Laid Up

We enjoyed decorating son’s bedroom together. It was like thirty years ago when we first moved in. We painted the walls and the woodwork, replaced his football border with a nice flowery one, got the pine-framed bed out of the loft and bought a new mattress. We dismantled and lost his gigantic desk under the bed and now have a guest room. He said we had turned it into an old people’s bedroom.

Most of his stuff has gone to his flat. You would not think so from how much was left. The word ‘pillock’ was mentioned several times. There were A-level, university and postgraduate course notes and books, the empty boxes for every gadget he has bought in fifteen years, a six-feet tall cabinet of DVDs, and books, books and more books shelved double depth. Kids have too much money these days. 

The number of books is astonishing, and he has read every one without a single crease to the spines. No one else was allowed to touch them.  

He did then help sort paper for recycling, documents for shredding and books to go to Ziffit which I heard about through Sue in Suffolk’s blog. They pay next to nothing – you do well to average a pound a book – but it’s better than the charity shop, assuming you can find one to take them at the moment.  

How quickly things can change. One day you are decorating bedrooms, lifting furniture, washing cars and going for country walks, and the next you are crawling on your hands and knees to the bathroom. I don’t know how, but I hurt my back, both upper and lower. Comfortable positions for one were agony for the other. To make matters worse, I then overdid the Ibuprofen and messed up my stomach and could hardly eat anything for a week. Ambrosia will be delighted with their sales this month.

Nights have been spent in the new ‘guest’ room, impatient at the slow pace of recovery. I’ve read the spines of son’s remaining books, and renewed acquaintance with Rusty the Pony who I bought on impulse when Mrs. D. was expecting. Rusty’s friend, bought at the same time, a texture-feely caterpillar we named Snake, was sucked to destruction, but Rusty and some of this other friends survived.  

Who are all these writers: Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, Robin Hobb and George R. R. Martin? I could also mention Scott Lynch, Patrick Rothfuss, David Hair, Tad Williams, Joe Abercrombie, Adrian Tchaikovsky. Only about half of those he has kept are in the picture. Apart from the history books at the bottom, it is nearly all epic fantasy and science fiction. Then there is Stephen King who throws in extra horror. How can anyone write so much waffle – sixty-four doorstep thick novels? I’ve never read any of these authors despite their enormous popularity. George R. R. Martin, for example, wrote Song of Ice and Fire which became Game of Thrones. Much too violent for me.

I suppose it is only like in my day when I enjoyed reading through the science fiction shelves of the public library. Then it was Brian Aldiss, Ray Bradbury, John Wyndham, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Arthur C Clarke. They had a bit more mid-twentieth century reserve and decorum.

At random, I picked up Dreamcatcher and began to read, appropriate as King explains at the end he was in pain recovering from an accident when he wrote it. I know how he felt. Not that I read to the end. I managed about fifty pages before deciding I had little curiosity about four guys with telepathic powers, and not much liking for their characters. From the synopsis on Wikipedia I avoided quite a few nightmares. Most likely, it’s me that’s boring. I never had much time for Tolkien, either.

POSTSCRIPT: I subsequently realised that I hurt my back during a seizure of which I have no memory. This was the first manifestation of my illness.