I am Margaret

This is the title of a first novel by a friend, Corinna Turner. She launched it yesterday evening, in the company of a good crowd (50 or so), to whom she read a couple of excerpts. It sounds like a bit of a thriller, partly set in a grim "facility": the celebratory cake was made in its image. "The best thing you can do with the cake," she said, "is to help me demolish it."

Books

Shortly after the introduction of decimal currency, I bought a 6p notebook from Woolworth's. From 25th September 1972, it records the books I have read.

I write down just the title, author and date completed - no comments. I may not have filled in the information for every book: nevertheless the fact that the notebook is not yet even half full shows that I have really read rather little over these forty years.

Another 40, and I would be in my 110th year, and I hope a new notebook might then be needed.

Oh, I've just noticed something: in tiny letters on the last page, one of the children has written, "I love you Dad + Mum."