Leave me

I'm on a week's leave next week. The last time I took leave was in March 2004 so I'm due, no? We're renting a place in Port Elliot for the week (Saturday to Friday, so we get the weekend at home to recover). Places are about ¼ the price now compared to what they are in high season. Last year, we did just that and went down with C's family. Let me just say that the phrase 'a week with the in-laws' and the word 'holiday' should never appear in the same sentence. That's all I'll say on the matter. Getting down there should be fun as we own a small car, fitted with 2 child seats in the back, with a boot the size of an actual boot (as in the footwear). We would like to take food and a change of clothing but I've no idea where we're going to put these. What I have sorted out though is my holiday reading. I've been churning through the Evelyn Waugh catalogue (I should finish Scoop on the train tonight) so I've requested Vile Bodies from my library and I went to Borders today and bought High Fidelity by Nick Hornby and By Design by Richard E. Grant. I never got around to reading High Fidelity when the movie came out but I saw it around the time I was starting to think about girls I knew in high school, and since, trying to work out whether the total sum of misery I caused was balance out by the total sum girls had caused me over the years. I don't know why this occupied so much of my thoughts for as long as it did; maybe I was hoping the guilt on one hand and the anger on the other hand would cancel each other out and I could just be blissfully ambivalent about my pre-marriage relationships. Now I'm wondering if reading this is such a good idea. I like Hornby's style though, so I think it'll be fun. I found By Design by accident. I was looking for The Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith, which Amazon recommended to me after I told it I enjoyed Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. (Speaking of which, that Amazon "Recommended for Drew" page really annoys me. It gives you 10 items you may be interested in, based on previous searches and purchases. So I told it I already owned something by Fiona Apple and it recommended, at number 5 or so, something by Tori Amos. But when I click that I'm not interested in this selection, what does it replace it with? Another Tori Amos album. So annoying.) I had heard about the book before but never gave it a second thought. But seeing it, I thought what a joy to read it would be with Richard's lovely English accent narrating it in my head. It will be the most fun reading I've had since the Steve Martin in my head narrated The Pleasure of My Company (the last time I was on leave, in fact). I just hope I can fit them in the car.