Moochers

Finished since the last reading post
The Ice Palace, which was a quick read at a little over 100 pages: two young girls are tentatively friends, then one of them disappears and the other feels this strong need to remember her, believing that others won't. Definitely intense.

Currently reading
Still reading The Young Alexander. Still plodding along with On Thin Ice. Started reading The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt, which isn't quite what I was expecting from the blurb. I suppose I thought the book would have Ramanujan, the Indian clerk and mostly self-taught mathematician, more in the foreground, but so far he seems to be the unknowable other only seen through other characters.

Reading next
Not sure. I popped into an Oxfam bookshop last week when I had a few minutes to waste and emerged with four books, so probably something I have on the shelves.

Last week, there was an announcement that the office heating and cooling system was being temperamental, that it needed a new part, and the new part was expected to arrive by Thursday this week. The way it was phrased, it sounded like the problem was excess warmth, not cold.

Coming in this morning, there was this wave of chill air the moment you opened a door into our office space. I was wearing a relatively warm jumper as an extra layer in the morning in order to be warm on the way, not intending to wear it in the office at all, but in the end it stayed on well into the afternoon. The heating is off or on a lower setting at the weekend, and had apparently failed to come on at all this morning. Monday mornings are often cooler anyway until the heating gets properly underway, but this was really colder than usual.

So it sounds like arctic layers are not needed for tomorrow, but it's probably best to be ready for all scenarios: that it's cold, that it's OK, or that it's warm.