The Daughter is turning into a charming little person, although it has been quite a slog getting to this fourth month point. I have no idea how people do this on their own. The main stress for us has been the fact that she suffers from colic and so cries, and cries, and cries... Not so much any more, I should add, which is a huge relief although now I get less reading done - I used to strap her into a sling and tread a path from the front door to the kitchen sink and back, reading while she wailed. Now she is more awake and so expects to be played with (eep)! I used to read while feeding her but Horatio Clare's RUNNING FOR THE HILLS put paid to that - she was fascinated by the cover image of a bright-eyed young Horatio and so would pop off to stare at it. Cue a general fascination with all books and since we have bookshelves all over simply teaming with them, this turns into quite a good game. Long may it last!

I have teetering piles of books I've finished that need reviewing here, among them Nadine Gordimer's THE CONSERVATIONIST, Nkem Nwankwo's MY MERCEDES IS BIGGER THAN YOURS and Beverley Naidoo's BURN MY HEART. My current "feeding read" (ie. not getting very far) is AUTUMN QUAIL by Naguib Mahfouz and I have a couple of ongoing books for reading in bite-sizes: TELLING TALES edited by Gordimer and THE POLITICS OF MEMORY:Truth, Healing & Social Justice edited by Ifi Amadiume & Abdullahi An-Na'im.

So much more to come! Apologies for the silence...