Bookish Musings at Tea Time

I believe I've mentioned long ago that my mother's family (she and her sisters in particular) observed the four p.m. tea-time ritual. On Sunday afternoons each week we had what is known across the pond as a "high tea" at my grandmother's house. At home, though, Mom would get home from work at around 4-4:30 pm, we'd make the tea, we'd have a brief chat about our days, and then I'd go off to homework and Mom might read for a few minutes before starting supper.

So it is today that I'm lying on the loft bed with a cup of darjeeling tea, just pulling together my notes about "The Geology of the Thirteenth Lake Quadrangle, New York."  (We live in this quadrangle.) This 125-page New York State Museum Bulletin was published in May 1937, with much of the geological research having been conducted in 1930-1931. The past few years I've become very curious about all the rocks around me. Right where I live we have a great deal of crystallized limestone and marble, which I find very interesting. But I know nothing about geology, so I'm trying to learn a bit more to go along with all the knowledge I've collected about plants, trees, mammals, birds, and all the other creatures of this part of the Adirondacks.

For some reason I just can't get back into reading The Trespasser by Tana French. I stopped reading it just before the election, and though I assure you it is an outstanding work of detective/crime fiction, my mood just won't take me back to it.

I just want to read something not in the present. I have a historical novel waiting--Patricia Bracewell's Shadow on the Crown, which is about a young bride of Aethelred, during the years 1000-1005. It was published in 2013.

The other novel I'm interested in is Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher. I listened to an abridged version, narrated by Lynn Redgrave, over 11 years ago. I loved it and swore I would read the unabridged novel one day. I have it in the house, so I may move forward with that one tonight.