Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Cosy "Melbourne"

 

Where do I go when I want to curl up with a book? To cosy "Melbourne", that's where! 'Cosy', this untranslatable word, derivation unknown, came to us from the Vikings via the Scots, coined by two peoples who knew all about appreciating a warm nook out of the weather.

 

 

Quasimodo found his nook in the belfry; I found the right place to lose myself in a book in cosy "Melbourne". There I can forget time, forget the room, then the chair I sit on or the bed I lie on, and finally my very self.

 

 

Books can take us to a better place; they help us to get through what Nietzsche called 'the horror of living'. Being curled up with a book can be a chrysalis experience from which we emerge a different creature.

 

 

"Melbourne" is far enough from the rest of house which is full of inter-ruptions, or simply not cosy enough. And, like the book itself which is of paper from trees, it is halfway to the forest, that great source of myth.

 

"Melbourne" is the green roof at the bottom of the photo

 

It's a beautiful morning and I'm off to "Melbourne". In case the phone rings, I've told Padma to tell the caller that I've gone to Melbourne.