In like a lion?

Crikey! It's March already.

I've been felled by an evil cold...yesterday was pretty much a write-off except for urgenices like dog-walking, dropping man-child's forgotten lunch off at school, paying bills, and cobbling together dinner. Not feeling much better today, but must get some groceries and clean the horrendously vile kitchen that Michael neglected to do last evening.

Being sick did allow me to finish off a book for the end of the Winter Reading Challenge over at Goodreads, and I finished up with 600 out of a possible 975 points.  I must say that people who make it to the full 975 points must either (1) read all day, (2) read a lot of easy books, or (3) skim/cheat.  Or maybe they just don't do anything else.  But it's fun and I'm looking forward to the Spring Challenge that starts today. My current reading list is here, although not all the tasks have been defined yet. I'm starting with Iris Murdoch's The Good Apprentice (audio) and Lorna Goodison's book of short stories By Love Possessed. I'm going to try to manage my hold list at the library to permit some time to read books that I own (and can then get rid of) as we're getting into double-stacked bookshelves and I'd really like to clear a bunch out.  I use BookCrossing to get rid of a lot of books, and am releasing one today.

Travel plans are shaping up for the spring. Michael is going on a Rome-Sicily trip with his Latin teacher and a bunch of classics students over March Break so we've got a few things to do to get that organized, including getting his cellphone unlocked so that he can buy a SIM card over there. Z and I are heading to England in April and I need to do some work on the paper we're writing and book some accomodation for the time we're there after the conference. I'm thinking that, given the short amount of time we'll have, we'll skip London altogether and try to visit Kent, Canterbury, plus a night in Ashford hear where some of my ancestors are buried. Once again, we find ourselves travelling over the Easter weekend so we'll need to take in to account that things may be closed.

Carry on!