Is it just me or is it that when Friday rolls around we all breathe a collective sigh of relief. In my case the weekend is not full of chores to be done (arent I lucky) but I just wait for Friday to come around all the same.
This evening watching a game of cricket - England playing Sri Lanka, I was so very disheartened by the lack lustre performance of the Sri Lankans (at the initial stages that is) that I just left the TV and came back to the computer for solace as it were! I have started going into the reading bloggers world, apart from the quilting and crafting world that is and it is so huge and so varied and so interesting that you feel swamped by what is around you.
Books are an expensive commodity in this part of the world. They fall into a category of being a sort of a luxury! if there is a classification like this. In an average home, no one would be buying books "just". It would be bought for studies, for college, for something necessary. Buying books for the pleasure of buying and reading the very latest is a luxury afforded to a very very few. So what do the balance reading public of Sri Lanka do. Like everything else, you do get by on the second hand book market, friends, swaps, libraries. However the very latest books and the enormous amount available certainly do not reach us for one thing the English reading public is very limited, so that economics do not permit the import of so many books. I personally have been very fortunate in being able to get a fair amount of books either through my children or through friends who are all aware of my mania for books. India has a very good range of books for the English reader and I try to get as many as I can from Chennai. The bookshops at the
Spencer Plaza in Chennai is very good and the Manager even more so. If you email the Manager before your arrival in Chennai he will make sure he gets whatever you want. Thats service for you.
In the quilting line I have finished two more baby quilts - both given to two adorable babies and I am so very glad that I had this opportunity of doing them the quilts. I have started on a disappearing nine patch quilt - its coming on nicely though I am still not very good at the color combinations. I think I have got lots to learn in this field.
The good news is hopefully my son will be back home for an extended vacation starting next month. Am crossing my fingers (and my toes) on this. It will be lovely to see him. Daughters will follow one month later if all goes well.
Cheers!
6 months ago
Mystica - it took me a long time to get to your blog. Thanks for stopping by and commenting on mine.
ReplyDeleteYour description of not being able to find books in Sri Lanka takes me right back to my childhood in a tiny mining town in India. We borrowed, lent, and stocked up on books everytime we visited the city.
Now I live 5 kms away from one of the largest bookstores in India, and yet end up ordering books on the internet :-(
If that isn't laziness, I wonder what is.
I also order from the internet, and I do love to read. It is a shame that you don't have a bookstore near you and that books are so expensive.
ReplyDeleteMicki
Yeah you are my first international entry.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by all of you. Getting books is an issue for me and we had an enormous Book Fair just last week in Colombo which for me was a farce. The books were the
ReplyDeletesame price as in the shops, there were no bargains and most of the stock was for me books which they couldnt sell. So sad. I still manage though so I am luckier than most.
Mystica