Sunday reading, perhaps.

Intrepid budgies.

This post was intended to be written and put up on Friday, however if you follow me on Twitter you know why it didn't. In brief - on Friday, I had a lot of house work to do, and as it was sunny and warm (and, I might add, only a slight breeze), I put the budgies in the garden in their cage (as we've done all summer). As I was washing up, there was a sudden gust of wind, which very quickly turned into howling gales, and as I went to get the budgies back in there was a huge crash - the cage had been blown across the garden. Both Trotwood and Myshkin got out. Trotwood, who you may remember, is the older budgie and very tame, flew to me, however got blown against the coal bunker. Nevertheless, he was very easily caught and put straight into his travel cage. Myshkin, however, was no where to be seen.

To cut a long story short: a lot of crying, a lot of searching, a lot of gales, some rain, and speaking to neighbours, I found him up the road in a tree (minus his longest tail feathers). I found and caught him three hours later, and he is once again safe.

I know I'm extraordinarily lucky. To get both budgies back safe, to find the missing Myshkin - a small budgie in a huge forest after three hours, and for both of them to be uninjured, is astonishing. But yes, they are safe, happy, and asleep on the curtain pole above me. Very fortunate.

So, the weekend reading. This morning, then, I thought, "I'll still do my post and crack on with what I want to read," but I had such little sleep last night so I lay around with Big C until early afternoon. Just as he was about to go in the bath before heading off to work, the bookcase collapsed (New Year's Resolution #24: 

Stop moving Bookshelf #1 around so much. It will collapse. It's probably going to collapse anyway, but I needn't make the problem worse.

Well, I didn't stop moving it and I was right). Big C was standing next to it, but I can't honestly say he touched it. Either way, for the past three hours I've been sorting the books. And now, 9.45pm, I would say the day was over!

But, there is always tomorrow (something I've said all through 2012, the year that was not for making plans). What I had wanted to do was read two or three of the following books for my 2012 Challenges:

• Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe
• Ethics, by Aristotle
• Confessions, by Jean Jacques Rousseau
• Confessions, by St. Augustine

I did start Robinson Crusoe on the 1st September, as planned, and so far I've finished the first part, but the problem is I'm dragging it out a little bit. I would have liked to finish it this weekend, however as I only really have Sunday now, I suppose I should just pick one. The problem is which one, because I picked the other three because they are now, to me, the least attractive on my list. They are, I think, good to be familiar with, and I'll read them because they are my challenge books, however it is those three that stand out, those that make me wearily wonder, "Why, why did I pick those?" So I thought I would deliberately give myself a grotty reading weekend, not realising Fate had something planned for me anyway!

Of course, in an idea world, I'd like to make tomorrow something like a mini readathon and aim for two books, but that would assume that tomorrow was straight forward and quiet. If it was, I think it would be fun to read both Confessions. As, because 2012 does not like being made into a plan, I won't assume it, so I think tomorrow I shall go for Jean Jacques Rousseau.

I am vaguely hopeful about enjoying these books. This is the problem, as I've said before, with trying to map out a whole year of reading. The urge to read these books has disappeared many months ago, I'm looking elsewhere now, I have other directions I want to go in, however at the same time I do want to finish this challenge because I hate to pack it in all because it turned too challenging! But, I felt exactly the same way about The Aeneid and ended up loving it, so there's no reason why I won't feel the same about the dreaded three!

These, then, are my hopes for tomorrow. We shall see how it goes, though. And I still have this evening - it's now just gone ten, and Big C won't be back for a few hours, so I think I'll make a little more headway with Robinson Crusoe.