Learning To Read

Winter has embraced Canberra with wild winds, snow flurries and drizzle.
Bare branches punch structural shapes into grey skies and colour has been muted in our garden.
Each morning our home and car is dressed in crystals that melt luxuriously as the sun rises.
We walk on grass dusted with ice that crunches underfoot and we talk in clouds as our warm breath hits cold air.
It is a season that drives your focus indoors and to activities that nurture. Lazy weekend mornings, pyjama days, hot chocolate, early nights, soft blankets, pots of tea, movie nights, reading, writing, playing with paper, jigsaw puzzles, cooking, talking, candles, Uno, Wii - we learn to play indoors and it's lovely.
In recent weeks I have learnt to read again - to make time in my day to curl up on the couch with a cup of tea and a book.
My body forbids me to read in bed of an evening, so I simply stopped reading ... for years.
Winter and a desire to change aspects of my life has returned reading to my To Do List and I am so happy about it.
The Three Miss Margarets by Louise Shaffer captured my attention in recent weeks and I loved to dip into its pages to escape my world.
I was sad to leave its characters as I closed its covers for the final time. I adored this book.
So now it's time to open the cover of another, to continue my reading journey. My new paperback companion is Candelo by Georgia Blain.
Blain is an Australian author and I recall reading her first novel, Closed for Winter, many years ago. Candelo is her second book and I purchased it about 10 years ago when I lived in South Perth. It has travelled with me, pages unread until now.
So now it's time to make a cup of tea and escape Gungahlin in the pages of Candelo.