Reading and Writing

Can't think about much to write about so thought I'd write about writing. During the early days at the college when I was responsible for pretty much everything that involved time (time table, calendar, weekly schedule ) or lists (college database, activities, service, projects, records of progress etc) I remember an evening in a cabin with a group of teachers, Jelena, Brian, Brita and Antoinette. We were discussing how the college programme could be improved, anyway the thing I remember most was that for some reason Jelena said that she might spend some time writing during the summer holiday. So I said what for and she replied just for fun. The incredulous look on my face made Brian fall off his chair with laughter. I had never come across the idea of writing for fun. It has recently occurred to me that writing this blog stuff is the first time I have written purely for fun and because I'm not writing for anyone then I don't care about punctuation, grammatical mistakes and spelling I can just write what I want how I want. My approach to reading is pretty much the same although I have of late started reading before I go to sleep, I never read novels though just books about climbing mountaineering and that sort of thing. I must admit that I've never been impressed by people who quote others all the time, I just think well if I'd read that book I'd know that too.
My most memorable read must be 1984. It was about 1983 and I had been climbing in Poland, I had fallen off trying an unclimbed route and broken my pelvis. Poland at that time was not a place to be with a broken pelvis I'll save the rest of the story for another time but there I was on my own in a concrete high rise block somewhere in Poland. The only way they had got me out of the hospital was because someones brother worked there, he would only let me go if the people I was with would inject me with morphine everytime I was moved. They had no medical training but learnt quickly. So lying on my back, peeing into a bottle in an appartment with graffitti onthe walls having morphine injections twice a day I read 1984. I finished the book quickly to minimise the agony. They only had two English books so I started the second, Animal Farm.