Mort, Terry Pratchett and Alzheimer's

I've finished a book on my list! It only took a month!

Mort, by Terry Pratchett.
I really enjoyed this, it's very well written, very enjoyable and has mostly cured my fear of Death, or the personification thereof. I took an inordinate time to read this, partly through losing it and getting diverted by Richard Herring's Bye Bye Balham (which I can't get into for no good reason, I like it, but don't go back for more. Go figure) and partly through not being able to read with one eye.

I loved getting engrossed in the story of this, that's my favourite sort of reading. And so, despite having decided to read Ben Goldacre's book, I'm going to read Lottery by Patricia Wood, just because I want a story.

I finished Mort last night, and shortly before I did I watched the second part of Terry Pratchett's documentary about his Alzheimer's. I found the first installment of this fascinating, and while still moving, not completely heart breaking because they did not feature his family. He had with him his PA, Rob, who was involved and could comment on the changes, but who was not as involved as a family member. The second installment was rather more depressing as it did feature family members, not Pratchett's own family but the family of other sufferers. He also looked at potential treatment and considered the ethics. This is the first programme about Alzheimer's I've been able to watch and it was very informative and interesting.

Reading and enjoying a book by someone who clearly has an untterly brilliantly creative mind, and then watching him accept that he is on a journey which will end with the destruction of that brilliant mind, is all a almost TOO poignant. I feel rather lucky that I have all of his books to read anew, and a bit inclined to kick myself for ignoring them to date, but it will be impossible not to mourn the impending premature deterioration of a genius as I read the product of that genius.

I went for a walk on a winter's day

So Mort waltzes into the room, quite the thing, unfound by me.
Where was he? asks I.
In the washing basket. comes the reply.

The washing basket? The one that's right beside the bed? The first place I looked, as a logical landing place for something falling off the bed? The one I looked under and around 25 times?
Oh yes.
I can only assume that Mort was unwilling to be read and went out. No other explanation.

At 2pm there was copious amounts of broken glass in the park. A result of Friday night teenage japes no doubt, but how appalling that it remained on Saturday afternoon. What exactly do the council do? The park is used on a Saturday almost exclusively at this time of year by families and dogwalkers. Both children and dogs could be seriously hurt by broken glass. Seriously unimpressed.

Watched Dark Knight at a friend's house and then solved the mystery of relationships. A late-ish night, driving out of a village and lightedness, was amazed that the full beam sign coincided exactly with the time I put my full beam on.
Thought process:
How could they know?
Duh, it's the end of the village, everyone will put full beam on there.
But what about during the day, or if there's other cars?
Wait a minute.
That's not a full beam sign.
It's the national speed limit sign.
Probably shouldn't be driving.

And that, as they say, was chutney.

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.