Smile!

It is Virago Reading Week this week hosted by the lovely Rachel at Book Snob and Carolyn at A Few of my Favourite Books .  I was meant to be reading I Will Not Serve by Eveline Mahyere but I seem to have mislaid it - silly me - so I am reading F Tennyson Jesse's The Lacquer Lady instead.

There are all sorts of competitions this week  running in conjunction with the Virago fest and I of course love entering competitions.  One of them is to take photos of our Virago collection....so here I go.  I don't have many Viragos which is why I'll be hitting the Lifeline Bookfest with a vengeance today...

This photo, believe it or not, took a bit of work.  For a start I've got a pretty clunky camera.  Secondly I don't hold them as still as I used to - not that I'm ancient or anything just hopeless at staying still.  So it took 13 photos to produce one focussed one!!  And what I really want you to look at is the leaf....don't you think it looks like a smile or a mouth?  I do.  I took 13 photos of the wretched thing.  I found it on the carpark stairs at New Farm.  See I am really turning eccentric - picking up leaves because they look like mouths.

I went to a business breakfast yesterday morning and got into conversation with a fellow businessperson.  He asked me if I smile in interviews.  Do I?  I don't know.  I think I do.  Maybe I don't.  I don't have a mirror with me at the time.  Anyway - the point is - Viragos make me smile.  Why?  Because their familiar green cover assures me a good read is inside (and yes, I know the covers have changed) so now it is the logo that assures me - that naughty apple wot Eve gave Adam when all the trubble began.

Trubble does begin with Viragos - washing up doesn't get done, bathrooms don't get cleaned, Men of Wrath are ignored....such trubble it's a wonder the world continues to function whilst we metaphorically eat apples.  Viragos are a window onto someone else's world - I can see, feel and hear their story.  Sometimes I have to look hard or look twice, as I did with my leaf, because the author has found things that I haven't thought of or recognise but the effort is always rewarding.

What makes you smile?  I sit in an office on my own all week so delight in silly things people post on Facebook or on their blogs or send me via email.  This week two videos about animals made me roar with laughter.  I hope you enjoy them.  Animals make me smile all the time.  Aren't we lucky to have them in our world?