne Boleyn and so I'm very much looking forward to seeing her and cant wait to book a ticket to see her once they go on sale in August.

As for me I'm starting to relax on my first day off and have taken up cycling again. since moving to my new flat I have had little chance to explore the local area and so after using my bike for the first time in two years to cycle to my parents house (on flat tyres I might add), I decided to get the bike out again today and go for a ride around. I found a lovely little park where I could imagine sitting down for a picnic and it would be a nice place to write too.

I'm going to sit and write now, Houdini (my cat's nickname due to her escape plights- I swear I will have to write them down one day) seems to sense this so has decided to plant herself directly across my laptop keyboard pinning my arms down as usual and paws me from time to time to remind me that she is still there. I'll update tomorrow on how I'm getting on.

Robbed of eat pray love!

I'm very sorry to say that when I went into work yesterday the copy of Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love, I was two-thirds of the way through reading, had disappeared from my desk. It turns out the books owner (who was not aware that I was reading it) had taken it home. Worse- he was not in work yesterday and I had to wait until today to talk to him about it and will now have to wait again until he has finished reading it until I can finish it.

This all makes me quite frustrated but another book that I have been wanting to read for some time, fell into my lap yesterday. I am a big Phillipa Gregory fan as you may have previously seen, and The Red Queen was the only book of hers that I had not read. A friend was lending it and the white queen to a mutual friend and so I have intercepted it with the intention of reading it and passing it on to her once she has finished it.

This has considerably lightened my mood and I have already made a start on it, I actually think that having read most of Eat Pray Love has put me in the mood to read it as well. Maybe this will also give me an incentive to write too?