From this strand of SF, Dennis E Taylor’s Bobiverse books are by far the most compelling. It has been a while since I found something that was as unputdownable. I don’t know that they are technically the ‘best’ in terms of literary merit or anything though. I’d say that Dan Simmons Hyperion probably wins on that front.

I’ve just started Iain M Banks’ Use of Weapons, it would be that. I’m catching up with some SF this year and am alternating the Culture novels with others at the moment.

I was working today because I had basically forgotten that it was a bank holiday. Anyway, no interruptions, so I got a lot done, AND I now have day of TOIL.

Tomorrow and Sunday will be gardening, sorting out the shed and stuff like that.

I will then probably stay under the duvet and read on Monday, unless the weather is good and I feel particularly enthusiastic, in which case there is a walk that I have been considering for most of the winter. That might be the day.

A satsuma. The penultimate element of my lunch.

The ultimate will be a banana, in a few minutes.

Current place: basically nothing. It’s an old house with thick joining walls. It’s great The only time we hear anything at all is when they poke the fire, since this is on the joining wall.

Previous place: we had a neighbour who clearly had some issues with noise on one side. We are naturally quiet people, with no kids or pets or anything, and we don’t have the TV on loud but she would start pounding on the wall when, for example, we were emptying the dish washer and putting stuff back in the cupboards at 9-10am, or a dozen other normal activities at normal times of the day. Meanwhile, we had someone on the other side who was working from home some of the time and we’d get him shouting down the phone most of the day at times (my wife got most of this, since she was at home most days) and watch loud sport stuff in the evenings.

The peak, though, was when Mr work-from-home was doing some renovation work in a bedroom. Either removing plaster or knocking a wall through or something involving hours of extremely loud hammering. Well, that came straight through to us and clearly Ms sensitive-to-noise could hear it as well, so that set her pounding on the wall, presumably thinking that it was us. There was a day when we were just sitting there listening to deafening hammering on one side and pounding on the other. At least my wife had some noise-cancelling headphones.

It was a nice place otherwise, but I’m very happy that we moved.