Quiet days: reading and sleeping

 

Quiet days on your own, or with close family. If you’re like me you’ve turned to books you’ve loved in the past.

Sit quietly in a garden in a sheltered spot.

 

 

After breakfast, or in the late afternoon.

 

On a veranda, overlooking a pleasant landscape. (If you can manage it.)

 

 

Or in a dimly lit room, with little chance of interruptions.

 

 

 

sometimes with a convivial companion.

Reading separately

Or together.

 

 

Sometimes you can concentrate, while waiting to go out perhaps.

 

 

Or spending an evening inside.

 

 

Or after an evening out it’s sometimes good to pause.

Reading is a good prelude to sleep.

 

 

On other occasions, sleep will take you unawares.

Sometimes before you can even swing your legs up.

 

 

Or when the reading matter at hand is just too heavy.

 

 

On those occasions you can just zone out.

 

 

Or get comfortable.

 

 

And just drift off. And maybe a dream is waiting for you.

 

 

I’ve had a few afternoon and early morning naps recently, some with dreams which were more vivid than usual. On one occasion I took a walk with my late mother along an unfamiliar canal in a northern city. She was younger than me but it was good to see her again.

I normally do this kind of post at Christmas (here and here) but it seems appropriate for the lockdown as well. If you are the rights holder for a particular image and its inclusion causes concern, let me know. If you want to know the identity of an image, I may know. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy the atmosphere, inspired by a calendar series my wife gets me for Christmas, Women Reading (or women of Reading as I call it.)

There may well be another set of lockdown photos next week. Or something else entirely. Who knows?