Thwarted

New reading plan: book 1 of 43 or so.

FAIL.

Such goodness in not opening the new arrival books. Such enjoyment of the book (Mort). Such despair at the fact that it has Vanished. Off. The. Face. Of. The. Earth.

I checked the usual places: under the bed, down the back of the sofa, left on a table somewhere etc.
No joy.
I checked the unusual places: inside a cupboard, on top of the toilet, inside the washing basket etc.
No joy.

I thought carefully when I last had it. Either 4am when ambitiously thinking I could recognise words while my son was awake and needing cuddled or at about 9am when I was ambitiously thinking I was awake enough to recognise words after very little sleep. Either way, I've put it down in a state of almost asleepness and thus it could theoretically be anywhere. And if it is anywhere, it could have been found by little people, so it could really be anywhere.

I obsessed. I moved everything. I checked the bookcase a thousand times, it might have been put back. I checked the books I sorted out to go away today a hundred times.

I've looked (roughly, it's icky) in the bin. I've had the sofa out, I've searched through every pile of stuff (house is kinda sorted, looks a bit like a bomb landed).

Now I'm at the stage where I have a flash of inspiration and think "ah yes! if I had been on my way to such and such, it would be THERE..." but to no avail. And each time I walk past anything, I check it for a book. I've found so many books. Not it. Not Mort. I was really enjoying it as well, I was ceasing to be at all scared of Death and was getting right into it. But the new one-at-a-time rule decrees that I cannot read another book at the same time. So either I read nothing till Mort comes home, or I start another book and cast Mort aside even should he return. He would have to wait till the next one was finished.

So be it. Mort will be a later book to read. Sigh. And so onward, with Bye Bye Balham, by the very lovely Mr Herring (it was under the bed, which was why I hadn't gone to it already as promised in a previous bloggery. And I started it before, I just got distracted, so it's not a whole book to read. Mort will not have to wait long for Richard to finish, I'm sure. This tangent is getting odd.)

I have found my hedgehog though, I lost it briefly in the mayhem, but he came out on top. Hurrah for Hedgehog the hedgehog.