The comfort of books

Today has been a trying day. Life is a tidal wave crashing over my head right now. I've retreated to my bed where I now sit ensconced in my comfy "jammies" and fleecy bathrobe, tucked up seeking solace from a book.  Tonight it is Susan Hill's Howards End is on the Landing a look at one woman's committment to reading from the books found on her own shelves. I loved her description of the SDD - small dark den, the sitting room with its window seat, and the Shakespeare Professor's lair at the top of the stairs which are all sources of shelved reading materials that have been forgotten about, put aside for later, or the much loved and rediscovered. It's satisfied my yearning for a get away to the quintessential English cottage, a lovely mental holiday.   Instead, I find myself in my very New England style cape cod house with its gabled window and slanting front wall, but snug as a bug escaping from my trying day. Thank God for a brief moment to rest the weary soul with a pleasing and restoring distraction. I know that tomorrow I will have to pick up where I left off and go on with the story of my life. In the meantime I can read the story of someone else's life tonight.